#also someone tell me WHY i decided to paint most of the petals individually

[paintingstardust]

hydrangea park date with violet HEHE

(violet belongs to @14dayswithyou)

[thatsadorbsyo]

Lucas - Threads

((this post references the events of the fall, a mission in the heartless ffxiv roleplay campaign. quoted sections were written by @way-to-the-future. cw: character death. art credit: papa ibra tall, seamstress of the stars, wool tapestry, 1970s.))

“I admire how much warmth you give. Like a furnace. Like you've got a blaze rolling at your heart, and you let it all out through your skin. I see it in your eyes, the way they glow when the lamplight hits it just right.”

I’ve got nothing but white static in my head when I try to remember the Rovers’ faces, and if that isn’t creepy as fuck, I don’t know what is. I can’t recall a single thing about them. No noses, no mouths, not a sliver of kohl smudged under an eye or a lock of hair curling out from under a helmet. It’s easier to hate them when I can’t see any facets of their identity, but I don’t wanna fall prey to this lazy fallacy, either. There must have been real men under all that armor. One of many, sure, but individuals all -- just like I had been, once upon a time. So why don’t I remember?

My memory is unfortunately selfish and selective. It picks up the threads of the things closest to my heart and weaves the best story it can with the loose ends. So here’s the stupid little details that stuck with me, where more pertinent information might have been written instead:

I can still tell you with absolute clarity the exact gem tones of the light reflecting off of Cheche’s upturned face, when the Allagan facility erupted in spells and gunfire all around us. Sapphire blues, emerald greens, and amethyst purples against her shining black scales at every obsidian facet, like a raven feather catching the light.

I can map with exacting precision the arc of Castor’s white braid when he whipped his head around at the commotion, taking the tactical measure of our situation the way only a forged-in-the-blood knight like him can. Even after turning away from him, I could still feel the bulwark of Castor behind me, a solid presence that I didn’t need to see to be able to sense, like an extension of my arm, a phantom limb.

To turn around and suddenly find them both gone, ushered down a different corridor in all the clusterfuck of our allies splintering when the Rovers betrayed us?

It felt like amputation.

If I could, I would keep them both in my heart, keep them like puppets suspended by vermilion strings that extend from their every joint to the cavernous arches of my beating muscle. With threads that absorb the shock of my mortal body and every twin hammer of blood, so that all my loves can feel is the gentle warmth of my fire, the spark of creation that burns in me to keep them, cradle them, shelter them close and alive.

Keep them, and I guess, in so doing, preserve them exactly as I want them to be. Is that fair? It doesn’t seem so, does it? I may love them, but they aren’t mine. They aren’t toys or dolls; not mine to keep. See, Castor has taught me that to love someone is to swap my puppeteer’s strings for the Spinner’s threads, and let them weave their own way through my story. Cheche has shown me that the beauty in anything -- in anyone -- is that they might evaporate at any moment. But if I let them, they both might even decide, all on their own, to stay with me for as long as they can. A stronger path, freely chosen and written in royal blue and bright fern green, threading in a perfect braid around my brilliant gold.

No, I couldn’t keep them -- and in the moment of amputation, it didn’t fucking matter anyway, because they’d already gone beyond my reach. My heart was alone, but still it burned for them; burned fit to melt straight through the iced Malbolge of all the hells, a judgement which I still believed must have been waiting for me just beyond the next door of this Allagan tomb, to welcome me to the justice that I'm owed for my crimes. This door, or the next door. The next one.

Amputation wouldn’t stop me. Hell wouldn’t stop me. I would have burned through that whole building like a live coal, if that was what it had taken to find the exit and bring us all back home.

“It's hardly poetic, love. I'm just telling you exactly how you are. How anyone could see you. Even if they weren't a poet. Maybe even if they didn't care for you like I do. Just, if they - stopped to watch you.”

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but I had a brother once, before I torched the evidence of the life I used to live. Augustin looked so much like me even when we were young, but moreso now than ever before. We have the same bronze eyes, the same nose; I’ve grown into the size of our chin with time. He’s a beefier motherfucker than I am, and he’d always preferred braids, but even still you’d be hard pressed to tell us apart if you stood us back to back. Where do you think is he now?

Does he wonder what’s become of my punk ass? Surely the reports tell the truth about how I left. They wouldn’t keep secrets, not from a... fuck, he’s probably a Centurio now, isn’t he?

Shit... I bet he is. He always wanted to follow Mom’s path, even though every day that passes causes me to doubt her just a little bit more. I’ve learned too much about family not to begin questioning her motives for doing what she did, but I guess that’s neither here nor there.

But it was Augustin who first taught me how to shoot, you know? He took me behind our home and put a gunblade in my hands, adjusting my twiggy little twelve-turn limbs into the approximate shape of proper posture even when the weight of it threatened to topple me over like a top-heavy weed. He drilled firearm etiquette into me until I could recite its tenets by memory. For such a little bitch, he molded me into a decent shot.

I haven’t felt that kind of brotherly guidance in a long time, but I think I felt Augustin’s ghost behind me when I stood shoulder to shoulder with Sister Lux in that facility, fighting our way out.

Do you remember that door, the one I had thought stood between me and the hells? It was really just another hungry bulkhead between us and freedom; a sun and moon puzzle that should have been, might have been harder to solve if I couldn’t feel the juxtaposition of her fire right next to me. Sun and moon. Astral and umbral. It was so simple; this was a test. I had let my aether lay fallow, and in order to progress I had to reach inside and drag all the burning potential straight out of my mouth. Furious, destructive, so obscenely fucking alive.

Hungry, that’s the key word. The door had to feed -- on us. I don’t know how, or why, but somehow she and I put our hands to the door at the same time and knew exactly what to do. It was time for me to shit or get off the proverbial pot, and all she had to do was correct my posture a little bit, just like old times in the backyard with my brother and a weapon I didn’t know how to hold.

I picked up my brass and ruby cudgel, and she told me how to feel the fire of my aether and let it simmer in controlled brilliance, and how to sit back and watch, patient and observant, as an umbral reckoning blazed all the way up into my nose, through my nostrils, eventually bubbling out in an oozing black ichor like tar. Until we were both painted with blood and the door finally gave way after growing fat on our offerings. Freedom, and not a moment too soon.

It’s funny. It’s funny in that way where I have to laugh to keep from considering all of the circumstantial leaps that had to happen to get me there, in that moment, with that exact mentor and the tools available to me. Did you know that I bought my thaumaturge focus the same day -- at the same damn merchant stall -- that I bought the bracelet that Lux still wears? The cudgel was a leap of faith (I thought maybe, someday, I would use it), and the bracelet was a tithe for her attention, but I gotta fucking wonder if that wasn’t the Spinner herself cinching an amethyst purple thread, until two distant ends of a rich black fabric pleated and bunched together, suddenly close, in a moment of coordinated function.

Like this had been the plan all along.

“They treat you differently because of it. Everyone on this ship - they know they can talk to you, Lucas. That you'll hear them.”

I started this mission as an empty vessel, asking everyone I came across to pour their faith into me so that I might taste it and gradually build a competence in teasing apart the flavors of the gods. The truth is that I was searching for the one most likely to offer me forgiveness, or at the very least the god who might hand me a penitence that I felt like I could swallow. I thought I deserved it, you see. That’s how all this started. On bad days, I still do.

Asking about faith isn’t just a window to the spiritual soul -- it’s also a mainline straight into the source of everyone’s irreconcilable fucking damage. Picking your god is a perilous choice, but mostly because it ultimately determines what kind of personality malfunction you’re going to have down the road. I already know why I’m awful: Delusions of grandeur and megalomania, with a curious tendency to self-flagellate. I’m the smartest, most impressive architect you’ll ever meet. I’m the greasiest, grimiest hunk of motor oil in the gutter.

The only way to reach the middle road between glorifying and hating myself, I’ve found, is to count the threads that wrap themselves around my ribs when I recount the conversations that I’ve had on the Salemtaza’s Voyage.

Here’s a taste: I’ve got Caelrin in deep ochre around my midriff where my abs are just starting to take shape. Ignera sits in flaming orange around the hollow of my throat, slapping my hand away every time I try to choke on my own self-loathing. Captain Kharn wraps in garnet around my face, shielding me from unwanted eyes when I don’t feel quite how I should in my skin. W'kana and W'buki in yellow and black, swaddling me so tight around the chest I fear for my next fucking breath. Reinette, a gentle evening blue curling in petals around my fingertips. Rizzo, a shining onyx black stitching up my lungs telling me to breathe, just breathe, don’t stop breathing until it gets easier.

More even than that. Staelufre in neon magenta, Fugetsu in an unknowable shade of grey, Killian in sunset orange, Strelec in obscuring maroon, Hikari in daisy yellow, Camille in cloudy crimson, Jancis in healing olive, Lune in jumpsuit orange, Jeanne in oil-slick purple, Hanako in fresh lavender, even Kat, yeah, even her, in that same royal blue as Castor.

Nathaniel threading in loops around every one of my fingers in a dazzling gold that fades into the electric yellow of potent aethersand.

I could go on. I could list twice as many names and colors as I already have, and I must ask myself: How do I carry them all? How could I possibly hold them all, without attaching them directly to my meat, my bones, this hideous and imprecise flesh that rightly should be cogs and metal? All that thread would just gum up the whole works, wouldn’t it? Maybe it’s better that I am man, then, and not machine.

For all my flaws, I can still stretch my arms and accommodate all these dangling ends.

“They see it in you, in the way you carry yourself. You're curious. Empathetic. You want to understand people, not just love them or hate them or think nothing of them at all.”

Sui tried to warn me about all this, back at the pumpkin patch at Cloudtop. It was raining, weighing down all my sashes on my brand new armor, and Sui had laughed when the skies parted to reveal the sun setting in a field of rose gold and the softest lavender. It seems like she and I can never properly talk if we aren’t both looking at the sky, like this is the only way we can perceive each other. Never head on -- only in the periphery. Or maybe it’s just easier to talk about certain things when you aren’t looking someone in the eye. Maybe it’s that.

She was so startled by the questions I needed to ask her, like she hadn’t thought it was possible that anyone had been watching her reaction to Nathaniel’s speech, like she didn’t think anyone would have noticed that she was upset. Is she so used to passing under the radar?

But I’ll give her credit. Sui tried to warn me that my friends would die. I watched the sunset fizzle out on the horizon from its soft pastels into a creeping ceruleum and a deeper indigo while she told me every horror that had befallen her family before, and what she knew would happen to us again. Sui could feel the same threads of fate starting to twine around our edges, and she wanted me to be prepared. I listened. I let those fibers stitch themselves into my lungs in the golden rose of a cloudless twilight sky.

I just never thought it would come down on us so quickly, and with such brutal force. I’ve never had to pray for another person before, and out of nowhere I found it necessary to summon the script to beg for twelve of my friends’ lives.

The truth is that I never learned how, and I’ve been too afraid to seek the answer. I know how to make wishes; I know how to toss gold coins into a running fountain and watch the sunlight flicker off the scattered mess of them along the bottom of the pool. But I don’t know how to pray.

I know who I would ask. It was Tieve who introduced me to Gridania, and if Sui and I speak most openly under a yawning sky, you might say that Tieve and I communicate best among the trees, under a cathedral of roots. The memory of the hearer’s chapel is stitched in bark brown and moss green bracelets around my wrists, reminding me that while I may have been invited to someone’s sacred space, I have to mind my boundaries, too. I am not the infallible creator of my own conceit, but nor am I outcast from Spoken kindness and community. To know temperance is to know yourself, to dig into the well of your Spoken dignity and grant the same to others.

I still have this embroidered Gridanian sachet of wood chips and herbs that she gave me, telling me it was for luck, and I didn’t know back then how much I would come to rely on Nymeia for hope. That I would need to believe that she’s writing me into a greater tapestry, that I need that grandeur to feel like my dumbass mistakes have meaning and purpose. And even with Tieve beyond my reach, it occurred to me that she might have already given me everything I needed to weave my own prayer. A level head. A god. A talisman.

I’m just fumbling through this. We all are, but I made my own prayer by pulling that sachet out of my pocket and spinning it over and over in my hands as I remembered the names of those our enemies had taken from us. Who better to beg than the god of fate? Keep their lines anchored to me. Keep them in the tapestry. Keep them safe.

“It's the most noble thing about you. It's - It's more than just what you do, it's who you are. It's what I love about you.”

I recite their names:

Aidan, the hound with apologetic eyes who slinks around the edges the crowd until someone notices him, at which point he deflects attention from himself with a self-deprecating joke straight out of my own fucking toolbox. He could be a brother to me, if he let himself be; if he told me the truth about who he is and where he’s been. I can smell it on him. The stench of ceruleum doesn’t fade as quickly as any of us would like, but I wait for him to tell me on his own terms. Aidan weaves around the periphery of my eyelids in a shadowy kohl black.

Izar, the mercurial seer who obscures themselves in riddles like a smug sphinx playing at being a whimsical faerie. They have never passed up the opportunity to toy with me like a blind white kitten with an oversized brown moth, but the teeth of their humor has never once felt like a cage to me. They are kind, and curious, and helpful even as they delight in your confusion. They dangle at my elbow in marble white, furiously tickling my arm like a loose hair caught in a sleeve.

Adhi, the wandering sage of Dalmasca who the gods had to gift with such big fuzzy ears so that she could better capture every single story that ever came her way. I don’t know how to even begin to thank her for what she’s done for me; she’s returned things to me that by all means should have been my birthright but were taken from me before I was even aware that they were being stolen. Her thread spirals in a shell around my ear in an entire spectrum of colors, one for every tale she carries with her.

Still, there’s more: Tieve, the witch of the wolves (mossy green); Percy, the son of a shadow (cobalt blue); Bride, the bashful goldsmith (periwinkle blue); Swozbhar, the towering cook (mint green); Valeriaux, the scarred philanthropist (leather brown); Silya and Livia, the sunniest Fists I’ve ever met (pale pink and soft teal); Farid, the most visibly haunted man I know (muted purple); and Iron Deer, the entrepreneurial engineer (metallic steel) -- all of them familiar faces, all of them colleagues, all of them threaded through the chambers of the same priceless Heart that gives our mission purpose.

The same Heart that we traded away just to get them back.

You know what? Fuck it. I’ll string them all to my own heart. I’ll suspend them all in cocoons deep in the burning hearth of me -- I will fight my way out of this facility that wants desperately to become our tomb -- until those that still live can crawl back out, fragile but alive and free to keep fighting for whatever comes next.

But one of them is gone, beyond the veil and permanently out of my reach. Just like Sui tried to warn me about, and all of Tieve’s lucky charms were not enough to protect me from this single ungentle truth. The Spinner does not stop the march of destruction -- she merely directs it. She cuts the threads of our fallen friends when they begin to fray and weaves new ones in their place; a different color, a fresh fate.

One of them is gone, their thread knotted off in a sudden stop on the tapestry of our story. But who?

Who did we lose?

“I've seen it. I've heard it. I've bloody felt it. Everyone I speak to says the same. Every one of them knows what a great heart you have.”

Percy and I first met at that bonfire by the chocobo stables. I was shivering, fresh off the fucking ship and completely unprepared for the weather, and he stood next to me and promised me everything I could ever possibly want, if only I made a promise in return to be a loyal friend to the Family. I was so desperate for a place to belong, I would have signed anything, done anything -- what had mattered was that he would have me. In this brave new world, I had people looking out for me. A place to call home. Structure. An institutionalized, freshly liberated fuckhead like me desperately needed structure.

So what if it came with a little price? The list of my sins is long, and breaking and entering is pretty far down at the bottom. Bar brawls are inconsequential, when you’ve already essentially aided and abetted war crimes. So, I’m wanted by both House Desrosiers and House Beaumarchais for stealing a thing or two from their daughters’ manse. So fucking what. Percy and I -- There are bonds that can only be forged at three in the morning, sitting on a crows’ perch halfway across the city under the moonlight, doing pre-job surveillance on some fart-sniffing nobles through their window. I’m not saying we kissed. I’m not saying we didn’t, either.

This is what I’m thinking about, when I look down at Percy’s lifeless face, drained of the rosy pink that always sat on his cheeks during those cold-ass stakeouts, huddled together at the shoulders for warmth. If I touched him now, he would be so cold, so unnaturally fucking cold, so I don’t. I can’t bring myself to touch him; to do anything but stare with my mouth half-open and a sob dying somewhere between my sternum and my throat, turning into just another burning pit to fizzle and die in my stomach.

Except it doesn’t have the good sense to die. It turns to steam, turns to pressure, backs up the entire clockwork machine that keeps me chugging along, and it must be vented or else I’m going to fucking explode, but I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. It stutters inside me like a hitched gear. The whine seems to come from my chest, high-pitched, like a kettle about to scream. Is that me? Am I screaming? I don’t know myself. I am not me, in this moment. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know who is on the cot below me, whose silver close-cropped hair sits on this head, whose too-round spectacles reflect the light in the room too thoroughly for me to be able to see if their dead fucking eyes are open or closed. I don’t know which is more terrifying.

I leave. I run. My boots scream against the floor of the ship, clap against the dirt outside, and I don’t stop running until I can drop to my knees and bellow to the impassive clouds. This is my fault. Judgement rings in my head in a cacophony of voices. My fault. My fault he’s dead.

What am I doing here? What have I done?

Percy’s line, cobalt blue, is so cleanly snipped from my fabric that all I can do is finger the empty spot where it might have kept going. Maybe one day we could have found compromise; a future where the three of us could get along without jealousy, without miscommunication or hurt feelings. I’ll never fucking know.

I have always thought of myself in big terms. I am man, I am machine, I am god. I’m the architect of my own form, and I have crafted myself in my own image. Nothing makes me feel more powerful than looking in the mirror and seeing my face look back at me; the face that I sculpted, the body that I shaped. The people that I’ve been in the past are not dead, but rather they have been stitched into my organs. The girl that I was lives in my marrow and feeds my blood, and I am never alone in the cathedral of my body. I am holy. I am enduring. I will move beyond the ghosts at my heels and continue forging a forward path, with those I love woven into the never-ending project that I call my self.

But even a god looks puny as shit, crying into the dirt over a fallen friend. I need to feel this. I need how small this makes me, how insignificant I am in this moment. I gotta remember how crippled it makes me feel. This humility -- it needs to be sown into me, too. So I don’t make the same mistake again. It’s the least I can do.

I can’t forget. I won’t forget his face.

“What a precious, precious thing we've gained.”

[sazawen]

Metapost- Why I ship Namjin

METAPOST- Why I Ship Namjin (or a long essay on Namjin to explain you why they are perfect)

I recently saw a post saying that we didn’t value the Namjin friendships/ bond/ relationship/ couple enough and as a big Namjin shipper I had to admit how much this post was legit. I have always loved to read essays on “Why I ship [insert the ship name]” and so I’ve decide that this time I will do one myself. 

I will regroup in one post how I percieve Namjoon and Seokjin as individuals but also how their two personnalities create a dynamic that I can support and love though the years. 

Before, I continue there is some disclaimers that I would like to mention :

1-English isn’t my mother language I will do my best to be as clear and correct as possible but I can’t promise that it will be perfect. (Sorry guys T^T)

2-This post DO NOT promote the Namjin ship above another one. I will never say that Namjin is the ultimate ship in BTS and that Namjoon or Jin can not be ship with others member. I am an OT7 before any other ship. This post is only written to explain WHY I ship more Namjin and WHY I love them.

3- This post will explain how I percieve Namjoon and Seokjin as individuals but like all of us I don’t know them personnally and my judgement can be totally false. If you disagree with me feel free to give me your point of view, I will gladly discuss it with you.

(4- It will be a long ass post, lol.)

A quick summary of what to expect in this metapost :

I - Who are they ?

               = Namjoon Kim- The Leader =

               = Seokjin Kim- The Eldest =

II - Their dynamic?

                = The influence of Seokjin on Namjoon =

                = The influence of Namjoon on Seokjin =

                = Their relation ship =

So let’s begin ~~

I - Who are they ?

                = Namjoon Kim- The Leader =

 The first thing that we can say for Namjoon is that he had gain a lot of maturity since is debut. We all know that Namjoon was first of all, an under ground rapper. A really good one, with an IQ of 148 (12 points less than Einstein). Our first perception of Namjoon would naturally be to describe him as a rapper genius with a manly attitude and a small amount of emotions. (Rapper and geniuses are mostly known to let shown less emotion, in their attitude, than the others).

   Then you began to know him a little more and you see him growing through the years as a leader but also as a person. From the young adult he was, searching himself as a rapper but also as an individual he began to become what we know nowdays. A person who can express himself trough music, who analyses the word around him with his intellectual, who put the other before his own needs and try to show you that « the rules » that everyone follows can be broken in order to become the person that you are really inside. His message would probably be: “Don’t stay in a box, be what you want to be, without limitations or boundaries.”

   However, don’t be fooled by the amazing person he is right know. At the debut of BTS Namjoon was trying so hard to fit in the box that we gave him : « the rapper-leader ». From his hairstyle to his sunglasses, from the way he was speaking to his interactions with Seokjin he was working so hard to be what others wanted him to be. To fit what the kpop industry was waiting from him (and from BTS as whole). 

   Namjoon needed to be strong (mentally and physically) just as any other  underground rapper needed to be. In the underground rap game envrionnement you need to hide all your weaknesses or they will be used against you. In the kpop industry the rules are the same. Namjoon couldn’t let his insecurites, his doubt or his weakness be shown on camera. He needed to be a strong, independent and perfect genius rapper with no"girly” emotions (like sadness).

All this personnally traits are not really what we know of him today are they ?

   In fact, through the years we have been able to see Namjoon being more and more aware of the person he wanted to be. He understand that he is a rapper, he knows that he is intelligent. However he also knows that he has his own insecurities, that the world around him scares him and that his mind always play with his darkest doubt. It’s like if he was constantly thinking too much. He can perform in front of millions of ARMY but then be scared that all of this is just a mere mirage and that tomorrow everything could crumble because of one mistake. (Maybe his?) His intelligence allows him to guide his bandmates through difficult times and to write amazing music but it also makes him aware of everything else... All the bad aspects and the little things that could cost them their popularity and their fans. And believe me, that scares him the shit out of him.

« To be honest we are the only ones that received an award at the show [BBMA] as a kpop group and I’m not saying we should boast but to be honest it is a huge success but because of that I keep wondering to what point, how far we need to go up (…) it makes me wonder how far we might fall down. » - Hesitation and fears.

Bonus : Namjoon is an intelligent person but he often let’s his first instinct express themself. He is an “emotive thinker” before being an “intellectual thinker”.

               = Seokjin Kim- The Eldest =

   I think that I could speak hours upon hours to make you understand how I percieve Namjoon’s personnality but for Seokjin… it’s even worst, I could speak about him for days. So I will do my best to not be too long on the subject of this world wide handsome man.

   Jin was shown from his debut as the visual model. And that was mostly what we where allowed to see of him. He didn’t get much line, his dancing skills were not perfect so he was put in the back and in the end of the day most people were praising him not for his voice’s skills but only for his « handsome face ». That’s mostly why, nowdays Seokjin always says that he is handsome. He say this in a way, almost in a moking way, to make you understand that he was only recognize for his physic instead of his intelligence, kindness or most importantly for his voice. Among years, he does not only began to strongly believe in the fact that he is handsome but he also use this as a way to protect himself from his own insecurities.

   Not to be recognize for your voice when you are a vocalist in one of the biggest kpop group is like when a woman is choosen for a job not for her intellictual skills but because « she is pretty ». Because despite the confindence that Seokjin show us 99% of the time I am actually the kind of fans that thinks that Jin is pretty insecure about his voice, his dance and his role in the group and that sometimes his own pretty face is more a burden than a real gift.

   This would explain a lot of things. Mostly why he had work so hard to become a better dancer, why he went into a war with Big Hit to be able to perform his own song Awake in wich he states : «Maybe I, I can never fly like those six petals out there, wings like other things are impossible » but also why he tries so hard to always stay with the maknae line of BTS, like if he want to assure himself that he can act for them like an older brother would do and be with them whenever they need it. Because if he can’t sing or dance well, the least he can do, would be to take care of his member right?

(But don’t get me wrong even if Seokjin has his own insecurites I am sure that sometime he looks at himself in the mirror and try to kiss his pretty face ahah!)

  On an other hand Jin, is also someone who will not be easly intimidated. I will show it to you in the pictures that will follow, but Jin is not the kind of person who is « to kind » (even if a lot of ARMY paint him that way in fanfiction). When he has to speak his mind or when other goes on his nerves he will not hesitate to let it know, even if it can be percieve as insensitive. He is this kind of person who can laugh and be all friendly-friendly but if you cross the line his smile will disapear and he will tell you « Fuck off I have better things to do». (That’s a metaphore Jin isn’t as straight foward as that but he is definetly not the « cute mommy » that 50% of the fandom see him as). In the end of the day he is a well balanced mix of “Fuck off” and “I need to tell you a dad joke” that allows him to be an eldest that other love and respect without being crushed down by the other big personnality in the group (aka Namjoon, Yoongi and Taehyung).

And this is probably why the dynamic between Seokjin and Namjoon is that respectful and understanding. Because even if Jin take care of other and is a bowl of positivity he doesn’t let the others take control upon him/bullying him. Or Namjoon, needs someone like that in his life. Someone who can be both gentle and straight forward when they need to speak their mind. 

Bonus : Seokjin is also the type of person to think on a more logical string, he can perfectly control his emotions thanks to his training as an actor. He rarely let his primary emotions to be shown on camera.

II - Their dynamic

                = The influence of Seokjin on Namjoon =

   Noooowww let’s finally talk about the influence that Namjoon and my baby Seokjin has on each other. Because, oh yeah baby they influence each other in soooo many ways and thanks to that they became the amazing people that they are now.

   In my opinion the influence that Seokjin have on Namjoon is easier to percieve than the other way around. In fact we often see, Namjoon saying how much Seokjin has grown upon him and how he allowed him to become a better person trough the years.

   Jin is someone who tries his best to see the positive aspect in everything in life (ctdl: Bon Voyage Season 2). Namjoon even, once said that he had never meet someone like Seokjin before and that he had a lot to learn from him.

   It is pretty understandable since they came from two different social environnement. I think that what Namjoon is trying to say is that when Seokjin face a problem he don’t think that « this is destiny » and that it can’t be resolved. At the contrary Seokjin tends to think that if you push yourself and work hard in the end of the day you will be able to achieve what you want. And even if it doesn’t work for you in the end, you still have to think of a positive way of this experience and see what you have learn about it. Because Seokjin is mostly a positive person.

   Seokjin had also work so hard to detach himself from his parents (with his dad being a CEO he could have choosen to take this at his own avantage) but instead he had work so hard even if he could have taken the easy way around.  Namjoon has meet for the first time a person who : is overly positive despite the bad moment that live can put you in and was a hard worker who believe in his own dreams even when his parents could have afford him « everything ». Pretty much all the contrary that Namjoon was ever confronted by.

   This two things were at first a wall in the Namjin relation ship. Namjoon and Seokjin weren’t as close in the early days and Namjoon even confess that at the begining of BTS he « couldn’t understand Seokjin ». Don’t be to harsh on him, you have to understand his way of thinking back then... Namjoon was coming from a modest family. He was an underground rapper facing with hardship and strong rappers personnalities. A bowls of positivity like Seokjin and with an « easy background family » well it was something that he had to see from a bad eye no ?

   Namjoon is a genius and every intelligent mind became curious when they are confronted at something they can’t understand. I think, that this why, Namjoon has slowly began to established a bond with our World Wide Handsome Man. 

                = The influence of Namjoon on Seokjin =

  Here is the hardest part for me, and sincerly if you want to add something to this part of my metapost feel free to do it because I’m pretty sure that I will miss some points here...

   In my opinion the influence that RM had on Jin was much more subbtle. The way that I see it, is that Namjoon has allow Jin to be more confident as whole. To gain confidence in the person he is, charismatic with his lame joke but also less aware of the « acting on camera ». I don’t know if it’s just me but I have the feeling that when RM is not near him, Jin put on his « actor personnality/ actor mask » and become what other people want him to be. But when Namjoon is here, Jin seems to be more confortable at being himself. I can be totally wrong but that’s how I see it.

   I also have the impression that when something goes wrong, when Jin is sad or too happy there is only Namjoon to make him able to change his instant emotions. Like if Namjoon was able to control his mind. 

   For exemple on the Namjoon’s Birthday log, RM is able to make Jin feel bad for not cooking him a meal. He is totally playing with him. But when you look at Jin you totally have the sensation that Jin is in fact feeling really bad for haven’t been able to cook for him. And then when Namjoon begins to sing his own birthday song Jin joins him forgetting his owns emtions. (-> Namjoon control Seokjin emotions (in a positive way of course)).

Namjoon has this kind of power where he helps Seokjin expressing who he really is and let him forget of the cameras.

               = Their relationship =

               Finally, we are getting at the most interesting part. The last part where I will talk about their relationship and why I can see them as a couple and not just as friends.

               We can say that Namjoon and Seokjin have learn along the years not only to respect themself (because they respect all the members equally) but to learn from each other constantly. They need each other support to go foward and to endorse the role of eldest/leader. Namjoon need the forwardness sincerity and positivity of Jin. When Seokjin needs the confidence and the analytic way of thinking of Namjoon. They push each other to be better dancer, to be better leader (Namjoon a better Leader for BTS and Jin a better hyung for the younger ones) and better people.

               Even when they disagree on things, they learn to speak their mind until their problem is solve. They never try to make the other one feels stupid and they listen to each other to make the group go foward. When the other members fight they try to soothe the tension between them.

               Do you remember when I was stating that Namjoon was the kind of person to let his emtions express themself first and at contrario Seokjin was the kind of person to hide his emotions and to think before letting them pop up ? Well this is mostly true for a lot of their interactions.

But there is some moments where my statement it totally false. 

Can you guess when ?

The answer is : when the stress is too high.

   If you see at every important award show, their personnalities switch. Just like if the « too much » stress was breaking their wall. 

   In these moment Namjoon is so stress that he tries to endorsed a role where he is confident in and that allows him to not show any weakness : the Leader of BTS; a rapper genius. On the other hand when the pressure becomes to high, Seokjin let his emotions shows without being able to restrain them. He let his tears fill his eyes and can’t control his facial expressions.

  This is so interesting because in these moment, where the stress hit the « Namjin Critical Point » they become essential for one and another. Jin become the anchor of Namjoon and Namjoon become the figure that Seokjin handle to. 

In this moments they need to stand next to each other, hold the hand of the other, look at the other or hug the other one with passion.

When Seokjin cry he let his own and Namjoon’s emotions flows. When Namjoon endorse his role as a leader he contain his and Seokjin’s strength.

The most beautiful thing in their relation ship is, in my opinion, too see how they both influence each other to become better people but also complimentary souls.

Namjoon lack of self confidence ? Jin is here.

Jin needs to show his emotions ? Namjoon will be strong for him.

Namjoon see to much negativty ? Jin will remind him of seeing the bright side of life.

Jin wants to train harder ? Namjoon will stay with him.

Are they a couple ? Probably not.

Do they have an unique relationship ? Hell yes.

[theseadagiodays]

April 27, 2020

Art Became the Oxygen

It is true that artists, many of whom rely on public gatherings for their livelihood, are some of the hardest hit during this crisis.  Yet, it’s musicians who are toiling away in basements to serenade us through isolated days.  It’s comedic actors who are offering us essential nighttime laughs.  And it’s visual artists who make meaning from this madness with images that inspire, console and provoke.  The individuals of the creative community are like the unsung frontline workers of this pandemic, only without any salary to support their craft, or a 7 pm cheer to motivate them.  Yet still, they make things because they must, just as artists have done since the beginning of history, particularly in times of strife. (SEE: https://usdac.us/news-long/2017/8/9/art-became-the-oxygen-free-artistic-response-guide-available-now)

In previous periods of economic hardship, the US government responded with forward-thinking programs like the WPA (Works Progress Administration) of Roosevelt’s New Deal (1935 to 1943).  It was designed not only to fund huge infrastructure projects, but also to employ thousands of artists, musicians, writers, and theatre performers to stimulate the economy.  Legacies of this program include Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God; Jackson Pollack’s Composition with Pouring; and Mark Rothko’s earlier urban studies like Entrance to Subway, where you can see the seeds of his famous color studies from later work.

After natural disasters, senseless violence or war, artist activists have also rushed to the front lines, time and again, to help rebuild communities by activating their social imaginations and stimulating their civic agency with creative collaborations.  

Philippe Thiese gathered digital stories of Hurricane Sandy volunteers in this short film: https://www.sandystoryline.com/stories/sandy-volunteers-remember-the-storm-and-explain-how-they-got-involved/.  

The siblings of Eric Garner, a young African-American man killed by unjust police violence in 2014, came together in grief to write the song, I Can’t Breathe,based on his harrowing last words.  Their music served as a rallying cry to a community berieved and betrayed by their law enforcement: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/eric-garners-family-drops-moving-new-song-i-cant-breathe-192574/

And when a 2011 tornado took 161 lives in the small town of Joplin, Missouri, mural artist Dave Loewenstein asked kids about their dreams for the future of their town, resulting in this stunning piece, The Butterfly Effect.

So, in the great hope that we’ll kick this virus’ butt, and we will be left with a glut of ventilators, how about we use them to revive our society’s artists, since they are the vital oxygen that feed our souls.  

In Vancouver, we are already lucky enough to have our City government responding with funding for the Murals for Hope project (#makeartwhileapart), which is transforming solemn, boarded-up shops and restaurants into colorful and encouraging messages that can help sustain us until their doors reopen again.

Geoff and I are also trying to do our small part to stimulate the creative economy, while beautifying our home in the process.  We are very excited to have just commissioned a mural artist to spruce up our tiny backyard space, which we’re transforming from a gravel parking spot into our own tropical oasis.  Here are some inspirational images as well as a shot of the yard in its current state. And hopefully, I can post the finished product, which will be painted onto the rotting fence, in a couple of weeks.

April 28, 2020

Art of Relationship

This period is not just requiring us to get creative with keyboards and canvases and cameras.  It is forcing us to re-examine the very patterns that make up our daily lives and fit them all inside the same four walls with the same self, spouse, and/or kids, 24/7.  Suffice it to say, this is no small task.  But, if any of you are like me, the grand solutions have sometimes involved tiny changes.    

Personally, my greatest challenge has been to find ways to carve out slivers of shared pleasure amidst my partner’s insanely stressful, often 13-hour work day, now that the pandemic has his team at our local transit authority in serious crisis mode.  Of course, I’m a firm believer in hard-work.  The pursuit of a classical musician requires many years of 5+ hours-a-day of practice.  But I’m also a fun-lover, and a huge proponent of life/work balance, particularly having had to learn this the hard way, thru a chronic overuse injury.  So, for me, Geoff’s manic schedule during the first month of isolation seemed far from optimal. And while this was especially difficult for him, it compromised joy for both of us.  

Seeking guidance as we adapted to the new normal, we found a great online series by Esther Perel, whose regular podcast, Where Should We Begin? always leaves us with sound, simple dance steps that we can apply to the Art of Relationship.  Here, she has created a 4-part series that specifically addresses problems which co-habitators might face in our current reality.  https://events.estherperel.com/april-2020-webinar-resources/?fbclid=IwAR0kRHkuQvEGxcpNuHvPKmmExamZ2Jj_EMZzR-zGp8eDejCR94hE-ZvGYjY

Inspired by her wisdom, we decided that the 7:30 am meetings, which had been occupying our kitchen and bleeding into our morning coffees, every day, could be skipped for a 15-minute walk thru our neighborhood park.  And, let me tell you, what a difference a quarter of an hour can make!  

April 29, 2020

Finding Variety in Repetition

It occurred to me, the other morning, that this experience feels a bit like fasting.  Since college, I’ve routinely devoted a week, every spring, to some kind of dietary shift, for my general health, and as a general mindfulness exercise.   While I’ve tried versions of the Wild Rose and other popular cleanses with some benefit, the method recommended in Staying Healthy with the Seasons has always suited me best. It requires you to slowly wean off many foods (meat/fish, then sugar/alcohol/coffee, then dairy), gradually move to only liquids, eventually evolve to a middle day of just water, and then similarly reintroduce each food gradually.    What I’ve loved about this approach is how much more aware of my cravings I become, how much I notice the “manufacturing of consent” that happens all around me to inspire my “wants”, and finally how various symptoms are suddenly absent once I’ve eliminated certain foods.  Consequently, the slow reintroduction of foods allows me to notice, in much more specific detail, which foods stimulate which responses in my body (IE. huge bursts of energy from fruit; afternoon crashes from sugar; indigestion from soy; sustenance from bread and pasta - NOTE: Contrary to the wheat-vilifying trends that currently prevail, I typically thrive on an anti-Atkins diet, as someone who reaps tremendous fuel from carbs).  

The parallels we are experiencing now relate to the stimuli that we’ve been “denied” by our self-isolating reality.   Speaking for myself, instead of travelling frequently, as I often do, or eating at different restaurants every week, or working at a different café every day to switch up the creative energy around me, I have had, like everyone else, to learn to find sustenance and interest in a much less diverse set of circumstances.  I am eating at Chez Me three meals a day.  We are grinding our own beans and whipping up our own daily lattes.  And most all of our daily walks and bike rides now start from our home.  

But even within the boundaries that we can reach from the nexus of our own address, we have been able to slowly expand our radius of exploration to corners of our city that we had never seen before.  This has felt a bit like switching to a vegetarian diet and gaining new appreciation for the crunchiness of a snap pea, or the filling nature of a portabello mushroom.  

In these explorations, we have discovered infinite surprises which include a cliffside view of the Fraser River from Everett Crowley Park (top image), an old landfill-turned-lush green space in Vancouver’s southeastern-most quadrant.  We’ve seen old growth forest that we had no idea existed so many kilometres from the shore, in Burnaby’s Central Park on our city’s eastern border.  I’ve spotted my first-ever fisher (weasel) sneaking around beachside boulders on the northern edge of the city.  And closer to home, I’ve noticed the whimsy of our neighbors’ gardens in far greater detail than I had ever looked before (as in the Gaudiesque, smiley-face hedge pictured above).  Our ventures from home have been guided by little more than our edict to “follow the pink”, as in the most blossoming streets.  And to document these journeys, I’ve been mapping the various routes we’ve taken.  Interestingly, the trajectory somewhat resembles a many-petaled flower.

Looking for minute changes in what seem to be patterns of sameness is also the secret to one of my favorite movements in music and design: Minimalism. Perhaps this is why Max Richter and Steve Reich have become the soundtrack I’ve turned to most during the pandemic.  Because their music trains our brains to find beauty in repetition while seeking excitement from the subtlest nuanced shifts.  

Meanwhile, I know that many of us would love for there to be a magic wand that could lift all of our restrictions over night and allow us to return to exactly “the way it was before”, in the same way that I long for a mocha frappuccino when I fast.  However, what we have been hearing from our leaders is that the more likely and safe choice will be to move into a gradual re-opening of our cities - a slow reintroduction of certain freedoms.  So, the lessons we can learn from fasting and Phillip Glass ought to prove very useful as we try to be patient and appreciative of this prudent approach.   Then, once we begin to shop and drive and socialize more, perhaps this perspective can allow us to also more clearly notice how we respond to each stimuli as we re-engage with it, And hopefully it will inform a new normal that can be more sensible and moderate and in harmony with this planet that we call home.

And, in case you’re curious to listen to a little minimalist fare...

Notice how welcomed the first chord change is in Max Richter’s Catalogue of Afternoons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubjylmxrj9o

Or drape yourself in his hypnotic music like a warm duvet with his 8-hour lullaby, Sleep: https://open.spotify.com/album/0JLN7JryQ2T7lBEYIrSQF1

And for a mind trip of the eyes and ears, try Steve Reich’s Piano Phase on marimbas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3QoM7dgs_0

April 30, 2020

Film Festivals for free

Pahokee, at this year’s live-streamed Vancouver International Film Festival

Done wondering if Carol Baskin killed her husband?  Couldn’t care less if Giannini and Damian actually ever get married? Well, for those who’ve exhausted the Netflix catalogue, there are plenty of other ways to enjoy film from your home. Lots of festivals have generously uploaded their content online.  So, whether it’s mountain adventure, short films, foreign movies, or arthouse you’re looking for, here are some easy ways to link to those that are totally free:

Banff Mountain Film Festival - https://www.banffcentre.ca/film-fest-at-home

Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto, Venice, Berlin and others have collaborated to bring an awesome line-up of livestream videos to the world in their 10-day We Are One Festival, starting on May 29th.  While the festival will stream for free, viewers will be asked to donate to the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 solidarity response fund.

If you happen to remain gainfully employed, and it’s important to you to keep supporting independent film making, Vancouver International Film Festival has created a rental-fee structure for a number of films that they’ve now made available for streaming, too: https://viff.org/Online/default.asp

And Sedona Film Festival has done the same - https://sedonafilmfestival.com/mdfhome/

May 1, 2020

Boredom Killers: Ping-pong, birthday song, and Magritte gong wrong

Combing the internet for creative inspiration that I can share with readers has truly been a joy.   It’s also got our own creative jucies flowing.  So today, I thought I’d post just a few of the ways we’ve staved off boredom over these past weeks.

Tennis is one of our true passions.  It’s actually sort of how Geoff and my relationship began.  Given that we didn’t want our paddle skills to get too rusty, we didn’t let the fact that our little laneway house couldn’t fit a ping pong table stop us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kait-zCV94s

Coming from a huge birthday-celebrating family, I’ve tried to make sure that friends with birthdays during quarantine could still feel pampered on their special day.  So, 6 of us put together this silly ditty for our good friend Roger: https://youtu.be/EZKyrdOlvPk

And, we’ve jumped on the art replication bandwagon too.  The Met & the Getty Museum have both followed the lead of the Dutch gallery that first initiated the Instagram art challenge which asks people to recreate famous pieces of art with only 3 objects from their home. https://www.instagram.com/tussenkunstenquarantaine/

Here’s Geoff and my attempt with Magritte’s Lovers. The challenge also asks for participants to create new titles, so this is ours, Kissing Strategy for Stay-at-home Lazy Toothbrushers.