lovingthatofficeyfeel

Ok. So. You are probably wondering why this is its own post if its just the 9 member solo mv's that belong to In Your Fantasy. And that would be: because its not.

If you only want to listen to the 8 IYF member mv's + Autobahn and that's it, I won't stop you. But I do think you will absolutely be missing out on some seriously brilliant lore that has been lying in wait to ambush us all, apparently.

Now, as much as possible, I've tried to make this playlist in a way where everything is arranged in an order where its easy to take it all in, make your own connections, and then form your own opinion about what is going on in the lore. I love the different perspective every different loretiny brings to how the interpret what is going on. I have my own opinions and theories but I don't want to force them on anyone, because I'm just working with what I've been presented with and making logical extrapolations from it, so I've tried to keep them out of the rest of the playlist as much as possible.

But I really can't do that here, because I have absolutely Made Some Choices with this section of the playlist that are very much coloured by my personal way of viewing and interpreting the lore and I feel like they do warrant an explanation because they are at least a little bit contentious. Because you are going to notice a lot of Special Clips / cover songs, which I know a lot of people would argue cannot be lore by virtue of being a cover and not an actual ATEEZ song. And up until GH3/IYF/Ash I had agreed with that, even though I had been Noticing Things that looked very suspiciously-intentionally lore-like in those videos, (specifically half of By.Hongjoong,) pretty much since I became a loretiny. But I could never point to anything concrete that would tangibly connect all these videos to the lore.

And then In Your Fantasy and Ash came out, and I just about lost mind because it was so close that all these other videos that looked like they belonged to the lore didn't just connect, but connected here. Seeing two Yunho's on either side of the mirror in Slide To Me who were moving separately basically sealed the deal for me, because if everything in Slide To Me is unquestionably lore... none of the major elements present in Slide To Me show up there for the first time. (And I think you'll see what I mean as you go through the playlist).

Additionally, I had always had that all the songs on the other side of Crescent part 2 on Fin: Will, (aka the unit songs,) belonged to a different point in time / lore storyline than the first half of the album... (And all I am going to say about that is: funny how Yeosang, San, and Wooyoung just turn to ash and blow away at the very end of It's You mv...)

So with all this in mind, I've spent the last couple months as the member solo mv's have been coming out playing with each member's videos like lego blocks, (and continually being surprised that not only did they look like they belong to the lore, but when you actually put them in a coherent order, they work, either as one coherent storyline, or as a couple different spokes all coming from the same wheel hub, and absolutely expanding upon the themes of IYF, Ash, or both).

So, yeah, I am going to actually say a bunch of the member's various covers are, in fact, actually part of the lore. And the part of the lore timeline they all connect to is the stuff happening right now in GH3/IYF/Ashes to Light.

Ok, so if I am saying a bunch of covers Are Part Of The Lore Now, then what is the metric I'm using to determine if a video should be counted as part of the lore or not? Well, these are my criteria:

the mv is deliberately and heavily using the golden hour light vs blue hour light lighting scheme that is integral to the main lore canon mv's
heavy use of 'Sopro Red' lighting, again integral to the main lore. Extra weight given if whatever is happening in a 'Sopro Red' scene makes it look like the member in question may be going a little bit crazy
the use of that incredibly prominent, almost blinding, cold light spotlight that is like an actual character 'watching' someone from above that is central to Ash (and is subsequently used prominently in Lemon Drop, Sagittarius, ROAR, Legacy etc)
the video literally turns grey/monochrome or starts progressively 'losing color'
the use of the Hala Hala 'deep in my heart, deep in my soul' flashing lights, used in the same way the main lore mv's use them
the prominent use of deteriorated/overexposed film and film damage/dust artifacts as effects/transitions (which have been established in the main mv's for quite a while but which IOMT took to an entirely different unmistakably deliberate level)
the member is having to face their own reflection in a mirror (ala San in Say My Name, Wooyoung in Sagittarius, or Yunho in Slide to Me etc)
the set design is unmistakably linked to the set of a main mv. (And by this I mainly mean the Wonderland night garden, that also appear again in the GH2 'To' version concept).
the mv contains 'stalking camera' or '9th person' POV camera shots where the camera shots are either acting like an actual person hiding around corners/beyond doorways/slighting out of sight and watching that member in that very unsettling way they've been leaning into largely OR are acting as the POV of an actual person in the mv that the member is acknowledging who is participating in that scene somehow, which has become a really important element of IOMT, Lemon Drop, Slide To Me, Autobahn, ROAR etc.
something in the mv is being lit on fire

Conversely, if a video contains a complete absence of the qualifiers, then it is probably not lore, (which I believe is the case with Jongho's JjongST covers, which are dramatic but with a complete absence of any of the lore-specific indicators. They are dramatic in a way that is clearly a tribute to the drama the song from the OST Jongho's covering. And I think when placed against Jongho's other covers which absolutely are packed full of lore-signifying conventions, I can pretty safely conclude that the JjongST covers are actually just covers and tributes to Jongho's love of kdrama OST's).

As well, sometimes a video is not lore because its our real-life South Korean idol boy singing a song because they want to sing a song. And just like I have criteria for ruling something in as lore, I also have a couple for ruling something out:

if a video is specifically tied to a real-life event with a specific purpose, (such as Hongjoong's Wonderwall cover being specifically about / a tribute to his World Vision charity run and all the Atiny that ran with him. It's not lore, thus not in this playlist)
if a video specifically references only our real-life boys and makes 0 attempts at fictional anything, (Seonghwa's At My Worst cover that is just his own baby/childhood pictures, or Wooyoung and Yeosang's cover of BTS' 친구 that is entirely real-life footage and celebration of their real life friendship. Neither qualify as lore, and thus not in this playlist)

After that I am working with the 'if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck; it is probably a duck,' approach to what I am including/excluding videos as being part of the lore. If a video contains a significant number of the above visual signifiers that are essential to a main lore video, then its probably also a lore video, even if it happens to be a cover.

That said, of course I had to make exceptions. Because the 'no real-life-idol references' would've disqualified Hongjoong's A Walker, at the same time that A Walker does use black and white, the golden hour light, dunks Hongjoong in a pool, has the blinding spotlight, and the stalking camera. In that case I looked at the legit solid list of lore signifiers vs the one disqualifier and erred on the side of 'I'd rather keep things in' and kept it. Especially if the video made perfect sense within the context of the other ones I wasn't on the fence about for that member.

Hopefully that logic, and the choices that resulted from it, make sense when you watch through the videos for each member's IYF/Ash storyline below, but also feel free to disagree with me and include/exclude other videos as you see fit.

Where a member's videos do something other than make one single linear storyline I did my best to try and split things up into parts or sides to show what videos I'm pretty sure go with what videos in what order, but with the vaguest labels I could think of so that hopefully its fairly obvious what my starting point it, without trying to dictate anyone's opinion about how to read it.

TL;DR:

Assume that the events of Lemon Drop / In Your Fantasy and the events of Ash are either happening simultaneously or in very close succession
Watch the mv's listed for each member in the order that I arranged them (because I put them in that order on purpose)
Think about the story those mv's in that order are telling for each member relating to what is going on in LD/IYF/Ash and also that member's larger character arc in the lore
(Optional: come scream with me about all of this being hidden in plain sight for literal years)

Golden Hour Era (Member Solo's)
(everything-is-connected-here-actually edition)