#late night sad thoughts ft. crow | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

anonniemousefics · 4 years ago

Note

Hello! I absolutely adore your writing, especially your writings of kanej! Anyway, I would love to see you write something about jealousy from either kaz or inej, I just think it would be interesting to see your take on it! Obviously you don’t have to, I love your work! You’re a great writer!

❤️ Thank you so much!! This was so sweet to receive, and I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to get this to you! So, hopefully you’re cool with this, but I decided to apply this idea in a modern AU because I have another request I’m also working on for a modern AU and this felt like an opportunity for some more practice. 😊 (And it just made it more fun for me -- idk, my brain just needed to do something new with these characters to make this work.)

Samples - Modern AU

Fandom: Six of Crows | Kaz + Inej (ft. all the other Crows)

Word Count: 3,545

Rating: Teen And Up (Language)

“Who did this?”

All of Kaz’s friends were doubling over in laughter around the round hand-me-down table in Kaz and Jesper’s apartment. There were black and white Cards Against Humanity prompts spread across its surface – the most offensive combination of which had Inej, well, and everyone else, in fits.

What made my first kiss so awkward? had been the prompt Inej had drawn.

To which Kaz had submitted the following, randomly-selected card for her consideration – Announcing that I am about to cum. And then kept his poker face locked in place.

“Who did this?” Inej was demanding again, clutching her stomach.

Kaz wasn’t sure why he was hesitating -- something strange was happening while all of this was playing out. Nina had one hand on Inej’s arm while she was fairly screeching with laughter. Inej was slumping against Jesper, like the laugh was shaking her boneless. In fact, everywhere he looked, he was noticing how they were each exchanging these casual, unconscious touches in the midst of their mirth – Matthias turning his face against Nina’s shoulder, Wylan slapping Jesper’s shoulder.

No one was touching Kaz, though – which, that was good, though, right? That was because they were his friends, and they were thoughtful, and they knew all about The Very Sad Thing that had made him the way that he was.

And yet --

Kaz couldn’t find it in himself to laugh. He should be laughing, though, he realized. A normal person would be laughing, given the infectious nature of laughter. And also it was genuinely a really funny card – that’s why he’d played it. But all he could do was force a smile, and that was it.

He suddenly felt like an alien among them.

“Was it you?!” Inej was exclaiming, waving the card at him. Kaz designed what he hoped was a coy smirk for her.

“Are you saying that’s your favorite?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“It was you.” Inej looked appalled, which only made everyone around the table hoot louder. Kaz was still smirking as she threw his winning card back at him with a mischievous, red-faced grin on her face.

“Oh, my God, Brekker.” Nina was wiping the tears off her apple-red cheeks.

“Why does that make it so much worse?” Matthias wondered, since he evidently could never not take a jab at Kaz. He scrubbed his eyes like he needed to wash them out.

And still not a single laugh out of Kaz’s body – this was disturbing. How long had he been this way? And why did he care so much all of a sudden?

“Guys, I’m pretty sure he won,” Wylan was saying, pointing at Kaz’s stack of wins. Had he? Everyone turned to count their cards.

Jesus Christ, he hadn’t even been paying attention to winning? But Kaz loved winning. It was the only reason he tolerated his roommate hosting these raucous game nights – because it meant Kaz could win things. And usually a lot of things. It was especially choice winning things off of Matthias Helvar, Nina’s latest lughead boyfriend she’d met at the gym, who now had to be invited to everything even though he sucked. He was always cuddling close to Nina, putting his arm around her, whispering gross things in her ear that made her giggle insufferably. It was so fucking uncomfortable.

Kaz never acted that way around Inej, and they’d been together for years. Sort of. Not always officially. It really had only been officially lately, but Kaz had always told himself he wasn’t one to need to put labels on things. Inej knewhow he felt – he knew this. (Did he, though?) He definitely knew this. (No, he didn’t.) There was no need to be like Matthias fucking Helvar and canoodle her in front of everyone on game night.

Oh, God. Kaz was suddenly having a realization, right there in the middle of counting his cards.

Oh, God.

He was jealous of Matthias Helvar.

Oh, this sucked.

This really fucking sucked. Kaz thought no one in their right mind should ever be jealous of that big dumb fuck, with his protein shakes and his weirdly popular fitspo Instagram page. The guy looked like he ate nothing but wild-caught salmon and organic broccoli. He wasn’t funny, and he’d say weirdly spiritual shit at socially unacceptable times. He probably spent his weekends doing annoying, on-brand fuckery like being one with nature and brewing his own kombucha, that asshole.

And this was the guy who felt comfortable enough to kiss a girl’s ear in a total stranger’s apartment. (Well, not a total stranger, Kaz would relinquish that – Nina had been dating Matthias for three months.) Matthias Helvar was doing all that nothing with his life, and he wasn’t the least bit self-conscious.

Ugh. Kaz hated that guy. Worse! Kaz wanted to be that guy. Minus the kombucha and the religious stuff. And the gym membership. And probably the protein shakes.

Ok, fine, Kaz was only interested in the PDA. This was so fucking awful.

“What number were we playing to?” he heard himself ask. He wasn’t even paying attention to card counting. He was going to have to start again.

“Can’t count that high, Brekker?” Matthias asked, smirking, and there was always something Kaz took as halfway serious in the way he tried to joke.

“Die in a fire, Helvar,” he said, with a smile that was as good as a middle finger.

“And on that note!” Nina sung out, standing with a hand on Matthias’ shoulder. “It’s almost midnight. I have an eight a.m. class. We gotta call it a night.”

“Matthias drove us,” Inej explained to Kaz’s questioning look at the word “We.”

Inej and Nina were roommates, too, like Kaz and Jesper, but the two girls lived on campus in the dorms at Ketterdam University, where all but Matthias attended. (Fucking Matthias, who was a personal trainer and got money from wellness companies to tout their shit on his Instagram. Ugh.) Wylan, Jesper’s boyfriend, was also living in the dorms this year, after spending his freshmen year commuting from his dad’s enormous house. Wylan had been the one with the car before Kaz had finally scraped together the money for one, but his dad had cut him off over the summer. Kaz didn’t know much about that beyond what little Jesper had told him, which, in summary, was: goodbye, car; hello, dorm life.

“You should have said something – I could have picked you all up,” Kaz said, mostly to Inej, as the others were standing from the table.

Nina reached a tentative hand out to gently touch his shoulder, well-protected by the fabric of his black v-neck.

“Kaz,” she said, gingerly, “we love you, but Matthias has functioning air conditioning.”

Kaz slid his glance toward Inej, who gave a little confirming nod, pressing back her amused smile.

“My thighs don’t stick to the seats in his car,” she explained, softly, which may as well have been a knife to the gut. He loved driving her around in his car. And, to top it off, she was in a pair of really adorable denim cut offs, her legs deeply tan from the summer sun, and he hadn’t even had the nerve to try to touch her exposed knee all night. (Meanwhile, Hands-On Helvar over here had been sitting with his palm all over Nina’s plentiful thighs all night. God, he was so gross. Couldn’t Kaz be just a little bit gross?)

“Are you okay?” Inej was asking. She was stepping a little closer to him away from where everyone else was putting on shoes, preparing to leave. She had her arms wrapped around herself and her loose, purple crop-top, and her long, dark braid was pulled over her shoulder – just mercilessly cute all over. And he hadn’t touched her all night.

“I’m fine,” he replied, but he kept his hands in his jeans pockets. Inej’s dark brows knit together.

“You’d tell me if you weren’t?” she checked. Kaz huffed a laugh – how was he supposed to answer that? Realistically, he should lie.

“Probably not,” he admitted anyway, and gave a shrug. Inej opened her mouth to reply, but Nina called to her from the doorway of the apartment.

“Sorry! Eight a.m. class! She’s going to text you from the car anyway!” Nina was shouting.

“She’s not wrong,” Inej shrugged with a smile. And reached out to barely brush her hand against his spine, like the first attempt at a hug. But Kaz could only bunch up his shoulders, hands stuffed deeper into his pockets. Why was he like this?

There were a few more awkward goodbyes at the doorway, including Matthias’ one-more last-minute sales pitch on the recent CBD-infused green powder drink he was hawking online. (“I’ll bring you some samples next week. They say it’s excellent for chronic pain.” Kaz had flipped him off when his back was turned.)

But then, once they’d all gone and the apartment was quiet, Kaz felt like he was rolling in regret.

“You doing ok?” Jesper asked him, gathering up the empty Solo cups for the trash. Jesper was a really good roommate. They’d been randomly assigned the same dorm room at the beginning of freshmen year, and it just worked. Jesper’s high energy plus Kaz’s insomnia were meant to be. They liked all the same things: strong coffee, getting paid dirty money to write other people’s papers for them, and occasionally clearing the mind by playing Call of Duty all night. They’d moved off campus the following year (a better move for the plagiarism operation), never even really having a conversation about whether or not to room with someone else. It was not even a question, and who else would Kaz even want to room with?

“You’ve seemed off all night,” Jesper was pointing out, and if Kaz had half a brain, he knew he should have been asking Jesper for advice about PDA long before it had reached envying-Matthias-Helvar-levels. Jesper and Wylan were normal in public. When they held hands or hugged or traded kisses, it wasn’t some fucking scene.

But how was he even supposed to bring this up to Jesper?

“Helvar’s such a dillweed,” was all he could find to complain. Jesper snorted.

“He is not that bad,” he said, dumping a stack of Solo cups into the trash.

“He’s the literal worst,” Kaz objected. “I can’t believe he unironically called himself an influencer.” And at that, Jesper pretended to barf into the trashcan.

“Yeah, no, you’re right – that was dumb,” he said. “I commend you for not cutting off your own ears when he did.”

“We are not buying his stupid fucking green juice,” Kaz said, pointing at Jesper to show he meant business.

“Good!” Jesper agreed. “Nina says it gives him the shits.”

And that brought Kaz some comfort. He found he could smirk about it while he loaded up the dishwasher. He was starting it up when his phone buzzed on the counter. He leaned over to read it.

Inej: You seemed sad tonight.

Inej’s contact photo in his phone was one he’d snapped when she wasn’t looking – she was leaning her head back with her eyes closed, taking in the sunshine. It had made her brown skin glimmer and dazzle.

Kaz stared at her text for probably too long. Long enough for Jesper to peer around the corner of the kitchen doorway at him.

“I’m going to bed – everything okay?” he said, and cocked his head. “Is it another last minute job?” Those kinds of jobs – the ones where a student was giving up the night before something massive was due – paid the most, but for good reason. They were absolutely fucking miserable to pull off.

“No,” Kaz shook his head. “Just Inej.”

It was never “just Inej” – and Jesper nodded like he knew that.

“Hey, Kaz,” he said, as he began to leave for his bedroom. Kaz looked up at him sidelong as he mouthed, barely audible: “Tell her what’s wrong.”

“Thank you, Dr. Phil.” Kaz rolled his eyes. And heaved a heavy sigh.

And started typing.

Kaz: I guess I was a little.

Whoa, pressing send on that was unpleasant. He wandered over to his preferred recliner in the living room and flopped back in it. Shoved the footrest up to elevate his bad leg. Ugh. Just ugh to everything and everyone. He looked down at his phone again.

And Inej had been quick to respond.

Inej: You can tell me these things, you know.

Inej: I know I won’t always have the right thing to say, but I want to be there for you.

Inej. Why are you being so perfect so far away?

Why are you wasting your time with a boyfriend who struggles to touch you?

Inej: Are you writing a novel?

He’d been writing and rewriting the same sentence twenty different times. She’d probably been looking at those ominous three bobbing dots for way too long.

Ugh. God. Fine. Kaz drew in a long deep breath, staring up at the ceiling like it could intervene and come to his aid. And then fucking wrote.

Kaz: I wish things were different

Kaz: I wish I wasn’t so fucked

Kaz: I wish I knew how to be a better boyfriend – how to make you blush and laugh and make that one smile that’s like you’re telling secrets with your eyes

He pushed the recliner back as far as it would go. Maybe it would tip and dump him on his head and he’d have to go to the hospital, and that would at least delay Inej inevitably breaking up with him for being this pathetic wet blanket. The phone buzzed again, and he almost didn’t want to look.

Inej: Um, where were you all night? You literally had me doing all those things all night

Huh. That wasn’t how he remembered it.

Kaz: On the opposite side of the table from you

Kaz: Watching basically everyone else be able to touch you but me

Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck. That sounded so petulant, and he’d already pressed send. That sounded so needy and disgusting. Who said that kind of shit? Not even Matthias Helvar said that kind of shit. He wanted to throw his phone across the room. No, out the window. No, out into the sea.

Now he was on the receiving end of the three bobbing dots of doom. Fuuuuck.

Kaz: Can we just forget I said that?

More dots. Then nothing.

Then dots.

Inej: I don’t know. You’re kind of cute when you’re jealous.

At that, Kaz raised his eyebrows.

Kaz: I am not jealous.

Inej: You’re a little jealous

Kaz: No, I feel insufficient.

(Oooof. That was like trying to throw an anvil. Painful.)

Inej: Oh

Kaz was watching the texts come in from beneath his arm now, holding the phone high over his head. Like watching the slasher scenes in a horror movie.

Inej: I mean

Inej: It seems like you’re just splitting hairs here

Inej: Since you must think others are sufficient in ways you are not, so you envy them

…

Kaz: Touche, Ghafa.

And he couldn’t help smiling to himself when Inej sent him a gif of a swashbuckling cartoon Robin Hood brandishing a sword. Then another text bubble appeared.

Inej: You are not insufficient to me, Kaz.

He really wanted to believe that.

Kaz: Even if I’m not hanging all over you and amassing a truly staggering number of Instagram followers with my six-pack abs?

Inej: O.M.G.

Inej: Kaz

Inej: Brekker

Oh, God, what had he done?

Inej: Are you *jealous* of Matthias?

Uggghh, he was going to be sick.

Kaz: Fuck no

Kaz: It was just a hypothetical

Kaz: It was an exaggeration

Kaz: I could do the same thing with any one of our friends

Kaz: And we all know the abs are photoshopped anyway

Inej: OMG

Kaz: What now

Inej: You called Matthias our friend

Kaz wanted to stab himself in the brain.

Inej: I’m gonna tell him

Kaz: Don’t you fucking dare

Inej: I already did

Kaz: What? How? How are you that fast?

Inej: Still in the car

Kaz: ????

There was no reason for that – the dorms were hardly a 10-minute drive. Now Kaz’s brain was assaulting him with a thousand reasons things his girlfriend could still be doing in a car (A nice car! With working air conditioning!) with a personal trainer/amateur Instagram model, and none of them were pleasant or welcome thoughts. The phone buzzed again.

Inej: I asked him to bring me back to you. :)

At that, Kaz straightened the recliner, rising to his feet as fast as his stiff leg would allow.

Kaz: You did? And he did? Why?

He was limping toward the front door.

Inej: Because he’s not terrible, Kaz. And because I guess I missed your car after all ;)

Jesper and Kaz’s apartment was the third floor of a wonky old Victorian home that had once been something grand and only recently had been split into three different abodes – which was definitely the worst decision the two of them had made as roommates. Kaz was leaning hard against the railing as he took to the steps when the front door of the building banged shut below. And then there on the landing below was Inej, wearing a sheepish smile in the yellow, buzzing fluorescence of the hall light. She was holding her phone in one hand, her tan leather purse slung across her slim body.

“I thought you looked like you could use a hug,” she said, as she pocketed her phone.

Kaz took the last two stairs carefully, coming to stand in front of her. She smelled like vanilla and coconut oil – like something he wanted to wake up to every morning.

“You came all the way back for a hug,” he wanted to clarify. His hands – he should do something with his hands. What would Matthias do with his hands?

No. What do I want to do with my hands?

So, he looped a couple fingers through her belt loops. Tugged her a little closer. And she smiled.

“Technically,” she said, “Matthias came all the way back so I could bring you some samples.” She patted her purse, which did look a little bulkier. “They were in his car the whole time.”

“Mmmm.” He pretended to look tantalized. “Hot car samples. Delicious.”

Inej was twisting her fingers in the t-shirt fabric at the crest of his hips. Tugging him a little closer, too. God, it was so good. She’d been so right. He had wanted a hug.

“I know that’s how I want my protein powder,” she teased. “Piping hot, right out of the oven.”

“Just how Ma used to make it,” Kaz added, with a good bit of feigned nostalgia. Inej blurted out a laugh, tipping forward until her forehead bumped his sternum.

At that first brush, it was like his hands knew what to do from there. They slipped around her waist while her hands slid around his. And she pressed her cheek against his chest while he held her close.

“You are not insufficient,” Inej said against him.

“I would really like to pretend that never happened,” he said with a sigh, resting his chin on top of her head.

“Too late,” she hummed, happily, and gave him a light squeeze. He smiled against her hair.

“You know I wouldn’t want you to be like Matthias, right?” she asked.

“You shouldn’t even want Matthias to be like Matthias,” Kaz grumbled.

“Hey,” and Inej pulled back to look up at him with her big, soft brown eyes. “I mean it. I just want you to be you. I don’t want all the handsy stuff. That’s what Nina likes. I just like you.”

Kaz carefully pushed back a few strands of her hair from her forehead.

“Not even a little handsy stuff?” he checked, which made Inej give her coy little smirk, his very favorite.

“Maybe a little handsy stuff,” she said.

If there were ever going to be a time to kiss her, it would be now. But when he thought it, Kaz felt his heart make an enormous leap into his throat, seizing in panic. If he touched her mouth with his, if he closed his eyes and felt her face so close to his, would he just end up floundering in The Very Sad Thing again? What if it happened while he was kissing her? Would every kiss after that be tainted? Could he risk it – could he ever?

So, he didn’t move to meet her lips. He let his hands fall to the small of her back, though, and kept her close for another moment. Like a sample of physical affection, and she seemed okay with that. He would will himself to believe it was not insufficient.

“Drive me home?” she asked after a moment, with a kind of sweet, eager anticipation that made Kaz believe in magic. He nodded, of course.

“I’ll go up and get my keys,” he said. “And you throw away those samples.”

Inej laughed, following him up.

“Deal,” she said.

-----------------------------------

Tagging: @annejulianneh111, @loveyatopluto, @ireallyshouldsleeprn, @whosanxiety, @raging-bisexual-alert,

#kanej #kanej fanfic #soc fanfic #six of crows #crooked kingdom #grishaverse #leigh bardugo #modern au #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #matthias helvar #nina zenik #look so im not a matthias fan #dont come for me #i just want to make fun of him because he's a big doofus

119 notes · View notes

lnarizakis · 5 years ago

Text

haikyuu: sparknoted | all about hinata shoyo

masterlist

all about hinata shoyo

foreword: Hi, everyone! I’m so glad you’re reading this. I’ve always wanted to do an analysis series of Haikyuu!!, and I think now that I have so much free time on my hands, this is the perfect time to start. I decided to start out with a character analysis on Hinata Shoyo, since he’s the protagonist of the series. The three topics I will cover are: his character, his character development, and the final arc. The topics about his development and the final arc contain spoilers, so beware! Please enjoy, and everything I say is left up for debate, addition, and correction!

HINATA’S CHARACTER

NOMENCLATURE | Since we are talking about a character, we should look at his, well, character. This kid’s name is Hinata Shoyo, and according to the Wiki, his name means “Place in the sun/Sunny place” (Hinata), and “Flying heaven” (Shoyo). Part of his last name, Hina, means a chick or a baby bird. We should know by now that the meaning of his last name is intentional - multiple times he is referred to as the sun in the manga and anime. He is often compared to Tsukishima, who is referred to as the moon. Like Hinata, he was given that name also with intention. I’m pretty sure the story mentions this, but the reason Hinata was given this name was because of how much he shines. Not just because of his personality, because of course, he is a very bright person, but his whole character shines. He radiates - the effects of his “sunshine,” per se, is found in the character development of multiple people - Yachi, Kenma, Hyakuzawa, Kageyama, and even Tsukishima.

MOON AND SUN | I’m going to side-track and talk about the relationship between Tsukishima and Hinata for a little bit - the story mentions this, but it’s worth noting and it leads into what I’m going to say next. Tsukishima and Hinata are like night and day, respectively. Hinata is bright like the day - he shines and radiates the sunshine off on other people. They bask in his light and become better people because of it. Tsukishima, on the other hand, is more lowkey; he prefers not to talk to people rather than to interact, and, initially, he has no interest in improvement. Plants don’t grow during the night (I will refer to this analogy later). The point is: one can only see the moon when sunlight reflects off of it (I think that’s how the moon’s brightness works; all I know is that the sun’s light is involved lol). Therefore, the effects of Hinata’s presence and his “shine” has affected Tsukishima so much that he is able to shine even “in the night”. So besides Kageyama and perhaps Kenma, Tsukishima is one of the people to be most affected by Hinata’s personality.

APPEARANCE | Okay, now I’m going to talk about Hinata’s appearance. He’s short, he has orange hair, and always has the brightest smile on his face. Except when he has to make a point like “We haven’t won yet,” where he’s got that awfully creepy and sinister smile on his face. But I’m going to get back to that. First- his height. When we first get to know Hinata, the very first note of his height is where he stands at 162.8 cm/5’4 ft. (April 2012). He’s as tall as I am! But he’s not tall enough for volleyball, and he is constantly looked down (literally and metaphorically) for that fact. His opponents, and even his teammates, don’t realize the hidden potential that hides within Hinata. So it becomes ironic when there are people who are taller than Hinata, and they “look up” to him. Notably, Hyakuzawa. During the first-year’s training camp in Season 4/To The Top (AKA Ball Boy Arc), there’s a scene in which Hyakuzawa is sitting on the ground while leaning against the wall. He’s looking up at Hinata, who stands in front of him. He tells Hinata that he should have been invited instead of him, which is very ironic because when Karasuno played against his school (I don’t remember which school oops), he was seen as this very intimidating guy despite his lack of experience. Anyways, the point is - despite Hinata’ s height, he makes up for it with ability and talent, to which others who are much taller than he is are just in awe, and perhaps jealous, that he could go past this misfortune of his and strengthen his other skills instead.

ELEMENTS OF HORROR | “We haven’t won yet,” Hinata says, with the most sinister smile on his face. No, man, it’s not sinister. He’s just in the moment. Of course, he doesn’t mean to pull off that kind of scary face, it’s not in him. Yet the face he makes, along with the tone of voice he uses when saying those four words, just gets people. It chills them right to the bone because it’s so unlike Hinata yet it is so like Hinata. He is the type of person to persist on and encourage himself and others just by saying “We haven’t won yet,” but he doesn’t make that type of face. So… why does he make that type of face? The reason is the author’s choice. Furudate loves horror and drew Hinata’s face with a sinister expression. That’s the simple reason, but I believe there is so much more to that. Furudate could have based his entire style on a horror-like manga, despite it being quite out-of-place as it is a manga about volleyball, but if that’s what he wants, that’s what he wants. However, he chose to draw that particular scene with a horror-type feel because that’s what the others see. That’s what everyone who watched Hinata say those four words saw. His expression, his eyes… everything about it chilled them to the bone and Furudate wanted it to make it clear to the reader that that’s how we are supposed to perceive his words. Because if he drew it any other way, it would have come off as Hinata jumping up and down exclaiming with a super-happy voice, “We haven’t won yet! Let’s keep going, guys!” But no- it’s supposed to be creepy because everyone else saw it as creepy.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

SPOILER WARNING! | This section is very spoiler-heavy! Please don’t read this section if you do not want to be spoiled for the outcomes of the nationals!

THE BALL BOY ARC | I will be covering Hinata’s character development all throughout season 4 because I think that this is the most important development to Hinata’s character. I’ll begin with the Ball Boy Arc, where Hinata must swallow his pride after entering the first-year training camp uninvited. Of course, Hinata had good intentions when he arrived, but he did not realize the consequences of his actions. Before, when he heard that Kageyama and Tsukishima were invited to these training camps, the first thought that ran through Hinata’s mind was “Why wasn’t I invited?” Yes, Hinata realizes his strength and the growth he has made throughout the time he had been practicing volleyball, but it seemed to him that he just wasn’t good enough. Upon arriving at the training camp, Coach Washijo immediately denies him to practice with the rest and so Hinata swallows his pride and announces himself as only the ball boy, nothing more. This is important because he is actually telling everybody there that he really just is not good enough.

KAGEYAMA’S SUPPORT | Coach Washijo tells Hinata that he is no good without the support of Kageyama. This comes across as a slap to the face for the poor boy, but I believe the coach told him this for two reasons. One, Washijo does not want to admit to the fact that Hinata is definitely strong and is an amazing player, but, two, Hinata is not strong without Kageyama and so he therefore cannot participate in a camp where Kageyama is not there to support him. This opens up Hinata’s eyes and he realizes that he must not rely on Kageyama all the time; after all, Kageyama is his rival. I don’t know if I’m right on this, but this is one of the two times where Hinata trains and learns without Kageyama’s help. The other time was when he practiced with Coach Ukai, the senior. If I’m wrong, please let me know!

HINATA’S COLLAPSE | Progressively throughout Season 4 we see that Hinata gains lines under his eyes. I saw two twitter posts that mention these- the first about how they could be “crow’s feet,” and the second about how they are lines of exhaustion. I agree with the second post. Throughout the season we observe how hard Hinata works and that sometimes he pushes his limits. He calls his coach to ask him about what he should eat, but I don’t know if we ever see him eat what Ukai tells him to eat. If we do… then, okay then. Lol. Anyways, not only are his eating habits being rearranged, it is also assumed that Hinata bikes home very late at night every day during the training camp at Shiratorizawa. He goes home with his heart pumping so he probably goes to sleep at an even later time. So Hinata also has a bad sleep schedule, and you know how hard it is to try and revert a bad sleep schedule… Hinata is also shown at times during nationals to be wide awake at night. With this, we can tell that he is exhausted. He is tired and in need of a rest. But he doesn’t give himself a rest, because all he wants is to prove to others, and himself, that he is good. And this leads to his downfall- his collapse in the middle of the Kamomedai VS Karasuno game. Hinata catches a fever all because he couldn’t take good care of himself. It’s so unfortunate, but it’s another wake-up call for Hinata that tells him that good things take time to come. He can’t magically hone his skills overnight.

THE FINAL ARC

THIS IS IT. IT’S REALLY THE END. | Ah, the final arc. We are so close to the end of Haikyuu!! and it makes me so sad to think about it every time. The final arc is the last match of the game. It is no coincidence that it is the last time we see Hinata use the restroom before the game. It is also no coincidence that many things that happened during Hinata’s first game are happening as well - Hinata meets Kageyama again at the restroom, he breathes in the smell of icy-hot spray, and, of course, he is going against Kageyama. That’s just awesome. But… he is not only going against Kageyama, he’s also going against Ushijima Wakatoshi and Hoshiumi Korai. This is no mere coincidence. These three people are all Hinata’s rivals. He declared one way or another that he would beat each of them and become the greater person. Hinata told Kageyama that he would, one day, beat him in a game. Hinata told Ushijima that he would beat Shiratorizawa and move onto nationals. I don’t remember if Hinata ever told Hoshiumi if he would beat him in a game one day, but we know for a fact that Hoshiumi did, at least in his mind. Let’s not forget how Hoshiumi really thought, “I’ve waited years for this day, Hinata Shoyo!!” Before the final game.

TEAMMATES: PAST AND PRESENT | I also want to mention the “commentators” for this match as well as some of Hinata’s teammates. In every game that we read/watch in Haikyuu!!, there is at least one person outside of the game who commentates on their perspective of what is going on in the game. We are not only getting the action, but also the analysis. In the final match, we are getting the commentary from Hinata’s teammates. We are finally getting their perspective in the game and how they perceive everyone’s actions. I just thought that was really cool since they were Hinata’s teammates- we never got the chance to hear their opinions about the game as an outsider. We also have some of Hinata’s teammates, Bokuto Koutarou, Miya Atsumu, and Sakusa Kiyoomi. I specifically want to talk about Bokuto and Atsumu, since the only reason I believe Sakusa was placed in the MSBY Jackals was so we could see his own ability because we never got to see him play in high school. Besides the Little Giant, I don’t know if there was any other person that Hinata looked up to more than Bokuto. I think it was great for Furudate to place Bokuto on Hinata’s team because it’s sort of a teacher-student moment where the teacher has to play with his disciple. I also think Furudate made the smartest choice to place Miya on this team as well because it shows that Kageyama is not the only one to perform a quick attack with Hinata. Having Miya on this team provides two things- it becomes a “battle of the setters” between Miya and Kageyama, and we see that Hinata has grown to adapt to perform well with other setters. It’s great character development on Hinata’s part because we see that he has definitely moved past the “he’s no good without Kageyama” thing back in high school. Good for him!

RIVALRY | Anyways, with a little analysis on Hinata’s team, we move on to the opponents. The big three opponents are, of course, Kageyama, Ushijima, and Hoshiumi. It’s a really good thing that Furudate placed these three on a team together (Talking about Romero makes their team even more OP so we’re just gonna set him aside for right now, haha) because it’s a test of Hinata’s ability. We get to see the rematch of the century, since each of Hinata’s rivals have wished for a rematch against him. Hinata lost to Kageyama’s team back in middle school, so now we wonder if Hinata could beat Kageyama now. We know that Ushijima lost to Hinata, but since he declared that he would beat Hinata in the future, we also wonder if Hinata could win against him, this time without the help of his teammates back in Karasuno. Lastly, Hinata collapsed in the middle of the match against Kamomedai, so we do not know for sure if Hinata could have won against Hoshiumi. All of these questions that we have for these three rivals will be cleared in this match; we get to see if Hinata will win in the end. We will learn if Hinata has truly become stronger. This match will let Hinata examine his current self and if his skills now can finally win against Kageyama, Ushijima, and Hoshiumi. It’s sort of like the “final exam” for Hinata’s strength.

Alright, that’s all I have to say! If you read all of this... then wow. I am in awe. Thank you for reading! I really enjoyed writing something like this. I was writing like the end of the world was coming. If you liked this, please let me know! Disagreed with anything I said? That’s fine, let’s respectfully discuss! Thanks!

#haikyuu!!#hinata shouyou #hinata shoyo #cadekagi

21 notes · View notes

hayjeon · 8 years ago

Text

Young and Beautiful [M] (ft. Jimin)

→ greatgatsby!au angst, mentions of smut/murder, slight fluff → 12.6k (oneshot) → Drabble | Story Talk [fin]

“For a moment, all of earth and heaven held its breath as they witnessed a man who’d loved so fiercely, so unconditionally and thoroughly that he challenged god. Maybe once, the world had stood at this place, compelled into a trance at the single man who had dared to live so passionately to the greatest of human potential that one could ever comprehend nor desire to understand, faced with the man who’d dared to dream as magnificently as Park Jimin did.”

A/N: Highly inspired by the drabble, and obviously based very much on the original novel (cr). Thank you so much for reading, I am very very happy with how this turned out and I love love love Park Jimin, this has been in my to-do list for so long…but thank you for being patient :)

When you met Jimin years ago, it was as young children, during one fateful day your chauffeur was late for the first time in your life and you were standing underneath the overhang of the front porch of your private school.

It was raining pitifully that day, the sky in hues of dark gray and blue instead of the normal gold when the doors of the stiff school opened up towards the end of the day. Children adorned in silk and lace gingerly raced down the marble steps of the school, careful to avoid getting mud or rain on their expensive clothes in fear of their mothers or maids scolding them for being careless. Similarly, you cowered under the overhang, warily watching as other children from other schools laughed and screamed as they splashed into the puddles with their boots, undisturbed that their clothes were getting wet or muddy, but with pure joy and happiness adorning their faces as they played along with each other on their walk home.

Your fingers itched to join them, but the stiffness of the collar on your dress prevented you from stepping out from the protection of the cement overhang. Suddenly, a boy appeared next to you, eyes glinting with mischievousness and pure innocence simultaneously, and he held a small umbrella over the both of you.

“Wanna play?” he asked.

You shifted on the little heels your mother had dressed you in, contemplating his question. Seeing your hesitance, he smiled and grabbed your hand, to which you gasped, “I’m Jimin, and those are my friends! Let’s go splash in the puddles!” And he yanked you down the steps, but you went willingly.

And you don’t recall much more of that day, besides the warm memory of being chilled down to your underdress with the rain and the image of your clothes becoming stained with the dark brown of the mud puddles. You remember Mr. Kim almost fainting when he drives up frantically to see you in a state like he’s never seen before, smiling a smile of a thousand watts that brightens up the stormy sky and a blush in your cheeks like he’d never seen before in all the years he served your family.

Without a word, he retrieved a towel from the car before wrapping you up in it, shaking Jimin’s hand as he returned the umbrella, and drove you home. Your mother was much too fond of the sweet, old Mr. Kim to give him any words about your state, but behind closed doors, you remembered being spanked harder than she’d ever spanked you before.

But nevertheless, the memory of your first meeting with Jimin was an unforgettable one, at the least.

One encounter morphs into two, three, and countless ones as the two of you sneak off after both your schools end to go exploring in the streams and catch tadpoles and dragonflies, or to huddle in the corner of the library and giggle as you read books together. Your mother never spoke of him again, and you doubted she knew, for the kind Mr. Kim always winked at Jimin whenever he picked you up from your escapades and never spoke a word of your friendship to anyone else in the household.

When you first inquired of your mother’s aversion to children like Jimin, Mr. Kim had taken you aside and quietly sat you down with a warm hand on your shoulder. “My dear, your mother is just worried because you are a child of old money.”

“What’s old money? Like wrinkled money?” You asked.

He smiled, the lines in his eyes showing. “Yes, dear. Old, wrinkled, money, like me.”

“But why is that bad? I like playing with you, Mr. Kim! Even if you’re old.”

He smiles again, sadness dancing around the crows feet on his eyes. “Sometimes, dear, we must play with our respective ages. Your mother just wants you to do that.”

Despite the darker and weighty burden of his words, he’d given you a wink and continued to keep your friendship with Jimin a secret from your parents until the day he retired.

The last time you saw Jimin was at the party that your father threw for the generals and the high class men who were respective enough to go to war themselves rather than pay someone to do it. Jimin, now old enough to serve, had showed up with the same smile, eyes crinkling at the sweetness of his gaze, lips curving into the mischievous curl, but this time, instead of his usual slacks and shirt, he was wearing a uniform.

“Y/N,” he’d promised you. “I’ll come back, and I’ll make enough money and enough wealth so that we can live together, just you and me.” He’d kissed you that night, the two of you hidden away in the rose garden filled with flowers of pink and red, lips moving against yours and hands gripping yours. He’d silently slipped on a simple band of silver onto your fourth finger, and had left with the entourage. You showed up to the send off, grinning and waving to what others thought was your brother, but actually you met eyes with your first love, grinning and waving at you back from the ship.

For the days following that, you wrote him letters, pages filled with talk of your days and the bore of the classes you had to finish. But they were never returned. Daily for months after his departure you checked your mailbox, staring longingly at the empty tin, before trudging back to your home. He never wrote back.

And then years passed, the dozens of letters were never responded to, the war raged on, and finally came to an end. You remember running out from the car to greet the entourage of men coming triumphantly back from the war, flags and rifles glinting in the sunlight for all to see. But your starlight was nowhere to be found. You had skirted the edges of the group, darting around and scrambling to catch a glimpse of Jimin, but he’d disappeared. When you returned to your home that night, you sent your trusted friend to go find out what happened to Jimin, and he’d reported back quietly that Park Jimin had gone Missing in Action.

You remember crying and sobbing so hard that your father almsot sent you to the hospital. No one knew of your relationship with Jimin, except Mr. Kim who was wheeled down the hall into your room to give you a reassurring hug. You kneeled next to his wheelchair, head buried in his lap and his hands stroking your hair as your first love ended once and for all.

The days following that night were neither living nor dying for you. The days were filled with bleakness and a loss of hope for everything that mattered. Food became less of a priority and doctors were sent to your house one by one to diagnose you as “clinically depressed.” The words didn’t matter.

He was your sun, your source of happiness in the bleak life of manners and strict rules of your household. But there was still that break in between your worlds, the difference between the old money your family came from and the farmer lifestyle he came from.

He dressed in boots and jeans and rode a horse effortlessly without a saddle while you were dressed every morning by servants who adorned your neck in pearls and your waist in laces and silks of every kind. He knew how to create traps and work the fields like no other, while your fingers were forced to tinker on the keys of the piano under the watchful eye of a mean instructor or grasp a teacup with only two fingers with your pinky held up in the air.

His school was bright, filled with children who had no care in the world besides to enjoy their childhoods, while your days in your bleak private school were filled with perfect lines and perfect pencils and perfect children who were just waiting for the perfect opportunity to rat out their father’s enemy’s daughter. It was filled with rivalry and gossip, and you remembered trying your hardest to stay out of it all.

When he kissed you for the first time, you remember it so distinctly. He’d taken you to the stream you’d often frequented as little children. Now your legs were a bit longer, your balance a bit better than the toddler limbs back then, as he guided you to leap across the rocks to find a clearing where fireflies were twinkling amongst roses. Mr. Kim was waiting for you two off on the road, but had given you another wink, indicating he’d wait.

Jimin’s lips were like pillows against your own, soft and sweet at the same time, caressing yours for a moment before teasing and nipping at your lower lips. When you’d mewled for more, he’d giggled and wrapped you up in his arms, the scent of him filling your head as you reached up to wrap your arms around him as well. That felt like so long ago, as you mulled over the silver band on your finger. So was the time you both lost your innocence together, nestled in the soft sheets of the small apartment he invited you over into. Fingers were imprinted into virgin skin and names sang into darkness.

It was too risky to go out and try to find Jimin, because then your entire family would know of your relationship with him and would probably go incredible lengths to destroy him and keep him away from you. You would have to wait, and see.

But reality is definitely less kind, and months pass as Jimin becomes a distant memory as your family rushes you into the wedding halls and your body is adorned with silks and laces and chiffon that chokes your esophagus. But you just turn the sides of your lips up in a hopeless smile, hoping to god that one day the chiffon will be tight enough to actually take away your breath once and for all. Your feet, cramped in those tight little heels, walks themselves up to the altar, where he waits, with a gentle smile on his face in the wedding of the century. The ring that Jimin once slid on your finger is forgotten, lost in the movement of your property into Namjoon’s home, and the bareness on your finger is later dressed with an opulent diamond that blinds you and weighs down your hand, rooting you to the ground with proof of the change of your last name to Kim. And proof cements itself into the headlines of the newspapers, reporting of the wedding that came and went with such pomp and circumstance, the entire country had wished to be part of it.

And months bleed into years, and suddenly the name of Park Jimin is no longer a warm, enticing memory, but instead a distant dull light from a candle glowing behind your eyelids as you watch your daughter fall asleep. You sometimes catch yourself gazing off into the distance at the kitchen table, the distractions of your screaming daughter and silent husband no longer significant. But you can never pinpoint what it is that exactly draws you in and out of your moments, maybe its the change in temperature, you think.

In the year that your daughter is old enough to go to school, a mysterious neighbor moves in across the bay. You often sat on your garden, in silence with nothing to do, just simply watching as men and women scurried in and out of the mansion with furniture so opulent the glint of the gold could be seen from here. Yours and Namjoon’s mansion was lavish, of course. His servants had spent years maintaining the rolling hills. Emerald green grass from the entrance of the garden to the front door step to the pristine marble walls of the manor was kept in perfect condition, trimmed to identical tidiness. Even vines that crawled up the exposed brick walls were kept under a watchful eye of aesthetically pleasing patterns. Flowers blossoming in explosions of reds, pinks, yellows are organized by meticulous color arrangements, careful hands ready to snip away the flowers that have mated with eachother and produced others of oranges and purples.

You determine that your life is somewhat like these flowers. So sheltered, prevented from interaction with the outside world, unable to share and unable to receive. Hands were at beck and call, ready to snip away any distraction or any temptation away from your life with ease and without regret.

A servant calling your name draws you out of your thoughts and you turn, angling the large hat on your head upwards so you can see what she was animatedly talking about.

“Miss! You have mail!” She runs up to you, a fluttering white card nestled in her fingers. Her tone of surprise matches yours, as Namjoon tended to read through all the mail and didn’t feel the need to leave any of them to you unless directly signed and directed towards you. However, your lack of friendships past these walls resulted in a lack of any embossed papers intended for you.

“It’s addressed to Mrs. and Mr. Kim. A first, milady,” She whispers, “that someone be addressin’ it to ya first, instead of it bein’ Mr. and Mrs. Which is why I brought it to ya, first thing.” She winks, and you give her a gentle smile as you follow her into the house. She takes your hat as you pass it to her, and you take a seat on the couch gingerly, afraid to know the contents in the letter.

It’s an expensive thing, you notice, after years of learning calligraphy and the proper writing techniques, you recognize the thick fabric of the paper and its quality. There’s a gold ribbon that encircles the paper and you grasp the end and unravel it slowly. It unfolds to reveal neat, but perfect lettering.

A cordial invitation to Mrs. and Mr. Kim of the northern aisles to a housewarming party to be held on the 14th, of April.

Below the curvy lettering is a loopy signature, JM.

You frown as you turn the letter over in your hands, and then back to the face as you scrutinize the address. Clearly, it was the new neighbor, for there were not many other estates in the area because Namjoon had purchased practically everything on this corner of the island for some peace and quiet he’d called it. But it was odd that he’d invite the both of you in the manner he did, addressing the Mrs. first. You waved it off as a oddity, assuming that the mysterious neighbor had originated from someplace else that was better than this bitter hell, where women had names and rights and all the other jazz you could only dream about.

Namjoon wasn’t possessive. Well, not completely. Sure, he hated when you tried to do anything out of the house, and absolutely seethed when you touched anything in his office. Any news of his work in the steel industry, you only heard in whispers from your maids, and any news of the towns people you were able to sneak into your daily routine when he was away at work and you were able to steal a page or two from the daily news. It was fine, for you. He never pressured you into doing anything, and never pried into your life. He never forced you into sleeping with him and never did anything to intrude on your activities within the home. And you deemed it better than nothing.

But still, you longed for freedom, to go past these walls and return to the babbling streams near your estate and feel the cool water slide past your palms. You wished to put on the pants that Namjoon despised and go hiking up to the mountain that separated your estate from the rest of the city. To go and place your hands on the firm oaks that cleared the air that rose from the industries past the mountain was your deepest desire.

But as Namjoon crumples up the invitation in his hands and refuses to attend such a “menial party from an even less important man,” you retreat to your room and lay on the expensive threads, hoping that one day someone, or something will arrive to end this all.

And weeks later you receive what you ask for, a call from your distant cousin, Taehyung, ringing into the quiet estate and disrupting the silence you were sitting in.

“Hello, this Mrs. Kim speaking.”

The voice sounds confused at the end. “Uh, I’d like to speak to Y/N? This is Taehyung, her cousin.”

Your eyes round as you cup the receiver of the phone to your mouth. “My god, is this Taehyung?” Your eyes go round as a smile comes slowly onto your lips, “Tae! I’ve missed you terribly, where have you been?”

You hear the recognition in his voice. “Y/N! Jesus, when I heard the ‘Mrs. Kim’ in the phone it was quite odd. Sorry I couldn’t recognize you. But, grandfather sends his regards.”

“Ah, I miss him so much too. Please tell him I’m well and that I’ll visit him when I get the chance.”

“Gosh, it’s been four, five years since you last visited? What has Namjoon been keeping you locked there for?”

You laugh quietly, eyes darting around to see if there were any servants near who might hear. Namjoon had eyes everywhere. “How are you, my dear cousin?”

“Ah, noona, college was a wild experience. The parties, the drinks, the women.” He gushes, and you giggle in response, relieved that he didn’t dwell too much on his previous question. “But father is sending me back to the coast to learn a little bit more about his railroad business and asked me to call you since he knows your husband has got some connections on your side of the country.”

You nod slowly, unsure of how to respond. Namjoon didn’t like when you dealt with his business matters, but probably would be more than apathetic to your family’s requests on these matters. It was what made you two betrothed in the first place, anyway. “Hm,” you hum, curling the cord of the phone around your fingers, “I can bring it up to Namjoon tonight. When are you thinking of coming?”

“Uh, actually, I’m about an hour away from your home. We stopped quickly at a rest stop for a break, and I believe father has already asked your father to give Namjoon a call. Your husband didn’t tell you?”

You frown, pursing your lips. The only words Namjoon spoke to you today was just a curt “Good morning,” and “See you at dinner,” when he’d woken up and left the house for work, respectively. But you couldn’t tell Taehyung that. “Ah, he must’ve forgotten to mention it, he’s been quite busy with his work lately.”

You can practically see the frown on Taehyung’s handsome face as he responds, “Ah…I see. Well, anyways, just wanted to give you a heads up. I’ll be there soon.” You smile and bid him a safe rest of the trip as you scramble up and call your maids to help you tidy up. There isn’t much, since there was an ensemble of meticulous men and women who worked diligently to keep the estate in pristine condition, but you wanted it to be perfect. It had been a while since you had visitors.

An hour later, exactly as Taehyung had predicted, the sound of tires on the pavement ring throughout your house and you leap towards the double doors and throw them open. There stands your cousin, looking as sweet as ever as you throw your arms around him. He grunts and hugs you back with a chuckle, commenting at how thin you’d gotten and how short you still were.

You ignore the comment about your weight and ruffle his hair. There was a time when Taehyung and you were close, enjoying eachothers company without a worry. But school had come and then your marriage, and you were shipped off to the coast without ever being able to bid him properly goodbye. But it felt warm and comforting to know that someone you knew and loved was here with you in the flesh.

You lead him into the estate and he takes a quiet look around. The walls are blindingly white, and you’d opened the windows to let some natural light in, the curtains flowing and fluterring in the new gushes of air from the ocean. The view from the living room was the best in the house, the water glittering with unspoken promise of freedom and the sun blaring down on the hillscapes without any shame. Taehyung whistled lowly, gasping at the scene. “You and Namjoon must be quite happy here, it’s a beautiful estate.” He muttered.

You turn around and greet his agape look with a blissful smile. Sighing, you nod and join him in looking out over the view. “It is, isn’t it? Absolutely breathtaking.”

But as you train your eyes on the view, Taehyung’s eyes draw carefully over to you, his ears not missing out on the fact that you manage to avoid every snippet of conversation regarding your husband.

He knows of the talk around town. He knows that the wedding was delayed for some reason and knows that as soon as the both of you retreated to your honeymoon to the southern aisles for what everyone expected would be a blissful week, Namjoon was caught drunk driving with a half-naked prostitute from the area. The headlines were only merely dampened out, but Taehyung was a well-read man who kept up to with the newspapers that were on his street. He’d seen the pictures that disappeared without a trace the next day, and had kept it in his mind. He knew that you avoided it like the plague, possibly actually having forgotten about it in an attempt to protect yourself.

From a young age, you were a creature like he’d never met before. Silent, wary, and never able to really relax in any situation, you were like a little dove, trembling at the sight of others, for you were always prey, and never a predator. The only person he’d ever seen you relax around was Park Jimin, but the name was forbidden in the household. Only his grandfather had dared to sneer it once at the dinner table, and after some research and some low conversations with the kind elderly man that used to butler you, him, and the other young children in your household, he’d discovered that Park Jimin was your old lover.

He’d refrained from asking you, for you were a kind of person who retreated into her memories and picked and chose what you desired most and threw away the rest like the clothes you wore or the jewelry on your wrists. So he refuses your insistance on staying over for dinner, reluctant to have to make conversation with your husband, and retreats to the small cabin he’d rented out. The owner of the small cabin, amongst many other estates around this area of town, was someone who went by the name, Park.

Park was the only one around here who managed enough money to be able to buy out the land and rent it out, in contrast to Namjoon who bought the land to keep for himself and to accumulate his growing treasure.

So instead of having to resort to a room in the Kim household, Taehyung holds his head high as he settles in the small cottage, and revels in the cleanliness and gorgeous designs. And it’s only weeks later when he’s able to figure out how the updated kettle works, a knock rings on his door and he opens the small brass door of the mailbox to find a perfectly embossed invitation to a party happening next weekend.

So he collects himself and the invitation, delighted at being able to collect for himself some company besides you and your husband, and makes his way over to the Park estate. As the sun draws closer to the hills and casts a glow over the corner of the island, everything explodes with color.

As the streetlights blink on and as he approaches the entrance of the estate, cars whiz by with dozens of scantily clad women in gaudy jewels and feathers. Already, he can hear the booming music echoing from the estate, and one by one, spotlights flicker on to cast a soft glow over the windows and light up the entrance in brilliant color. Taehyung stumbles as he gets closer, being pushed and shoved by the other people, and is astonished to find that there is no one guarding the door, and no one checking for invitations. His helpless show of the embossed card in his hand is greeted by a knowing smile from one of the servers, one that a mother gives a young child, and he clicks his tongue.

“You here to see the host?” The waiter asks, pouring a skillful martini.

Taehyung nods, tucking the invitation into his coat pocket. “Yes! I’ve received an invitation and all, but seems like no one else is here to see him.”

The man shakes his head. “No one here knows who Park is. I’m only here for this party, and the next party that’ll happen next weekend. You’re not in luck today, brother. Word is that Park never shows himself during these parties.”

Taehyung thanks the man and reluctantly takes the time to observe the inside of the mansion. While yours was a pristine white diamond that he dared not touch, Park’s was an estate that exploded with color. There were millionaires drinking from diamond goblets with their blonde eye candies on their arms, beautiful dancers hanging from silks suspended from the ceiling, men of multiple color blowing into their trumpets that exploded with scintillating sound, heiresses comparing their inheritances with eachother on the tiny manmade beach, husbands silently slinking away from the crowd into a secluded corner with their mistress’s hands in tow, film stars flirting with the hollywood directors near the fountain of chocolate and champagne, and governers and gangsters clinking glasses with eachother on the banisters.

It was like a heaven Taehyung had never seen before and he stumbles, as the drinks go one by one past his throat, upstairs, mumbling “I’m looking for Park” over and over again as he brushes past men and women that he’d never seen before in his life. When suddenly, he’s crashing too hard and much too fast into a shoulder that sends him tumbling back, and almost back down the stairs in his drunken state, if not for the arm that shoots out and grabs him back into some sort of stability.

“My god, are you alright?”

The voice that inquires of Taehyung is one of grounding softness, murmured amidst the roaring laughter of the partygoers, clinking glasses and shoes, brass screams of the trombones, and the booming sound of dancing feet. But it is clear and strong, and registers in Taehyung’s drunken ears as well as some others as they glance around their shoulders momentarily to catch a glimpse of the man.

“I’m looking for Park,” Taehyung manages to mumble out, gripping his brow in concentration as the ground sweeps up towards him and then back again, in waves like the ocean, and he feels an odd sensation crawling up in his throat.

“Why are you looking for him?”

“I was invited!” The end of his sentence shooting high as he stumbles to grip onto the banister for some balance. He whips out the invitation and waves it haphazardly towards the voice, his eyes closed in an attempt to prevent himself from feeling the overwhelming urge to throw up, again. “But I can’t find the host.”

“Are you Kim Taehyung?” the voice inquires, and Taehyung frowns and opens his eyes inquisitively to question the man in front of him. There are three men, all looking identical and Taehyung blinks as they merge into one. A handsome man, dressed in an impeccable black suit and with even darker hair. His voice is clear yet husky, a voice that can thunder through halls and whip men into salute, but also one that can soothe a crying child into restful sleep, or convince a man to give up his entire savings.

He is of quite lean figure, a tad bit smaller than Taehyung himself, but still stands taller nonetheless in his sheer aura. The confidence in which he stands borders on almost hilarious, and even in his drunken state, he notices that the way Park holds himself in stance, from the way his fingers curl around the crystal of his glass, to the way he stoops down to rest an assuring hand on Taehyung’s shoulder, seems like its calculated with great care.

But on his face is a smile that grounds Taehyung and whips him out of his pool of drunken movements. It’s a gentle smile that reaches his eyes and endearingly brings Taehyung back to the two years he had to spend in the army, as he responds, “I’m Park.”

And then everything fades to black.

Taehyung wakes the next day, a frown immediately gracing his features as he groans and gets up from the bed he’s laying on. It’s surprisingly his own, for he does not recall making it back to his estate, but the letter on his kitchen table explains how Park had assigned some men to deliver Taehyung safely back to his cottage. And amongst the explanations is another invitation, this time in perfect writing as if typed by a typewriter, to a dinner in his estate. And any family or friends of yours residing near the area are free to join as well, He finishes off, signing the letter with a perfect loopy signature of Park.

Taehyung later goes out to dinner with the man who is supposed to be his boss, and they end up in another bar with drinks in their hands. Wary of taking in too much after what had happened last night, he focuses on making conversation with the young man. Not much older than himself, but Hoseok looked quite tired and downtrodden as he drank and drank, his once formal way of speaking fading into a recognizable drawl as he became drunk.

He finally had the courage to ask, “So what kind of man is Park?”

“Park?” Hoseok barked, laughing drunkenly, “You know him?”

Taehyung nods. “I went to his party last night.”

Hoseok snorts. “Everyone in the entire city goes to his parties. It’s even considered one of the “10 Things to do When You’re in the Aisles.” What do you want to know?”

“Anything, Hoseok. I’ve hadn’t the slightest clue to what this man is about.”

“Interesting old chap isn’t he? Wickedly charming, rich like an old geezer, speaks funny.” to which Taehyung nods along as he continues, “Park is a man who recently moved into the aisles a few weeks ago. But he’s filthy rich. Met him once, actually, my sister is friends with someone who used to know him.”

“Who?”

“Ah, Hoyoun said it was, Y/N? Ah yes, Y/N. Beautiful girl, hopeless that she ended up marrying and falling in love with that cheating geezer Namjoon.”

Taehyung balks, “Park knows Y/N?”

Hoseok nods. “Hoyoun is good friends with her and apparently, her and Park go quite a bits back into history.”

“Please tell, Hoseok.”

“Y/N and Park had met long ago and fell in love. But he went to war, and never returned. Only sent one letter to her on the day of her wedding that she burned before anyone could see. And then all of a sudden he moves back and throws these grandeur parties, and we all know that is for her.”

Taehyung leans in, “What do you mean? Is his name perhaps, Park Jimin?”

Hoseok purses his lips, “I believe so.”

Laughing, Taehyung runs his hand through his hair. “What a coincidence!”

Hoseok faces him with a loud guffaw. “You think this is all coincidence? He bought that house for her, specifically structured it to face her estate, throwing these outrageous parties with even more outrageous lights and music hoping that she’d see it and accept his invitations one day and wander in!”

Frowning, Taehyung mutters, “All that for a girl he hasn’t seen in years.”

Hoseok takes a last swig of his drink before he leans on the counter.

“No, good friend. All that, for a girl he’s loved for all his life.”

Taehyung comes to you in a rush, huffing as he warily watches the car that Namjoon is in drive away in the morning towards his work. You greet him with a start, “Taehyung, what brings you here at such an hour?”

“You need to come with me and have some dinner.”

You laugh, flitting away from him in a giggle and he reaches out, as if trying to grasp you. But his hand clasps on nothing as you flutter around the living room. “What for? And you could’ve called.”

He nods, wiping the sweat from his brow. “I could’ve. But I needed to make sure you came! And to do so, I’m here.” You smile at him and chirp happily as you ask your maids to prepare your dress. “Why of course, as long as I’m home before Namjoon gets back. He hates coming home to an empty house.”

Taehyung bites back his tongue and waits until you’re dressed, and then guides you to the car that Jimin had set aside for you and him to take back to the cottage. You gush, “Taehyung, when did you manage to get this car? It’s gorgeous!” You smooth your hand over the ivory leather, marveling at the luxury. He stutters, “Ah an old friend, uh, let me borrow it.”

“Borrow?” You inquire with a suspicious smile, but you let it go and get distracted as the car rolls into his driveway. “Oh! You didn’t tell me we were going to the new neighbors home!”

Taehyung swallows, “Y-yes! He’s a great friend of mine, wanted to invite me and any family over for dinner.”

You smile at him, touching his hand. “Well, thank you. It’s nice to make new friends.” You quietly step out, neck craning as you take in the estate in all of its glory in front of you. It’s gorgeous, much more lavish than your own. While Namjoon preferred a cleanliness to his estate, refusing to adorn the halls with too many flowers or too many paintings, carefully maintaining the exterior of the manor to exhibit the same aesthetic, this one was different.

It’s gardens were extremely lavish, bushes cut into intricate designs and looking over the busty maze and fountain in the center. Shoots and streams of water shoot ten feet into the air and fall down in perfect synchrony along with the delightful smell of roses from the rose garden. The estate itself is painted a gorgeous hue of ivory, one that glints in the sun and casts a beautiful reflection on the water when the sun goes down, a scene that you’d watched countless times back across the bay.

But then, your eyes fall on the vast double oak doors that are wide open in the middle of the house, and your heart leaps through your chest.

There stands Jimin, trembling as you are, staring at you with wide eyes. His mouth falls open, those thick pillowy lips parting to reveal pearly white teeth, his perfect chin falling as his eyes swipe over to your figure in his garden.

You are the image of a perfect fairy, dressed in your white pearly dress, in your little heels, stepping over the carefully selected cobblestones up towards his door. And he feels himself fall, deeper and horribly, hopelessly in love with you all over again. Neither of you notice Taehyung step away to give you both some privacy as you ascend the steps and he descends as you meet together in silence, years of unspoken histories clashing in violent silence as you stare into each other��s eyes.

You recognize him underneath all the clothes, the perfection. You see glimpses of him smiling at you at the creek where he first kissed you, his hand around yours as he pulls you laughing into the group of his friends who accept you and don’t hesitate to jump in the mud puddles, the shy smiles and glimpses in between classes, and the feeling of the band around your finger. And it all comes rushing back in brutal and uncontrollable urgency as he grasps your hand in his and pulls you close.

Jimin knew as he pressed his lips to yours and hesitantly caressed your pillowy flesh with his own, that he had forever succumbed to everything he desired not to submit to. He was now a slave to your desires, your dreams, your ignorance. He was at beck and call to whatever you decided, and was unable to say anything as you entered every single part of him. Slowly, he steps back, you following him in blind steps as the double doors of the estate close.

For even though he knows that the weightiness of your hand in his, the softness of your lips against his own and the gasps you sigh into the night as he ravishes you are all momentary, he knows that he has longed for this moment, every tear and drop of sweat and blood he’s bled out has culminated into this pinnacle of his life. It was the climax, the explosion of color that every writer aspired for, the apex of the building agony and desperation. And he made sure that he carved every moment of it into your lips, against the swell of your bosom and your thighs as he breathes the three words that he’s longed to tell her.

“I am yours.”

“How long will you love me, Park Jimin?” you ask, your fingers dusting over the dip of his features, the small finger catching on the long slope of his nose and dipping down to his cupid’s bow and then smoothing over the plump lips. It ends on the bottom of his chin and you tip his head down so you can see his eyes and they gleam with so much promise, promises that declare years of love, a love that passionately grows and is stagnant no matter how old you become. No matter what your husband says, no matter what your parents say.

His fingers wrap slowly around your wrist and his solemn expression doesn’t change, nor glint with its usual flirty playfulness this time as he whispers, “The question is not how long I can love you, but how much I can love you every second we have together.”

“When I’m not pretty and young anymore? When there are new celebrities and young gals who are more beautiful than I am?”

“Those stars are nothing, dear. Nothing compared to the ones I see in your eyes.” He leans over and presses his lips on your fluttering lids, the sheets falling away as he dots soft kisses down your nose and hesitates before succumbing to your lips. You sigh into the kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck as he presses you into the sheets.

His kisses you desperately, and his hands wander again, trembling over your collarbone and dipping into the crevices there. He sighs when the weight of your breast falls into his hands again and kneads them gently as you return the sigh into his mouth, a breath of his name that has his mind wheeling. His kisses dot lower across your jaw, dragging his lips down your neck and into your shoulder as his fingers dip lower, smoothing over the curve of your hip as he angles your pelvis towards him. Fingertips dance across the skin beneath your bellybutton, testing, memorizing the flesh before they dip lower and swipe over your folds with perfect motions.

His fingers move inside of you with slow and controlled movements, as if wishing to imprint his fingerprints into your walls, dragging the skin roughly and palming your clit as his fingertips press against the spot inside of you that has you keeling and clutching his shoulders.

“Faster, Jimin,” You breathlessly moan out as your back arches into his torso. He kisses down, and down, and soon his lips are meeting his fingers as he licks tentatively, then boldly into your wetness as you moan encouragements to him and slip your fingers through his hair. Once he feels your walls clenching on his fingers, he quickly moves up, gathering your legs in his hands and holding them over the crook of his hips as he gently slides into you.

The both of you let out a unison moan as enters you again that night, and begins to move with desperate desire.

He handles you like delicate glass, as if afraid that if he grips your hips a little too hard, you’ll break and fade away. Afraid that if he moves his length inside you too much your body in his will disintegrate and wash away. So you whisper encouragements into his ear, smoothing a hand down his cheek and meeting his eyes as he tenses above you, reassuring him that you’re real, that this is real.

And as he embeds himself into your soul, he hopes in his heart that you’re here to stay. Because he knows that he will love you with his entire being for the rest of his life, for as long as he lives.

When you wake, the double doors of his bedroom are wide open to reveal the bay and the sun glitters down over the water, blinding your eyes as you squint to shield your vision. It’s setting, and casts an ominous pink glow.

“Sleep well, dear?” Jimin walks in with a cup of fresh coffee and sits on the bed, as you draw up the blanket to cover your chest. He smiles softly at the motion and you politely take the cup from it and take a sip, the bitter liquid washing away your grogginess.

“What time is it?”

“Only six o’clock.” You sigh and nod, and he asks, “Is Namjoon gone?”

“He’s out of town for a business meeting.”

Jimin smiles, taking the cup from your hand and setting on the nightstand. You throw on your nightgown. “Well then, what are we doing? Get up! I need to show you the house!”

He sweeps hand towards the doors to his bedroom and they open with a delightful sound as the house is filled with noise. There are servants everywhere, setting up for a party, bustling here and about, as the organs and trumpet players warm up for their gig.

Men of color are adorning the stands and tapping along to the jazz that thunders throughout the golden halls and women dressed to the nines in color are practicing their spins and kicks as they make sure their lipstick is properly applied. Young girls dressed in gorgeous tiny black flappers made of beautiful little strings of beads that glisten and sparkle with every step flitter here and about as they prepare, and young men dressed in dapper suits are ready to take the coats of all the guests.

You laugh as Jimin twirls you and runs with you towards the main poolside, and you’re in awe as every inch of the glass walls are decorated with glittering crystals, suspended from clear strings hanging from the ceiling. It’s like you’re encased in your own personal chandelier. Already, the fountain of champagne is flowing and buckets of ice and candies are brought out to decorate the bars.

Pristine white beach chairs are laid out in parallel order on his personal beach and butlers sweep to and fro to make sure each kernel of sand is in perfect place. A chef stands in a corner, furiously whipping eggs as his assistants scurry about to perfectly plate a cake and a myriad of steaks and sautéed vegetables.

Jimin stops in the grand hall, and faces you with a wide smile. A little breathless, he pulls you close. “This is all for you. A party, to welcome you back. It’s in your honor my dear.”

He sweeps around the hall, gesturing grandly to everything. “Dancers, music, actresses, directors! I even had a game room created, with darts, the ones you’re so good at! This is all yours!”

You giggle as he twirls you again into his arms. “Is this really all for me?”

You are his everything.

His house. It used to be a drab thing. Despite the specks of gold paint that lavishes the stair rails and the fractals of the opulent chandeliers, it was once dark and cold. But you enter it and it blossoms in color and in joy and warmth, and he never wants to leave it.

His mind. Even as he forces himself to walk into the car and close the door before casting a look at your forlorn figure watching him from the window, he is filled with thoughts of you. He thinks about how you will slowly retrieve your clothing and place it back on your body–a ritual that he had reversed so many times–and you will apply your red lipstick and slowly make your way down the steps with your slender limbs that draw scars into his heart and step into your own car. He’s wrapped up in the thought that you will return to your manor, walk up to the huge white double doors that do nothing to conceal the brokenness and corruption within, and slowly lift your hands to pat the disgusting abhorrent back of your husband.

His body. His heart clenches whenever he glances at the magnificent ring on your left finger and chooses to ignore it, instead lavishing you with bouquets of flowers and clothes and things that will occupy your hands so he is saved from the pain of having to witness the damn thing. His lower stomach clenches whenever his eyes sweep across the simplest things: your wrists as they balance the most delicate jewels, your jaw that hooks your hair that you’ve kept long, the flash of skin that hints from underneath your fur coat and beneath your short little black sequined dress.

“Yes, my dear. All for the girl I’ve loved for all my life.”

Months pass, and you steal away into the home whenever Namjoon steps out for work, and silently rush back into the house and goes to bed before Namjoon can see you when he walks in.

But the odd behavior goes unnoticed by the man of the house, as the disheveled clothes and the odd scent of perfume on Namjoon’s coat indicate as he hands it to his butler. Well, it is obvious that the man fails to read the papers, as words of Park’s dimly lit mansion and end to his parties hit the headlines of the gossip column, and any man in the estate can catch the moony looks you and Jimin cast at eachother in the gardens, see the news, and put two and two together.

But of course, the man of the house stays ignorant as ever, and you and Jimin get a moment longer in your bliss.

“You need to tell Namjoon,” Jimin whispers to you as he cradles your head into the crook of his neck, the soft sound of organs whispering through the dance hall of his extravagant home.

You sway in slow agony, unable to respond. “I-I, I would like to hear a different song.” Jimin nods to the butler and the music changes instantly into something more upbeat, but your movements with eachother stay the same. He presses a hand to your cheek and you look up at him with tears in your eyes. “Y/N,” He whispers, repeating the name over and over in his lips as he presses his forehead to yours.

“Imagine it just you and me, here in this palace with all of this, just enjoying our lives together, husband and wife.”

“It sounds beautiful.”

“We’ll go back to your parents house, tell them we’ve been in love, and I’ll pay for the wedding, the largest wedding anyone could’ve ever seen, with beautiful flowers and champagne and music, wouldn’t you like that?”

“Of course, Jimin.”

“We can come back to this house, make it ours, and spend the rest of our days just like this.”

You don’t respond, closing your eyes as he continues. “You must tell Namjoon. Tell him you never loved him. Tell him you love me.”

“I do love you Jimin.”

“Then tell him.”

“Ah, its a little hot in here, Jimin, mind taking me to the library?” You break away from him, a fluttering hand on your chest as you head towards where the towering bookcases are nestled into the walls of the area. You scurry towards a desk, and you sit down, unable to meet his eyes.

For the idea of his paradise, the dream that he’s built for you and him since the moment you two had met, from the moment he decided that he was yours, is so enticing it could convince an angel to give up her wings. It promised lights, joy, love.

He kneels before you, grounding your shaking hands in his and meeting your tearful eyes with his soft gaze. “My dear, I have loved you for so long. You must tell him.”

“Why did you leave me Jimin?”

The question is startling enough to make Jimin pause in his requests. “Pardon?”

“Where were you for the past seven years? What about my letters, m-my pictures, the postcards, what were you doing? Where did this money come from? Why don’t we just run away? F-from all of this.”

“I-I don’t understand why you’re asking all of a sudden. Well, to begin I,” he smoothes back his hair, “I went to war and I decided that I needed to become successful to marry you so I had to stay away so that I wouldn’t be distracted, by, by you!” When you don’t respond, he briskly walks towards a section of the library and pulls an album from the bookcase.

He sets in front of you on the table and opens it with shaking hands. “L-look, dear, I’ve saved every single notecard, every single letter and cherished it. H-here is the newspaper clippings of when you married Namjoon, of when butler Kim passed away and your family gave him the proper respects.” He points to a picture of the dear old man on the yellowing pages. “And here are my responses. Every time,” he kneels again and grips your hand, “every time I received a letter I wrote you one back. And I couldn’t bear to send them to you because I didn’t want anyone to find them and blame you for it. Because if anyone were to blame, it’s me.”

Closing the book, he nestles you in his arms, perching you on top of his lap as he sits on the table. “Dear, I love you to the moon and back and I would pluck the stars out of the sky for you. But we can’t live the life we’ve always wished for if you don’t tell Namjoon you’ve never loved him. You need to end it.”

And you silently wrap your arms around his neck and draw him into a kiss, and the album clatters to the floor.

But Jimin is hopelessly unknowing of the reality that maybe, just maybe, the life he’d planned for the both of you wasn’t anything close to reality.

“Why do you think I asked you to come to my party?”

“Sorry?” Taehyung chokes on his drink and Jimin smiles as he waits for the younger man to calm down. “Pardon?”

“Why do you think I invited you personally to the party, good friend?”

Taehyung doesn’t know if it’s a trick question. “To see Y/N, is it not?”

“It is.” Jimin takes a sip of his drink. “Did you mind?”

Taehyung hesitates, choosing his words carefully. “No, I do what makes my cousin happy. And I’ve seen how much happiness you bring her, ever since we were young.”

Jimin meets his gaze, his legs crossed as he sets his glass down. His posture is one of professional grace, but his eyes glimmer with the obvious spark of curiosity. “Is she really happy? Do you think?”

“Well, I can’t say much, since I’ve never actually been too close to her. But yes, from what I’ve seen, she’s happy.”

Jimin slumps back against his seat. And now, Taehyung can see the cracks beneath the surface. “Why, Park?”

“She doesn’t want this,” he gestures towards the ceiling and around the dining room the two men sit in. “She just wants to run away, to forget about it all, to just live as us two.”

Taehyung quirks a brow as he takes another sip of his whiskey. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

Jimin sits up with a start. “No! I’ve worked seven years, seven years good friend for this moment. To have her walk up to these doors and declare my love for her and sweep her away and marry her and have the ending I’ve always wanted, what we’ve always wanted.”

Hesitantly, Taehyung eyes the crystal designs in his glass. “Do you think that’s really what she wants?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Jimin, as a friend, I’m telling you, you can’t go back and just hope everything becomes a new reality. You can’t repeat the past.”

And Jimin’s eyes round in sheer shock and disbelief as he throws his head back in a laugh that echoes throughout the empty halls of the gold mansion. “Hahaha! My dear friend aren’t you a funny one! Why of course you can! Of course you can repeat the past!” He takes a last swig of his drink and gestures towards the house. “This is how I changed myself, my past as a poor traveler’s sons have been changed into a rich man’s adopted heir the moment I befriended that ol’ chap and saved his life that night. I worked hard to accrue even more money for the name than the old man had ever even imagined, and I am as good as old money as Namjoon can ever boast about. In fact, I’m sure I have more, than anyone on this island!”

Taehyung just smiles as Jimin laughs harder and harder, boasting about his achievements. But the deep ache in his chest doesn’t leave him alone for the rest of the month.

“Where is she?” Namjoon roars as he steps into the estate, a bit earlier than expected n a weekday. He looks annoyed, the collar on his dress shirt unbuttoned and his hair a bit unkempt as he fiddles with his sleeve buttons. But Taehyung’s expression hardens as he catches the flash of red underneath the coat, the stain of lipstick haphazardly wiped away from a rendezvous that he kept as well-hidden as his angry personality. Which wasn’t exactly too discreet.

“Ah, Taehyung, you were here?” He marches up to the younger man and grabs his collar, lifting him up to his red, angry face. “Is it true?!” He practically screams at Taehyung, “Is it true that she’s been sleeping with Park Jimin?”

Taehyung is rendered speechless, in shock that the horrible man had discovered your secret. At Taehyung’s silence, Namjoon seethes, “so its true!”

It occurred to Taehyung that moment that your husband was not as clueless as he’d expected. He throws Taehyung aside, and smoothing a hand over his gelled hair, the angry man briskly barks orders at the butlers to prepare their shiniest car. Taehyung silently slid into the expensive leather seats, and silently waited as Namjoon gruffly takes the wheel. A woman sits in the passenger seat, eyes heavily lined with makeup and tears dribbling down her chin. She is quite the sight, a horribly composed gaudy thing, but she crosses her arms at the sight of Namjoon. Taehyung recognizes her ensemble as the ones secretaries often wear to their work.

“That imbecile! I did my research on that man, and he is not a respectable one! Lying, calculative, cheating leech!” Namjoon grits out, to no one in particular. Taehyung prevents himself from rolling his eyes at the last comment. How fitting, of the one who cheated first to claim that about Jimin. “He never inherited that old man’s fortune like he said, he’s involved with gamblers! Cheaters, bootleggers, and dishonest, direspectable men!”

“How dare he meddle with my wife!” The car screeches in front of the impeccable lawn with a soprano squeal, and Namjoon is already stepping out, gritting out, “Aren’t you coming?”

“Ah, I’d rather stay out here.” Taehyung gives a half-hearted wave. Namjoon huffs and storms up the steps, only stopping angrily to punch a guard in his face and send him toppling down the steps when the worker steps up to prevent the angry man from entering the estate. He yanks the doors open and it opens with a bang. Taehyung warily side-eyes the sniffling woman as she cowers in the corner of the car and chooses to get out, briskly pacing in the front of the house after helping up the guard.

“Why are you here?” He scoffs down at her.

She looks up at him, streaks of black running down her cheeks, her hair messy and a bruise looking oddly too similar to a handprint staining her jaw. “H-he told me to break up with him, and I t-told him about the affair. Everyone knew, everyone! You can’t blame me! I just told him what everyone knew!” She wails, and Taehyung lets out a gruff sigh as he paces.

“I love him, I love him! I love him!” She continues and Taehyung cranes his neck towards the double doors. “I just wanted to see what that bitch looked like! I just kept asking and he-he hit me!” She shrieks, her hysterics becoming more dramatic as she cries. Taehyung tries to ignore her, but he doesn’t notice that she shuffles with something in her hand.

Namjoon storms down the corridor, scoffing at the gaudy gold detailing of the house, unbuckling the cuff links and untying his necktie. Glaring towards where he hears music, he briskly walks towards the grand hall and finds you and Jimin, sitting at a table enjoying a bottle of wine together in front of wide open windows that let in a breeze that rocks the curtains back and forth.

“What is going on here?!” He roars, and you stand from the table with a gasp. Jimin’s steely look meets Namjoon’s angry one and the latter storms up with an accusing finger and a red face, grabbing his collar as he yanks him up from his chair.

“You take me as a fool?” Namjoon is inches away from Jimin’s face as he shakes in fury. “I let you buy land, throw these parties and invite my friends and family over to your estate only for you to sleep with my wife?!”

“Namjoon, stop!” You wail, clinging to his sleeve, and trying desperately to pry him off Jimin’s collar. But he shakes you off.

“You despicable, dishonest, thieving rat!” Namjoon roars. Turning to you clinging onto his arm again, he grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you. “Why are you with this fool? Don’t you see? All this, all the parties, the cars, the money? He’s a thief, Y/N! You’ve been sleeping with a thief!” You wail harder as he jerks you back and forth.

Jimin cuts in, pushing Namjoon roughly off your body with a gritted voice. “Get off of her.” He protectively holds you behind him as Namjoon’s fist clenches as he sees the sight of you cowering behind Jimin. “Tell him, Y/N,” He says, addressing you as he stares down Namjoon, “Tell him you never loved him, that you’ve always loved me.”

You’re rooted as your lips tremble and you can’t speak. At your silence, Jimin’s voice gets a little louder. “Tell him! Tell him you don’t love him! Tell him!”

Your lip trembles as Namjoon straightens up, his shoulders squaring from the offensive stance he was in as he witnesses the warfare in your eyes. A cocky smile gracing his features, he throws his head back in gaudy laughter. “Ha! She can’t say it!”

Jimin turns and faces you, cradling your trembling face in his hands and wiping your tears and whispering encouragements in your ear. “I love you dear, I love you. We can do this, we just need to tell him, you just need to tell him you love me.”

You meet his eyes and they have so much promise, so much love, looking at you the way every girl wants to be looked at. “I-I love you,” you choke out in a soft whisper, but it’s enough for Namjoon’s eyes to narrow as Jimin faces him with a smirk.

“You see? She loves me, she’s loved me since the moment we met and has loved me ever since. Even when she married you! Even when she put on that ring, she’s loved me and she’s never loved you! Isn’t that right darling?” He again doesn’t face you and only stares down at Namjoon with a tight lip as his hand curls around your wrist.

But the fingers that once traced patterns and galaxies and promises of tomorow into your skin is clutching your skin tightly, too tightly and it hurts so much, stings too much. It’s curling around your throat, choking out your voice and springing up new tears and you can’t say it, you can’t bring yourself to say it because the horrible reality is that those fingers, no matter how many parties they throw or bank accounts they thumb through, belong to the hands of a man who was nothing but a poor, lost boy.

“I…I-I’ve loved him once.” You whisper, and Jimin turns to you with a truly confused expression, one that melds into shock and then disbelief. He only stares at you as Namjoon narrows his eyes at you and sneers, “Only once? Even when I bought you those pearls? Even when I carried you so your new shoes wouldn’t get dirty? Even when I saved you from the dreadful home of yours?!” He roared, and you can’t help but tighten your lips.

“Answer him, Y/N.” Jimin’s voice is quiet and his gaze on you is so sad, that you for once muster up some courage and finally say the truth. Something you haven’t done in a long, long time.

“I-I loved him too.”

“What?” He whispers, and his face is so crestfallen you scramble to smooth your fingers over the lines in his brow, whispering, “Jimin, I love you to the stars and back, but I loved him too, I can’t say that I didn’t love him because i did, and you were gone and I–”

You falter as the realization hits him and he stumbles back, tripping over a chair and falling down to the floor loudly. You shriek and scamper over to his side to help him up, but Namjoon takes the moment to bask in his triumph. “Hear that?” He laughs loudly as he stares down at the both of you. “She said she loves me!”

“You’re right, Y/N! You know, I always returned to you, always came back for you. You know I loved you, even when I left, even with the other women, I had to come back for you.” When you can’t respond but just angrily glare up at him in tears, Namjoon directs his gaze onto Jimin and sneers, “Bet she couldn’t get away from all of this. She only kneels for me, only comes begging for me. You think you own her? Ha! You should see the way she cries when she comes for me over and over. Nobody knows her body like I do, no one can gift her such beautiful little things like I do!”

“Little whore, did you think you’d ever be able to run away? You belong to me, you’re my wife and the moment I convinced your greedy little parents to give me you, you are my property and you don’t do anything unless I let you. This little affair is over.”

Jimin’s breath grows shorter and shorter as his nostrils flare with every angry word Namjoon spits out, and his chest heaves as his face gets redder and redder. With the last word, Namjoon reaches out for your arm and Jimin roars as he lunges forwards and tackles the taller man in a fit of rage. He screams as he pummels his fists into the man’s face, red and so much heat in his vision as he sees nothing but the desire to end this once and for all.

But then there’s a scream as Jimin looks up to see a flash of white, and glances up to see an enraged figure of a woman he doesn’t know lunge at him with a small dagger clasped in her right hand, her hair flailing as she screams with equal rage towards Jimin.

He cringes as his arm comes up to shield his face in a too-late attempt, but then there’s a crashing sound of splintering glass as a bottle of wine that was on the table is thrown towards the woman’s head and shards of glass fly everywhere and there is so much red, and then silence.

The woman drops to the ground, facedown, in the pool of wine, and all three of the other guests in the room can see how the deep purple of the wine is soon joined by a trickle of scarlet red that runs from the woman’s temple.

Namjoon’s shaking roar breaks the silence as he throws Jimin off and yells, “Seolhyun!” and kneels over the woman and cradles her in his arms. But as he flips her over and her face comes into view, it is clear that too much has happened in too little time. There is a deep gash that runs from her temple down to her chin, and the pool of scarlet bright red grows much too big. “No, Seolhyun!”

Jimin tears his wide gaze from the scene in front of him and sees you trembling, hands clasped in your mouth as you stand by the table. Your shaking knees give out and he scrambles up and catches you as you cry, hysterically wailing, “I’m sorry! I-I saw her coming with the knife, and I just saw the bottle, and I- I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry! I didn’t kill her!” You muffle your mouth with your hands, and Jimin holds you to him, whispering, “It’s okay, it’s fine! I got this, I got you.”

And Taehyung runs into the hall, and is met with a scene he can never forget. Namjoon cradles the secretary’s limp body to his own, wailing and yelling her name as he shakes for her to wake up, as you cower near the table with Jimin holding you, tears wracking your body as you sob, “I didn’t do it, I swear I didn’t mean to–”

He ran after the secretary, after both of them were standing on the steps hearing the yelling that ensued within the open double doors of the house. When the sounds of fists beating flesh were heard, the secretary hissed lowly, “’m gonna kill ‘er!” so lowly that it took a second for Taehyung to register before lunging after her, but he was much too late, for he can only watch as the silver thing she holds in her hand is raised high above her head, pointing down towards the man that pummels Namjoon’s face. And then there was a movement so quick that he wasn’t able to see it leave your hands, but only the professional flick of your thin wrist and then the sound of the thick glass hitting the woman’s skull. Her shriek stopped instantly and she’d fallen with a thud.

His eyes fill with tears at the scene, and immediately the sound of sirens ring in the air, probably one of his guards had called, and the four of them can do nothing but wait.

Wait as the reality of their cold hard end to happily ever after settles into the cracks and into the pool of blood staining the red wine on the ground.

Now the gold doesn’t look as enticing anymore. And God turned his head away.

Jimin waits, pacing the grand hall as he rubs his hands together. It had passed two days after the incident. No one was blamed for the accident, as Jimin had paid off the officers who’d come and they’d dragged away the secretary’s body secretly, her being an orphan with only an old drunken husband making it easy to hide her away and call it a freak-accident.

He’d cradled you in his arms, assuring you that it was okay, that he’d figured it all out, that you could still just run away from it all, away from all the guilt and the shame and the obligation.

“Meet me the day after tomorrow,” he whispered into your ear as you trembled in his hold, “here at my house. Bring just yourself, you don’t need any clothes or money. I’ll have it all figured out. We can run away, just us two, start our own life on an island no one knows about, where no one knows my name or yours, and we can just become Mr and Mrs. Park Jimin.” He presses a kiss to your temple. But your mouth gapes open and your eyes still tremble with numb tears, as you don’t respond.

“Just knock, and I’ll have a car ready for us, and I can drive us, far, far away. Where it’s just us. Just you and me. Forever. That little happy ending we’ve always wanted, right?”

So he’s waiting, pacing over the now clean floor of his dining room as he waits for the familiar knock to ring on his doors. He’s ready, the trunks packed with enough cash and clothes and gold to last him a lifetime with you. He’s fired all of his servants, and the house is empty, ready to be left to its own as he steals away with you. He’s giddy, smiling and wiping his sweaty palms at the thought of stealing away with you once and for all.

The knock sounds, and he hears it over the thunder and rain crashing outside. Excitedly wiping his hands on his seat pants and reorganizing his suit lapels, he marches up to the door and throws them open with a wide smile, crying out, “Y/N!”

But his voice falters as the one standing in front of him is not you, but instead an old man who reeks of alcohol. And Jimin can only stand in shock as the man hisses, “You killed my wife!” points the rusty pistol at his chest, and presses the trigger.

Bang.

Jimin stumbles back at the blow, and hits the ground, his gaze on the entrance of the door. Sobbing, the old man points the pistol at his temple and closes his eyes before shooting and he tumbles to the ground with another ear piercing bang.

There is silence. Even the thunder seems to retreat into its privacy as god and the heavens look down at the man, surrounded in his blood, his head lolling to the side as he trains his gaze on the sight of your manor across the bay.

Rain pitter patters outside, and coats the entire estate in a wash of gazy gray, the once bright brilliant colors fading now to a deep black and white.

But in Jimin’s eyes, there is so, so much red, and such a hot piercing pain in his chest as he feels the trickle of blood pour from his wound. But it feels like love.

It feels like the words you once whispered into his lips, painful but peaceful, and so breathtaking. Most docks and most shops were closed at this dead of night, and through the dark night, the inessential houses and gardens and driveways melted away until all he saw was the light at the end of your dock, the light that glistened like the stars that were in your eyes, the light to his heart.

For a moment, all of earth and heaven held its breath as they witnessed a man who’d loved so fiercely, so unconditionally and thoroughly that even as he lay in the face of death, his eyes were both still trained on the one thing that indicated the reason he was lying there in the first place. Maybe once, the world had stood at this place, compelled into a trance at the single man who had dared to love so passionately to the greatest of human potential that one could ever comprehend nor desire to understand, faced with the man who’d dared to dream as magnificently as Park Jimin did.

His outstretched arm indicates how he must have seemed inches away from his perfect dream, of returning to the past and starting all over again. But he was oblivious to the reality that his history with you had started and ended the moment he was born, into this horrible city and this dreadful reality of ups and downs and uppers and lowers of human quality. He believed that he could triumph god’s ordained law, he challenged powerful men with a hope, a futuristic childlike dream that somewhere beyond the smoke filled skies of the city and the obscurity of the future, was a light that shined just like the light on your dock, or in your eyes.

He smiles, a tear slipping from his eye, as he reaches out his fingers towards the familiar white, the familiar innocence of the mansion you live in, and lets out one last breath.

“For the girl I loved for all my life.”

And it all fades to black.

next: Story Talk

443 notes · View notes

drippeddaily · 7 years ago

Text

Album of the Year #5: Bedwetter (Lil Ugly Mane) - volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present.

Artist: Bedwetter (Lil Ugly Mane)

Album: volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present.

Label: Self-Released

Release Date: January 29, 2017

Listen:

YouTube

Spotify

Bandcamp

Apple Music

Background

Bedwetter is the latest pseudonym of Travis Miller, best known as Lil Ugly Mane. For a more extensive history of Miller and his work as Lil Ugly Mane before the release of this album, check out my /r/indieheads For Your Consideration write-up on Oblivion Access, as this background is going to mainly focus on what led to the release of his debut project under the Bedwetter album.

After releasing Oblivion Access in late 2015, Miller, as Lil Ugly Mane, formed the group Secret Circle with frequent collaborator Antwon and Wiki (of Ratking) in 2016 and the group has released a few singles, including “KEEP IT LOW”, “SATELLITE” ft. Despot and “Tube Socks”, since the formation of the group. The Bedwetter project was teased in December 2016 with this Facebook post and the release of the singles “selfish” and “stoop lights.”

Finally, volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present. was released on January 29, 2017 on the Lil Ugly Mane Bandcamp after a concerning post on Facebook that has since been taken down. A day after the release, Miller made a new statement on the Lil Ugly Mane Facebook page after receiving a few emails from people asking about the album and what led to its release. The statement is, as below:

I keep getting emails from people.

I wrote this the day before Bedwetter was recorded.

All i could do, all i can do is write poems and basically a polemic yelp review into the notepad on my phone.

what else can i do.

im not gonna get into my own shit on some specific level because fuck you, i dont know you. pay attention to yourself.

but i feel like this is the best way i can explain shit.

polemic yelp review of american heath care system:

"After a lifetime of avoiding this shit. Ignoring this shit. FInding myself confused.

After 3 months of sleeplessly, anxiously glaring into the eyes of an old monster that suddenly grew a new head.

3 months of forgetting who i was. What i was doing.

I knew something had to happen. I'd known this for a while.

I had been reaching out

Calling.

Emailing.

After continuous unsuccessful attempts for months to contact psychiatrists and doctors, I reluctantly checked into the hospital today.

I thought maybe i could get a much needed psych evaluation and hopefully receive some sort of treatment, perhaps even simply a referral and/or an appointment to go see somebody else who could provide that.

I didn't know what else to do.

What else are you supposed to do.

For six hours I sat nervously twitching and in a freezing waiting room.

Whimpering old men being completely overtaken by their Alzheimer's.

Vomiting children.

Bleeding Fingers.

Ugly loud sagging losers who were obviously constantly there.

Begging for attention with some new ailment and concern.

Their broken humilated spouse at their side.

I was anxious and horrified by the idea of a potential forced or even voluntary intake to a psychiatric facility.

Surrending my freedom.

Surrender of my routines.

After six hours of constantly reassuring myself I was doing the right thing, I was finally seen.

Led down a hallway into a bare concrete cell with a small bed in the center. Dim lights. scratches on the drab walls.

Grates in the floor to catch whatever bodily fluids they have to hose out of there.

One of the walls was one of those steel doors that the corner store pulls down at the end of the night.

Not sure what that was about.

Empty though.

A bed and a chair.

Somebody had carved "slipknot sucks" into the plastic bed that was bolted to the floor. Seems fitting.

You're the same, you're basically just a stupid fucking sad teenager right now. You're pathetic. Good luck getting better idiot.

I was given a gown and my belongings were inventoried and confiscated.

I sat and waited in my gown.

Eventually, Two skittish nurses and some community college educated social worker baby-talked their questions to me as a lurching police officer glared at me disgustedly over their shoulders.

I'd chosen to go in at a time where I was feeling okay so i would be fully able to articulate and describe the symptoms I was experiencing so I could potentially receive the most accurate treatment. I thought that made the most sense.

I didn't want to wait until I was in the midst of some anxious episode and having to hyperventilate my troubles out thru a salty humiliated fog. I thought that made the most sense.

I sat and calmy described my symptoms. I tried to convey how terrified i was. I tried to tell them i couldnt do it anymore.

This was received with a couple bored nods and sparse notes being jotted down on a clipboard.

Eventually i was hurried along and any complexity of my disease was all quickly reduced to two simple questions:

"Are you suicidal? Do you wanna hurt anyone else?"

No.

No I don't. I can't think of anything I wanna do less than die, I can't think of anything that frightens me or gives me more anxiety than the uncertainty of what happens when you die.

No.

No I don't actively want to hurt anyone, to be honest, the fact that I voluntarily came in here could be seen as an indication that I'm absolutely exhausted and desperate to stop hurting myself and everyone else by not confronting this shit for so long.

wrong answer.

I was discharged. handed back my clothes, given a xeroxed list of some websites about suicide prevention and a "feel better" or some other equally patronizing verbal pat on the back.

Back right where I started.

Nobody is gonna help me.

Our current mental healthcare system is absolute shit.

Absolute shit that absolutely incentivizes violence and self harm by categorizing it as the sole interpretation of "severity" worth treating.

By making the idea of treatment feel so utterly hopeless to people who already exist and drown in their hopelessness.

Fuck your resources. Fuck being understaffed. Fuck your stupid priorities. You're incompetent .

Here let me clear out some space for you. Free up some of your time. Empty some rooms.

On hurting yourself:

This is a complex issue, but to briefly put it, I believe a suicidal individual should not only be afforded that right, but after some legislatively decided period of time and therapy and education to ward off impulsiveness and melodrama, the same way they treat anybody undergoing assisted suicide. A process. they should be given a safe clean environment and chemicals to facilitate their decision, no matter the reasoning. grow up.

On hurting someone else:

This is not a complex issue. As far as recidivist violent degenerate squealing psychopaths...rabid dogs just need a bullet to the head.

I've read old yeller.

They dont care. Neither do I.

boo hoo.

Conversely:

lock them in a room and keep them safe.

Is this really that hard?

"Are you an immediate threat to yourself or others are you?"

How about instead of prioritizing that question we focus more on:

"Im so tired and exhausted of constantly hurting myself and everyone around me"

Be passing over someone like me, a person who, on their own volition, came to you for help. A person who desperately wants help. You are simply and plainly creating more and more and more people who will eventually be slobbering immediate threats to themselves and all of mankind.

It creates that understanding.

In an already fractured damaged mind it is an entirely reasonable assertion that you would potentially have to commit an act of violence against yourself or others just to receive treatment. even if you didn't want to.

even if that wasn't a real compulsion.

a last resort.

This system has a very real potential to turn people who voluntarily seek help, people who aren't yet completely overtaken by their illness, into violent suicidal monsters because you are dangling their own treatment on a string in front of them, scoffing at their pitiful attempt at recovery and demanding they need to do more.

"well shit, if you want help yr gonna have to try a lot harder than that buddy, haha, comeback after you snapped a random person's neck in a grocery store and cut off all the fingers on your left hand with some scissors, fucking poser".

I'll get better one day.

Not today.

Maybe I'll have fingers.

Maybe I won't."

thanks for the well wishes.

i'm fine.

i'm just angry.

i'm not the only person dealing with this and i've lived a full, somewhat interesting life.

i hate that you are dealing with this.

Review

I don’t really know where to begin with this. volume 1, since its release, has been an incredibly difficult album to listen to due the the background and the depressing lyrical content. This isn’t the first album of 2017 to bring out a similar reaction in me, as the same can be said about Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked At Me. Both are extremely painful looks at the narrator’s mental health and the events that led its deterioration. For Phil Elverum, it was the death of his wife, Geneviève, after her battle with cancer. For Travis Miller, it was the failure of the American healthcare system when his cries for help were silenced.

Miller’s music, specifically his work as Lil Ugly Mane, is deeply important to me. MISTA THUG ISOLATION and the singles he released before Oblivion Access were all extremely formative in developing my music taste and opened my ears to a lot of new sounds and expressions. Up until the release of volume 1, Miller had always took a more abstract approach to his mental health struggles, and even outright denied his music as Lil Ugly Mane held some deeper meaning. I implied in my write-up for Oblivion Access that it was the first time we were truly hearing a Travis Miller project, but it’s safe to say after listening to volume 1, I might have jumped the gun.

The album begins with the short but cryptic “john”, a remixed and chopped up reading of the Bible verse John 1:1, repeatedly fixating on “was God” before roughly transitioning into “man wearing a helmet.” Distant piano chords, rain, a chopped up female vocal sample, a father talking about his child, a jury reading out a verdict, a man asking another if he and his wife have thought about moving, a father now being interviewed about his child being kidnapped, another female voice that’s hard to decipher but is definitely talking about this child, and a drone playing behind all these people talking leads into the album’s first verse, as Miller describes another person’s childhood memories like ripping bark out of trees, pretending to be Superman, and wearing mismatched pairs of Chucks. These memories quickly turn into just that as we now cut to Miller describing this child being kidnapped: “He's a sitting duck, didn't hear the car pull up / Thought his arm broke when they shoved him in the trunk.”

This story continues as Miller further describes the child’s circumstances after being thrown in the trunk at an almost breakneck pace, seemingly trying to through the story as fast as he can before he breaks down. It’s all extremely traumatizing to hear, as the child begins to fear the worst as he looks back: “He miss his mom's affection / He miss the dinosaur blanket on the bed that he slept in / Miss throwing sticks so the dog would go fetch 'em / Missed makin' forts in the woods with his best friend.”

In the third verse, the car eventually reaches its destination and the child is carried to the kidnapper’s shelter, being led down into a dark stairwell into a lair, the only thing he can see being the “bluish glow of television flickers.” As the child continues to describe their worry at what’s to come, the listener is hit with a gut punch as “he” becomes “I,” as the child Miller was describing the whole time was really himself, revealing the origin story of where his battles with mental health begin as the hook plays on with Miller asking himself questions about this event, with all the answers being “I just don’t remember,” as he has repressed his memories of the kidnapping.

While “man wearing a helmet” looks at his past, “stoop lights” cuts to the modern day, with running static/crinkling, a dizzying string sample, synthetic bass, hi-hats, bass drums, and hand claps building the song’s foundation, as Miller begins rapping about what it’s like to be inside his head with no pretensions or greater abstract meanings. His self-hatred has evolved beyond hatred, as Miller simply wants nothing to do with himself any longer, retreating to alcohol and substance abuse to take away the pain of living, pushing himself towards death. The only light he sees are literal ones, as his description of watching them flicker in the hook leads further describing his problems with alcohol and how it’s led to his family leaving him behind.

Miller’s descriptions of his deteriorating mental state are as compelling as they are downright disturbing to here. It’s still slightly jarring to hear the man who rapped “Slick Rick said treat 'em like a prostitute” talk about alcohol abuse and depression so openly, but that’s what makes volume 1 so fascinating, as it’s essentially Miller throwing in the towel, no longer resorting to an exaggerated gangster persona or gross abstractions, but trying to describe what’s happening in his head and around him without any bullshit.

This no bullshit approach is best put to use in “haze of interference”, which starts off with a repeating sample of a man sing-talking “I’m not sure what it was,” with the rest of the song seeing Miller at not only his most angry, but his most desperate, backed behind menacing synths, distant piano chords, boom bap drums and rattling hi-hats that go back and forth in intensity. One of my favorite lines of the whole album comes out of this first verse and it’s such a simple, but perfect description of crippling depression, as Miller raps towards the end: “Greener on the other side, how about nothing's green.” The second verse sees Miller spitting with more fury than we’ve ever seen, rapping at himself expressing his anger with himself at how he deals with his problems, how he shows himself to his friends and family, and most importantly how his fans see him, with Miller breaking from rapping at “you” to rapping the line “You're treated like a muse, are you happy now, Travis?”

The whole song could end there and still leave a massive impact, but Miller keeps going lamenting the fact that he could disappear and almost no one in his immediate life would notice or care, going from referencing the Jonas Jonasson novel The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared to straight up saying “If I was glass I'd revert back to sand.” Miller ends the verse by completely shattering the fourth wall he previously damaged with the final lines “I'm standing by a microphone and yelling at a wall / Pick a thousand names, you're still nobody at all,” delivered as Miller’s voice finally cracks as the song plays out for another two minutes with a fuller Jandek sample seen in the song’s intro, before sourly fading out.

And that’s the last we hear of Miller on volume 1, as the second-to-final track “this in not my stomach” features a bizarre and disturbing whisper behind a brooding instrumental, with the lyrics possibly hinting that the song is written in the perspective of the depression itself, trying to convince the host body it’s inhabiting to cut out its stomach, almost like an entity from the Black Lodge. Then, the album ends with “cave yourself over,” a lo-fi piano ballad that simply allows you to sit there and think, taking in all you’ve heard.

volume 1 sees a man afraid. A man backed into a corner. A man calling for help. A man who simply just wants to be understood after purposefully obscuring himself for so long. Music was always the thing Travis Miller could resort back to, something to distract him from his mental troubles. Travis Miller the person and Travis Miller the musician were always supposed to be separated. Then, he finally tried to get help and was humiliated, forcing the two to converge in what became Bedwetter. While mental health awareness is at an all time high in America, there’s still a ton of progress to be made as can be seen by Miller’s story. The final note I want to leave this review on isn’t my own, but Miller’s, as it’s the final paragraph of the album’s Bandcamp description:

I really thought today someone would recognize my courage, as i handed over power just to reconcile my purpose, that I needed something urgent. I was eager just to learn it. I just wanna person, lord I'm weary from this burden.

Favorite Lyrics

Crouched down by the tree at his neighbors

He liked the way the bark ripped off like paper

He pretended he was Superman, eyes had lasers

Every step he took turned earth into craters

Little brown jacket, Lee jeans with a cuff

Bowl cut, blue and yellow mismatched Chucks

“man wearing a helmet”

Waking up in situations

Feeling like I'm living in suspended animation

Guess I'm still sober on occasion

And that's enough for me to rationalize inebriation

“stoop lights”

I told you I ain’t right, you knew it going in

Just shut the fuck up if you wanna be a friend

I don’t want to stretch you more than you extend

I don’t want to spit in the hand that you lend

I did it to myself, I get what I deserve

Thoughts in my head, feel like a raw nerve

I’m lookin' for an answer, I don’t want to hurt but

I just want to sleep when I’m tired of earth

“stoop lights”

Foggy little planet where your groping hands to touch a scream

Greener on the other side, how about nothing's green

Bashful baby boy, so distracted by my toys

Rode a tractor from Wyoming to Chicago, Illinois

On a carpet of the 50 states, part of me disintegrates

The only thing I'm left with is the part I can't articulate

“haze of interference”

You're never getting better, you're addicted to the madness

You're treated like a muse, are you happy now, Travis?

“haze of interference”

If I was glass I'd revert back to sand

Scattered through the sea, I could pass through your hands

None of this will happen, nothing will ever

The things that I believe can never ever happen

I'm standing by a microphone and yelling at a wall

Pick a thousand names, you're still nobody at all

“haze of interference”

Talking Points

How does volume 1 hold up to Travis’ work as Lil Ugly Mane? Is it better, worse, or a whole new beast entirely?

What are your thoughts on the production? Is it a natural evolution from Oblivion Access?

What do you think about the album’s lyrical content? Does the album’s desperate origins come across in the writing?

I also want to open up this thread as a discussion for mental health. How have you dealt with your own mental health troubles? Are they similar to Miller’s experiences?

And finally, where does this album land on your year-end list?

Thanks for reading and big thanks to /u/TheRoyalGodfrey for letting me do this again this year and for bringing Album of the Year over from /r/hiphopheads! We’re currently in the midst of our third Album of the Year series over at /r/indieheads, so if you want to come over and give us some love, that’d be greatly appreciated! You can view what we’ve done so far and what we’ve got coming up over here, and make sure to come back tomorrow on this subreddit as /u/ImWaal talks Rick Ross’ Rather You Than Me.

Artist: Bedwetter (Lil Ugly Mane)Album: volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present.Label: Self-ReleasedRelease Date: January 29, 2017Listen:YouTubeSpotifyBandcampApple MusicBackgroundBedwetter is the latest pseudonym of Travis Miller, best known as Lil Ugly Mane. For a more extensive history of Miller and his work as Lil Ugly Mane before the release of this album, check out my /r/indieheads For Your Consideration write-up on Oblivion Access, as this background is going to mainly focus on what led to the release of his debut project under the Bedwetter album.After releasing Oblivion Access in late 2015, Miller, as Lil Ugly Mane, formed the group Secret Circle with frequent collaborator Antwon and Wiki (of Ratking) in 2016 and the group has released a few singles, including “KEEP IT LOW”, “SATELLITE” ft. Despot and “Tube Socks”, since the formation of the group. The Bedwetter project was teased in December 2016 with this Facebook post and the release of the singles “selfish” and “stoop lights.”Finally, volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present. was released on January 29, 2017 on the Lil Ugly Mane Bandcamp after a concerning post on Facebook that has since been taken down. A day after the release, Miller made a new statement on the Lil Ugly Mane Facebook page after receiving a few emails from people asking about the album and what led to its release. The statement is, as below:I keep getting emails from people.I wrote this the day before Bedwetter was recorded.All i could do, all i can do is write poems and basically a polemic yelp review into the notepad on my phone.what else can i do.im not gonna get into my own shit on some specific level because fuck you, i dont know you. pay attention to yourself.but i feel like this is the best way i can explain shit.polemic yelp review of american heath care system:"After a lifetime of avoiding this shit. Ignoring this shit. FInding myself confused.After 3 months of sleeplessly, anxiously glaring into the eyes of an old monster that suddenly grew a new head.3 months of forgetting who i was. What i was doing.I knew something had to happen. I'd known this for a while.I had been reaching outCalling.Emailing.After continuous unsuccessful attempts for months to contact psychiatrists and doctors, I reluctantly checked into the hospital today.I thought maybe i could get a much needed psych evaluation and hopefully receive some sort of treatment, perhaps even simply a referral and/or an appointment to go see somebody else who could provide that.I didn't know what else to do.What else are you supposed to do.For six hours I sat nervously twitching and in a freezing waiting room.Whimpering old men being completely overtaken by their Alzheimer's.Vomiting children.Bleeding Fingers.Ugly loud sagging losers who were obviously constantly there.Begging for attention with some new ailment and concern.Their broken humilated spouse at their side.I was anxious and horrified by the idea of a potential forced or even voluntary intake to a psychiatric facility.Surrending my freedom.Surrender of my routines.After six hours of constantly reassuring myself I was doing the right thing, I was finally seen.Led down a hallway into a bare concrete cell with a small bed in the center. Dim lights. scratches on the drab walls.Grates in the floor to catch whatever bodily fluids they have to hose out of there.One of the walls was one of those steel doors that the corner store pulls down at the end of the night.Not sure what that was about.Empty though.A bed and a chair.Somebody had carved "slipknot sucks" into the plastic bed that was bolted to the floor. Seems fitting.You're the same, you're basically just a stupid fucking sad teenager right now. You're pathetic. Good luck getting better idiot.I was given a gown and my belongings were inventoried and confiscated.I sat and waited in my gown.Eventually, Two skittish nurses and some community college educated social worker baby-talked their questions to me as a lurching police officer glared at me disgustedly over their shoulders.I'd chosen to go in at a time where I was feeling okay so i would be fully able to articulate and describe the symptoms I was experiencing so I could potentially receive the most accurate treatment. I thought that made the most sense.I didn't want to wait until I was in the midst of some anxious episode and having to hyperventilate my troubles out thru a salty humiliated fog. I thought that made the most sense.I sat and calmy described my symptoms. I tried to convey how terrified i was. I tried to tell them i couldnt do it anymore.This was received with a couple bored nods and sparse notes being jotted down on a clipboard.Eventually i was hurried along and any complexity of my disease was all quickly reduced to two simple questions:"Are you suicidal? Do you wanna hurt anyone else?"No.No I don't. I can't think of anything I wanna do less than die, I can't think of anything that frightens me or gives me more anxiety than the uncertainty of what happens when you die.No.No I don't actively want to hurt anyone, to be honest, the fact that I voluntarily came in here could be seen as an indication that I'm absolutely exhausted and desperate to stop hurting myself and everyone else by not confronting this shit for so long.wrong answer.I was discharged. handed back my clothes, given a xeroxed list of some websites about suicide prevention and a "feel better" or some other equally patronizing verbal pat on the back.Back right where I started.Nobody is gonna help me.Our current mental healthcare system is absolute shit.Absolute shit that absolutely incentivizes violence and self harm by categorizing it as the sole interpretation of "severity" worth treating.By making the idea of treatment feel so utterly hopeless to people who already exist and drown in their hopelessness.Fuck your resources. Fuck being understaffed. Fuck your stupid priorities. You're incompetent .Here let me clear out some space for you. Free up some of your time. Empty some rooms.On hurting yourself:This is a complex issue, but to briefly put it, I believe a suicidal individual should not only be afforded that right, but after some legislatively decided period of time and therapy and education to ward off impulsiveness and melodrama, the same way they treat anybody undergoing assisted suicide. A process. they should be given a safe clean environment and chemicals to facilitate their decision, no matter the reasoning. grow up.On hurting someone else:This is not a complex issue. As far as recidivist violent degenerate squealing psychopaths...rabid dogs just need a bullet to the head.I've read old yeller.They dont care. Neither do I.boo hoo.Conversely:lock them in a room and keep them safe.Is this really that hard?"Are you an immediate threat to yourself or others are you?"How about instead of prioritizing that question we focus more on:"Im so tired and exhausted of constantly hurting myself and everyone around me"Be passing over someone like me, a person who, on their own volition, came to you for help. A person who desperately wants help. You are simply and plainly creating more and more and more people who will eventually be slobbering immediate threats to themselves and all of mankind.It creates that understanding.In an already fractured damaged mind it is an entirely reasonable assertion that you would potentially have to commit an act of violence against yourself or others just to receive treatment. even if you didn't want to.even if that wasn't a real compulsion.a last resort.This system has a very real potential to turn people who voluntarily seek help, people who aren't yet completely overtaken by their illness, into violent suicidal monsters because you are dangling their own treatment on a string in front of them, scoffing at their pitiful attempt at recovery and demanding they need to do more."well shit, if you want help yr gonna have to try a lot harder than that buddy, haha, comeback after you snapped a random person's neck in a grocery store and cut off all the fingers on your left hand with some scissors, fucking poser".I'll get better one day.Not today.Maybe I'll have fingers.Maybe I won't."thanks for the well wishes.i'm fine.i'm just angry.i'm not the only person dealing with this and i've lived a full, somewhat interesting life.i hate that you are dealing with this.ReviewI don’t really know where to begin with this. volume 1, since its release, has been an incredibly difficult album to listen to due the the background and the depressing lyrical content. This isn’t the first album of 2017 to bring out a similar reaction in me, as the same can be said about Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked At Me. Both are extremely painful looks at the narrator’s mental health and the events that led its deterioration. For Phil Elverum, it was the death of his wife, Geneviève, after her battle with cancer. For Travis Miller, it was the failure of the American healthcare system when his cries for help were silenced.Miller’s music, specifically his work as Lil Ugly Mane, is deeply important to me. MISTA THUG ISOLATION and the singles he released before Oblivion Access were all extremely formative in developing my music taste and opened my ears to a lot of new sounds and expressions. Up until the release of volume 1, Miller had always took a more abstract approach to his mental health struggles, and even outright denied his music as Lil Ugly Mane held some deeper meaning. I implied in my write-up for Oblivion Access that it was the first time we were truly hearing a Travis Miller project, but it’s safe to say after listening to volume 1, I might have jumped the gun.The album begins with the short but cryptic “john”, a remixed and chopped up reading of the Bible verse John 1:1, repeatedly fixating on “was God” before roughly transitioning into “man wearing a helmet.” Distant piano chords, rain, a chopped up female vocal sample, a father talking about his child, a jury reading out a verdict, a man asking another if he and his wife have thought about moving, a father now being interviewed about his child being kidnapped, another female voice that’s hard to decipher but is definitely talking about this child, and a drone playing behind all these people talking leads into the album’s first verse, as Miller describes another person’s childhood memories like ripping bark out of trees, pretending to be Superman, and wearing mismatched pairs of Chucks. These memories quickly turn into just that as we now cut to Miller describing this child being kidnapped: “He's a sitting duck, didn't hear the car pull up / Thought his arm broke when they shoved him in the trunk.”This story continues as Miller further describes the child’s circumstances after being thrown in the trunk at an almost breakneck pace, seemingly trying to through the story as fast as he can before he breaks down. It’s all extremely traumatizing to hear, as the child begins to fear the worst as he looks back: “He miss his mom's affection / He miss the dinosaur blanket on the bed that he slept in / Miss throwing sticks so the dog would go fetch 'em / Missed makin' forts in the woods with his best friend.”In the third verse, the car eventually reaches its destination and the child is carried to the kidnapper’s shelter, being led down into a dark stairwell into a lair, the only thing he can see being the “bluish glow of television flickers.” As the child continues to describe their worry at what’s to come, the listener is hit with a gut punch as “he” becomes “I,” as the child Miller was describing the whole time was really himself, revealing the origin story of where his battles with mental health begin as the hook plays on with Miller asking himself questions about this event, with all the answers being “I just don’t remember,” as he has repressed his memories of the kidnapping.While “man wearing a helmet” looks at his past, “stoop lights” cuts to the modern day, with running static/crinkling, a dizzying string sample, synthetic bass, hi-hats, bass drums, and hand claps building the song’s foundation, as Miller begins rapping about what it’s like to be inside his head with no pretensions or greater abstract meanings. His self-hatred has evolved beyond hatred, as Miller simply wants nothing to do with himself any longer, retreating to alcohol and substance abuse to take away the pain of living, pushing himself towards death. The only light he sees are literal ones, as his description of watching them flicker in the hook leads further describing his problems with alcohol and how it’s led to his family leaving him behind.Miller’s descriptions of his deteriorating mental state are as compelling as they are downright disturbing to here. It’s still slightly jarring to hear the man who rapped “Slick Rick said treat 'em like a prostitute” talk about alcohol abuse and depression so openly, but that’s what makes volume 1 so fascinating, as it’s essentially Miller throwing in the towel, no longer resorting to an exaggerated gangster persona or gross abstractions, but trying to describe what’s happening in his head and around him without any bullshit.This no bullshit approach is best put to use in “haze of interference”, which starts off with a repeating sample of a man sing-talking “I’m not sure what it was,” with the rest of the song seeing Miller at not only his most angry, but his most desperate, backed behind menacing synths, distant piano chords, boom bap drums and rattling hi-hats that go back and forth in intensity. One of my favorite lines of the whole album comes out of this first verse and it’s such a simple, but perfect description of crippling depression, as Miller raps towards the end: “Greener on the other side, how about nothing's green.” The second verse sees Miller spitting with more fury than we’ve ever seen, rapping at himself expressing his anger with himself at how he deals with his problems, how he shows himself to his friends and family, and most importantly how his fans see him, with Miller breaking from rapping at “you” to rapping the line “You're treated like a muse, are you happy now, Travis?”The whole song could end there and still leave a massive impact, but Miller keeps going lamenting the fact that he could disappear and almost no one in his immediate life would notice or care, going from referencing the Jonas Jonasson novel The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared to straight up saying “If I was glass I'd revert back to sand.” Miller ends the verse by completely shattering the fourth wall he previously damaged with the final lines “I'm standing by a microphone and yelling at a wall / Pick a thousand names, you're still nobody at all,” delivered as Miller’s voice finally cracks as the song plays out for another two minutes with a fuller Jandek sample seen in the song’s intro, before sourly fading out.And that’s the last we hear of Miller on volume 1, as the second-to-final track “this in not my stomach” features a bizarre and disturbing whisper behind a brooding instrumental, with the lyrics possibly hinting that the song is written in the perspective of the depression itself, trying to convince the host body it’s inhabiting to cut out its stomach, almost like an entity from the Black Lodge. Then, the album ends with “cave yourself over,” a lo-fi piano ballad that simply allows you to sit there and think, taking in all you’ve heard.volume 1 sees a man afraid. A man backed into a corner. A man calling for help. A man who simply just wants to be understood after purposefully obscuring himself for so long. Music was always the thing Travis Miller could resort back to, something to distract him from his mental troubles. Travis Miller the person and Travis Miller the musician were always supposed to be separated. Then, he finally tried to get help and was humiliated, forcing the two to converge in what became Bedwetter. While mental health awareness is at an all time high in America, there’s still a ton of progress to be made as can be seen by Miller’s story. The final note I want to leave this review on isn’t my own, but Miller’s, as it’s the final paragraph of the album’s Bandcamp description:I really thought today someone would recognize my courage, as i handed over power just to reconcile my purpose, that I needed something urgent. I was eager just to learn it. I just wanna person, lord I'm weary from this burden.Favorite LyricsCrouched down by the tree at his neighborsHe liked the way the bark ripped off like paperHe pretended he was Superman, eyes had lasersEvery step he took turned earth into cratersLittle brown jacket, Lee jeans with a cuffBowl cut, blue and yellow mismatched Chucks“man wearing a helmet”Waking up in situationsFeeling like I'm living in suspended animationGuess I'm still sober on occasionAnd that's enough for me to rationalize inebriation“stoop lights”I told you I ain’t right, you knew it going inJust shut the fuck up if you wanna be a friendI don’t want to stretch you more than you extendI don’t want to spit in the hand that you lendI did it to myself, I get what I deserveThoughts in my head, feel like a raw nerveI’m lookin' for an answer, I don’t want to hurt butI just want to sleep when I’m tired of earth“stoop lights”Foggy little planet where your groping hands to touch a screamGreener on the other side, how about nothing's greenBashful baby boy, so distracted by my toysRode a tractor from Wyoming to Chicago, IllinoisOn a carpet of the 50 states, part of me disintegratesThe only thing I'm left with is the part I can't articulate“haze of interference”You're never getting better, you're addicted to the madnessYou're treated like a muse, are you happy now, Travis?“haze of interference”If I was glass I'd revert back to sandScattered through the sea, I could pass through your handsNone of this will happen, nothing will everThe things that I believe can never ever happenI'm standing by a microphone and yelling at a wallPick a thousand names, you're still nobody at all“haze of interference”Talking PointsHow does volume 1 hold up to Travis’ work as Lil Ugly Mane? Is it better, worse, or a whole new beast entirely?What are your thoughts on the production? Is it a natural evolution from Oblivion Access?What do you think about the album’s lyrical content? Does the album’s desperate origins come across in the writing?I also want to open up this thread as a discussion for mental health. How have you dealt with your own mental health troubles? Are they similar to Miller’s experiences?And finally, where does this album land on your year-end list?Thanks for reading and big thanks to /u/TheRoyalGodfrey for letting me do this again this year and for bringing Album of the Year over from /r/hiphopheads! We’re currently in the midst of our third Album of the Year series over at /r/indieheads, so if you want to come over and give us some love, that’d be greatly appreciated! You can view what we’ve done so far and what we’ve got coming up over here, and make sure to come back tomorrow on this subreddit as /u/ImWaal talks Rick Ross’ Rather You Than Me.

#IFTTT #reddit

0 notes

theworstbob · 7 years ago

Text

yellin’ at songs: 1997, part two

the songs which debuted on the billboard hot 100 between 3.15.1997 and 5.10.1997. 2/3 of the way there! i’ma try to get weeks 19-27 done by monday so we can cover weeks 28 and 29 of all three of 97/07/17 on wednesday, then resume posting as usual from there. i’m excited!

3.15.1997

9) "For You I Will," by Monica

this was ok, i guess. it's a stirring pitch to the boy, but i can also understand why the boy would still give brandy consideration after hearing this. the boy probably thinks monica doth insist too much. like, she promises to be the sun. she can't do that! monica's a star, but not a REAL star, just a famous person! the boy has reason to be dubious of monica's claims. no reason to be dubious of the key change, tho. hey remember key changes? remember when we used to like songs that were dynamic and didn't just bleep and bloop for three minutes? good times.

22) "Step by Step," by Whitney Houston

The YouTube recommendation bar just pulled up a bunch of Whitney Houston songs, and I'm not gonna lie, I'd much rather dip into that than find out what Zhane is. This is probably a second-tier Whitney song, insofar as I have any grasp of the ins-and-outs of the Whitney catalogue, but second-tier Whitney is still amazing. Like, you know how "Lose My Breath" is definitely one of the five-best songs from the expanded Beyonce universe, even though no one ever thinks about it? This is Whitney's "Lose My Breath" for me. I just wanna put this and "Return of the Mack" on repeat for a thousand years and die happy.

35) "Head Over Heels," by Allure ft./Nas

It's weird to hear Nas on a pop song. Like, Nas operated in the same space where someone like Vince Staples or Killer Mike currently operates, I always thought; clearly elite, but elite in a way not friendly with the mainstream. Illmatic didn't sound like something that'd get a dude on a pop song. Not that I'm angry Nas got that paper, it's just weird, like it'd be weird if Killer Mike suddenly collaborated with Calvin Harris. Also, girl group hype. This is a song that was playing while I was thinking about other things and I think I would've enjoyed it if I wasn't ignoring it, but at the same time, I don't believe in second impressions.

51) "Request Line," by Zhane

...Zhane, that was unfair, that thing I said about you two paragraphs ago. I am so glad to have found out about you. This song only has a peak of 39. I am comfortable declaring this the forgotten classic of 1997 so far. It references calling people over a phone line, which is so delightfuly antiquated, it references a 555 number which is a classic, and it implies that at one point you had to call a radio station to request a song rather than being able to access every song all at once on demand. All wonderful 1997 things, backed with a solid groove. This song is dope. I'm going to call into my local radio station RIGHT NOW and request that they play this!

76) "Too Late, Too Soon," by Jon Secada

imagine turning the radio on in 1997 and hearing this and keeping this song on because trying to tune the dial to a new station just to avoid this song wouldn't be worth the effort. i thought i wouldn't get michael bolton? i thought his whole thing was just an early-'90s thing, something akward between the grunge and the rap? i feel cheated, honestly. i shouldn't have had to listen to clay aiken in 1997.

79) "I Belong to You (Every Time I See Your Face)," by Rome

This dude's ad-libs are basically Young Thug mouthnoises. I'm into it. It's generic, but dude goes hard trying to sell this song, and I respect that hustle.

81) "Hip-Hopera," by Bounty Killa ft./The Fugees

LAURYN HILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't even care that the rest of this song is just Bounty Killa saying things with a heavy accent that never actually justifies being called "Hip-Hopera" aside from some falsetto in the hook. Like, you wanna be a hip-hopera? Bring the drama. Can't just have the fat lady sing, you need to emote like your life depended on it, PROJECT, make something more over the top than this, but legit Lauryn Hill on the mic for even half a minute is a good thing, and this song at least had the good sense to put her at the top of this song so that, if you want to hear her verse again, you don't have to sift through a bunch of nothing.

91) "Weekend Thang," by Alfonzo Hunter

This is the second R&B slow jam about infidelity this week, and while it's superior, I wonder if people got as tired of dudes singing R&B in 1997 as I am of bro country in 2017? Like, the thing R&B dudes have over country dudes is, I can easily distinct Alfonzo Hunter from Rome. Rome was making all sorts of noises in his song, and Alfonzo Hunter is smoother, more confident. I can't tell you any meaningful difference between Chase Pickens and Ricky Graves, and you probably didn't realize those were fake names, because country dudes are interchangable. Listen, 1997 has been wonderfully bereft of country dudes, but the only thing I know how to do is complain about country dudes, SO I HAD TO SHOEHORN THIS IN SOMEWHERE, point is, R&B slow jamz all at least have some variety, and I'm not tired of them yet.

3.22.1997

22) "Ghetto Love," by Da Brat ft./T-Boz

"You laid pipe unlike any other plumber/Took me shoppin' all day and at night you kept me cummin'/Made dinner, collard greens, candied yams, and steak/Taught me how to measure grams, cook rocks, and chop weights" This song is incredible. Like, I grew up in a family adjacent to white trash; if anyone in the family smokes meth, it might not be surprising?, but it would definitely be news to me. So I don't know what it's like to settle in for a nice steak dinner, then sit down with my lover and learn how to manufacture and distribute crack cocaine. My girl and I would just play Mario Kart. This is a love unlike anything I could ever know, and I am glad to have heard tell of it. Also, "you laid pipe unlike any other plumber." That is a lyric!

34) "I Shot the Sheriff," by Warren G

...I want to applaud the social commentary? But at the same time, no, don't touch this song. This song was already very good, it didn't need you trying to muck it all up with your signature, just let it be. You can allude to this song in a better song about fighting back against the police, but don't just like do the song, it's not pleasant to listen to this song when it's not this song.

71) "Silent All These Years," by Tori Amos

One of the auto-complete results when I searched "silent all" was "silent all these years karaoke" and I want to meet the absolute fucking maniac who would ruin a karaoke night with this song and give them a stern lecture about the utility of fun. This is not a karaoke song. Even if this WERE a karaoke song, there's no way you have the verses memorized. There's too many words. You are going to stumble all over the verses and it’s going to suck for everyone in the bar to hear. You’re going to ruin five minutes of everyone’s lives, be responsible with your fucking choices. Like karaoke is not about communicating the deep inner pain with which Tori Amos helped you get in touch, what kind of horrible narcissist is singing Tori Amos songs at karaoke. I DID NOT FORCE MYSELF TO LOG OFF TUMBLR, PUT ON PANTS, AND TAKE A BUS TO THE BAR JUST TO HEAR TUMBLR: THE MUSICAL. ...Tori Amos is a quality songwriter and this song is incredibly sad and I am scared of feeling things which is why those other sentences exist.

84) "If Tomorrow Never Comes," by Joose

I found this R&B slow jam lacking because it tried to have A Moment, took some time to try to be a sweeping, epic slow jam, and while I applaud the ambition, it kinda just sounded like a worse version of the pop version of "A Whole New World."

97) "Under the Water," by Merril Bainbridge

this song is just heckin' beautiful. look at that, i'm even usin' "heck" instead of bad words because i don't want to profane this space right now. it's so soft and gentle and i don't want to do anything to ruin this moment i'm having. this i -- OH. OH, HELLO, MAN. alright well fuck all this then where the fuck did this dude come from? this was a pleasant, lovely song, and then goddamn the dude from crash test dummies or w/e shows up and goes "UNDER THE WATER" and it's so jarring. i can't even enjoy this harmonica solo, i feel so betrayed! ...okay, i'm enjoying the harmonica a little bit. the harmonica was as nice a surprise as the dude was a rude one.

3.29.1997

7) "All by Myself," by Celine Dion

These charts are based off single sales and radio plays. It's so weird to consider that people would go out of their way to listen to a Celine Dion ballad in a pre-"My Heart Will Go On" world. Like, "Let it Go" was a top 20(?) hit if I recall correctly, but that was the signature song of a movie loved by teens. What is this. This is just a diva singing dramatically over a piano. People went to stores and either specifically bought this single or said, "Oh! My favorite recording artist, Salon Dijon! I need this like I need these other staples of every day life I have come to Target to purchase!" 1997 has had two Broadway-ish songs on the chart, 2007 had one Broadway-ish song, and 2017 has had zero, if anyone needed quantifiable proof the world was getting worse. (Shout out to Pete Holmes.)

13) "Everyday Is a Winding Road," by Sheryl Crow

Because my first exposure to Sheryl Crow was "Soak Up the Sun," an over-the-top cheery song about beaches that triggers an allergic reaction in my horrible soul, I never really fucked with Sheryl Crow. This is a jam, though. There's more of an edge here than there is in her later stuff. The key is "I get a little bit closer to feeling fine." This isn't a song about someone who is happy and taking life as it comes, this is about someone who's going through shit and hopes to be happy one day. It's like a prototype of "Hard Times," '90s alt-rock chick instead of '80s throwback. This is dope.

33) "One More Time," by Real McCoy

House music! It's been a while. Oh, good, you're rapping. I was hoping to hear someone rap in their second language. God damn you. YouTube Comments Under Shitty Dance Music, Vol. II "I might have one of the largest collections of Real McCoy CD's in the world. :-)" Real McCoy released four albums. Congratulations on having bought four items. That's not a collection, unless Real McCoy has been making other horrible music over the last 20 years.

42) "Your Woman," by White Town

/someone in 1997 hears this song /they franticaly scramble to their kitchen and dial numbers on a corded phone /someone answers Twenty-One! Twenty-One, it's your cousin Marvin! Marvin Pilots! You know that incomprehensible fake-hip-hop sound you've been looking for? WELL, LISTEN TO THIS! /Marvin Pilots holds the phone as near to his bedroom as he can No but seriously this is a goddamned Twenty-One Pilots song, this is amazing, this must be what it felt like when anthropologists or whatever discovered that da Vinci invented airplanes. Like, look! This always existed! This song is more interesting than this dumb joke, but it's also important to point out the similarities. Also: this dude released an album called Don't Mention the War. I like this dude. He seems like good people.

52) "You Don't Have to Hurt No More," by Mint Condition

"This house is not a home." This song is the most unbelievable thing I've heard so far because it is set in a world where single people own houses.

56) "I Don't Want To," by Toni Braxton

Look, you probably already knew this about me, but I find it hard to believe any dramatic tension that gets built by dangling a preposition. Like, I know you're gonna finish that sentence, it would be rude to just leave that "to" hanging in the middle. Clickbait titles could be so simplistic in 1997, though, because we hadn't been inured to all the tricks. We may think we know better than this song title, but back in 1997, people were screaming at the album cover, "don't want to what? DON'T WANT TO WHAT?" People who didn't have access to the single held weekly meetings to share their fan theories about what Toni Braxton didn't want to, one of the earliest online fan forums was built by people wringing their hands over what Toni Braxton didn't want to. People need to work to rook us in 2017, but in 1997, all it took was a sentence left unfinished. (The official YAS verdict on this song is that it is boring and I was bored by it.)

65) "Sho Nuff," by Tela ft./Eightball & MJG

This strip club anthem has maybe the most evocative storytelling any strip club anthem has ever had. It's about a young man who comes back to his hometown after spending time wherever it was he spent time, and discovering girls he used to know became strippers. "I remember this ho, she used to do nails for Rochelle's" is such a delightful detail, the way he specifies not just what she used to do but where she did it being something straight out of a country song. Is it followed by "You heard me! Push these thirty dicks inside your clit?" Well, not immediately, but yes, those words do occupy the same space, but when it isn't exceedingly gross, there's a lot of homey charm in this song.

80) "For You," by Kenny Lattimore

The description for this song claims this is "the only song you should get married to." The first line of this song is "For you, I'd give a lifetime of stability." Oh, yeah, baby girl, if you're looking for a man who'll settle for an office job if this music thing doesn't work out, I'm that guy. When you're ready to accept Wednesday nights spent bickering over what to watch on Netflix while we wait for the Chinese food to get here, you have my number. I'm that man who can drive a Camry and won't talk about his fantasy football team... because he knows it bores you. I'm waiting for you to decide to want this. "For you, I'd make a promise of fidelity." It worries me you waited until your wedding day to make this promise, Ken. That should have just gone without saying! Why would you bring that up now?

92) "Bill," by Peggy Scott-Adams

OH MY FUCKING GOODNESS. I. I was expecting a lot from 1997. I don't think I could have ever expected this song to exist in the way it exists. It's a dynamo vocal performance of a deeply silly and probably slightly offensive song. I don't want to say too much because this is a song which could legitimately be spoiled, but like listen to it. You probably won't be disappointed.

94) "Insomnia," by Faithless

this song is at once the class of 1997's dark dance music, and it also features a vocal performance that's way too low-energy to be rap but is too high energy to be spoken word so i guess i have to call it rapping? but like if you're rapping, and i can reasonably state that Egoraptor is a better rapper than you, are you really rapping? anyway heck europe.

4.5.1997

67) "Precious Declaration," by Collective Soul

Sometimes in 2017, Imagine Dragons will break through the trap and release a song that charts, and I'll react to it with baffled indifference; I don't care, but at the same time, I don't get why people who ostensibly enjoy rock music would listen to Imagine Dragons. I get the same sense listening to this Collective Soul song. Like, it didn't ruin my day, but is this really the best you could do? If you like alternative rock, why on earth are you listening to Collective Soul? The Verve Pipe has other songs! They're not as good as "The Freshmen" but better than this!

81) "A Little Bit of Ecstacy," by Jocelyn Enriquez

"Tee hee! The casual observer will think I am singing about feeling happy, when I actually am singing about doing drugs and having sex! What a trickster I am!" Dance music is bad and everyone who listened to it has the wrong idea about everything. We're not even out of the third month. There is more to come, and I already blew the “this entire genre is garbage” shot. Oh, dear.

94) "One Night at a Time," by George Strait

Our first country dude of 1997! And it's not just some random country dude, it's The Possum, singing an OK song about how nice being in love is and how much effort maintaining a healthy relationship requires! Nothing special, but pleasant, especially since it's not surrounded by fifty other songs by dudes in the same hat with the same voice. This constitutes a break from the onslaught of R&B dudes, is not part of its own separate slog. I appreciate the commitment to diversity, 1997. (Diversity in genre if not in gender, I guess. Not as bad as 2017, I don't think, but, hey, we all could be doing better.)

95) "Step Into a World (Rapture's Delight)," by KRS-One

"I'm not saying I'm number one -- I'm sorry, I lied/I'm number one, two, three, four, and five" That's fucking incredible. Like, one'd be hard-pressed to disagree with KRS-One on that claim after hearing this song. KRS-One occupies the same space as The Roots did from part one, where I understood they were important but hadn't actually made the effort to check them out, and now I see I've been missing out. This dude's incredible. "I'm not run of the mill, 'cuz for the mill I don't run." This is like if Chance the Rapper was good.

98) "That's Right," by DJ Taz ft./Raheem the Dream

remember when the atl wasn't the epicenter of homogeneity and the city housed artists that sounded great without sounding like anything else. what happened. i mean, this song probably isn't the one we want to point to when complaining about the current state of atlanta, not when we got outkast comin' in a couple of songs, but like something this light and breezy and fun isn't the sort of thing atlanta traffics in anymore, and the world is worse for losing this spirt.

4.12.1997

17) "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" by Paula Cole

One of the best tweets of all time theorizes that "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" and "The Boys Are Back in Town" are two different perspectives on the same event, and this Paula Cole fan theory will be a part of me until the world burns down. It's a good song, but also it's absolutely ruined for me.

59) "Jazzy Belle," by OutKast

ATLiens is the best OutKast album and the first five tracks ("Two Dope Boys," "ATLiens," "Wheelz of Steel," "Elevators," "Jazzy Belle") might be the best five-track stretch in the whole of hip-hop history and even if I'm not into the remix they released to radio I'm so incredibly into the original that I'm fine with a Xerox. I'm fanboying, and you didn't come here for that, but gosh I do love this song.

75) "Come On," by Billy Lawrence ft./MC Lyte

This song was acceptable. You ever hit a point where you've been listening to songs for two hours and trying to think about them and then you come across two songs you already know your thoughts on so you go "Oh, cool, I can do other things while still listening to these songs so I can say I listened to them" and then you get to a song you're not familiar with but you're still in "doing other things while listening to music" mode? That's what happened. This is a feeling which I am sure is incredibly relatable, as all of us have series where we listen to every pop song ever and post our thoughts about them. I'm sure this song is better than I treated it, and I could just listen to it again but oh no what happened my fingers just typed the next song into the bar and now the music is gone from youtube forever it doesn't exist anymore i can't go back oh no oh nooooooooo

4.19.1997

24) "My Baby Daddy," by B-Rock & The Bizz

...I came into this refreshed. I watched some other videos -- this is the least embarrassing Punk Goes Pop compilation yet! -- took a shower, had some breakfast, I was ready to accept this song into my life. I mean, "My Baby's Mama" had a ridiculous title, but that was more or less acceptable, and I thought this was a response song. That's a lost art, the response song. I don't think we've had a true response song since Frankie's unforgettable classic "Fuck You Right Back," though I haven't listened to "Bodak Yellow" yet. This was... Certainly, an experience I won't forget, but not for lack of trying.

73) "Until I Find You Again," by Richard Marx

In a position where I can see the future, I see "Hypnotize" and "Bitch" dropping next week, and I can kind of understand that 1997 is in the calm before the storm. It's disappointing to endure, for sure, no one ever intends on listening to soft rock, but I'm ten minutes away from thinking about "Hypnotize." I appreciate 1997 for giving me this time to clear my mind and accept "Hypnotize" into my life.

87) "Sweet Sexy Thing," by Nu Flavor ft./Roger Troutman

It wasn't that long ago that we were letting dudes feature on boy band songs despite the fact they were calling themselves Roger Troutman. We can quibble about how good a rap name KYLE is, but at least it's not a pirate fish monster.

93) "Just the Way You Like It," by Tasha Holiday ft/Mase

This is Tasha Holiday's only song that charted on the Hot 100, and it appeared to have only spent one week on the chart, as it never got higher than 93. That has to be weird for an artist. You make a song that's popular enough that it can make the chart and people will upload it to YouTube 20 years later, but at the same time, your song wasn't popular at all and your song has significantly fewer views than "My Babby Dad," which is a song no one put effort into making. You had two celebrated songwriters on the track, and they made a song that someone who listened to an average amount of Top 40 radio might have heard once on "New Tunes Tuesday." Per Wikipedia, she was last seen doing feature spots on Soundcloud tracks, so it's at least good to hear she didn't stop believing.

97) "Don't Keep Wasting My Time," by Teddy Pendergrass

i am not going to argue against teddy pendergrass. i understand that, of all the '90s r&b slow jamz specialists, he's the one that got a shout out on "slow jamz," so i'm digging this song while assuming this is not his most iconic work. this is dope, and it's nice to hear a voice with rasp. '90s r&b isn't very husky, y'know? great voices without a lot of depth. this dude knows how to use his voice to most effectively communicate his pain, and it's dope as hell. this is the worst positive thing anyone's ever written about teddy pendergrass, like y'all know he's great and i'm late to the party.

4.26.1997

2) "Hypnotize," by The Notorious B.I.G.

i wonder if the people who made "rise" knew that they would be playing an integral role in one of the greatest songs of all time, if they knew that the song they were making wasn't the song they would be remembered for. that intro, those three guitar blasts (music term) and biggie going "oh," is this miracle, and i wonder if anyone who made "rise" knew their song was going to be used to bring a miracle into this world. "we got so close!" the bassist might have cried upon hearing biggie's tone over the track he laid down. "if we had replaced the trumpet with talking..."

30) "Staring at the Sun," by U2

Like, even if it weren't one of the last songs Biggie ever released, we'd still remember "Hypnotize" as fondly as we do, because it's just this incredible perfect thing. Biggie just has this phenomenal, laid-back flow. You're not blown away by any lyrical twist or vocal trick, Biggie just lumbers along in time, and it's just fun to hear someone rap like that, and this track is the perfect complement to his voice, this groovy thing he can really sink into and flow with. P. Diddy isn't the greatest musician, but he has a great ear for what other people can do. He and Biggie could have made more songs like this. That song, man.

57) "Bitch," by Meredith Brooks

It remains to be seen if the music of 1997 is better than the music of 2007 or 2017 -- even in a week with "Hypnotize" and "Bitch," 1997 is going to lose the weekly competition because "Umbrella" is as good as "Hypnotize" and "Thnks fr th Mmrs" is better than "Bitch" and 1997 won't have anything better than "The Story" -- but we can definitively state that "Blank Space" was better in 1997. I was struck by how similar this song was to "Blank Space," mostly because I forgot "Bitch" had verses. The thematic concepts in "Bitch" and "Blank Space" are similar, both songs stating "You should have known I was complicated, and now I am presenting these complications and you will not enjoy it," but while Tay Tay's is rooted in the personal mythos of Tay Tay, one needing to understand Tay Tay's relationship with her #brand to fully understand the song, Meredith Brooks' is accessible to all, more generalized and less personal, not needing to make some grand statement about who Meredith Brooks is as a person and what being in a relationship with her is like. There's less baggage to "Bitch," so to answer the question HOT ON EVERYONE'S MIND, "Bitch" is a better version of "Blank Space" than "Blank Space."

88) "Full of Smoke," by Christion

This song has the singular misfortune of being the R&B slow jamz to follow Teddy Pendergrass. It is the victim of higher expectations and will not benefit from the expectational adjustment being performed as a result of hearing a dude sing exclusively in falsetto. I'm sure, out of the context of this deeply silly project, this would be a much more fun song to hear, but like no thank you. Now that I know what else slow jamz can do, I need more than overdramatic sings and this dude squeaking.

89) "Stop the Gunfight," by Trapp ft./2pac & Notorious B.I.G.

Fun fact! If you listen to this song, you will have done significantly more to prevent gun violence in the United States than every Senator COMBINED! Congratulations on doing more than nothing! Thoughts and prayers for EVERYONE!

5.3.1997

16) "MMMBop," by Hanson

Hanson makes legitimately wonderful music. Even when they were children with hair like the kid from Room, they were making songs that were exceptionally well-crafted, even if they were about some nonsense. You can kind of tell, on this song, that Hanson was trying to make a point about aging and losing touch with people and friendship that they couldn't make because they were legitimately 14, not music 14 where they're 14 and singing songs written by 40-year-olds but actual immature 14. The song is honestly far better than it has any right to be, and every day I remember Hanson weathered the storm and became normal people who make insanely good pop music is a good day.

45) "Don't Wanna Be a Player," by Joe

...JOE?! Hold up. So many R&B slow jammers didn't make it all the way to 2007. Hell, significantly fewer artists made it from 1997 to 2007 than made it from 2007 to 2017, and one of them was this random dude named Joe, this dude with one of the five most generic names as a stage name who has no defining personality traits. This dude? This dude's who y'all took with ya? I'm not even going to pretend to try to get this. Like all he's swearing to a girl is that he won't cheat on her. He's not pledging eternal love, he's not swearing he will climb a mountain, he will not defend her against the armies of every nation, he's just saying, "I will finally stop fucking other people." That's a really shitty promise. Like, way to spend four minutes promising a girl the bare minimum.

85) "Feelin' It," by Jay-Z

hey. hey, guys. jay-z? this jay-z cat? he's pretty amazing at rapping. be sure to give him a follow and show him some love in the comments.

94) "6 Underground," by Sneaker Pimps

this song sounds like the episode of buffy where seth green goes through an entire season of plot in one episode and then leaves the show forever. what i am trying to say is, this song sounds like two werewolves feeling a deep desire for one another but one of the werewolves a sweet lesbian witch girlfriend he doesn't want to abandon but he can't stop himself from abandoning her when he's in werewolf form so he runs to the mountains. that's what this song reminds me of, is that feeling when that. i'm that. i don't know what i came into this paragraph to do but i know i have the "wild at heart" wikipedia page open and Marti Noxon says of the episode "The whole issue of sexuality between men and women is kind of fraught because of the beast" and boy that is just a quote right there, innit. this song's over! huzzah. electronic music is still mostly bad, turns out.

96) "Can U Feel It," by 3rd Party

YouTube Comments Under Shitty Dance Music, Vol. III "ive been listening to this since i was a kid and since release lol. i had this on a cassette tape when there was no CD's" Buddy, what the heck kind of dystopia were you living in that didn't have CDs in 1997? OK but real quick I don't understand the nostalgia for cassette tapes. Cassette tapes sounded like garbage and sucked to carry around. I get owning one as a fun novelty, "Haha this band I like was selling them at a concert and I had to, and I mean it's nice to support the things I love!" But if you're defending the audio quality of cassette tapes, you have taken irony too far and are no longer a hipster, and you need to have a serious talk with yourself about what you hope to achieve in this life.

5.10.1997 28) "G.H.E.T.T.O.U.T.," by Changing Faces

The chorus of the song features the two women harmonizing over the words, "I can do bad all by myself," and 1997 just keeps on surprising us, this time revealing the origins of a Tyler Perry movie title. I did some research. The only other results for "I can do bad all by myself" are all related to the Tyler Perry film. That kind of speaks to the quality of the lyric, y'know? Like, if a director of some repute (haven't seen any of his movies, they are not for me but assuredly competently helmed) carried this lyric with him long enough to name his movie-musical after it, surely, there's some value. Great work, Changing Faces. I hope more people than just me figured out the title was a reference to something.

42) "Blood on the Dance Floor," by Michael Jackson

Shortly before the voting results for the starting line-ups of the MLB All-Stars were announced, certain among the baseball internet argued that, as they were future Hall of Famers, players like Miguel Cabrera should be given extra consideration for a spot, since you aren't going to remember Justin Smoak in thirty years, but you might tell your grandchildren about Miguel Cabrera. And there is merit; Miguel Cabrera is more deserving of the All-Star designation than a Justin Smoak, since Miguel Cabrera is an actual star baseball player and Justin Smoak happened to hit 20 of his ~100? career home runs in three well-timed months. But if you're such a profoundly boring grandparent that you would tell your grandchildren about baseball players you watched on TV, and you tell them about Miguel Cabrera, are you going to tell them about the time he hit a grounder to second in the second inning of the 2017 MLB All-Star Game? Your grandchildren will ask you why you weren't watching a cooler sport. This song is okay, but if you introduced your grandchildren to Michael Jackson with this song, and your grandchildren discovered Michael Jackson years later, your grandchildren would emancipate themselves from their parents just to not be related to you anymore. Also, it would be worth noting to your grandchildren that Michael Jackson was probably a pedophile.

44) "Thinking of You," by Tony! Toni! Tone!

A more appropriate name for this band would have been Tony. Toni. Tone. (I'm sorry, Tone, but if I'm not gonna remember how to make the accented e for Beyonce, you are just incredibly out of luck.) This is chill. Maybe you can justify one exclamation point, but determining who gets the exclmation point probably would have caused intra-group strife, and I think it would've been more appropriate if the band's name reflected how chill they were. When Panic! At the Disco were going through their Beatles phase, they switched to Panic at the Disco. You should have been looking ahead through time and taking notes from them.

76) "I Wanna Be There," by Blessid Union of Souls

This song sounds like the song that kicks off the slow dances at the junior high school dance. It'll stop the kids from getting so rowdy that they start grinding, but isn't so romantic that they'll start making out on the dance floor. A safe ballad to keep the hands above the waist and prevent glances from being too meaningful. It simultaneously sets and kills the mood. It's a hard trick to pull off, but my stars, it does it!

83) "ESPN Presents: The Jock Jam," by Various Artists

/slow clap The YouTube description states, "FOR ENTERTAINMENT USE ONLY," and I want to meet the person who intended on using this for educational purposes.

90) "Call Me," by Too $hort ft./Lil' Kim

Imagine the thinkpieces if any of today's female rappers put the line "I slip myself a mickey, now that's the proper set off" in their song. Boy, this song sure exists! I don't think I've ever heard a song end with the two credited artists fucking. That's kind of amazing. What a song this is. This is off the soundtrack for the film Booty Call, and however much the music supervisor paid to have Too $hort and Lil' Kim make a song for their movie, they got their money's worth and more. Unless Booty Call is actually porn, there is no way it lives up to this song.

92) "The Old Apartment," by Barenaked Ladies

This seems like as good a point as any to stop the post, as I am not in the business of critiquing BNL. BARENAKED LADIES ARE TRIPLE PLATINUM. ARE YOU?!

The Top 20 for 1997 so far! 20) "MMMBop," by Hanson (5.3) 19) "Everyday Is a Winding Road," by Sheryl Crow (3.29) 18) "It's All About U," by SWV (1.18) 17) "In My Bed," by Dru Hill (1.11) 16) "Talk to Me," by Wild Orchid (3.1) 15) "Please Don't Go," by No Mercy (2.8) 14) "Don't Keep Wasting My Time," by Teddy Pendergrass (4.19) 13) "Feelin' It," by Jay-Z (5.3) 12) "Step by Step," by Whitney Houston (3.15) 11) "On and On," by Erykah Badu (1.25) 10) "I Want You," by Savage Garden (3.1) 9) "Silent All These Years," by Tori Amos (3.22) 8) "What They Do," by The Roots (1.11) 7) "Step Into a World (Rapture's Delight)," by KRS-One (4.5) 6) "I'm Not Feeling You," by Yvette Michele (2.22) 5) "Bill," by Peggy Scott-Adams (3.29) 4) "I'll Be," by Foxy Brown ft./Jay-Z (2.15) 3) "Bitch," by Meredith Brooks (4.26) 2) "Return of the Mack," by Mark Morrison (3.1) 1) "Hypnotize," by The Notorious B.I.G. (4.26) What a solid list. And it’s only gonna get more solid, what with the Third Eye Blind and Backstreet Boys and Robyn coming our way. It’s not gonna be as strong as this section was, I don’t think, but it at least has the capacity to surprise. Tune in Monday, I hope!

1 note · View note