#tl;dr bigbang are waiting for top | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

daesungindistress · 2 years

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"A look into the future at what's to come."

I am not sure if I ever shared these here, but I was looking at them again the other day and I noticed something. The text on TOP's shots from the unreleased Still Life photoshoot says, "A look into the future at what's to come." I can't make out the rest. But now I have to wonder: was TOP's Still Life moon scene not set in the past, but in the future? Showing us the year(s) ahead?

Before Still Life's release YG prepared us for the song by describing it as being "about the members' past times." This was confirmed when we saw in the storyboards that parts of the music video covered BIGBANG's hiatus years from 2018-2022. However, in another press release on April 5th, YG elaborated on the contents of the music vid, saying the members "hinted at past, present, and future all at the same time on their respective sets."

Past. Present. And future.

The past-oriented parts of the MV are not hard to parse. Where they exit their lonely sets toward the end, singing "la la la," I think many of us thought marked the present as of April 5th, 2022. BIGBANG finally stepping out and becoming active again, the members regaining their momentum, just beginning to move as a group for the first time in a long time.

I think there was an especially strong tendency to interpret TOP's part on the moon as his past self, showing himself stuck in a state of intense isolation since the tragedy of 2017 -- physically, emotionally, and creatively distant. We thought April 5th marked the day he was removing his mask and beginning the journey home. Back to Earth, back to VIPS, back to BIGBANG. I certainly saw it that way. And maybe there is some truth to that.

But now I can't help thinking... could it be that TOP was altogether somewhere else on the Still Life timeline? That his time on the moon as shown to us was never past or present; always future.

In his rap TOP gave us a glimpse into his future, telling us of his fresh start. April 5th, 2022 was months ago. What is now our present was, at the time of Still Life's release, the future. And for the first time in years the profile pic on TOP's personal, private Instagram has been changed. That future lunar mission he foretold coming to fruition:

When I noticed this some months ago (in June, I think), I was confused. "Didn't he leave the moon?" I asked myself. No, he didn't. He's out there right now, embarking on a brand new adventure, blasting off on a long-overdue journey of self (and space!) exploration. BIGBANG's voyager T.O.P

Perhaps the moon setting in Still Life was TOP's way of showing us that he will be away from BIGBANG for a while, not that he has been. And him making his way back to Earth at the end signals an eventual reunion with the group at some unspecified point in the future. The "round-trip ship" returning from orbit after his "very first journey of sharing who I really am," per his interview with Prestige. Reentry after removing the mask.

This could also explain why they scrapped the idea of Daesung watching footage from the moon on his TV. Had the moon represented TOP's past as we believed, then past Daesung watching over him while he was absent would have sent a beautiful message about their friendship. What reason was there to abandon it? But if the moon was meant to show TOP's future, then it wouldn't have made sense to pair past Daesung with future Seunghyun. It's a problem of conflicting timelines, and the concept was left on the cutting room floor.

The reason I bring this up is because, now that a few months have passed since the comeback, I believe the purpose of Spring Summer Autumn Winter was to reassure the fans that TOP's exclusive contract with YG Entertainment coming to an end did not mean BIGBANG was ending. I'm sure the members knew how that news would sound to us VIPs. They must have known we would fear for the future of the group, uncertain of his place in it. Remember, BIGBANG's spring comeback was announced by YG in February in the same breath as TOP's contract expiration. The two were closely connected.

So they created Still Life, The Four Seasons, for us. "Like the permanence of the seasons, BIGBANG is forever," it was said. "Our spring, summer, autumn, winter were beautiful," BIGBANG sang, and promised us they will be beautiful again. Future tense. The chairs with photo backdrop, the spotlights on the stage... they showed us that a place has been prepared for the four of them, ready and waiting. And when the time is right, they will be together again.

But for now, for the time being, one of their members is on the moon 🌕

#tl;dr bigbang are waiting for top #bigbang #choi seunghyun #top #still life #I posted this on twitter about two weeks ago #in a simpler form that is... it's undergone some editing and expansion #some things I post here some things I post there #some things end up on both... blogs #though I hesitate to call twitter a 'blog'#anyway #spring summer fall winter #the four seasons

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