Hafsa Tameez is a Pakistani-born, nowhere-based interior designer/ professional procrastinator/ self-entertainer. Stumbling onto Kpop as a socially-awkward shy recluse, she was immediately hooked. After making the irrevocable mistake of taking a philosophy course in college, she now loves analyzing the world of Kpop with Gayathri. While she adores far too many Kpop groups, her favorites have always been SHINee, Vixx, Exo, Mamamoo and Spica (though BTS is swiftly reeling her in).
Gayathri Ravindran is an Indian-born, Dubai-based Multimedia Design student currently 4 months away from graduation. She discovered Kpop through the irresistible charms of the one who calls himself Nichkhun, after seeing him on Running Man one too many times. Last year something possessed her to take a philosophy class, then two more and now she spends her free time analyzing Kpop culture with Hafsa. Currently following way more groups than she has time for including 2PM, SHINee, Vixx, BTS and Exo. Not a big fan of girl groups, although she is very excited about Mamamoo and The Ark.
Lyn and LEO - "Blossom Tears"
Hafsa: oh it’s been a while. I think I have forgotten half the lyrics
Gayathri: lol same. “Heart limping to the end of the road”. Wait. That was error right?
H: hahaha yeah
G: that’s literally the only lyric I remember. Hold on, I’ll look for a subbed video. Aha! Found it!
Ok, been a while since I last saw this so Imma watch the entire video before we start talking kay?
-.- TFW wifi is so bad you need to switch to 480p and wait for it to load
H: LOL. Mate, I need to switch it to 144p n wait for it to load
G: ugh. Tough yo.
U f f. Oppa looked so damn fine in this XD
H: hahaha IKR! The struggle is real
G: Haha, look at you and your hip lingo! :P
Ahem might've had to watch it twice cuz I forgot to read the subs first time around. Le-shin-set you know :P
H: Oh my God I get you! But seriously, as a music video I quite like how it plays out a storyline.
G: ok so I just realised this is the same girl as the Boy in Luv MV...you know the one they kept manhandling and then tried to woo with flowers
H: …there was a chick in Boy in Luv?... :/
G: LOL. Yea I wouldn't blame you for being overwhelmed by the abundance of pretty and the general swaginess, but yes...just the one. I remember cuz there was this scene where Jin literally slammed her against the lockers and then just grabbed her and dragged her along. I was pretty pissed at that point.
H: Huh. Interesting.
H: in terms of the music video, it’s pretty straightforward in terms of storyline. Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Boy had his heart broken before. Boy is now scarred and has commitment issues.
G: So boy pushes girl away, both emotionally and physically, but for some reason girl stays. You know, when I first saw this MV it took me a while to catch on that the black and white bits are Leo’s flashbacks.
H: I didn’t have trouble with that bit, but it did take me a couple of views to realise that the chick in the flashbacks is different.
G: Wait, what? It’s not the same girl? :0
H: LOL, no. Her face is different. That’s how I came to the conclusion that this must be the girl who broke Leo’s heart in the past.
G: Ah, and essentially led to him becoming a psychopathic serial killer. Like at many points we see pills, meaning he was a bit unstable. Whether he was unstable from the start or whether he became unstable after the first girl left him is not really clear tho.
H: Not sure it matters really. Point is he isn’t the best boyfriend out there. Leo makes no physical contact with her and rejects her love and denies even loving her anymore because he can't deal with the idea of her leaving. To the point that the mere possibility of her leaving and breaking his heart becomes more like inevitability. But the status quo changes when he thinks she's actually left him.
G: Then he has that breakdown and destroys perfectly good upholstery. Without even bothering to check the bathroom smh. Chincha...it’s not that big of an apartment and it was literally 2 steps away. Who does that?
H: IKR! And she ends up popping out of some adjacent room. But instead of being a smart person here and running off screaming for the hills, this one decides to stay.
G: ‘this one’ obviously has no sense of self-preservation. Such a Bella. But still a better love story than twilight xD
Anyway, this is the moment Leo has to face the fact that he does indeed love her. But he also has to own up to his fear.
H: right. And I think his solution is to kill her.
G: Ah, and that’s why he was standing there making intense eye contact with the pills while she was hugging him.
H: In death she becomes perfect to him because she no longer has the power to leave him, and ergo hurt him. Like if he knows she is not going to leave then he has nothing to fear and nothing to lose. That’s why he was comfortable enough to look at his own reflection and initiate physical contact with a corpse. And here I thought Snow White was creepy *shudders*
But there was also this theme of the dress that kept coming up.
G: True. I think the dress represents perfection to Leo. Perfection to him means the ability to not hurt him. Like in the flashbacks we see him making a dress for his ex, and he refuses to let this new girl look at the old dress in the box. But at the same time, she only appears in the dress when she is dead. So building on your idea, she only fits Leo’s idea of perfection in death.
H: Oh, clever. So in the end her identity merged with the idea behind the dress so that to Leo it’s one and the same.
G: Yeah, so he killed her, and took the heart to add to his collection of creepy serial killer memorabilia. And embalmed her and put her in the dress. Wah. Oppa is the bae, but he be cray.
H: I don’t think he embalmed her body and put her in the dress. I think that’s a metaphorical representation of what she comes to mean to him. And the fact that she looks like a corpse symbolically represents that even though he got the peace of mind he wanted, in the end the relationship is dead anyway. Because, well…the girl is dead…don’t see that relationship going anywhere.
But I don’t think Leo killing her is all there is to the story. I think she let herself be killed.
G: huh, intriguing. I’m curious tho, what makes you think she allowed him to kill her? That she had the ability to make that choice? He's pushing her around so he's obviously able to overpower her physically, and we know it was his own pills that killed her.
H: well for one thing, her behaviour so far. She has stayed with him through all his violent outbursts and general weirdness where any sane person would have booked it ASAP. Essentially saying, I don’t think she’s quite right in the head either. But, I got that idea from the lyrics actually. Cuz the chick sings that she will stay bcuz she has so much to do for him. I think she knew this was coming and accepted it. Thereby allowing Leo to kill her.
G: ok, I feel you. That’s a pretty messed up MV.
H: Also I just noticed a detail that I think works with that. The creepy closet he puts the heart in that we thought had various body parts from his previous victims? They aren’t parts from his previous victims. They are mementos. Letters and feathers and a clock and knick knacks.
G: Oh my God do you know what this means?? Oppa’s not a serial killer! Killer sure, but at least not a serial killer. #NextLevelFangirl XD
H: wow…LOL
G: Wait, I see it now. 1080p ftw! They’re mementos of their time together. Her pictures are there and everything.
H: so the cupboard is his mind basically. It represents the things he holds dear.
G: wow, the rest of us can barely keep a scrapbook and here is this guy blowing competition out of the water. Wait, so is the heart a symbol too?
H: Yeah, not sure about that one. There’s like a good five minutes of him making out with the jar. XD
G: Wut?... But it can still be right? Like the heart can still represent the girl’s love and feelings for Leo.
H: I don’t see why not. Makes sense too. Her body was pretty clean so it’s possible he didn’t actually cut out her heart. But then creepy guy just killed his girlfriend so not much hope there.
G: #whodoyouthinkyouare, #collectingyourjarofhearts XD. Ahem, I apologies for that somewhat irrelevant song reference.
What’s interesting really is that the lyrics themselves seem pretty straightforward. Well not straightforward but less layered than the MV anyway. I know it’s a duet but the Korean language doesn't actually use gender pronouns.
H: oh really? I didn’t even think of that. I always just approached the song as a duet. Hang on, I need to see the lyrics without the voices
G: #FactoftheDay
It could very well be possible that the whole song is the thought process of one person. Like what if Leo’s extra cray and ends up talking for her as well. As in makes up her side of the conversation.
H: Oh my God! What have you done!? :o Puts the whole song in another light.
G: Right?!
H: Like it works if it's an argument with yourself. Kinda. But they do use ‘you’ and ‘me’ pronouns. Which is why that interpretation is a bit sketchy. But it is still a cool approach to it
G: hmm true. I noticed in the English translation there are times where it goes ‘HE loves me HE loves me not’
H: And that too.
G: But I know that’s not accurate and in the song both Leo and Lyn sing that line
H: Plot twist: Leo is not real. Lyn is the crazy one and she used the idea of Leo to validate her suicide.
G: :0
D u d e
Wait…
How dare she blame my poor sweet oppa like this?? :''''' #NotCoolBruh
H: LOL. Oppa not real. This oppa is in her head. But I do think it’s really cool that the MV can be interpreted from the POV of either one, depending on if you are following the lyrics or the MV itself.
G: hmm...always did say he was too good to be true :""
But I like where you're going with this
H: Ok. So from Leo’s perspective the mv helps out a lot. We can get his backstory. Hence our conclusion that he kills her or rather she allows him to kill her.
G: yeah, so that’s the traditional interpretation. But let's try from Lyn’s perspective. Reading the lyrics it kinda feels like she might on the outside looking in on her own situation.
H: ok, go on. How so?
G: like going with the idea that despite it being a duet it’s all just her
“The goodbye trickles down your cheeks like blood Your lips asking why is so sad No, don’t come, don’t make that face Just pass me by
The countless words of love that we’re whispered Our promises that are breaking instantly No, this is a dream, your eyes are telling me Just hug me again
I loved you, I cared for you, that’s it I loved you but now I hate you, that’s the one reason
You think I don’t know you? You’re lying right now You still love me, you’re still the same”
Like she knows how this is going to end up but she can’t really stop it. She knows she's depressed and emotionally unbalanced that she might do something like that.
H: Exactly! That’s the idea I got too!
G: #twinning, #UltimateEdition
So the song is her processing her own emotions? Like she knows how she feels and what she'll do but she feels helpless to stop it
H: I think so. It's almost like she desperately wants affection but doesn't really believe she will get it anywhere. Like when life feels so utterly meaningless it's empowering to feel needed. And so we get the idea of Leo, who is essentially the personification of her own unbalanced emotions and nature
G: ah, so she's created someone who needs her so desperately. Like is that her idea of what she will be to him? Like “he loves me so much that he'll need me even after I'm gone”??
She even went through the trouble of creating this tragic (not really but kinda sorta) backstory for him.
H: curious, how would the dress thing fit in with this theory?
G: I think the dress is the same idea of perfection as it was for Leo. Like if for Leo the dress is the perfect version of the girl then it's the same for her. It’s a symbol of the girl she wants to be. Perfect and wanted and loved
H: So essentially. Whether it's from Leos view or the girl’s, the whole MV is about emotional insecurity and mental instability? And the idea that we feel unworthy of love and are drowning in the sorrows of our own sense of meaninglessness that we tend to latch onto anything that gives us the slightest bit of purpose?
G: yea, and obviously both of them are cray AF.
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