#elemental series

[miriamctaylor]

Saturday evening plans: cover this wall in sticky notes so I can finally organize my plot outline for the elemental WIP

[wordsarelifereviews]

You know what sucks about sorry? It's the worst word in the world. Because it always happens after you fuck up something good.

Secret by Brigid Kemmerer

[yarn-over]

Toph paid pattern<

by Woolly Wormhead

[becomewings]

Harboring Waters (JiMin)

BTS Universe Elemental Series : Water

“The blood reminded me of the Grass Flower Arboretum. I felt suffocated. I couldn’t remember how I got up, ran out of the practice room, and made it to the restroom. I scrubbed and washed the scrape like crazy, becoming more and more frightened at seeing the blood sucked down the drain. I thought I’d overcome this. I thought I was OK. But I wasn’t. I had to flee. I had to wash it off. I had to look the other way. … It’d rained on that picnic day a long time ago, just like today. On that day, I’d run away from the Grass Flower Arboretum. My body was covered with mud that looked like blood. I hadn’t grown up one bit from that little eight-year-old kid.” — JiMin, 4 July Year 22. The Notes 1.

Commentary below the cut.

〰〰〰꩜〰〰〰

CW: contains mentions of blood and trauma

JiMin is haunted by an as-yet-unspecified event after a childhood school trip, when the absence of his parents prompts him to walk home alone and the subsequent downpour drives him to seek shelter inside a warehouse near the back gate of the arboretum. Later, blood and mud carry similar associations for him: blood (either someone else’s or his own) from the incident itself and mud from the rain and his lack of an umbrella. Throughout the MVs and the Notes, we see that water, the element he uses to cleanse himself, is also the visual metaphor for his trauma. JiMin attempts to wash away his past rather than acknowledging his pain, only to drown again when his memories resurface.

After his friends help him escape the hospital in Year 22, he decides that confronting the truth of the past is the only way to stop the cycle of relapses and hospitalizations. On May 19, YoonGi appears at the bus stop where JiMin is trying to summon the courage to return to Grass Flower Arboretum. “Will you go with me?” JiMin asks him. Presumably they go together, but whatever happens on their trip has not been covered in the Notes as of Map of the Soul: 7. The accident with his dancing partner on July 4 reveals that, whether he has faced the truth or not, JiMin still has a long road ahead on his journey of healing.

Related posts: Rain, Drown, Cleanse

The clips in this set are presented in MV chronological order:

I Need U (Original Ver.) Run I Need U (Japanese Ver.) Run (Japanese Ver.) Epilogue : Young Forever Wings Short Film #2 Lie Love Yourself Highlight Reel '起承轉結' Euphoria : Theme of Love Yourself 起 Wonder Fake Love (Extended Ver.)

This concludes the Water subset of the Elemental series! What would you like to see next?

[becomewings]

Drop (in the Ocean)

BTS Universe Elemental Series : Water

“No matter how many times I tried, I could never save all of them on my own. Once again, just like before… Together with you…” — SeokJin, 11 April Year 22. Save Me (Webtoon), Episode 15.

〰〰〰꩜〰〰〰

The concept is a little more abstract in this set, but I wanted to tie up some loose ends with some notable images that did not fit elsewhere. I’m planning two more posts for this series, each focused on a character with significant connections to water. Hopefully you can tell by now who they will be! :)

I Need U (Original Ver.) Epilogue : Young Forever Wings Short Film #4 First Love Wings Short Film #7 Awake 피 땀 눈물 (Blood Sweat & Tears) 血、汗、涙 (Blood Sweat & Tears, Japanese Ver.) Fake Love (Extended Ver.)

[becomewings]

Cleanse

BTS Universe Elemental Series : Water

“I shut my eyes. But it was too late. The front gate of the arboretum appeared before my eyes. It was school picnic day in first grade. I was running through heavy rain with my backpack over my head. A warehouse came into sight. The door was left open. I stepped inside. The sticky, musty smell, the sound of my heavy breathing, and the screechy, metallic sound.

… I closed my eyes and wished that this was all a dream and that, when I awoke again, I wouldn’t be able to recall anything.

That wish was just a wish. Instead, a cycle of seizures, injections, and injection-induced sleep that felt like falling off a cliff continued. After I awoke from that sleep, my whole body felt like it was covered with mud. Mud that looked like blood. No matter how hard I tried to wash it off, that warehouse smell lingered. I scrubbed until I bled, but it still felt dirty.”

— JiMin, 11 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

〰〰〰꩜〰〰〰

“When I came back to myself, I was rubbing at my arm so hard that my skin peeled off. My hands trembled and I could hear the sound of my heavy breathing.

… I’d lost concentration while dancing with my partner. My steps got tangled. I crashed into her, fell down, and skinned my arm. The blood reminded me of the Grass Flower Arboretum. I felt suffocated. I couldn’t remember how I got up, ran out of the practice room, and made it to the restroom. I scrubbed and washed the scrape like crazy, becoming more and more frightened at seeing the blood sucked down the drain. I thought I’d overcome this. I thought I was OK. But I wasn’t. I had to flee. I had to wash it off. I had to look the other way.”

— JiMin, 4 July Year 22. The Notes 1.

〰〰〰꩜〰〰〰

I Need U (Original Ver.) Run I Need U (Japanese Ver.) Wings Short Film #2 Lie Wings Short Film #4 First Love Euphoria : Theme of Love Yourself 起 Wonder 피 땀 눈물 (Blood Sweat & Tears) Love Yourself Highlight Reel '起承轉結'

[becomewings]

Alight

BTS Universe Elemental Series : Fire

“YoonGi was standing in the middle of the workroom with a lighter in his hands. The entire workroom smelled strongly of gasoline.

… The bird collapsed on the floor. It fluttered its wings again but failed to rise into the air. YoonGi stood completely still and looked down at the bird. … His hand holding the lighter still hung in the air. He finally dropped his arm, sank down, and covered his head with both hands.”

— SeokJin, 2 May Year 22 (#1). The Notes 1.

Note: Moving images open up new possibilities for exploring certain themes and imagery in BTS Universe, so I’m excited to be finally learning how to make gifs! I will be revisiting some older sets and remaking them in gif form. I will continue to make still image sets when appropriate, particularly when there are more than ten examples that I would like to include!

HYYH On Stage: Prologue Wings Short Film #7 Awake I Need U (Original Ver.) I Need U (1theK Ver.) Epilogue : Young Forever Run Love Yourself Highlight Reel '起承轉結' Wings Short Film #5 Reflection I Need U (Japanese Ver.)

[becomewings]

Sea

BTS Universe Elemental Series : Water

“There is something about the sea that makes me well up with emotions. ...

The next minute, we were all looking out onto the sea and shouting our dreams. … Each of us cried out a story that would never reach any destination. … All of my senses came alive. The others' voices became entangled and formed an intricate web with the somewhat fishy but refreshing scent of the sea and the strong breeze winding round my fingers. Before I knew it, I was screaming out onto the sea. Amidst the thundering drilling sound, I couldn't hear what my dream was.”

— JungKook, 12 June Year 19. The Notes 1.

〰〰〰꩜〰〰〰

“Beyond them was the sea, and above the sea was the sun. The entire scene looked like a still frame. …

We’d all met again, sprung JiMin from the hospital, and returned to this same beach. It was all unplanned. ...

‘It was June 12.’ I remembered it exactly because the photo we had taken on this beach was marked with the date. I sometimes took it out and stared at it. I didn’t tell anyone, but I felt on that long-ago day that I had finally found a real family. Real brothers.”

— JungKook, 22 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

〰〰〰꩜〰〰〰

“After returning from the sea, we went back to our solitary lives.”

— SeokJin, 13 June Year 22. The Notes 1.

〰〰〰꩜〰〰〰

I’ve been feeling pretty discouraged lately, especially after witnessing in real-time how much greater the reception is for new/topical content compared to older/more comprehensive content like this blog (this was within my own content on different blogs, to be clear!). It feels like an uphill battle sometimes, so I am deeply appreciative of all of you who have shared my works, and especially to those of you who also sent in supportive messages recently. I’m not giving up yet. Thank you for joining me on this journey. ♡

This is the first entry in a multi-part Elemental series, which will in turn be broken down into several subseries (Water, Fire, etc.). I know my most recent post featured a lot of sea imagery and I do usually try to space out similar themes, but this felt like a good place to start!

A little behind-the-scenes peek at my process (and inevitable misadventures), if you’re curious... I’ve been steadily compiling screenshots from every BTS Universe MV to help myself organize and plan themes, but I still have a few to go. I knew there was a shot, somewhere, with a rippling effect over the boys by the car at the sea. However, I didn’t have a screenshot of it in any of my folders, and after skimming the list of videos I was convinced that I must have missed it from one I’d already completed. As I skimmed through older MVs and it failed to turn up, I began to wonder if I’d made it up. While seriously contemplating that I’d lost my mind, I happened to check Epiphany, one of the MVs I have not captured yet, and... lo and behold, there it was at the end. Serves me right for procrastinating on the capturing. :’) I decided to splice that clip together with the original appearance of that scene/footage from the Prologue because I was already making tough choices while paring down to 10 images. It’s a little grainy, but I spent a ridiculous amount of time working on the first spliced version, scrapping it because I wasn’t happy with the alignment, redoing it from scratch with better scaling between the two, and creating the crossfade. All for just 1/10th of this set!

As I’m focusing more on gifs now and have learned very basic coloring with some practice sets on my side blog, I do want to state that I am (currently) making the decision not to color these BTS Universe sets, aside from small level edits and contrast boosting so the gifs turn out a little cleaner. I recognize that this is not the most aesthetically pleasing choice and that most creators harmonize color palettes when compiling sets from multiple videos. It is my personal intention on this blog, however, to represent the selections as close to their original versions as possible. This better demonstrates how the aesthetics and artistic decisions of the MVs themselves have developed over the lifetime of BTS Universe. Also, despite the lack of color alterations on my part, I do try my best to achieve a composition that is both narratively and visually cohesive, striking a balance between story and art. (I don’t know if anyone has caught onto me yet, but I quite enjoy “reflections” in my image layouts.) And of course, this doesn’t take into consideration all the time I spend gathering the Notes quotes and planning out whether they are more appropriate as captions or in the body text.

Anyway, if you think that I’m making a terrible decision, please feel free to yell at me in my ask box. Or if you have something nice to say, you can yell that in there too. ♡

I Need U (Original Ver.) [1] HYYH On Stage: Prologue [2-5] Epiphany Comeback Trailer [3] Run [6] Love Yourself Highlight Reel '起承轉結' [7] Euphoria : Theme of Love Yourself 起 Wonder [8-10]