#i rly record scratched this one huh

[fmdjoosungarchive]

location: mainly daisung’s apartment

date: ~april-sept 2020

word count: 1967

tldr; verification for sung’s song badbye. full everything. the beginning reads so pretentious and dramatic i’m so sorry. sung has a dream about his first best friend (peep the call back to the first loves series) and it sets him on a spiral of self-negativity, thinking he’s bad for everyone he loves and they’re all gonna want to leave him some day. copious mentions of daisuke, who is featuring on the song, mention of yujin, and unnamed references to sung’s friends

“but you could! you could just leave me!” the sound must have been deafening, but all sound muffled. sung barely heard himself. “you can just- just decide you don’t want me anymore! and i- i can’t-” his knees felt weak, sudden as it was, and he collapsed forward, breathing in the heat of daisuke’s body against his own. that warmth was infuriating, but right below that, taking up the majority of space within sung, in every last crevasse, was a deeper pit, hollow and eternally empty. the voice that came out of sung’s mouth was broken apart, near unrecognizable as his own, “please... please don’t leave me.”

-

static, with his finger pressed down on the rubber tipped button of the remote. the television was older, blocky, thick rimmed. the one from his home in gwangju. he registered, then, that he was in the sitting room of said apartment. but, unlike the home from back then, filled with ambient noise of his mother milling about, starting their dinner hours far ahead of time as she preferred to every day, his father flipping through papers or rattling off to his itty bitty brother about sports, said brother nodding enthusiastically despite only understanding every fifth word, this room was silent, save for the static.

zzt.

blue glow combined from the greyed out screen, must have been covering his face. he could feel blue, as a tangible object, a taste in his mouth, an ink on his eyes, a scent perforating his brain.

sung changed the channel, and there he was. in the same white shirt and grey pants he was in the last time he ever saw him. his first best friend.

he didn’t look happy. he was mouthing something, but sung couldn’t hear it over the static. volume button pressed, again, again, five, ten, thirteen times. the static became deafening, tempting sung to cover his ears again, but -he heard it. quiet as ever, sung needed to lean forward to make sure he was hearing correctly. a shout, in english. you know why, over and over.

his fingers fumbled for the buttons again as his heart sped up, to change the channel yet again, but there the boy was, never having left. the sound only got louder, and louder still the more times sung attempted to change the channel. what whispered shout he’d heard before was shouted in his ears now, like the words circled him, pushed closer inward with the force of static, trapping him in.

tears fell from his eyes in buckets, as if within a few minutes he might have been stranded in his own tears like alice. his hands did cover his ears then, trying to dull the sound, but it had no effect. he screamed back, “i’m sorry! i loved you! i’m sorry! please!” a litany of sorry’s continued, until his voice grew hoarse, and all that came out was static.

-

sung woke with a start. every bit of lining in his mouth was dry, along with a chalk filled throat and tongue. his cheeks opposed that feeling, accessorizing with streaks of salted water dripping all the way down to his chin, starting from his tear ducts.

instinct took over as sung’s hand flopped down next to him with power, only to smack upon empty bedsheets beside him. suddenly, his heart matched that of his dream self.

-

he couldn’t taste the blue, though the computer’s light lit up his face anyway. one leg was pulled up onto the chair, arm wrapped around it. no matter how hard he’d been trying, everything he ended up coming up with that day sounded doom and gloom. if he was thinking more clearly, more rationally, sung might have told himself to open up to that feeling, to let himself feel it enough it can dissipate with time. right then, his eyes half focused on the funnel shape of light coming off of his phone that had been left open for so long it was running on low battery.

a bad habit, that red bar was. sung wasn’t bad about charging his phone usually, but the red bar represented something else. it was the indicator of the tens of text threads that had been pushed up to the top of his messages.

you like me, right?

i’m sorry if i’ve ever hurt you.

you’ll be my friend forever? please?

i know you don’t want to talk to me...

don’t lie to me, please

it’s okay if you don’t like me

don’t leave me

one after the next, insecurities on blast. a nasty habit. sung kept to himself, when he was feeling at his lowest, for reasons like that. no one needed to shoulder his irrational mind that was bordering on manipulation. it manipulated himself, and when he let it, others.

that funnel of light had invaded every part of the studio, even into the screws lodged in the desk. there was no getting away from this, no distraction. his feelings demanded they be felt, right then, in anything he did. if someone had passed by quickly, they could feel the heady emotions pulsing out of the door. even if they didn’t pass by, they could hear it, in the wafting, wailing sounds of something akin to an empty cathedral’s organ.

a sludge-ing smack of the apartment door closing, and sung’s heart skipped a beat, momentarily paralyzed. daisuke. more than any other, his boyfriend had dealt with the brunt of his unwell text messages. between each new conversation pushed up to the top of his messages, was another message to daisuke. even then, the coned phone light crowned the king.

his writing programs laid open, nearing on sleep, unsaved, second tier to sung standing up. the chair he’d been sitting on bounced with the force of his lift, and if it were possible, the floor might have bounced with each step as he made his way to the entrance.

what might have usually been a warm, gentled welcome to the love of his life, was replaced with a trembling jaw and tightened muscles. “who have you been with all day?”

sung wasn’t the type of person to yell when he was upset. frankly, he didn’t even yell much when he was excited. but the cries coming from his mouth sounded eerily like a tinny white noise, a million cicadas seeking mates, a buzzing static of a tv.

-

only after his tears had drenched daisuke’s shirt, and his hands had created what seemed like permanent wrinkles, and large, warm hands, much different than his own, had sent cozy heat onto every inch of his body, could sung calm down.

-

another day on, his worries felt distant. at first, he required the unyielding grip of daisuke’s arms around him as he woke up, keeping him tethered to the promises he’d been given the day before. however, as the days passed, it became easier to trust in that once again, and settle his insecurities into their own box.

long after his welcomes had become once again filled with kisses and the touch of skin, was when sung finally felt ready to try to tackle those emotions, and the song he’d accidentally started.

healing was never easy, though. listening back to what he had written, and did end up remembering to save the next morning, brought back all of the terrible feelings he’d been having while writing it. no matter how far he had come to distance himself in daily life from the feelings, they still existed within him, ready to be brought to the surface at any given point.

now wasn’t that time. sung had decided as much. he’d made sure to get a decent night of sleep, and to have spent as much time with those he cared for as possible in the days leading up to this attempt. sung could handle this.

he took it from a more professional standpoint, rather than purely emotional as he had before. while what he’d written was beautiful, it was disjointed together, mixed improperly, and not in a way that was purposeful. although, he realized that it could be purposeful to have the sound a little disjointed, especially if he wrote some kind of lyric basis to the song. after having written dystopia for our songs, sung felt a little more comfortable with the idea, if not excited for such a thing.

if this song worked as an interlude of sorts, it didn’t need to be anything fancy. so, sung worked. he took all of his experiences from that terrible day, and fit them together in a song that was just a little off.

within that same day, sung finished what he’d started before, wrote lyrics, a melody for said lyrics, and mixed it together in a first draft sort of style. it was a feeling of burnout over having sat working on the same thing for so long, over burnout of the song itself, that had him packing up his day there. and with fresh eyes later on, fresh ears that could listen to the song more objectively, to think, this really could work on the album.

he’d been writing for his album long enough that he’d mixed dozens of songs with the same soundscape, a uniformity across the majority of everything he’d written for the album, so the cohesiveness necessary wasn’t a difficult task. probably, the hardest part, was the idea he’d had towards the end of producing.

static.

this song was meant to be an unabridged look into his mind that day, right? and, if there was one thing that had encapsulated every part of that day, it was that terrible sound. as an interlude, it was even more compelling. however, that meant he’d be required to capture the sound. sung considered, for a moment, asking a friend to do it for him, but... he knew this was his own battle to win.

in the end, it wasn’t as terrible as he thought it would be, even if his sweat glands and heart valves may have disagreed.

the final piece, ended up being a singer. sung didn’t think the demo recording he’d done was bad per say, considering there wasn’t a whole lot of technical skill needed for what he’d written, but it certainly wasn’t what he’d wanted.

naturally, sung turned to those close to him. while that was common for him in pretty much any scenario, his demo songs filled to the brim with demos sung by yujin, this was more of a need. he wasn’t sure who he could trust to share this with, especially before it had ever been presented to the company. for all intents and purposes, this piece was sung baring the parts of his soul that not even the people closest to him got to see often. the best -and safest- choice, was the man who had seen him that exact day, had experienced how he felt, and continued to love him anyway.

he’d gone over and over again in his head how he might approach the situation, trying to think of his words more carefully so he wouldn’t trip over them when it came to actually talking to daisuke. and he did so anyway. but, thankfully, call it the power of being in love or something, daisuke readily agreed.

even in the recording booth, sung knew that his fears had still led him to the right decision. daisuke’s voice on the track was as hauntingly beautiful as he could never attempt to pull off. by the end of that day, sung, creativity and love overflowing, had mixed the song, finishing up the last touches, to officially add to his folder for the next album review.

[leftnipsdoodles]

full offense but d2 painting Asher as incompetent isnt right and it’s pretty obvious it’s mostly done to make Ikora look better and to show the two as opposites (cool concept, still inconsistent). this is pretty clear when you look at the few times Asher is paired with someone else for mission control (Sloane, Failsafe) and is suddenly right in his assumptions and succeeds with his objective. it’s like they just can’t allow more than one warlock in the room to be right lmao

anyway, let me set the record straight, Asher:

- in the main story; correctly guessed that just blowing up the Almighty wouldn’t be the smart thing to do and helped us scan and assess it -> prevented us from accidentally blowing up the sun. he was also the one to alert us to Taken activity on Io, which subsequently kept it from imploding. just saying.

- in Getting Your Hands Dirty; was able to make us control the Taken to the degree that they could be used as a weapon against the Cabal, while never letting things get out of hand

- in Postmodern Prometheus; literally WAS able to create a sort of synthetic light, even if it wasn’t to the extent that he’d hoped. I never understood why the game flat out denies this, as if he didn’t just create a ton of light orbs for us to pick up and charge our Super with.

- in Red Legion, Black Oil; he’s right about the organogel inside Cabal armor/vehicles and helps us sabotage it, which basically makes the entire supply into a guaranteed time-bomb when used. if adventures weren’t self-containted side stories, this would be a sound tactic to gain a leg up on the Cabal by making them kill themselves without ever having a chance to figure out why. btw, in this, he’s also confirmed in his distaste for Titans, as Sloane would have you blow up the supply instead, which would be a much smaller victory without any kind of future merit.

- in Road Rage; rented us a sweet Cabal Interceptor. their intermittent boost, which provides a one-second burst of speed every several seconds, and their Solar cannons that fire large explosive shells, causing splash-damage, combined with their enhanced durability compared to Sparrows or Pikes, makes them a fun and deadly vehicle to ride. furthermore, the variant seen in this particular adventure, distinguishable by its black hull, has a significantly increased rate of fire and an infinite speed boost. with its ability to fire both cannons at once, it certainly is a sight to behold! anyway, thanks to him, the Vex didn’t get their hands on sensitive data on the Warmind project, as well as our beloved copies of Pulp Fiction.

- in Cliffhanger; he managed to upload a virus into the Vex Collective

- didn’t help us in Arecibo, but i’m listing it just to say that to be fair, it wasn’t due to incompetence, just apathy.

- in the Pyramidion strike, he IS constantly wrong about things. however, to help me make my point i will point out that his experience with the Pyramidion was a lot more akin to a raid and towards the end of our strike, it’s made clear that the Vex NOT throwing everything at us was indeed like, super weird. Ikora says it was a trap but.. what kind of trap is that? just letting us waltz into the vex boss’ office and beating the shit out of him? Asher had every right to refuse to accept us getting Brakion handed on a silver platter lol

- in the Dunemarchers’ lore tab; he was able to translate Cabal language from scratch

- exposed us to radiation on multiple occasions. this isn’t actually a good thing, i just feel like we shouldn’t let it slide.

the only time that rly made me go ‘Asher wtf’ was when he wanted us to destroy the data in Road Rage and our Ghost had to suggest to recover it instead, especially since in Red Legion, Black Oil he lectures us abt not always just destroying things mindlessly. i guess that one’s Asher being 100% a hypocrite, since a lot of patrol lines and the like show him being prone to violence and wanton destruction himself. him wanting Brakion dead instead of researching it or at least its body is also p stupid but it ties into the above and it’s made obvious that his need for revenge is an unhealthy and irrational thing so. that’s that on that i guess.

i’ll use this opportunity to also say that like half the time asher uses big words it’s to hide what he’s rly saying bc he’s uncomfortable saying it, so e.g. when he means to say ‘i’m sorry, i was wrong’ he’ll tell you ‘looks like my hypothesis was disproven’ bc he clearly has trouble expressing anything other than anger and it’s also p much canon that he’s better at expressing himself in more impersonal ways, like writing. so everytime someone says Asher using big words is bungie trying to make him sound smart and failing im like yo, give them a break. stop trying to find sth negative abt everything in this game when a bunch of it is genuine characterization.

which is a weird way to end this rant since my whole point is their weird, biased writing. huh. oh well

[dystopianmind]

title

damn it’s been even longer since the last time I wrote, huh? crazy.

I feel closer now to the title dystopianmind than I have in a while. scratch that, that’s bs.

I just finished episode 6 of arcane, and it really brings me back to reading books as a child. percy jackson. a hero I wanted to be but one that doesn’t exist in this world. one whose traits I don’t embody.

It’s making me think about what I want out of this world. the standards I hold myself to. the level to which I consider what other people think about me, or might think. it’s maddening really, how much care I give to something I really don’t care about. but I do, and I don’t want to, but I can’t control it. but I can, and I will. does that make sense?

I need to harness myself. I haven’t ejaculated in 21 days now (it is nov 19), and that kinda sounds dumb but that’s literally record time for me (as far as I know) in many years. since like 4 days ago it’s been getting harder but for the first 14 days I didn’t rly have any struggle at all. while I have planned what I’ll next get off to (sorry for being vulgar, but this will never be seen by anyone I know), I’m starting to wonder if I really should do that at all. wouldn’t it be so much better to just reject this human desire once and for all? the one that’s governed me since I was such a young child?

and for that matter, why should I even keep entertaining the idea of getting a girlfriend? wondering how I come off to people, if I end up talking to a girl regularly if that means something, being on alert for any signs she’s into me, it’s ridiculous. I literally feel the way my body reacts change instantaneously every time i see a girl. it’s ACTUALLY FUCKING RIDICULOUS. it’s so bad. it’d be way better if I could just burn this desire from within me. if it existed in healthy proportions it no longer does. not that I do anything immoral internally or externally, but the way I instinctively react is very wrong.

why, then, should I even be concerned with making friends in every place? is it wrong that I don’t really talk to anyone in band? not that I don’t like being friendly, or that I don’t like having friends, but why should I be worried what other people think of me when they see me alone, when personally I don’t care to be alone? except for those times when I inexplicably feel bad inside, but that’s happened very few times now (maybe a total of twice, the far worst being at all region that one time, when I just felt like crying and something very wrong inside, like loneliness, and it was all I could do to not cry (at least in my memory))

I should reject everything, literally everything. sit away from all the temptations that I’ve let govern me

THAT REMINDS ME of what I was gonna say before. these temptations, like sexual ones and also food and games and shit, mental escapes, have governed me for my entire life. these days, now in uni and coming out of the covid year that was my senior year of high school, full of procrastination and stress and days that blend together, I feel like I’m losing intelligence. I don’t feel like myself at all, but I also don’t know what myself is at all.

I’ve always felt outcast from those around me, but I just feel it more now. I recognize that there’s some ways I’m different, like I just can’t have a normal conversation without being weird. it also feels like everyone else shares so much common knowledge about things, and everyone has their niche, and everyone has something to SHOW for their existence. I literally have nothing to show for my existence. I’ve spent my days vegging out, and I feel like it’s left me an empty “person”.

so why not reject everything. why not strip my life away of all temptations, all mental escapes, and just see what that makes me into.

but i know i won’t do that. and i know it won’t make me the nonexistent person i internalize. I don’t even have a full description of the feeling some stories evoke in me, of who I want to be. the person that’s not possible in this world without twisting my idealized view. the one who’s super skilled, who has worked incredibly hard for what they have, who has a story they’re currently living, who has tough circumstances who’ve made them who they are. it’s stupid.

I guess all I’ve ever really wanted my whole life was to be revered. It’s certainly what motivated me in grade school. trying to be the fastest, climb the highest, do the work the quickest, get the best grades, do everything right, be distinct from those around me. and while I do feel apart from those around me, it doesn’t satisfy because it’s not in a good way. I’ve spent so much time focusing on how different I am and how that’s a bad thing I forgot to be working on the things that make me different in a good way. the things that could be an echo of the person I want to be in my head. side note to what I was saying before, I don’t know, and I don’t know if I’ll ever know, if the reason I want to be distinct is for my own satisfaction or for the looks of the people around me. I don’t know if I want to revere myself or to see other people revere me. but the thing I do know for sure is that even as much as I try to deny it to myself, and how I outwardly deny it, I’ve always lived and thrived on the reactions other people give when I do something that sets me apart in their mind. yet i’ve allowed that turn into ways to degrade myself, by saying it’s not actually that good or even that it’s a bad thing instead.

I can’t even relate to the genius personality in this world. not yet, at least, if that is destined to be me. in the stories, and in the real world too, the geniuses were always themselves, they showed signs of genius their whole lives, they were always obsessed with and doing something intellectual, hell even people I know that I wouldn’t consider geniuses do that. they’ve clearly shown a pattern of thinking their entire lives and guess what I don’t have?

and that’s basically the only thing I have going for me in my entire life.

quite literally.

I’m not a social butterfly. I had some close friends that I shared amazing times with, but those fade, and the friends fade, and you can only do that so many times before it will just never be the same again. I don’t meet new people, I even actively avoid it, and these days I find it even harder to relate to people around me, just as I find it increasingly harder to detect any aspect of humanity within myself. anything human, anything characteristic, anything that reasonably defines me as a person with substance who exists in this world, who is an individual worth the light of day. I’m not a huge family person. I love my family in whatever respect that means, but I don’t feel their love, and I don’t really feel love in general. whatever feeling of comfort I had as a child, sitting inside on a christmas break day with hot chocolate, curled up on the couch watching movies, is long gone. I extremely rarely even think I have felt a trace of that. I have no huge accomplishments, and I can’t prove to myself that I have any passions. I’ve felt hints of them before, and that’s what I was chasing when I came to university, but I haven’t been pursuing them as I should. there’s been no driving force in my life that gives me purpose. I’ve felt it at times, and truly that’s the only thing I have in this world, if only I can manage to find it. which is another reason I should just drop everything, rigorously pursue this math and physics and thinking path, and just see where that takes me because at this point I’ve been idly sinking in quicksand for years now.

what humanity is there to me? I can’t really say. but I have to find it. there’s a lot of good enough reasons to drop everything (though I don’t really plan on it at this point)

but nobody believes me. people say they know there’s more in me than I think, or so say my mom and dad and brother and friends. but I’m far from convinced.

but I do have to be conscious of one thing, one thing which is very present in arcane (spoilers).. I have to realize that there is a danger, in rejecting everything that makes one human, of losing humanity I already had, just as jinx rejected all the love she was given in place of the delusions she had created out of her insanity. if there is a person in me, I don’t want to irreparably destroy it.

I wrote a truly incredible amount just now, far more than I ever expected to. It’s jumbled, I don’t exactly know how to say what I want to say, or even what I want to say, or even what that means, (I lost track of what I was saying here), and I know that I’ve left out some thoughts on accident probably, because things come to mind and go and they’re all significant. I tried to put them all down here but I don’t know if I succeeded. anyways that’s more or less where my mind is right now, so I guess I’ll come back here at some other point with another update on where I am.

note to myself: phenomena of good and bad being neither, neither side is right because both sides are right, once converted you think your past self was wrong, whenever I disagree with this in the future who knows if future me is more or less right

have a good night