#thread: phun with photos

[justicespeared]

Cynthia could hardly breathe. She was tucked under Gerome’s arm like she was his, and he was hers. She looked at the two people in the reflection and saw what she wanted to see: a young couple. She could also see how red she was; she couldn’t hide how much she wanted this, even if she tried. She wanted to hold onto him, her hand on his chest. She wanted to rest her head on his ribs and listen to his heart and to know that he loved her, too.

She always did have big dreams, didn’t she?

“This is good,” she nodded. Really good. Even if he didn’t feel the same, even if he never felt the same, Cynthia could have this. She almost didn’t want the picture; she didn’t want to let him go. He was so warm, and so solid to lean against. Once she thought she had enough of him, at least for now, she was ready.

“Okay, this time for real, are we ready?” She nestled into him just a little more - if he asked, she was only trying to get a better angle of herself. Really, Cynthia didn’t care how she looked: she only cared about how they looked together. She would never pretend they were anything beyond friends, but she still needed this.

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[deathsdue]

Status: Passed! Skill Points: +1 // Total: 8 Skill Up: Axe D -> D+

Classes Accessed: n/a Classes Mastered: n/a

Current Threads

ye olde accuplacer — python

a lonely thought — kurthnaga

before it all began — cynthia

a stranger who could be a friend — owain

it’s not like I’m worried about you or anything — selena

phun with photos — cynthia

fly high — pelleas 

do u ever feel like a plastic bag — lucina

ball thread wrap ups???

Finished Threads: n/a

thread tracker

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly Update #53: Out (7/6/2018)

This is it, boys and girls. The “hiatus”, as we’ve called it for the last 364 days, is finally, finally, finally over... probably. Let’s cover the week that was, and look forward to the new era that could be.

This Week’s TØPics: 

“New” Music Discovery

The Last Message From Dema

The Return of WILD SPECULATION

Major News and Announcements:

On any other week, new music from Tyler Joseph would be the biggest news story. And... well, I mean, I guess it should be, so we’ll cover it first, but it really doesn’t feel like it. That’s really weird, isn’t it?

@ultrawafflehouse shared a unique piece of content with the world in the middle of the week. After a friend of a friend received an old Tyler Joseph mixtape from a local youth pastor trying to prove his street cred to the middle schoolers of suburban Ohio, Ultra discovered that two of the unnamed tracks were pieces of music that had never previously found their way onto the Internet. 

One of the unnamed tracks is a slick instrumental with elements of some of Tyler’s other early works like “Two” and “I Need Something To Kill Me” on full display: i.e., an extremely promising but unfinished arrangement from an extremely talented novice with no training or experience and a dozen better ideas than this that he decided to actually flesh out. Little wonder it, like presumably most of Tyler’s work, never made it to the general public.

The other track, however, actually sounds like a full song. Dubbed “Going Down” due to the phrase’s repetition in the hook, the track fits in perfect with the general No Phun Intended/Self-Titled sound; passionately-sung heart-on-sleeve lyrics supported by a simple piano arrangement with some basic hip-hop elements thrown in. I’ll be real: I was not blown away by this song. The writing in general, particularly on the hook, is low-energy, all over the place, and stretches the metaphors real thin. Tyler’s vocal delivery is at peak teenage whine, and his bars in the sole rap verse seem amateurish and out of breath. 

But I wasn’t expecting to love it- most of Tyler’s stuff pre-Self-Titled, and even some tracks on the first two albums, are clearly made by someone who has no real clue how to do the whole music thing. “Drown” and “Blasphemy” are the only truly great songs from No Phun Intended, and they were both repurposed later down the road when Tyler had a better idea what he was actually doing. I still think Tyler is a genius, but he was not born the songwriter and performer he had become by the time Fueled By Ramen signed him. I still appreciate tracks like these, but more as historical curiosities, stepping stones to what Twenty One Pilots would become with brief flashes of Tyler’s insightful introspection and genuine brilliance.

The biggest news of the week, as with last week’s update, was not new music, but updates from the world of Dema. To start, we got three updates from dmaorg.info on Sunday. The first was a gif of a creepy vulture slowly turning to camera. Not too much to derive from this one. There’s the iconography of vultures, aka the carrion feeders who consume the bodies of the dead left at real-world Towers of Silence. The vulture can be seen to “blink” with its thin transparent eyelid, aligning it with the fifth Closing Eye Lyric: “Nobody dreams when they blink.” This correlation is strengthened by the name of the gif itself: “i”.

The second post, another letter from Clancy, was much more intriguing. The letter contains some great prose, with Clancy describing how the bishops have robbed the denizens of Dema of their dreams using something referred to as “smearing” and pledging to not let them crush his hope. The references to nighttime and light connect it to the sixth Closing Eye Lyric, “remember the morning is when night is dead”. The image title of this update is “e_sr_eve_r.jpg” (”reverse” in reverse), and that’s reflected both the content of the letter and its organization- you can swap the order of the sentences, and it still makes perfect sense. But why this command to reverse? To what end? Hmm....

The answer to that comes in the third update, a simple smattering of yellow marks slipped out of chronological order in the middle of the list the list under the date of the band’s Grammy win. When laid over the Clancy letter, the markings for individual letters again spell out the word “trench”, which connects it to the audio clip from the previous Dema update, while the solid vertical lines highlight the phrase “We are banditos.” When you connect all these dots and reverse that audio, as several people had already discovered previously, it becomes pretty clear that Tyler is singing “We are banditos.” What does that mean? Well, hold your horses, kid, because the circled letters in the message spell out “end”. That looked like it might be it...

Until the gif that originally revealed the Dema site made its way back onto the main website. Many interpreted this to be the fulfillment of the last Closing Eye Lyric, “Now I just sit in silence,” due to the gif ending with the finale of the “Car Radio” music video, and a sign to the Clique to pay attention to the site if they weren’t already.

dmaorg.info finished its mission on Thursday with another rush of content. First, a photo of a vast desert with a single small figure possibly visible on the horizon. The image was simply titled “o_ut.jpg”. Not much else to say; once again, the big reveal was delivered to us by Clancy.

This letter is honestly the best fiction writing and world-building I’ve seen from Tyler yet, good enough to make me wonder if he’s been considering writing a Hunger Games-style YA series if this whole music career thing doesn’t pan out. Clancy lays out his plan to break out of Dema: since it will be impossible to sneak past the huge walls unnoticed, he plans to make a big commotion during the enclave’s biggest holiday, the Annual Assemblage of the Glorified, to distract the “watchers” and permit those from the “other side” to find a way in, then avoid being “smeared” by the bishops until the others can show him the way out. There are tons of great details and turns of phrase (”concrete coffin of a city”) and really cool moments (”They don’t control us” should sound way more cringey than it reads here.) They even snuck in a final hidden message message: following the dotted lines up the same number of rows as there are squares reveals one last “Wake up.”

The biggest takeaway from this letter, though, is how direct it is. It makes reference to it being “a year since the last convocation” and directly says that “by morning, everything will be different.” And, if you still didn’t get the message- *poof*. Within minutes of the Clique posting and dissecting these new posts, dmaorg.info was gone. They pulled the plug. The only evidence of the last few months of theorizing, speculating, and decoding will be on Reddit threads lost to the dust of time, as our thoughts become occupied with a whole different type of Twenty One Pilots content...

WILD SPECULATION:

As of the moment I’m writing this (7/6/18, 1 am PST), the band has not released any new music. I am not bopping to “Jumpsuit” right now. But something is totally happening within the next 12-24 hours. The only question is... what?

Well, I have zero information beyond the registration of the song titles “Nico and the Niners” and “Jumpsuit” and the implication that the songs will relate to this unfolding tale of Clancy and the Bishops of Dema. But I do have some theories/wishes.

First, I don’t think we’ll be getting a whole new album all at once. Twenty One Pilots ain’t Beyonce. They don’t have the clout (yet) for FBR to let them get away with dropping a full project with zero mainstream promo (also, there’s no other registered song titles, so nothing for at least a few weeks). I think that, in following the standard pop music tradition of the last few years, we’ll get two singles dropped on the first day (the aforementioned registered names), with a music video for one to tide us over, then a trickle of songs for two or three months before an album in time for the holidays. I suspect “Jumpsuit” to be the main radio-play single (I’m already picturing a prison break from Dema for the video), while “Nico” serves as the song for the fans that lays out more about this concept.

The thing that excites me most about the whole Dema idea is that, unlike the rather straightforward metaphor of Blurryface, the ARG content we’ve received so far has laid out an entire world populated with multiple named characters and concepts that we aren’t clear on just yet. Because of that, I think we might get quite a few songs (like, hopefully, “Nico”) that focus more on storytelling (and, also hopefully, killer soundscapes) than just affirming the importance of staying alive. I really hope “Nico” is, like, a nine-minute long rock/EDM opera that lays out all the different bishops’ plans and motivations while mashing genres in the classic TØP style. I really want to see Tyler and Josh push themselves artistically, and I think that what we’ve seen so far is really indicating that is the case.

A few more questions (and some speculation): 

What other songs are coming? “Trench”? “Heavy”? “Banditos”? “Wake Up”? “Coconut Sharks: Requiem”? (No clue, can’t wait to find out.)

What will the promo look like? Will the band bother to participate in local radio interviews anymore? (Depends on how early sales go, I think.) Will they do any long-form/in-depth sit downs? (Rooting for Zane Lowe, but also hoping a mag like Rolling Stone that’s willing to put artists in the hot seat puts Tyler on his toes and asks some of the difficult questions.)

What can we expect of tour? (I’m calling amphitheater followed by arena shows, just like with Blurryface and a lot of the bigger FBR acts. Praying for more live musicians and maybe some theatrical stuff with Dema.)

What will the album be called? Dema? Silence? Tower of Silence? Iris [remember that, holy crap]? Blurryface 2: Electric Boogaloo? Hard to say (Probably the first one, let’s be real).

Will it be successful? (Almost definitely not as much as Blurryface. We’ll have to see how hard they focus on the Dema concept or an alternative sound, since radio hates weird.) Will it be good? (Yes. I was unsure for a long time, but I’ve got a really good feeling now. A really, really good feeling.)

Community Spotlight:

This is technically cheating, but I am part of the community, so I’m gonna write about myself today. Forgive me.

Last year, on my 21st birthday, Twenty One Pilots posted a shut eye and some mirrored lyrics on their social media and then, for all intents and purposes, disappeared. I spent my whole twenty-first year of life without ‘em (the irony is not lost on me), which was weird considering how much they had inspired and impacted me throughout high school and college.

I did a lot of stuff when I was 21. I graduated college. I got a new job. I made friends. I lost friends. I got in fights. I learned to let go, but not soon enough to spare someone I cared about from unnecessary heartbreak. I turned corners in my mental health, only to run into new walls. I listened to a ton of music. I grew up.

Today, I turned 22. The irony of the absence of Twenty One Pilots aside, I’m so glad I had the chance to figure out who I was without this band by my side every step of the way. I learned that I could make it. And now I get to have them back while I continue to make it. How sick a birthday gift is that?

Power to the local dreamer.

|-/

[deathsdue]

Status: Passed! Skill Points: +1 // Total: 7 Skill Up: Lance E+ -> D (claim pending)

Classes Accessed: n/a Classes Mastered: n/a

Current Threads

ye olde accuplacer — python

a lonely thought — kurthnaga

before it all began — cynthia

a stranger who could be a friend — owain

it’s not like I’m worried about you or anything — selena

phun with photos — cynthia

fly high — pelleas 

do u ever feel like a plastic bag — lucina

ball threads???

Finished Threads: n/a

thread tracker

[deathsdue]

Status: Passed! Skill Points: +1 // Total: 6 Skill Up: Lance E -> E+

Classes Accessed: n/a Classes Mastered: n/a

Current Threads

ye olde accuplacer — python

a lonely thought — kurthnaga

before it all began — cynthia

a stranger who could be a friend — owain

this is aether raids in 2026 — anna

it’s not like I’m worried about you or anything — selena

phun with photos — cynthia

fly high — pelleas 

do u ever feel like a plastic bag — lucina

Finished Threads: n/a

thread tracker

[deathsdue]

The feeling that he had no idea what to do with any part of his body was rising inside him. Where should he look? How should he place his hands? Should he put his mask away? Would it be crushed or poke her if he sat it somewhere on the seat? Why was this seat so small to begin with?

All his thoughts came to a screeching halt when Cynthia suddenly pulled him in close, making him lean down to accommodate their height difference. If his face was red before, it was a tomato now.

"Wait, wait," he extracted himself from beneath her arm, pulling her limb up and over his head. "Let's..." but he couldn't say it, so he just put his arm around her back instead.

"This is...more...comfortable...." If one could get past his stilted words enough to believe him at any rate.

Looking into the mirror screen, he could only think about how the two didn't suit each other, how his darkness dampened her light, but she was smiling and...that was all he really wanted.

"Is this...okay?"

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[justicespeared]

Cynthia watched him with breathless anticipation. She rarely ever saw him without his mask; she could only think of seeing his face once without his mask. She wanted to rewrite the memory of his face - a face she had only seen shrouded in darkness. It was a selfish thing to want. Yet Gerome allowed it.

The mask came off, and Cynthia held in a gasp. Even with his face so reddened by embarrassment, he was so handsome. He had pretty, long eyelashes that curled just right. His skin looked so smooth, and she had to fight herself to touch it. She wanted to kiss him then, so terribly that it hurt to breathe. She wanted to stare at him forever and memorise every little thing about his face.

She was hopeless. She didn’t know what to do with herself.

It was only when Gerome spoke that she managed to snap back to reality. Yes - the photo. She could take it. She needed to keep her hands busy, unless she wanted to do something stupid that she could never take back.

“Yep!” She said it with probably too much cheer - she needed to cover up every piece of want from her voice. She looked back at her reflection: she had gone bright pink. She didn’t know how to hide that. She could claim this whole thing was embarrassing, if he asked. They both looked so stiff, unnatural, like portraits of a royal family. She needed to fix that.

“Alright, come here,” she said, pulling him in closer with a friendly arm around the shoulder. Even that felt weird and unnatural. “Can you smile a little? Please? Just a little one?”

Then again, maybe being a little awkward and silly would work well as a memento - Gerome was always a little awkward.

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[deathsdue]

He had already been thinking it but to hear Cynthia give voice to the thought was a different matter. "No—" then he realized how that sounded, "I mean, yes, I-I want to. I had...planned on it." So why had he not removed it yet?

Willing his hand to steady, Gerome reached up, unhooked the mask, and slowly removed lifted it from his face. It felt as if each single action took minutes at a time, stretched into eternity, but in reality it only took a few seconds for the mask to come to a rest in his lap.

Gerome glanced over at Cynthia, knowing his face was red all the way to his ears, but he couldn't do anything about that. Not with Cynthia so close. He glanced back at the photo-artifex screen and saw himself sitting awkwardly next to Cynthia. Even unmasked he was unsuited to her.

"Do you want to take the photos?" He thought she would be better at it than himself.

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[justicespeared]

They entered the booth, and it was very tight. How did those groups manage to fit in? Though, it did seem to mostly be pairs. Was that the point - couples wanting a memory of their relationship? Weird. Not that Cynthia wasn’t weird; she wanted to see Gerome whenever she wanted.

Okay, now that she thought about it, that sounded so creepy.

She looked at their reflection. She didn’t expect Gerome to be all smiles, but she expected a little more… something. She didn’t know why; after all, it was Gerome. She supposed this was what he always looked like. But they were alone, and they were so close, and her mouth couldn’t help but blurt out:

“Can you take off the mask?”

She felt bad immediately after asking. She’d never asked that of him before, not even when they were alone. Usually it wasn’t something that entered her head, but she wanted something to remember him by. She still remembered the little boy that hid somewhere in him. She knew he was still hiding a part of himself behind that mask. She didn’t want that mask to be what she remembered - she wanted him.

“Sorry! I just see the mask all the time, you know? It would be nice to see you sometimes without it. And I swear - pinkie swear - I won’t show anyone else. Not even the Justice Cabal. Not even my own mother.” She shook her head. She was rambling.

“It’s okay if you don’t wanna, but… I wanna.”

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[deathsdue]

Gerome would have followed with that it was hard for him to shake old feelings, that maybe there was a very low chance of anything like that happening to them again but that he would be more assured by having the picture regardless. Perhaps he was giving in to the restless fears that haunted his waking and dreaming hours. If it brought him some measure of peace, he would take it.

Though perhaps...he should try to find a way to do that without Cynthia. So as to not burden her so much.

I just want a picture of you because I love you.

And there she went, again. In one simple utterance she had rendered thoughts blank. Did Cynthia not realize the power of her words? The lurch his heart made, strung up on his rib cage and left to hang. She had said this to him before but never elaborated, even when asked, and he could only conclude that she would say it to any of their friends. After all, she didn't feel that way about him.

He shifted where he stood and started to press her about it again, but barely got a syllable out before the attendant was gesturing for them to step inside. They were next.

The attendant explained that once they pressed the button, the photo-artifex would take care of the rest. Inside, the space was smaller than expected, fitting two snugly, and a magic mirror of some sort showed their likeness. His stern visage, half cloaked by his mask, stared back at him. Demeanor alone made him a stark contrast to Cynthia's light.

The chatter and buzz of the dining hall dulled behind the curtain as the two were left alone. And very close.

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[justicespeared]

“Isn’t it weird that ‘back then’ is technically the future?” she mused, not realising she was echoing his thoughts. “But I get what you mean.” Then again, it was a future that wouldn’t happen, so things were even more complicated when one talked about timeline stuff.

“I know what you mean. If I lost you, I’d have nothing left of you.” Her chest sunk at the thought. Cynthia had lost so much already; she couldn’t face losing Gerome too. She couldn’t lose any of them really, but losing him would have been too much. She almost had lost him. That terrifying reality still haunted her. She shouldn’t have left him in the first place. She held onto him tighter.

She couldn’t even pretend that she didn’t want a photo of just him. Sure, the others would be nice too, but her stupid little heart only wanted Gerome. It did make her happy that he wanted something tangible of her.

“Heehee! It's pretty sweet that you want a picture of me. But I don’t want a picture for dramatic reasons like that. I don’t think I’m gonna lose you again.” She smiled brightly, hiding away the ache and fear. “I just want a picture of you because I love you, and I wanna see you even if you’re not there, like if you’re on a mission or you decide to leave or, something.”

She could say those three words like they were nothing now, but she meant them every time; they had only lost their novelty over the years.

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[deathsdue]

The two waited in the growing line, slowly shuffling forward each time someone finished with the booth. Most of the guests were parties of one or two people, and occasionally a larger group entered, but Gerome wasn't paying too close attention. His thoughts were turned inward.

At least until Cynthia linked her arm with his, jolting his attention back to her.

Our kids? Gerome flushed beneath his mask, the sight hidden, as the image bloomed a little too quickly in his thoughts. But then she clarified and— of course, of course that was what she meant. She wouldn't mean anything else, not about her best friend. He cleared his throat in an attempt to get his voice back.

"To," he cleared his throat again, his voice not coming out as steady as he would have liked, "to be honest, I had the thought that this was something we lacked before. Back then," could he say that? It was an averted future, but to them it had already happened, "if anything had happened to any of us, there would be no record. Nothing to remember you by." Though he imagined that if any of them had fallen, it would not be long before the others followed. They had become the last line of defense in a long, drawn out, war with an inexhaustible army.

But he did not voice that part. He did not have to.

"I know we do not face the same obstacles here, Grima's army does not raze these lands, but I find myself wanting to have something more tangible anyway."

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[justicespeared]

Cynthia gasped when he suddenly stood up. Honestly, she was expecting more resistance from him. She expected she'd have to beg for the next thirty minutes until he allowed himself to be dragged. And yet no, he was willingly getting up without dragging.

"Okay!" She sprang to her feet, still surprised. He was really going to do this for her. She wondered if she could get an image of him, without his mask, just him. Gerome would of course say no, but she wanted one anyway. Even if he looked furious in the photo. It was something no one else would ever see; she would guard it with her life.

She would ask later, when she finally got him into the booth.

There was a queue, of course - plenty of people couldn't afford the fancy, elaborate portraits that nobles could. This was a great alternative. The queue was going by quickly enough, but Cynthia bounced on her heels excitedly. She was so excited she thought she might burst.

She linked her arm with his - in case he wanted to run away, yes, but also just to be closer to him. "It's gonna be great," she said, anxious to fill the silence. "We can have something to look back on in a few years when we're older. We can show our kids, too." A pause. "Not OUR kids like we're together, but you know, our kids. I can show them my best friend."

That was close. She didn't want to make him feel bad for not liking her after all; she was glad Gerome was in her life, even as her friend.

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[justicespeared]

Cynthia kept her promise. Wherever Gerome was, so was Cynthia. It helped that he sought her out too, so she didn't feel so weird about following him.

They ate together, and while Cynthia was talking animatedly about something - she immediately forgot her own topic - she noticed a sign. Someone was offering... Photos? Like a painting of life but without painting. She looked at Gerome with a new plan in her head.

"Look!" She gestured at the sign. She didn't even give him a chance to read it before she started again. "They're offering free 'photos'. I think it's like a picture but magic? I dunno, I'm useless at magic." She shrugged.

"But we should go! Pleaaaaaase? I want something that I can look at and go, yeah, my time here with you was great." She nodded at her own wisdom. "Please Gerome? It'll be so fun! We don't have anything to do this afternoon so we should go! Please! Please please PLEASE!"

It was either go along with her, or listen to the word 'please' until it was no longer a word. The choice was his.

@deathsdue

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[deathsdue]

He hadn't explicitly said no to her (it was hard for him to say no to Cynthia), but she had the right of it regardless. If he could avoid making a further fool of himself in front of her he'd take it. Of course, Cynthia wouldn't let him off the hook that easily.

And somehow she found a way around his hasty excuse. A record of their progress would be nice to have, and in truth he liked the idea of spending time with her, but..

"I..." but whatever excuse he thought he could conjure died on his lips when he looked at her.

Behind his mask, he blinked, struck by the thought that having an image of them was exactly what he wanted. What he'd always wanted. Not for training purposes, but for the mere fact that he'd have an image of her.

In their far flung, forgotten future, if anything happened to either of them, not only would it be unlikely for either to find out due to the breakdown of communications, but he'd never have a means of looking at her again.

That fate was far less likely in this world, or so he kept telling himself, but the urge remained. Gerome suddenly stood.

"Let's get one taken."

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[justicespeared]

"Wh- are you really gonna try and say no?!" She was so shocked by him actually saying no that she stopped begging. Training was great and all, and she enjoyed it, but sometimes goofing off was necessary. Then again, Gerome wasn't the type to goof off. Ugh, he could be so dull sometimes!

But an idea blinked on in her head. Of course, she knew how to get him.

"Well, sure, we're super focused on our goals." This was true. No matter how silly Cynthia was, she was always focused on being the best she could be. Gerome did too, but he was always a hard worker. "But... But what if we could have a record of our progress?"

A grin settled on her face. "Think about it, Gerome. If we got images taken of us right now, we can look back on it in six months and go woah, we were so weak back then! Look at how much we've grown!" No, that was not why she wanted the image, but that wasn't the point. She'd say anything if it got him in that booth with her.

"Come on, think of it as an extension of our training. It's a goal, something we can look back on." And something she could look at in private, when she could feel her silly feelings about Gerome without anyone knowing. She was so hopeless for him.

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )