Finch & Jay

My musings may or may not be for the birds. ♥ BTS OT7 celebrator ♥ KM Satellite supporter ♥ Fan-art appreciator ♥

[finch-and-jay]

Darlings~~I hardly know where to begin. I'll start by saying that I am safe and well.

The big personal challenges I was managing at the beginning of the year transitioned smoothly into giant global challenges with a quickness. How are you all? Are you holding up?

While I have thus far, miraculously, avoided COVID-19 myself, this terrible virus upturned my life in every other way. My mentor (who I work with) lost his wife to COVID in an early surge, having been in Italy with her at the time. Our workplace was immediately shuttered as she fell ill and all conservators parted ways. I raced home to the US ahead of the shutdown and carefully quarantined. Traveling was~~an awful and anxious experience, but not as awful as the losses. There is no escape from the impact of this disease. Coming from the dance/theater world, most of my oldest friends have been devastated by the loss of work even if they have avoided sickness. But not all have avoided it and grief weighs heavily on me. I won't speak more on that.

For months, I have not been able to summon much focus or energy towards fun endeavors like this blog. I took my own advice and forced myself into a hiatus from fandom activities. I have still kept up with Bangtan content since they have been a beacon of comfort, but I have little tolerance for fan spaces or discussion. I have become overly sensitive to even the slightest aroma of toxicity in the midst of so much darkness. And Dears, you know it's quite unavoidable on social media~~even with thoughtfully curated feeds. It was best for me to limit my attention to things good for my mental health.

I am sending this message to the Mysterious Friend of the Fowl for posting (you should check in too, babe!). We are about one week out from Dynamite as I write this! Exciting~~!! The Mysterious Friend is the only one I have stayed in contact with regarding BTS material. We both still need to get through Memories 2019, but the email she sent me right after the deluge of KM content is both colorful and hilarious. Those boys sure know how to raise an eyebrow~~or two.

Hand cupped to my ear, I can already hear the voices calling out, "But Finch! What do you think about KM now? Has your opinion changed?"

No, my friends, it has not. My position remains that I believe JM and JK have a special and lovely relationship worth celebrating. Few things are less interesting to me than labeling, defining, or assuming the exact nature of that relationship. The last time I saw my inbox, there had been an array of Anons insisting that JM and JK were currently dating a dozen or more people. These were individual claims, about all different partners, all certain they were correct, and all seemingly thought this information would change my opinion about Kookmin. I assume these Anons have not really read this blog.

Maybe I will clarify one more time then. JM and JK could be actively dating and/or having sexy-times with hundreds of other people all the time and that would change nothing about this blog. FnJ is for fangirling over Bangtan and celebrating the publicly observable bond of Kookmin and all the members of the group, which is delightful and full of love.

I do not care who or if anyone in this group is dating. Those are their private lives and not my business. This matters approximately the same amount to me as what brand of toothpaste they use.

Music, performance, and interpersonal behavior in Bangtan is interesting to me. The love they so obviously all have for each other is interesting to me. Kookmin being so bright in each other's company is interesting to me. That's what I'm here for~~

Although the 'here' is much less often now. Sorry, Darlings! It felt important to check in, but I am still not ready to return to FnJ. I will continue to focus on looking after my family, friends, and local community as we struggle with these unprecedented circumstances.

If you see content/fanart reblogs on FnJ, know that they are probably the Mysterious Friend of the Fowl fangirling a bit. It might be me on occasion, but we will otherwise not be active here. The inbox will be closed until further notice. Fowl let me know there were many messages of worry and concern in there and I welled up with gratitude and warmth. Thank you, Darlings. I reflect that worry back to you and hope you are healthy and as vibrant as you can be through all of this.

Be good to each other! Wear your masks!  💜 💜 💜

Oh, and if you're an American, please vote in November~~~!!!

- Finch

-----

I wish I could confidently say EVERYTHING IS FINE this time like the last time I posted for Finch, but THAT WOULD NOT BE ACCURATE. Hahahaaaaa fml. Dude, it hasn’t even been that long and Tumblr looks all out of whack. I’ll check in too as Finch commands. I’m doing okay, but stressed af. Aren’t we all? Hoping Dynamite will be a jam. Also really wanna watch this In the Soop thing. Looks relaxing. Both Finch and I are curious about the upcoming album. We’ve usually preferred when BTS are more hands-on with their music so we’re pretty hyped. That part with KM and the toast in Memories is the goddamn cutest. Just tacking that on the end here for no other reason than I just saw a clip of it and it cracked me the fuck up.

Seriously wear a mask. They’re like beaks... for humans. Get on that beak life!

K, check-in complete. Love you guys. Be careful out there.

- Mysterious Friend of the Fowl

[finch-and-jay]

Miss you and hope your doing well.

So sweet! Thank you, dear!

The end of the year turned out to be especially hard for me and my family.

I hope everyone else has started off 2020 in a very positive way~!!

💜💜💜

[jmexile]

Omg this is adorable. 3J 😍

[finch-and-jay]

This beautiful HopeMinKook clip kept me warm when I was feeling very down recently. It’s such a good cuddle!

[finch-and-jay]

Is it u fluffy_kookoo on YouTube? Shdjdj they posted their part 3 of jungkook taking care of jimin and I couldn’t help it but think it is you bc you both arrived in the same time I mean recently shsjdj IS IT YOU BC—

I think you are asking if I am a certain YouTube channel, Anon?

I promise you I have no channels. I wouldn’t know the first thing about editing videos at all. ^^

I did try to search for this fluffy_kookoo, but it seems they no longer have a channel or their name has changed completely? It sounds like a cute series. I have seen others with a similar theme.

[finch-and-jay]

heyy so i was wondering, since it seems like the tattoo is still around (im not sure how long temporary tats can last, but it seems kinda long now?) do you think jm actually stands for jimin or perhaps something else? i dont know, i guess i dont really have a question, im just pointing out that jk really did that

Two more very old Asks about JK’s tattoos~~

2nd Anon said: Hi! I read your prev answer about the tattoo and I just wanna share that there’s also this adorable observation that it has all the members in it! I mean V, RM, Y(oongi) and of course the four Js

3rd Anon said: Hello, bird lady - to the anon who was talking about JK’s tattoo saying JM on his ring finger, while I understand can something that should make us ~ curious ~ i read om Twt somewhere that its actually a combo of all the first letters of members’ name. the J is on the 4th finger because there are 4 Js in the team :P didnt mean to be a downer, but that Twt explanation just seemed more plausible so i thought id share :P

FnJ: This is very old news now, of course, but I will still respond a little. Yes, I think it should be obvious by now that JK’s tattoos are all permanent. Once I had a chance to see them moving on video, they made much more sense as real tattoos.

I understand there has been a lot of emphasis on the placement of the ‘J’ above the ‘M’ being an intentional reference to JM and JK’s relationship. I would personally push back against this idea. To me, it does not make much sense in the context of the other tattoos.

It seems clear to me that JK’s intention is to have a mark that represents each of the other six members of Bangtan. The ‘A’ in ARMY is formed by an upside-down ‘V’ to represent TH. The ‘RM’ is literally RM. The ‘Y’ is for Yoongi, Following the logic of cleverly combining ARMY letters and references to each member, SJ, HS, and JM need to fit in there somehow. I don’t think the marks between his fingers are Js. They look like simple crosses, which may be purely decorative or could even be TXT-related.

We know that the ‘J’ was added at a later time than the rest. My own speculation is that JK was confident in how the ARMY part worked, but hadn’t fully decided the best way to get the others in there. He may have had multiple ideas and wanted more time to pick one. Perhaps he considered a ‘J’ on each of those three fingers. Perhaps he considered other symbols or letters for them.

Oddly enough, I haven’t seen anyone else express this idea, but it must already be out there somewhere. My guess is he wanted to use the ‘M’ as a number ‘3′. That’s why they are placed this way. His primary decision would then be the orientation of the ‘J’. Should it be upright to be aligned better with the other letters? Should the ‘J’ be sideways to align with the orientation of the ‘3′? Something like that may have taken longer to finalize.

Truly, I believe ‘3J’ is the intention with the placement and ‘JM’ being there is incidental as a result. 

It’s perfectly fine if anyone disagrees, of course, I would only wonder how SJ and HS are represented if the ‘JM’ alone is the intention? Even if he wanted JM to have special representation, I don’t believe JK would leave out those two so obviously without adding anything else since then. I assume those who hold the strictest view that the ‘JM’ is very intentionally referring to Jimin have the perspective that the ‘ARMY’ part is only in reference to ARMY and not the other members. Hey, maybe! The way the ‘A’ is drawn seems like an odd choice in that case, but JK is not opposed to odd choices!

I do wonder if or when the maknae might talk about his new ink. I can’t imagine he will be keeping the tattoos farther up his arm hidden forever. He gets so sweaty performing, you’d thing he’ll want to be in something short-sleeved in public eventually. I am curious if he will choose to say nothing about them (like JM with his) even after letting them be seen in the future. It’s his right to keep that all private, of course, but it would make a mighty entertaining VLive if he was to formally introduce them to us, wouldn’t it?

Though I have seen pictures of his arm tattoos, I would prefer to not speak on those until JK has made an active choice to reveal them publicly without it purely coming from other people or accidental exposures (like the BV4 oopsie).

As a final thought, I’ll say I am very happy Jungkook got his tattoos. He has expressed wanting them for such a long time, it seems likely he had been planning them for ages. I take it as a sign he is pursuing the things he wants in life regardless of it being less compatible with his career or something for which he may face criticism. You do you, JK!

Let’s remember his words from Episode 4 of BRING THE SOUL:

I, Jeon Jungkook, as a person~~when the Jungkook behind the mask is revealed, it’s a lot of pressure and also scary.

These men will be prioritizing their real lives and expressing their sincere selves over their broadcast personas more and more in the coming years. We should appreciate that there may be stark contrasts between their masked and unmasked selves and respect their autonomy to find their own way. 💙

[joeguk]

yoongi’s speech for mama 2019 artist of the year ♡

[finch-and-jay]

💜

[finch-and-jay]

sneaks in through the back door  👀

I disappeared again, didn’t I?

I hope you’re all well!

My October was unexpectedly extremely challenging. I’ll mention it briefly in the future. November then had to be a time for recovery and catching up on work.

I will eventually have some things to say in response to various Bangtan-related issues that came up heavily in my Asks over the last couple of months, but tonight is for MAMA!

Are you all watching?!

Jungkook was so preoccupied with continuing to lightly workout~~~post-workout, and so concerned over how much he was eating in Jin’s delightful Birthday VLIVE yesterday, that I am highly curious what he was getting so prepared for. What are you up to, JK?

Otherwise, I’m just looking forward to a fun show.

MMA was completely astonishing. We will see how MAMA stacks up!

[finch-and-jay]

Hello Bird Lady. Did you see JK has a new tattoo that reads “ARMY”? And it also reads “JM” on the ring finger (it’s the right hand tho), but, can we be curious 👀

Oh dear, I have almost no time, but I’ll do a quick answer.

It’s adorable, isn’t it?

I would guess they are temporary. A couple of them look like the sticker type and the rest looks like drawings to me. They could all be drawings though.

And honestly, they look like Jimin’s work. It’s unlikely Jungkook drew them on his own right hand with his left. But we’ve seen Jimin do that kind of lettering and decoration before. Adding a ‘J’ over the ‘M’ as his own little signature makes sense to me if that’s the case. I don’t think it’s significant which finger it’s on. That’s just where the ‘M’ was available.

It could be that Jungkook gave him (or anyone else) permission to doodle on him while bored. It could be a punishment from a game to get drawn on by other members. It could be a game award for the winner to draw on another member (or the loser).

It’s also possible some element is a real tattoo, like just the simple ARMY letters at his knuckles and the rest is another member/Jimin decorating on top of and around them.

The possibilities are endless! But one thing is for certain!

It’s really damn cute~~!!

[finch-and-jay]

Not sure this is the right place to ask, but I stumbled on a new RM song called Hellcat on Spotify today that apparently RM and someone called Billest Bulls released on Sep 6th – aka 5 days ago. But I haven’t read anything about this anywhere and when I listened to it it’s very different from any other RM song. Is it just me that missed this or have the whole Army missed it? It’s all very strange… what do you think?

The most likely scenario is that this Billest Bulls fellow is working with some other indie artist who goes by the name RM and isn’t aware that Namjoon exists, so our RM is getting tagged into his work, but has absolutely nothing to do with it. Based on the ‘quality’ of Mr. Bull’s work *cough*, this is probably what happened. It also looks like he has something on Soundcloud with an ‘RM’, so that is probably the same music partner.

Spotify is notorious for having a poor system for how artist names and song names get maintained/tagged. Artist and song names get switched around constantly and names that have nothing to do with releases show up for no reason. Two artists with the same name get treated as one artist or two songs of the same name get switched. It just happens. People have to report to Spotify when these things occur to get them fixed.

I guarantee you, Namjoon has nothing to do with this track.

[alllthingsbts]

11/09/19 Jimin’s Tweet

#JIMIN

[finch-and-jay]

Indeed.

[gaypeople-remade]

[finch-and-jay]

The Cooky headband really added to the whole effect here. Sweet boys.

[blueorange886]

Keep talking, keep eating, go on.. dont mind me I'm just 👀👀👀

[finch-and-jay]

They all love each other so much. This whole scene was bittersweet and funny. It’s good they talk these things out and understand what they’re going through.

[finch-and-jay]

bird mum... what say you about jimins incessant need for companionship and attention? in the new docuseries he talks about how he came to the hotel drunk and staff told him he kept telling them how lonely he was and asking for Soju...(he apparently doesn’t remember this which worries me bc uh,, budding alcoholism)... Jimin also admits he experiences on sharp emotional highs and lows it makes me fear for his mental health and stability..ㅠㅠ I know it’s wrong to diagnose him but I can’t help it.

I was able to catch up on the Docu-series earlier today, so I can respond to this! I’m loving it so far. Your question is an interesting one, Anon. I think it could sound harsh towards Jimin, but I can understand the concern.I’ve touched on how Jimin seems to really not tolerate being alone on this blog various times. I’ll quote myself from the ‘On Jimin and flirtation’ post:

“All of this means that Jimin feels isolation and loneliness intensely. He doesn’t want to be alone. He needs others around him to be his mirror and reflect his sense of self, identity, and esteem back to him. Without companions, Jimin probably struggles to process his own thoughts, see himself accurately, or alleviate stress. Choosing to remain roommates with HS after they moved, another highly empathetic extrovert, wasn’t surprising to me in the least.”

Having direct confirmation from Hobi about this facet of Jimin’s personality and the reason why they stayed roommates for so long, was striking, but not surprising to me. I know shippers tend to commandeer any mention of JM going to the other member’s rooms on tour for their own purposes, but for me, it was always loud and clear that he needed anyone as a companion to get through the excruciating loneliness of that kind of life for someone as socially co-dependent as him. That will continue to be a huge challenge, I’m sure.

As for the alcohol, that’s no secret is it? He has talked about drinking to cope many times and we’ve seen him throw back significant quantities on camera like it’s water. My impression is that drinking culture is very pervasive in Korea and being drunk is very normalized. Growing up in that kind of culture, under the kind of stress he is, having relied on it in a self-medicating way for years, it is probably difficult for him to know where a healthy line is.

The reality is that everyone in BTS is under a level of pressure that most humans would find intolerable for long. Each of them will need vices to relieve whatever pressure they can, whether it’s the extreme versions of shopping for luxuries, exercising, dieting, isolating, drinking, video games, or overworking~~they will find a way to cope. We can hope they will find healthy ways of doing so, but their present circumstances are unhealthy, no matter what they do. Fame crushes people at their level. The only people who tolerate it are atypical already, like sociopaths or narcissists. Bangtan all appear to be normal guys, so they will feel the pain of that pressure fully. They will all struggle with their mental health and stability. Jimin is quite social and open about his struggles so we are more likely to notice it in him, while the others are all dealing with the strain in their own unique ways.

I don’t want to sound like it’s all doom and gloom. I am comforted that they have each other. Those tight bonds across the group matter hugely. And as much as many ARMYs criticize BH for not doing more to help, I have never seen another entertainment company provide the level of care and attention they have to their artists.

Only time will tell if these men will be able to ride out this storm without taking on too much damage.

[finch-and-jay]

Love your blog and welcome back. Are you going to post the chirp Rose Bowl Day 2 post and JK and Jimin. I’m really curious about what you will say.

Yes, I will be posting the Rose Bowl CHiRP! While my computer was dead I had time to re-think the post I had already finished, so I am taking the time express my perspective more clearly. Don't hold your breath waiting for it though! I will probably be posting some other things first. We'll get there~~!!

[finch-and-jay]

Do you still believe km are romantically together or just friends ?

Hello Anon! Are you perhaps new to my blog?I have never been convinced of the actual status of KM’s relationship one way or the other. You can read through this post or maybe this post for more elaboration on my position.I am more interested in celebrating the obvious special bond they have and exploring their dynamic than trying to prove or be persuaded of anything. ^^

[finch-and-jay]

You're finally back! I missed you so much I was sure you were going to take at least a month longer to return, but you're here! I'm so so happy you're back! I hope you don't feel any pressure now that you've finally returned. You helped me a lot to take things from multiple perspectives and I'll forever be grateful for that. Welcome back. I look forward to reading your thoughts whenever you are ready to post them. Please take care.

Thank you, dear! I admit, I feel some pressure. But that's primarily because I have so much I'd like to write about, but have so little time to commit to getting things posted. It is self-imposed pressure. I am trying to be forgiving to myself and take as long as I need to without rushing. Your encouragement and patience is so loving and kind though! What a lovely message!

[finch-and-jay]

I will get through a few quicker Asks. I am still trying to figure out the draft situation.