#i had been so stumped on it!

[stealingyourbones]

Out of all of the people The Ghost King Phantom expected to relate to, it definitely wasn’t the scrawny red headed photographer of the Daily Planet. Jimmy Olsen has gotten so many temporary superpowers over his time being Superman’s friend. Hell, he once gained a 4th dimensional being’s reality warping abilities when he was given said dimensional being’s powers during a fight. Sure there’s a dozen or so heroes with the same amount of powers he has, but none as suddenly granted to them as a all powerful god that can relate to a teenager.

[electric-plants]

still stuck here btw

[chocokano]

it is officially the one year anniversary of hz episode 16, aka THE spinel pokemon episode, therefore!

a redraw of my very first (08/01/23) digital drawing of spinel (*'▽'*)

plus cool overlay hehe

i can't believe it's been a whole year since he got his big episode ∑(ﾟДﾟ) i don't think i'll ever be as excited for any episode as i was for 16

here's to another year of this freak !! maybe he'll actually show up soon outside of a 5 second appearance that sets up him being suspicious just for it to be forgotten for months

og under cut! (old art alert)

[sentientstump]

i need to do the "art of 2024" thing, but i am scared its gonna be half empty 😭

probably before 2024 ends, maybe tomorrow

[thekintsugikids]

so much for (tour) dust, the healing tour of all time

[puppppppppy]

I made a lmk oc

[abovetherainandroses]

hi! i made an interest check for my fob merch :’) if u like my art (and fall out boy in general, please check it out!

🫧 interest check here! 🫧

[r-u-b-y-18]

I literally think I’m the most unlovable person ever because tell me why two people that claim to be my friends just start calling me the r-slur when they’re around my brother. I can’t take it anymore. I don’t think I can have friends. I think I’m just destined to be alone. No matter what I do it feels like I’m too dumb, or too annoying, or too rude, or too attention-seeking, or too loud. I just can’t do this. Why is everything I do wrong. Why is every question I ask stupid. I just want to disappear. Disappear and never talk to anyone again.

(also read the tags I beg bc then the Mikey photo will have context)

[seaofolives]

🎭 #torokatober2024 day 31/31: memories 🎻

“Do you remember what it was like?” Trowa asks. “Before we met?”

He’d come home from the circus yesterday, and they’d spent all night in bed, up to this morning. Trowa is still on his back, Quatre on his knees; he’d been about to start the day when Trowa caught his hand and pulled him back.

“I do.” Quatre nods. “Why do you ask?”

Trowa shakes his head. “‘Cause I don’t anymore. When I think about how I started wearing my hair like this, I remember your fingers on my scalp as you shave my nape. And I don’t remember what my tent was like without your voice in it. Even all the wars I fought, I don’t remember them without hearing you calling to me. Is it like that for you?” It isn’t.

But Quatre knows what he means. “A little,” he says, smiling slightly. “I remember what it’s like to feel like a speck searching for a purpose in all this space dust. But…I don’t remember how I survived that. Until we met.” He tightens their hands together. “And I realized that I’m never truly alone, after all. Not with you living in the same universe as me. That’s how I know we’ll always meet again, whatever happens. And that all the pains of today…we’ll heal from them in the future.”

“The future…” Trowa whispers.

Quatre nods. “Do you never think about the future?”

Trowa shakes his head.

He sits up suddenly. After a pause, he says, “Left hand,” reaching up to his crown.

Quatre holds his breath, but offers it.

Trowa tugs a lock of hair free, and ties it up several times around Quatre’s fourth finger. “I never thought about the future. Not until we met.” Enclosing Quatre’s hand in-between his, he asks, “Quatre. Will you let me build that future with you?”

That breath Quatre has been holding goes out with a laugh. Trowa has always been full of surprises, ever since they met. “I…” Quatre shakes his head. “Wouldn’t even dream of that future…without you. Mister Triton Winner.”

Triton smiles brightly.

He pulls Quatre into a kiss, and several more after, each one a promise of more mornings shared, conversations in the grass, a hand to hold amid the darkest traumas.

“But,” Quatre gasps when they part, “if you want a different name, I can—”

“Quatre,” Triton looks into his eyes, “I’m building a future with you. I need your name in mine.” Well. Trowa...Triton has always been a sensible man.

Smiling, then, Quatre nods. And laughs with the man who’ll share his future.

find the list of prompts here!

[omegalomania]

so yeah maybe the horrifying magicless void wants to consume and possess you but at least someone out there does

[smtown-tourist]

Ever since Taemin came out with his own lightstick, I’ve been fantasizing about what the other SHINee members’ lightsticks would look like 🤔💎

[buildarocketboys]

nothing comes as easy as you

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Fall Out Boy, Bandom Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz Characters: Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump, Joe Trohman, Andy Hurley Additional Tags: Smut, Wet Dream, Coming In Pants, Dry Humping, physical violence, baby Patrick is a pent up little ball of horny rage, he basically has a horny meltdown no I'm not sorry, Teenage Patrick, Album: Take This to Your Grave (Fall Out Boy), Pete is a martyr to the cause of getting Patrick off, Dreams vs. Reality, Biting, Hurt/Comfort, feral teenage patrick can't be tamed, until he comes in his pants and is really embarrassed about it

Summary: Pete has a wet dream, squished between Patrick and Joe in the van, and wakes up to find Patrick glaring at him. Patrick can't take this shit anymore, and he wants Pete to know about it. Pete takes everything that Patrick dishes out. Read here on AO3

The hips he has his fingers pressed into are so soft that at first, Pete is sure the person he's straddling is a woman.

Then he opens his eyes and- oh.

It's Patrick.

This is kinda weird, Pete thinks, as he thrusts in and out of his best friend. But then Patrick opens his eyes for a moment, squinting up at Pete without his glasses. He sees who it is, that it's Pete, and smiles angelically up at him. Pete smiles back and thrusts into him at a slightly different angle, and Patrick moans. He goddamn moans.

So Pete decides to just go with it; this is kind of how he always imagined it going anyway. If the two of them ever-

Usually he stops that thought before it can go any further, but in his subconscious, when he's dreaming, or just when his brain wants to torture him with thoughts of what he can't have and shouldn't want. But right now, Patrick is smiling and groaning beneath him, meeting him thrust for thrust, so Pete allows himself to indulge, for once.

He always thought it would be like this, taking Patrick by the hand and showing him the delights of getting carnal with another dude. Patrick opening up before him, soft as cream, except the one part of him which is hard as a rock.

Except then he comes, and his eyes fly open, and he's in the van wedged between Joe and Patrick, the latter of whom is staring at him - glaring at him.

Pete's eyes fly open and meet Patrick's, who's been staring at him a little too intensely as he writhes and moans in the back of the van.

Pete twists round to check if Joe has been party to this too, but he's still asleep. The man can sleep through anything. Then Pete turns round to face Patrick again.

"Jesus," Patrick says, with a little too much feeling and something like disgust, and shame curls in Pete's eyes. Fuck, Patrick thinks, and punches the wall of the van hard enough to make a sound, but he's not sure if his violent reaction is due to watching Pete experience a wet dream when Patrick hasn't jerked off for days, or from seeing the humiliation in Pete's eyes and knowing it's his fault.

The semi in his pants might also have something to do with it, but Patrick tries to ignore that.

"You OK, Patrick?" Pete says timidly, almost sweetly, like he didn't just come in his pants in front of Patrick.

Oh, and now the semi is a full hard on and when Pete glances down he can tell, because when he looks up at Patrick's face again he's smirking.

And suddenly Patrick can't take it anymore - living in a van, no privacy, no space, playing shows to hostile or non-existent audiences, trying to jerk off quietly in a bathroom the one night in free they can afford a hotel room, trying to get some sleep in a space that's way too cramped for four guys to share, and always, always, Pete's face smirking up at him, like this all a game, or some big joke to him.

Before Pete or either of the others can react, Patrick has pushed Pete onto the floor and straddled him, punching him right in his smirking little face.

Joe's awake now, and Andy too - Joe protests and Andy gets up to haul Patrick off Pete, but Pete just shakes his head.

"Let him get it out of his system," Pete says serenely, like he isn't talking about Patrick beating the shit out of him. Andy stands there, unsure what to do, as Patrick rains down blows on Pete's face and shoulders, but he must just shrug and sit down, leaving them to it, since nobody attempts to stop Patrick.

Maybe he's rutting against Pete's thigh at the same time, but nobody else has to know that, do they?

Nobody else but Pete, who definitely knows, who can definitely feel Patrick's boner rubbing against him like he's trying to create enough friction to start a fire with his dick, who's still smirking up at him past the fat lip Patrick's just given him.

He scratches ineffectually at Pete's neck and shoulders and chest as everything comes to a crescendo, his anger and his orgasm, and when he comes he sinks his teeth into Pete's neck to stifle his moan.

When it's over, he lets Pete go and sits up, breathing heavily. He glances up at Andy and Joe, who are pointedly not looking at them, and then back down to Pete, who raises his eyebrows at him, as if he didn't also just come in his pants.

Then Pete eases himself up slightly, and puts his hand on Patrick's shoulder, very firmly. His touch grounds Patrick somehow, and he's back on Earth, on the floor of the van, instead of in a red haze of anger and arousal.

"You OK, Patrick?" he says again, with such tenderness and care that Patrick almost starts crying, and finally notices the bruises and scratches and bleeding lip that he's left on his best friend.

"Oh my God, Pete," he says, looking down at the carnage he's caused and scooting away, standing up and holding his hands up like he's innocent, even though he is absolutely, one hundred percent guilty. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, oh my God."

"Patrick," says Pete quickly, sitting up properly. "Patrick, it's fine."

"Fine? Fine?! Pete, I just beat you up!" And came from dry humping your leg, he thinks, but he can't deal with that right now. Better to just focus on the thing in front of him, the thing they can talk about in front of Joe and Andy. Which is Pete. Hurt. By him.

Pete gets up real quick, but then approaches Patrick slowly, carefully, like he's a spooked horse. "Patrick, I promise it's OK. I let you. You needed to get it out of your system."

"Yeah but- but not like that," says Patrick, his face white. He opens his mouth to apologise some more, but Pete interrupts him.

"We need a hotel night," he announces. The other two protest, complaining about the expense and how they're not due another hotel night for the next two days, but Pete cuts them off. "No," he says, glancing at Patrick. "We can't spend another night in this van together, we're all going crazy." Which means Patrick's going crazy, he knows, and hangs his head. "I'll pay for it myself," he says, "let's just find somewhere to stay."

"Pete, no, you don't have to do that," Patrick says, feeling his face burn red with embarrassment. This is his fault; everyone else can handle sleeping in a van for nights on end without going insane and attacking their bandmate, why can't he? Now Pete's gonna spend money he can't afford, just because Patrick is a whiny little baby who can't control his emotions, and-

Pete grips his hand and Patrick's thoughts just stop. "I think I do," Pete says, with a stern look, but it's belied by the softness with which Pete is stroking his thumb across the knuckles of his balled fist.

They drive to a hotel in the nearest town that doesn't look to sketchy or too upmarket, and Pete goes in to enquire about the room. Patrick follows him, needing to apologise properly.

"Pete, I'm sorry," he says, yet again. "Pete, stop, look, let me apologise properly."

Pete turns toward him with a half smile. "You already did," he says. "Look, Patrick, it's not just you, we're all going insane in there. One of us had to break first."

"Yeah but...the others wouldn't have hit you. Or, y'know," he mumbles, the tips of his ears going red, "the other thing." Pete is still smiling, a little bit, but he also looks sad, and Patrick kinda hates it when Pete is sad. "We're still best friends, right?" he can't help asking in a small, tight voice, chin tucked into his chest so he doesn't have to see Pete's expression.

"Yeah, Patrick," Pete says, ruffling Patrick's hair, "We're still best friends."

When Patrick dares to look up again, Pete is grinning at him, so he thinks maybe they're gonna be OK.

"I don't know why I get like that," he explains, following Pete to the hotel reception, "it's just the enclosed space and all the guys and the van and the smells and-" You, he thinks. You drive me crazy and I don't understand why, 'cause I love you more than pretty much anyone else I've ever met. In fact maybe it's because I love you more than anyone else I've ever met.

Pete just shakes his head and nudges Patrick with his shoulder, and then turns to the lady at the desk and asks if they've got any rooms.

Usually they just get one room and bunk in together - it's better than sleeping in the van, but not by much. But this time Pete asks for two rooms and when Patrick looks at him quizzically, Pete just ignores him and fills out the booking form.

The lady hands Pete two key cards, and Pete hands one to Patrick.

"You can go now if you want, get some rest. Room 26."

Patrick is confused. "You gonna come and knock on my door later, then?"

Pete shrugs. "I mean, I can if you want company. But I thought I'd just bunk with the guys, give you some space. You need it. And rest, proper rest, Patrick, or you'll fall asleep on stage like you used to in math class. And don't try to say you didn't, your mom told me!"

Patrick snorts lightly in amusement, feeling relief roll over him like a wave. His own space, privacy, a bed he doesn't have to share with four other guys. A shower! Patrick is overcome with gratitude by Pete's gesture, and Pete must read it on his face (or maybe in the way his whole body has relaxed after days of being taut as a guitar string about to snap).

"You're welcome," he says. "Now go and get some sleep."

Patrick just nods and watches his best friend walk back out into the night to Andy and Joe.

Then he turns on his heel and heads down the hallway to sink into a blessed, peaceful, uninterrupted sleep.

[sunnydayaoe]

!! first artwork I've drawn with. a background. I'm really proud of myself :)

[wavernot4love]

fob @ fanfest recap, post-my living vicariously through people's live updates since i cannot get over my last minute resentful decision of not being able to pull off the (admittedly 650+ total mile) drive 2 philly today and perhaps feeling devastated over having missed

- patrick: "so! i'm patrick and i know nothing about sports" and also just MASSIVELY feeling the show based on all the videos i've seen!?

- pete making a warped comparison (!?! could it get more wavernot4love coded than this)

- joe chant that he successfully heard :]

- i don't care debut of late (finally!!)

- pete being self aware about the tennis new york incident (calling fobbies "monsters" in a vaguely affectionate way... HELP)

- honestly such an expansive setlist for an event like this?? FIFTEEN SONGS!? sixteen candles? fake out? grand theft autumn? headfirst slide? HELLO

- pete doing his saturday thing??? i honestly didn't think that was a thing they did @ these sports event kinda things w shorter sets

- you could really tell they Knew they had hardcore fans there

and man i wish i could have made it but here's to hoping leg 2 comes next year because i will 100% be traveling for multiple shows again <333

[thekintsugikids]

i noticed the similarities between fnowae and pavlove about a year and a half ago?? something like that. and quite frankly, while i could panegyrize fob’s entire discography till the end of time, specifically hearing those songs back to back, hearing, “i’m the invisible man who can’t stop staring at the mirror,” followed by, “i’m just the man on the balcony, singing ‘nobody will ever remember me’” made me absolutely spiral. like…both songs feel like they’re about this heart wrenching, soul crushing loneliness and just wanting someone to understand, to feel the way you do, to just fucking get it already, but the difference is in the way they see that. the different perspectives.

to fully explain this i think it’s important to fully understand the amadeus of it all for which i cannot recommend enough zero’s post about fnowae.

to use some of their words/phrasing, the quote itself as the title…fascinates me. it is salieri (in this instance, pete) repudiating god, declaring him to be his mortal enemy from here on for having the nerve to bestow upon amadeus (patrick) such brilliance (and i will be referring to him as amadeus because that feels like it might be a little cleaner than calling him mozart throughout this whole Thing etc etc etc). to mock salieri’s mediocrity. he is so envious of amadeus that he feels amadeus’s gifts are a divine punishment from god himself. “from now on we are enemies, you and i.”

what does all of that have to do with pavlove, though? amadeus is the gifted one, whom salieri finds to be insufferably annoying, but staggeringly brilliant. indescribably so (the fact that they do eventually befriend one another, and when amadeus dies, it essentially drives salieri insane and many years later he even claims he murdered amadeus, despite the fact that amadeus was sick, having worked himself to exhaustion and death……all of that is another can of worms i don’t…i don’t have it in me to crack open right now). “nobody will ever remember me, rejoice and fall to your knees.” “i want to make you as lonely as me, so you can get addicted to this.” bone crushing loneliness clawing at the door like a dog just begging for companionship. i need someone, please be that someone. i don’t know what to do if i don’t have someone. but maybe it’s for the best. but i can’t leave well enough alone (historically, “i don’t do too well on my own”) so i need you to feel what i feel. empty. isolated. lonely. then maybe you’ll need me the same way i need you.

“their faces are dancing till they can’t stand it.” being the outsider, the wallflower, the lone observer, because what else can you do? what else is there to do? it’s three drinks too late to talk to anyone but myself. who even wants to be there with the lunatic on a downward spiral entirely of his own design, who has faded so seamlessly into the background that he doesn’t even know who he is or if he even exists anymore. getting worse till there’s nothing left.

from now on we are enemies is pete vs patrick. two brilliant artists duking it out because one is so enamored with, but absolutely cannot stand, the brilliance of the other. pavlove is…different. more distanced. it’s the realization. and if pavlove is the realization, from now on we are enemies is the final showdown.

pavlove is misery with the life he’s cultivated, with the parties and the tabloids running rampant in the 2000s. the drugs he’d been doing that his best friend didn’t even fully realize the severity of because, in his mind, drug abuse was this abstract thing that he couldn’t quite comprehend. fnowae is the culmination of isolating oneself from those which he loves and cares about, because he’s so lost in his misery.

“what good comes of something when i’m just the ghost of nothing?” because progression in any capacity is a threat to your self preservation. creative integrity, personal growth, whatever it is, it has begun to feel like it’s unattainable because the risk is too high. so what’s the point? it’s a three-and-two pitch to walk to anywhere else. so stay where you are. don’t bother. patrick is brilliant, patrick is gifted and he doesn’t even know it and i’m just a painter looking at the walls trying to finger paint and he’s the only one who has been able to finish these half-baked paintings i throw at him. if this thing is breaking down, what am i good for?

trick question. stalemate. stay right here. if anything, move back.

but there’s a wife to try to make a life with and a child on the way and if i do move forward, who’s to say i don’t just find new ways to make it all worse? my anchor has started to completely detach—get engaged, make a solo record, make himself a life, eventually…soon, even—and i’m let out to sea all on my own and i don’t want to be here, i wanted to go back to land. i wasn’t prepared to still be here. but somehow, i am, and i don’t know what to do. i’m the just the man on the balcony, singing, “nobody will ever remember me,” because amadeus over here is doing the things that are worthwhile. he’s the one people will revere, and i will fade in the distance as the blurry shadow whose features have smudged and disappeared with time, because my contributions pale in comparison to his genius, because i wasn’t blessed with the ability to sing or write music or do so many of the ten billion things he is capable of. because who knows how i’ll be remembered now that the ship i’ve spent the last 8 years manning is possibly about to sink and maybe that means that will be my legacy, if i even have a legacy. if anyone remembers that i was ever here. but that doesn’t mean i don’t want to be remembered. that doesn’t mean i like what i’ve become, how my meaning has become dependent on the twin skeleton beside me. i’m the invisible man who can’t stop staring at the mirror. begging to be remembered…because that’s the point of it all, right?

i said it at the beginning, fall out boy had to be fall out boy and leave the world on a cliffhanger for three years. but it’s been 14 years since believers never die vol 1. we know what happens next. we’ve read the next chapter, watched the sequel, seen how it all pans out. they get to be happy middle aged men playing these songs, reclaiming the trauma and horrors and pain within them, making them into newer, happier memories, because they’re not about that pain anymore. and they haven’t been for a long time. they haven’t been theirs in ages. and so they can finally let it go, with their spouses and kids in the audience cheering them on (well, maybe not the kids. they’re dads, after all, they can’t think they’re cool). with stronger bonds between them and a stronger sense of self in each of them. because they’re not defined by each other anymore, no, this is their fun little art project. patrick composes for a living now (a composer but never composed, who always saw himself as a composer first, now literally a composer by trade), joe and pete each have multiple different ventures they explore in their free time (the symphonies of the overdosed, now being sung by yourself because you don’t need someone else to do it for you anymore), andy is in a million different bands at any given time. they don’t need each other—they don’t need to be defined by each other—they want to be with each other now.

no amadeus, no salieri, no jealousy, no enemies in sight, just four dudes who love making music together. who can make music on their own, who do make music on their own and/or separate from fall out boy, but can’t make their music without all of them together. at the end of the day, “no matter how obsessed you’ve been with your own vanishing, there will always be someone who still wants you whole.”

[takitakidancetillthesunriseyea]

Not Ok MV Analysis

When Not Ok dropped, I was floored. It’s so good!!! So, as one does, I watched MV again and again too. At about the third time around, I began to realize that each of the member’s scenes are connected to the original Fever Diaries. So without further ado, here’s my analysis;

Hongjoong is stuck watching a screen, and the words he sees, (missing, alone, loneliness, behind, family, mother) connect back to his original dream; to become famous, like the people on tv, so his family would notice him. So he would no longer be alone. That’s his ‘trauma’. And in the end, the only way for him to break free is to destroy the phone.

You could argue his scenes are commentary on our modern reality, addiction, the horrors of constant media consumption, etc… and they are somewhat, but even more than that it’s about how the ideals of media effected his dreams. His addiction wasn’t the phone itself, but the unrealistic ideal of who to be. The idea that a perfect family exists, or that people are never lonely. That becoming perfect would change anything. At the end of the song most of them are able to break free of their ‘trauma’, and HJ does it by destroying what originally set him on his path.

I think for Hongjoong, freedom is realizing he doesn’t need to be that false ideal to have what he wants. That not everyone is perfect, and that if he doesn’t want to be alone, he needs to run for it in real life, not in some imaginary one.

Yunho sees his brother, flickering, glitching, and eventually disappearing. They’re in a theater, possibly like his brother might have once performed at. We don’t know too much about his brother from the diaries except that he liked playing music, and had a messed up leg, but I think it’s plausible that he would’ve performed at local theaters. As for why Yunho sees him…I think it’s supposed to represent his obsession. The theater itself represents his mind, how he’s constantly searching for traces of his brother.

In the Fever diaries, Yunho blames himself for his brother being in a coma, so much so that he starts following his brother’s dream; music. Then of course, through music, he met the guys and started traveling through time. It seemed like he’d moved on somewhat. Yet, in World Diaries when he met his brother in the past, he refused to leave him. In the end, when he chose to find the members again, his brother got hurt in the collateral. Possibly even killed this time. (Something possibly supported by the flies on the clothes in the MV.) So it’s safe to say that his guilt and fear are still fresh as ever.

(Yes this is a screenshot from YH’s scene. It’s what convinced me that it’s his brother) Overwhelmed with that guilt, Yunho’s been following his brother’s dream, this whole time. This whole time. It makes me think that maybe his brother disappearing at the end, in the same way the other break free from their shackles, is him gaining freedom. In the end, to live free, he needs to break out of his brother’s dream and live his own. No matter how much he loves his brother, to truly achieve something great, it needs to be his own will.

Seonghwa and Yeosang are in the same room, because their original ‘trauma’ was the same. Both of them were trapped due to rules and schedules. Yeosang was trapped in a ‘perfect’ life by an external force, his father, whereas Seonghwa was trapped in the same life, but by his own mind.

Both of them are playing Go, under heavy surveillance. Both of them have heavy, expensive looking watches on, that are constantly flashing with the words: obey, money, do work, fame, success, wake up, control. Those watches are their ‘shackles’ the constant goals, reminders, timers. You could think of it like a smart watch, literally giving reminders, but I think it’s supposed to be a literal watch. Time is counting down, but they only think of it as things they have to do, not as something mutable. Numbers, letters, strategies. Life is a game to be won, not a journey to be enjoyed.

Yeosang is the first to wake up, but there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s in a cage, and can’t escape on his own. (Interesting to me, because he saves the members in the diaries, but he cant save himself.) In the world diaries, when he fully breaks away from his father’s thinking, he attributes it to being with the others. It’s a change that happened in his own mind, but he needed someone to show him there was hope. He couldn’t do it alone. In the MV it’s the same. He wants to break free, but can’t alone. This is the play that triggered YS to wake up. vv

I think it’s significant for a handful of reasons. First, he’s losing, something that shouldn’t happen in his ‘perfect’ world. Second, his piece is fully boxed in (which is overkill). It’s caged, just like him. Third, and most interesting to me, is that the four Xs around a piece in Go are called liberties. So he’s quite literally had his liberties taken.

Seonghwa only wakes up when he sees the clock. In the diaries, SH woke up when he saw the girl dancing, it was a trigger for him to change how he was living. Unlike YS, no one was forcing SH to live perfectly. All the rules and schedules he followed like a religion, he made up himself. For him, deciding to change his life was completely internal, triggered by something anyone could’ve experienced. It’s the same in the MV. Seonghwa wakes up easily, but only after seeing the clock. Realizing that his life is ticking down to nothing, without him ever really living.

After waking up, Seonghwa is able to remove his watch easily. Proof that he had it on of his own volition. Then once free, he's able to free Yeosang who can’t escape on his own.

As for Wooyoung and Mingi, they are both in the same room, yet alone. Their fears were also both incredibly similar, their fears were other people. At first you would think they would be together in the room, but part of what made their fear so strong was being alone. So they’re together, but separate. When the two of them are first shown, they’re both on a little stage surrounded by masked figures. At first I didn’t realize the significance of the scene, but then I realized; The figures are facing different directions. On Wooyoung’s side the figures face him, while on Mingi’s side they face away from him. This little detail characterizes their fears well; Wooyoung is afraid of people’s stares, while Mingi hates being alone.

Wooyoung’s struggle, as characterized in the Fever diaries, is stage fright. While his screen time doesn’t seem very significant at first, it’s clear he’s afraid. The masked figures are looking at him. He surrounded, trapped on stage a tiny stage and they’re laughing (???) at him. I think people who struggle with stage fright and public speaking would agree that it’s a terrifying predicament. At the end of the MV he manages to break free by performing anyway, even with his fear. And he blows them all away.

Another thing I thought was interesting was the short but intense zoom on his necklace. Shots like this wouldn’t happen unless they were 100% on purpose. (Because it’s weird ToT) In his first Diary, WY says that his fear was like a “chain that was tying my body”. So the chain necklace could represent part of his fear. It’s collaring him in the same way the watches shackled YS and SH for their scenes.

Mingi loved music, but as escapism. He was lonely and used music as a way to hide from how he actually felt. His ‘trauma’. In the beginning, there are a good handful of shots of him standing alone on a stage. Sometimes there are men in black like Wooyoung have, but most of the time they’re either facing away from him, or flickering like they’re not really there. That’s his ‘trauma’; being alone.

His scenes were the hardest for me to analyze out of all the members. Yet they’re what also made me realize that Not Ok is connected to Fever Diaries. This shot of him putting in his earbuds is the reason I was even able to write this analysis. vv

It parallels his scenes in Diary Film so perfectly that it made me go back and reevaluate the whole MV from a Fever perspective.

To be honest, Mingi’s scenes stumped me for quite some time. Like weeks and weeks kinda time. After all that time thinking, I’ve come to the conclusion that the MV is supposed to show him coming to love music more for what it is than for the ability to hide in it. At some point he begins to use music as a way to connect with people as opposed to a way to push them away. (Like how the guys in black join him to dance.) For Mingi music is an unhealthy coping mechanism, but it’s also the path he chose for himself. If used the right way, it can give him strength to keep going and the ability to relate to others. He hasn’t won his inner battle yet, but he’s definitely getting closer.

San is running, (something he seems to be doing every single comeback). I think his running is supposed to be yet another callback to the og Fever Diary Film where he’s being forced to move again, and as he’s going down the escalator he changes his mind and runs back to the warehouse. Back to his friends and dancing. In the MV he’s being held back by two faceless men in a hall full of moving boxes. As the lights flicker the men turn invisible. (More proof that everything in the MV is happening entirely in their minds.) I don’t know who or what the men are supposed to represent, maybe they’re supposed to represent his parents, or maybe they represent his doubts and fears holding him back.

Towards the end he’s being sucked down a tunnel trying desperately to crawl out as something is racing towards him. At first I thought it was just particles, or grains of sand like in the cromer, going to suck him back into his ‘trauma’, but after watching it over and over again I realized; They’re toy trucks. Moving vans. The thing he was originally running from. He’s still trying to run.

Jongho’s is actually the most straightforward, even tho it took me a while to realize. When you see his scenes it’s easy to focus on the screens, because a few of the others have screens too (and they’re strobing so it’s super distracting.) What’s actually important though is what’s on the screens. It all ties back to that original injury in his first Fever Diary. In the og Fever Diary Jongho is depressed because he loves basketball sustained a horrible injury that made him unable to ever play again. In the diary he voices that he’s not just suffering from losing his dream, but also the realization that everyone left him behind.

At the start of the music video they split trauma into mental and physical, and Jongho’s is both. For his scenes he’s lying alone in a bed, in an empty room surrounded by screens. A good sum of loneliness. That’s where what’s on the screens comes in: All the screens are playing videos of people or animals running. Something he can no longer do. He can’t leave, can’t run, and he’s forced to watch other people do what he cannot.

When he starts trying to break away from the screen’s control on his mind, it shows a spider, meant to reflect his situation. He’s caught, stuck in a web, and can’t escape. For him, the breaking of the screens (similar to HJ in drowning the phone) is proof of him trying to break free from his ‘trauma’. In the MV, Jongho never manages to break the screens. He doesn’t escape but he’s trying his best. And the cracks in the screens prove that one day, he will succeed. ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧//✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

There are some things I noticed in the MV that I didn’t understand, or know where to put. 1) Throughout the whole MV it’s ’snowing’. It could be ash, but it’s in almost every solo scene regardless of whose scene it is. I feel like it’s supposed to be something to show that they're all in the same kind of dream, or perhaps in the same place outside of it. 2) San’s necklace. San is wearing a ring on a his necklace. It could just be a fashion accessory but to me it looks too deliberate to be a purely aesthetic choice.

But I think that’s where I’ll end for now;

In each of the members scenes, they’re fighting themselves. Trying to break out of their own trauma, and gain the freedom to pursue their dreams of their own will. There are some whose internal conflict isn’t resolved, and some who seem to have broken out of said ‘trauma’. Yet all of them are trying, struggling, and helping eachother where they can. Much like real life.

If I made any mistakes or you have anything to add plz feel free to. As always, if you made it this far ily! Thanks for reading 💕