#and YES i know the bridal carry was fanservice and everything but the thing is

[basu-shokikita]

call me insane but skwistok's endgame to me. that bridal carry was like. it made it official to me. it was like canon said 'these bitches are gay' and maybe it won't they won't get together immediately but eventually....i'm convinced...

[naneun-no]

Forget touching grass, go kiss somebody.

Long rant ahead, you’ve been warned 😬

For a community that relies so much on reading peoples’ body language and tells, the majority of BTS shippers seem to have a concerning lack of understanding of how actual humans living a life work.

I swear. Y’all will sit and analyze the hell out of three seconds worth of slowed-down content, but ignore any and all context, extraneous factors (aka concerns that don’t have anything to do with romance and can make someone appear upset, closed off, or just plain tired) and everything that happens after those all-important three seconds.

Looking at you, anons who I’ve seen all pressed over the fact that in the We Photobook Sketch, Jimin was initiating most of the Jikook moments. Some of y’all are insecure jikookers, some are from another ship trying to have a gotcha moment, and some are probably just new to things, but… keep in mind:

1. Content isn’t always released in chronological order.

Yes, this photoshoot behind the scenes is the most recent content released, but that doesn’t mean it’s the most recent thing that happened. @kanmom51 had a great post about this whole photoshoot, and took a guess that it happened around Sep 2021. I think that’s probably right, based on haircuts/colors and piercings. Which would mean this “distance” between JK and JM that you all think you picked up on took place BEFORE: JK getting his attendance stamps in JM’s room all day every day in late 2021, the infamous and adorable “should I come see you?” birthday vlive, and the ass-grabbing, forehead-touching, finger heart-giving, bridal-carrying Jikookery Foolishness Fest that was PTD Las Vegas.

And just because late 2021 and 2022 was a gold mine, and because I know y’all try to dismiss concert behavior as fake fanservice, it was also before: “I’ll keep holding Jiminie ✋😛🤚”, “happy birthday BRO,” the attentive giddy love sesh that was aerial yoga, and this flirty ass conversation:

So… try to orient content on the timeline before making judgments based on it. It will save you a lot of anxiety.

2. Learn the difference between focus and coldness.

Not always, but in general, JK seems to (I’m gonna use an ADHD term because I have it and I strongly suspect he does too but obviously I don’t know for sure don’t come at me) hyperfocus on things, particularly when it’s something like a work photoshoot where there are likely a lot of staff around and there’s a job to get done. Yes, he can goof off at work with the best of them, but for stuff like this (which had a stricter, more professional vibe than say, filming a Run BTS ep), he’s almost always the more reserved one, while Jimin seems to have an easier time shifting between his silly, flirty side and his fierce professional model side. The man can turn it off and on like a light switch, while JK seems to have a harder time shifting his attention and coming in and out of “work mode” (also an ADHD thing, just saying). So yeah, we see JM making eyes at JK in between shots, we see him turning toward JK while JK keeps his gaze on the camera. To me, this does not read as JK being disinterested in JM. It reads as “I have a job to do and I need to stay in the zone or I’ll look dumb as hell in these photos and I’m too pretty for that.” Just my take 🤷‍♀️ Which brings me to…

3. Context is everything.

My spouse and I have been together for nearly 10 years. We still have moments where we are over-the-moon into each other, and we also have moments where work takes priority, where we aren’t as attentive as we should be, where one of us wants attention and the other is focusing on something else (not saying that’s necessarily what was going on during the photoshoot, but it’s possible and a much more reasonable conclusion than JK suddenly falling out of love and JM not noticing). If someone were to make a short video recording us on any given day, our interactions might vary. We might look super close; we might look a little distant. Because real humans in real relationships have normal fluctuations like that. If assorted, curated clips from a 7 minute video (think about that — that shoot probably lasted 4-5 hours at least, and they showed us 7 minutes) are your basis for deciding whether a couple is broken up or still together, you’re basing a whole lot on very little. Which is why I say…

Go Kiss Somebody

Like, not without their permission, but you know what I mean. Go experience falling in love, go connect with someone else and see how every little facial twitch you or they make is not evidence of the deterioration of your whole relationship. When shippers try to make a ship sink or sail based on the micro-expressions on someone’s face during a zoomed-in, slow-mo, three second clip, they reveal that most likely, they’ve only ever experienced romantic relationships in the context of novels, fanfic, tv shows and movies. In other words — stories. Because in a love story, every little detail truly IS about the romantic plot line, otherwise the editors would have cut that superfluous stuff out, because they’ve got a story to tell. But real relationships aren’t like that. Real relationships aren’t streamlined love stories with rising action and a climax and a resolution; they’re real people living meandering lives that happen to include immense love. And that’s the difference. Shit, that’s a whole other post…