THE FALLEN KING OF UPS AND DOWNS, YOU KNOW I'LL ALWAYS BE AROUND. DOWN IN THE DIRT I'M DIGGING OUT. I DIDN'T EVER WANNA TRY TO FORCE IT, BUT OF COURSE, IT'S BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION. NOW IT'S COURSING THROUGH ME. HARD TO TELL THE BLOOD FROM THE PAINT, THESE RED LETTER DAYS.
hiii everyone yes as the title says it is a sad day and i have decided to drop ahyoung </3 i just haven't had the time/energy for her lately, and i thought next gen would get her on the path to being an idol, but it actually made her want to do it even less LKJSDLKKLSD so i think she'll be happier continuing to photograph and work sound for concerts than eventually becoming a trainee. trying to get myself to write for her has also been so exhausting and not fun and if that's how rp makes u feel it's not worth it, it's a hobby u know! so it's so long to ahyoung. this is also due in part to me having an idea for a muse i'm a lot more excited about and knowing i cannot handle four muses alkdasldkljdg
thank you to everyone that plotted with and enjoyed ahyoung! i'm sorry if this is sudden or makes anyone sad 😔 i wish i would have done a better job of plotting for her and gotten her into more trouble while she was here but alas it be like that sometimes </3 but please plot with my new muse when they arrive! 💕
with @bejingren @inhobe @bejaeyoung @sarangbe / line dist
ahyoung and her team have fun right away.
she's vaguely aware, somewhere in the back of her mind, that the judges will probably think she's not taking the competition seriously again, especially when, to start out their brainstorming sessions, she suggests don't call me: farmer version.
they're be right about that, though. she's still not. she has been thinking about what they said, though – and for as much fun as she's been having here...yeah, she probably would rather be at the club. she can't back out now, though – not when a team is counting on her. so she doesn't, and she resolves to do her best for them.
and she does, really. she thinks they all do a great job of brainstorming wild ideas, until eventually, they settle on one main one: a mad max theme.
a lot of them have composition experience, too, so they work together to remix the song, but not too much, because their concept is already a lot.
what they get is a grungier, edgier version of don't call me that still stays true to the original. they don't switch up any of the vocals or the structure of the song, just mad maxify the instrumental.
on performance day itself, ahyoung might actually feel...a little nervous. everything feels more official with a team, on this stage, with creative control over the concept. it feels a little more personal. for as much as ahyoung doesn't care about this competition, she does want their performance to be good.
when it's their turn, she gives it her all. not having to sing constantly helps to make sure she's not out of breath, as does mostly having rapping parts that don't require her to remain as steady vocally. surely the judges can't harp on her for that again, at least.
she still has fun with it, though, despite trying to embody some of that mad max grit. she hopes she pulls it off well. she realizes she has a very cute face that she has always felt doesn't match her personality much. hopefully it matches their concept enough.
while inho would have loved the bragging rights of saying he started at fourth place and stayed there, or went higher, he wasn't shocked to see himself at seventh after comments on his endurance and image. he had his own opposing opinions regarding stamina, while it could definitely be improved, it wasn't horrible. nevertheless, he would work on it.
though the image consciousness was difficult. inho lived his life marching to the beat of his own drum and it'd done him well. he got a long with people easily, promoting casual interactions. while he was friends (or more than) with some of the coaches, they wanted him to act more formally. he'd make an effort on camera, but otherwise, he would maintain the relationships he had built and react respectfully to new individuals.
ahyoung was new to him but he was enjoying having her on the team. she amused him quite a bit. since she had gotten a similar critique on the stamina as well it seemed perfect for them to practice together a bit.
inho nodded in agreeance and understanding. not having to be vocally performing the entire song helped. helped a lot. but a.maze's choreography did seem more difficult. "yeah i'm not much of a dancer...but my little sister might bully me if i mess this up so that isn't an option," he said jokingly. it wasn't a lie though, inhye might.
ahyoung picks up her bottle of water and takes a big sip, holding it in her mouth and puffing out her cheeks for a moment before swallowing. "yeah, i don't have any professional dance training at all," ahyoung sympathizes. she figures mentioning her club dancing experience again won't do her any favors, so she decides to leave it be. "i don't have like...any professional training at all, actually. unless you count going to school for sound engineering, which i guess counts for something."
she takes another sip of water. she does feel a little tired, and she's torn between laying down and taking a nap in a corner of the practice room right now or trying to keep the energy going. she figures the latter is probably the better option, so she puts her water down and returns to inho's side, standing facing him.
"okay, so, i was looking up exercises to help increase stamina," because god knows sarang won't be much help with it, "and jumping jacks are supposed to be good. i'm really good at jumping jacks. wanna see if you can do more jumping jacks than me?"
she's not actually that good at jumping jacks. she figures she's about average, but she also figures saying she's good will fire inho up a little more and make for better competition.
"i'll go first." she jumps, and she jumps, and she jumps, and she counts, and she jumps, and then she stops, heaving deep breaths. "okay, that was 50," she says, and then a beat later: "i'm just kidding. it was 17." she might be able to do more. maybe if inho beats her she'll have to try to do better, no pun intended.
jay had just spouted whatever came to mind, at the time. then again, that's how sparks of ideas always starts—something random, but ultimately fitting. after replaying the song over and over ( along with the music video, of course ), jay mentioned how retro vibes could probably work with the entire song. it had the beat too, bouncy and old school. the outfits that the senior idols wore in the mv had the aesthetic too. from there, the team started brainstorming.
everyone seem to agree with retro cyberpunk, which reminded jay of mad max ( the newer rendition of the movie, not the older one ). so it seems that'll be the focus of their aesthetics and storyline. they got sidetracked for a while, thinking of jukeboxes and rollerblades to complete the whole theme, but that's obviously way too ambitious of them at the moment. maybe someday. honestly, jay thinks it'll be fun to do.
now they have to think about the remixes though, so he's workshopping with the others for that, including @ahyoungbe. "i think we can mix in a guitar riff as the bridge approaches," jay suggests, humming. "nothing too metal, i think that'd kill the retro vibe even though we're putting in a bit of cyberpunk in there. you know a thing or two about sound mixing, don't you?" admittedly jay has never done any proper schooling for it, courses and playing it by ear has been how he's doing it these days.
"for the stage, you think any… nature sounds can be mixed in?" okay, that was a weird way to word it. "like, i don't know. desert sounds, based on the themes we're going for. clinking glasses like we're at the saloon? maybe that's too much."
ahyoung is a pretty chaotic person. that was probably evident in her suggesting about 15 different concepts at the start of their brainstorming. half of the time she was just kidding, like when she suggested don't call me: farmer version. eventually, the team managed to hone in on some cyberpunk-mad-max-retro fusion. now, sitting with jay and trying to think of what to do for their remix, she wonders if the concepts clash. is it too much going on at once? can they really represent all of it well in their instrumental? she hopes so. if anything, it'll be a fun challenge, right?
"what part do you mean, like, leading up to the part of the bridge that's just the piano backing? the structure of the song is kinda weird. we could replace the piano leading up to that with a guitar, maybe...that could be cool. do you think that would be too much of a change?" their concept itself is already kind of ambitious, so ahyoung doesn't want to overdo it with the remix. at the same time, though, a lot of their team has experience with composition and song production – it would be best to show that off, right?
you know a thing or two about sound mixing, don't you? jay asks, and ahyoung nods, grinning. "i'm a sound engineering student, so you could say that. it's mainly like, working sound for concert venues and performances, but i know a lot about sound and working related machines in general. you'll be in good hands!" the studio they're allowed to work in at the sr media building is definitely better than anything she's used.
jay mentions nature sounds, and ahyoung's eyebrows must furrow together in confusion. what, does he mean...birds? he elaborates though, and ahyoung lets out a silent ahhh of understanding. desert sounds. she can't help but laugh a little at that, anyway. "wait, okay, what about the classic...western sound?" she tries to whistle it and fails. "hold on, hold on!" she takes out her phone, and a quick youtube search presents her with her desired result.
she cranks up the volume, then holds it so jay can definitely hear it. she can't help but snicker. "is it too like...silly? we could just use it as an intro. i think it would be funny and definitely get people's attention, but i don't know if that's necessarily...the vibe we want. what do you think?"
@ahyoungbe and inho work on their dancing skills and stamina
overall, inho couldn't say he was entirely displeased with how the last episode had went. his stamina definitely needed to be increased as he learned to balance singing and dancing. he felt that being on a team would help at least some of the time. while none of them would ever stop dancing, they weren't singing or rapping the entire time and that helped. now it was time to find a balance between breathing and facials as well.
the improvement from last round still existed, but inho knew he still had work to do as he and ahyoung finished a run through of it together, him still lightly panting. "i don't feel like as terrible as i did at the end of do better," he commented, taking a sip of his water afterwards. this felt attainable, doable. that wasn't the case last time.
inho knew his charms would only get him so far if he didn't continue to improve, and at this point, he was determined to keep going. "you?"
the judges were very clear after her performance of do better: she needs to improve her endurance. they were quite harsh about it, actually. they sort of acted like she was the only one that got out of breath by the end of the performance, which was clearly not true, as the rest of the episode indicated. she thinks her rank reflected that, though, even if her feedback didn't: seventh place, despite harsh critique. it honestly confused her, but she wasn't going to complain.
the fairer critique, in ahyoung's opinion, was of her work ethic. do you want to be here? or would you rather be at the club? yuna asked, and honestly, she would rather be at the club. she kind of considered dropping out for that reason. then they were assigned teams, though, and ahyoung knew dropping out would put them in an inconvenient position. she didn't want to sabotage people that actually want to be here, so she decided to stick around and do her best, at least for them.
part of that involves actually putting in effort to improve her endurance – dancing a lot. don't call me's choreo is actually significantly harder than do better's, at least in ahyoung's opinion, but the difference will be that she doesn't have to sing and rap all the way through. she'll get more chances to catch her breath, even if the dancing itself never stops.
ahyoung kind of wants to point out that you can still hear debuted idols breathing at the end of dance practices, but she knows that won't do her any favors. "i honestly didn't even feel that bad after do better. i think the adrenaline must've made me not realize how out of breath i was," or something like that. ahyoung doesn't know if that's how it works.
"i think this will be easier because we don't have to sing or rap the entire time. the choreography is still kinda hard, though." go figure, though; a.maze are kinda known for their dancing, right?
“you’re weird,” sua replies half-heartedly in defense of yejun, but then immediately frowns at the mention of jindallae. the frown quickly morphs into a scowl. “heugh.” the sound leaves her mouth twisted in disgust. “all the more reason to convince him to join us then,” she mumbles. wonders how close the two are– if asked, who would he choose between them? out of pride alone, she can’t have it be jindallae. part of her wonders if she pulled out the waterworks if yejun would fold that way. “i’ll figure something out. if worse comes to worse and he bails– we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
sua feels like finding a singer might be the biggest hurdle. part of her wonders if one of them is just going to have to fold– knows that sua might have to take the position if ahyoung is adamant to keep out of the immediate spotlight. her eyebrows raise, a huff of laughter leaving her. “sorry,” she says, not really sorry. sua has never really went out of her way to remember things about groups or celebrities. maybe since they’re planning to start up something sua probably should.
with a sigh, she reaches out for her bag and tugs out a notebook and a pen. “once we find people, you can do that. for now though, you gotta put in some work.” uncapping her pen, she starts workshopping– sketching out a few things to put onto the flyer. “that’s good– it’s something.” if ahyoung has the connections, that gives them good opportunities. “do we want them to send us like a clip and we choose from the ones we like?” her head tilts back as she considers. “we can waste less time that way.” that way they don’t have to constantly meet with people and have to suffer in person if they’re terrible. “maybe we can have them attach something like a musical resume. that way if there’s anyone that plays drums, we can have their info incase yejun falls through.”
"and what about it?" ahyoung return, not at all offended by being called weird. it's not like she meant anything bad by calling yejun weird, either. she raises an eyebrow at sua's reaction to her mentioning jindallae. "sounds like tea," she says, but they have shit to do; she's sure she'll have plenty of time to talk shit about jindallae with sua, if she's so inclined. "works for me," ahyoung agrees. she's happy to leave sua to figure things out.
ahyoung wrinkles her nose. she hates putting in work. evil. sua is right, though. if she does want to be in a band, she is actually going to have to put some effort into forming the thing. it was her idea, anyway. it wouldn't exactly be fair to saddle sua with all the responsibility. not that that has ever stopped her before, but still.
"that's a good idea," ahyoung says with a nod. for as much as ahyoung loves wasting time, that's only the case if she's wasting it doing something she likes. listening to a bunch of auditions that suck, in person? sure, telling them they sound like a dying cat could be fun in it own way, but she's sure it would get old quick. "we can set up like...a band email, or something, maybe? and have them email us. if i have them just email my personal email it's going to get buried under all of the sales i get emails about." what can she say...she loves to shop and she loves a good deal.
"what kinda stuff do we want them to put on the musical resume? instruments they can play, for sure. i guess we can just have a general section for 'past musical experience,' where they can talk about anything they think is relevant? bands, degrees in music, winning a talent show when they were ten years old – all that."
"you guys really want me to be mean to these girls on episode two?"
( mentioned: @bexstevie, @hangyeolbe )
ahyoung plops down in the interview chair, looking around the room at all the cameras and lights.
"i don't know why, but i never really thought about how much goes into just shooting a scene like this. i'm a photographer, and a sound engineer, so you'd think –"
the interviewer gives her a look that says park ahyoung we are not here for conversation, and ahyoung just laughs.
"okay, hit me," she says. she's honestly excited to answer questions. that's probably dangerous for someone as off the wall as she can be, but that just makes it more fun, doesn't it? she's sure she'll be good for tv.
"how do you feel about your performance?"
what a lame first question. she almost says so out loud, but manages to refrain. "pretty good, i think," ahyoung shrugs. "i'm not gonna pretend i'm an expert, but i had fun. i'm interested to see what all the judges think." she grins. she honestly is.
"what was the hardest part of this week?"
ahyoung lets out a loud, thoughtful, HMM....
"i guess i've never really danced before outside of like, the club, and learning the dances to a couple kpop choruses. i'm a great dancer in the club, don't get me wrong, but it's not really the same thing," she laughs. "so probably singing and dancing at the same time? i have more experience singing than dancing, but i've always been more interested in like...melodic rapping? than singing, so it's been a learning experience for sure."
she realizes, a bit belatedly: don't kpop idols get in trouble all the time for going clubbing? oh well. she's not a kpop idol yet, is she? imagine getting kicked off a survival show for talking about going to the club. that would be so funny, and it would also be their loss.
"who do you think will be center?"
"other than me?" she raises an eyebrow like she's offended, and then laughs. "no, i don't know. hangyeol is really good, but i heard his rapping, and it's..." she playfully grimaces, then laughs again. "oh, you guys are going to evil edit me, aren't you? i've watched your shows. i know how you guys work. hangyeol is my friend, i promise he'd laugh and also agree with me if he heard me say that."
that's probably enough of an answer, but it's not for ahyoung, of course. of course she has more shit to say! "you know who else is really good?" and who is also her friend? "my fellow park, stevie! you guys didn't know this, but we actually went to high school together back in california. he's like, super focused this season so he barely even talked to me this week. but yeah, he's good at everything at this point, and i think he'd be the perfect representative of this season of next gen, considering everything. he'd be a great center."
"what about for the girls?"
"you guys really want me to be mean to these girls on episode two?" she jokes. "i'm just kidding. honestly, i was too busy doing my own thing to really notice. plus, there are way more boys than there are girls, right? i feel like we're getting drowned out or something."
she looks straight at the camera, cups her hands around her mouth, and cheers, "come on girls, let's step it up!"
that's apparently the end of her interview. that's as good a place as any to leave off, as far as she's concerned.
ahyoung honestly doesn't expect to get second. it's actually kind of funny. she barely tried.
okay, well, maybe she more than barely tried. she did work to make a good track, and perfect the mashup of quartz raps she performed for her audition, but she knows people that ranked lower than her probably worked harder.
that might give any normal person some feeling of imposter syndrome, but not ahyoung. it's just funny, as most things are to her. she does take it as a compliment, too. one way or another, the judges liked her. she doesn't blame them for that, really. she is super cool.
she doesn't really care what happens next. she actually forgets she's in second fairly quickly, among all of the practicing and learning and feedback. she can tell some of the other contestants are so desperate to succeed here. ahyoung isn't. she almost feels bad when she watches the other practice. it almost wants to make her work harder herself. she mostly just thinks, damn, this is these peoples' dream and they couldn't beat me, who doesn't even give a shit?
she doesn't really think she's better than them. the judges seem to think so, at least for now, though, and that's...pathetic. funny. both. she's sure people would be pissed at her if they knew this was what she was thinking about throughout the week, but lucky for ahyoung, no one can read minds. to her knowledge.
she mostly just practices because she has nothing better to do, at least at first. it's a cool opportunity, no doubt. she gets to be on tv, she gets to learn about kpop from a bunch of pros, she gets to become better at singing and dancing and rapping – all wins in ahyoung's book, and certainly enough for her in this situation. it's hard work, though. more work than she's used to, and more work than she likes, but she holds back most complaints and does as she's told for once in her life when the coaches tell her to do something.
she's sure, if they keep her around, she'll cause more of a fuss, if only because she'll get bored with all of this, but for now, she's content to be normal.
a couple days in, though, ahyoung compares herself enough to the others that she thinks if she tries hard enough, she might really be able to do it: become the center for the girls. the theme song of this season is rap-heavy, and ahyoung is too, so that might benefit her. she knows she's not the best singer or dancer in this competition, but she's also not the worst. some of these rappers can barely hold a tune and she'll never look like a bad dancer as long as yuwol is left in the competition.
why not try, right? she doesn't lose anything for putting in effort just to see if she can do it. ahyoung doesn't care enough to get disappointed if she doesn't become center, and it would be more boring to sit around and do nothing than actually put work in and practice.
so put in work and practice she does, and it honestly is fun. she gets feedback, both good and bad, and she smiles through all of it, honestly. ahyoung's feelings are hard to hurt and her confidence is, for the most part, unshakable, she takes any criticism and praise with a grain of salt, and resolves to just do her thing.
she definitely gets better at singing and dancing over the course of the week. maybe it takes her a little too long to remember all the steps for the choreography, but once she has everything memorized, she thinks she executes it fairly well.
by the time the day of the performance in front of the judges arrives, she feels more excited than anything else. she doesn't over-practice. she drinks water, and chats with anyone who looks too nervous while they wait – at least as much as they want to chat with her.
it's her turn to step up to the plate before long, and she pops up from her seat with a smile.
when she arrives in front of the judges, she grins, waves, and bows to them quickly.
the music kicks in before long, and honestly, ahyoung really likes do better. it's fun. the lyrics are playful, the melody is interesting enough, the raps are substantial, and the choreography isn't too hard. she thinks parts of it are pretty boring, honestly, but that's probably better for her, considering her lack of experience with dancing.
she tries to embody it from the first uh huh. it's attitude. ahyoung certainly has enough of that, especially when she raps.
we wanna go hard
we wanna get it on right now
rapping and dancing at the same time isn't too hard for her. it's singing and dancing at the same time that's more challenging, so the prechorus has always been her most problematic spot. she thinks she gets through it okay, though. she thinks her energy can probably compensate for anything she lacks in the talent department, because she certainly tries to look like she's having fun.
it is fun, really. she even likes the small dance break in the chorus. something she enjoys about dancing is that it's really all about energy. of course, it's important to hit the moves, and to be relaxed when you do, but in ahyoung's observations, a decent dancer with good energy is better than one with good technique that seems lifeless. that's what will differentiate a center from anyone else, especially when they're only dancing to an instrumental.
does she have the right energy? she hopes so. she hope so? eugh.
the first chorus is the easiest of the choruses.
her favorite part of the whole song is actually the female rap in the second verse, where she has to rap and body roll at the same time. it's just fun. it makes her feel like she's on her hot girl shit, or whatever.
i know, i explore through your mind
time will pass if you hesitate, why hold back?
i’ve been honest enough up till now
now it’s your turn to show it
you’re at a checkmate inside of me
she tries to keep her energy up throughout the song, but she does get tired near the end. she knows her singing has to sound far too breathless for their vocal instructors' liking in the final chorus, but she'll take it. it's good enough for ahyoung.
she heaves a deep breath when she finishes, but she smiles. considering she is not a particularly athletic gal, she thinks she did fine. good enough to be center? who knows. the judges, presumably, and she'll know soon enough, too.
yuwol has no experience in dancing and choreography, that much is clear. the performances that he's accustomed to never required him to coordinate between his hands and feet, moving them in tandem in what's supposed to be a graceful manner, nothing choppy and uncanny. it's no surprise that his movements are more stiff than those experienced, it'd be embarrassing if he paid too much attention to it. he'd like to think that over the course of the entire day ( and being grilled by a few people about it ) he would have gotten slightly better. enough that what he's doing is actually dancing and not flailing about. but who's to say?
it's kind of nice that he doesn't have to do it alone. he's not shocked that ahyoung signed herself up, it seems like something she would do whether on a whim or just for fun. he thinks yejun being here is somewhat unexpected, only because it usually takes a lot to get yejun out in general. but now that he's thinking about it, it makes sense. yejun probably deserved a spot here more than yuwol does, yejun actually has what it takes. yuwol is only here to feel... something. whatever that is.
"like we're supposed to... freestyle it?" it's a genuine question, the concept is already foreign on his tongue. honestly, all of this is. but he's here, he doesn't want to do anything halfheartedly at the end of the day. "it could count as practicing, you can argue that we're trying to match the... vibe... of the actual song." he doesn't even know what he's talking about, maybe there is no method to rationalize the fact that ahyoung simply wanted to do something else instead of practicing. "i guess we can also say we're warming ourselves up or something." is there anyone out there who'd be grilling them for this in the first place?
"i know what a plank is, but i have no idea what ed edd n eddy is. is that a show?" it's definitely not something they need to be discussing right now, but he's a bit curious. he's also still catching his breath before ahyoung decides on a song.
"yeah, just like...move...do anything. just think of it like...sight reading, or whatever," ahyoung replies. yeah, ahyoung knows what sight reading is. she was in her high school band for five minutes on percussion before she decided the music they were playing was too boring and dropped out.
she nods along as yuwol talks, though she doesn't really pay attention to what he's saying, instead scrolling through her music library. she even misses the opportunity to talk about ed edd n eddy – tragic, but probably for the best. she did say she'd put on a random song, so maybe she'll just let her shuffle decide what they dance to. that's risky, but it could be fun. like russian roulette with lyrics that aren't appropriate for korean television.
thankfully, the speakers in the practice room are compatible with her phone, so she hooks it up. "i'm shuffling it," she announces, and closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, the way someone would before rolling the bowling ball that would decide who won the game.
the first song that comes on is the equivalent of getting her brains blown out by the bullet. "nope, not this one, not appropriate!" she laughs, and she ends up with far too many songs in a row that also qualify as not appropriate. finally, one comes on. she almost announces this song makes me feel like i'm on crack but catches herself before she does. also not appropriate.
"okay, let's gooooo," she cheers, and makes her way back to yuwol's side. to be fair, the intro of the song is kinda weird, so she just sways a little until the vocals kick in, and bounces to the beat.
she gets an idea then. "okay yuwol, i'm going to teach you a move i call 'the bouncing baby,'" she doesn't call it that. she just came up with that now. still, she does indeed bounce in a way that resembles the way a child that could barely walk would dance. she hold her arms out. when she bends her knees to bounce, she flaps her arms accordingly. "just do this to the beat." he plays instruments. surely he has some kind of rhythm, even when it comes to dancing, right?
ahyoung is honestly so tired of this choreography. she knows she's not the best dancer, especially not a good kpop dancer. she's learned the choreography to a couple kpop song choruses in her day just for fun, but otherwise, she has never done well with anyone trying to teach her anything. she should probably put more of an effort in to actually learning. maybe then she'd remember the steps more and not get yelled at again. okay, okay, fine, she'll try harder tomorrow.
today, though? "enough, enough!" she declares, part of the way into some mandatory individual practice time alongside yuwol, of all people. it's so bizarre that most of her band, that's classified, ended up auditioning for next gen and making it on without any of the others knowing. good for them. she's not sure why yuwol is here, but she's pretty sure yejun actually wants to do this, so she hopes he does well. for as much of an asshole as she is to yejun, he's pretty much the human version of eeyore from winnie the pooh; she just wants to see something go right for him.
"i'm putting a random song on and dancing to that. that's still practice, right?" she asks, a rhetorical question she doesn't care about the answer to. "you should dance to it too," she says, looking to yuwol. "you look like the plank from ed edd n eddy when you dance." she's not afraid to say it. ahyoung isn't afraid of anything. she ends up laughing, though. "do you know what that is?" the cartoon is honestly before her time, but she saw an episode of it on cartoon network at 3 am back when she lived in california and her brain always stores away future joke fodder above all else. would be great if it stored away more of do better's choreography.
hiii everyone!! i'm following the trend and putting a lil next gen plotcall post up for my girls AHYOUNG and NAYOUNG! ahyoung is a contestant and nayoung is a coach so we'll get the best of both worlds. please like this post if you want to plot with either of them, and i'll do a quick rundown of some relevant info on them too.
AHYOUNG is just along for the ride. she is honestly bad at taking anything seriously and a bit of a delinquent and just signed up for next gen because she thought it would be fun so i currently don't know how hard she's going to work, because she is also super lazy JKDSLLDGS i think she'll put Some effort in but she ultimately doesn't care about this that much and could probably use a kick in the ass of some sort. she might fight people on camera too. she's a fun gal though, she will also talk to and befriend anyone and loves getting shyer people out of their shell. i would say she doesn't have a filter but it's not really that, she mostly just says whatever she wants all the time with no fear of the consequences. i think she will be a mess on the show. she is also not the best at dancing, at all, and will probably get annoyed and want to take too many breaks. watch her get kicked out episode one it would be what she deserves. but she does love performing and wants to perform something presentable for the judges, so she'll do what she has to.
NAYOUNG is like the opposite of ahyoung. she will take this So Seriously, like her life depends on it or something. she is not going to be nice. she is like definition of bad cop coach. but i think she'll be pretty good at her job. she's very meticulous and a perfectionist and is insistent on everything she's involved in being The Highest Quality Possible, so she will apply that standard to every contestant. i doubt she will give anyone any praise, but she'll give a lot of feedback...constructive feedback??? but not delivered in the most graceful way LMAO she is blunt and can be cold and got edited as the scary contestant on next gen last season, and it's true! that being said she can give decent advice and Was on next gen last season so she has some experience to share in that regard too. but she's here to make fragile contestants cry (she did that last season) and be harsh where others won't and ultimately try to build the contestants into the best versions of themselves they can be. that's what she thinks, anyway aklsdfaljkslkdasg
i also wanted to say that anyone can say anything about either of my girls in their interview solos! good, bad, anything is fair game, so feel free to use them if you need something extra to write about 💓 (just tag them somewhere bc i'm nosy and want to read it)
my health has not been great and i've been super exhausted lately so i might cap this at two threads for each muse??? maybe?? idk we'll see, if we can come up with something fun i'm down for more <3
playing again reminds yejun how much he loves music. he loves being on stage, he loves feeling the thrum of the bass in his chest and the melodies drifting over it, all in sync with the way he beats a battered old drum set into submission yet again. he feels like himself, like waking up from a long nap, a bit disoriented and still rubbing sleep from his eyes, but far more energized than he was before.
and yet it's still not a cure-all. the darkness that clings to him doesn't just disappear forever, only temporarily cut by the short reprieves where he can forget it exists. yejun has been called all sorts of things by his family, too soft one of the kinder things they've said about him in an attempt to toughen him up. he knows they do it out of love. he just can't help the way it gets a little harder to get out of bed every day anyway.
"what?" ahyoung has always been brash, abrasive, and yejun knows he should be used to it but he's still taken aback when she confronts him seemingly out of the blue. it takes him a moment to even process what she's saying, so stunned by the sudden demands for answers that he's not even sure what he's being asked. "uh, what do you mean? like, here with you, or just... here in general?"
he'll admit it; ahyoung is not his favorite person. she's reckless in a way that makes him anxious and stubborn in a way that makes her rather unlikable, if he's being honest. she's a gremlin little sister that he never asked for but worries about all the same, despite her utter lack of appreciation for him. she's rude and rather hurtful at times and yet none of that convinces yejun to simply give up on her. maybe he's a masochist.
belatedly he realizes that of course ahyoung is asking the former, not the latter part of his question. there was no need to get existential in the middle of band practice. "um," he tries to cover and come up with an answer all at once. "i don't know." it's not dead calm, but jin's band wouldn't be dead calm either. he misses the boys more than he realized he would; playing the drums doesn't really feel the same without them.
yejun seems very confused. maybe he's half asleep or something. ahyoung kind of gets that vibe from him a lot. when he's not giving kicked puppy he's giving sleepy puppy, or something like that. she just kind of stand there, staring at him expectantly, waiting for his answer.
even when he does answer it's still not really an answer. i don't know. well, at least he's honest. ahyoung doesn't know what to do with i don't know, though. if she was a nicer, more accommodating person, maybe she'd ask yejun if there's anything she can do to make the experience more enjoyable for him. she, however, is not accommodating. she is in fact very lazy and hates going out of her way for much of anything, especially other people who don't seem to like her much.
she does like yejun, though, honestly. he's incredibly pitiful but it's kind of charming, and he's also a genuinely nice guy. he's really good at the drums, too. jindallae told her something like that, too: appreciate that you have the best, or whatever.
"okay well if you ever want to leave you can," she points out. yejun doesn't really need her permission, but she also gets the feeling that he's the kind of person that needs permission to do something like that. she also gets the feeling that yejun doesn't really have anything better to do than be here. "you're really good at the drums so it would be annoying to have to replace you, but like...if you aren't having fun what's the point. you know?"
ahyoung doesn't really have any interest in being a kpop idol. she's pretty sure any company with a shred of sense will look into who she is and decide she's way more trouble than she's worth, even if she does have enough talent to be a trainee, which is yet to be seen. she does, however, love to have fun, and being on a survival show does sound kinda fun. at the very least, it sounds like an experience that would be interesting to have, if she could even make it on. if not, just auditioning will be something new and exciting, right?
so she fills out the first form and sends it in. she can't be sure that she'll make it to the second part, but she knows she's pretty and knows her angles. she's not as confident in her looks without makeup, but she thinks her natural beauty might be able to carry her through. it's just a matter of if they try to do a background check on her or something. not that anything will come up; she's never actually gotten arrested or anything. she just got sent to boarding school hell as an alternate form of punishment.
when someone contacts her and gives her the instructions for part two, she isn't surprised. prepare a 60 second audition. okay. she can do that.
she spends most of her classes the next day thinking through what she should do instead of paying attention. she should definitely rap. she knows she's not the most talented, at least as far as traditional idol skills go, so she'll have to play up something else. she should probably do something original, right? she could write her own rap and make her own beat, and that would probably be interesting enough to at least make her memorable. she isn't really sure what kind of rap to write for a survival show audition, though. probably something clean and rated pg to make her seem palatable and like a good girl, right? eugh. boring.
she goes straight to her room when she gets home, and hops on her laptop. she rewatches the first episode of next gen just to get some ideas on what auditions got people to the next round in the first season. she's doing far too much research on this, she thinks vaguely – putting way too much effort in for something she doesn't care about that much. that's the main reason she decides to ditch the "original rap" idea. she can perform a kpop idol's rap or something. but just that sounds soooo boring, and ahyoung will not have anyone think she's boring.
she should probably do a remix, then. make her own beat, do some iconic kpop rap over it. does she want to do a girl group rap or a boy group rap? girl group, maybe. she kind of wants to play up the feminine and powerful vibe. as far as kpop goes, she thinks quartz is probably the best group in that lane right now, and their music is super recognizable.
then it just comes down to what quartz rap she wants to do, and she needs to fill 60 seconds, so...she should just combine a bunch of quartz raps over the same beat in 60 seconds. that'll work, right?
she listens to a bunch of "most iconic quartz raps" videos, makes note of the ones she likes best, and bookmarks the videos. she isn't sure whether to try to build a beat around the raps or just make a beat she likes and try to fit the raps into it. maybe she can use some of the original songs' instrumentals and incorporate it into a new beat. that should make everything fit in a little easier, right?
that's what she tries. it ultimately takes her several days of hyperfixation outside of her other responsibilities to get two options: two beats, two different combinations of raps. she just wasn't satisfied with the first one she made, so she decided she'd try starting over to see what she could do.
the first one follows a more traditional rap beat. she borrows heavily from "the baddest" by k/da, which katy of quartz features in. she likes the lyrics, but she ultimately decides that version isn't dynamic enough, and that she can show off more of her own composition skills in the instrumental.
so she settles on her second creation, which still has some of quartz's instrumentals as influence, but is largely self-composed. it starts out quite calm, then quickly ramps up into something more akin to an edm song than a rap song. she thinks it's unique, though, and it'll be more memorable.
despite ahyoung's tendency to be lazy, she actually spends a lot of time practicing. if she's going to be on tv, she wants to make sure she kills it. she doesn't care that much if she makes it to the second round, even though it would be cool; she just wants to make sure she puts the best performance out there that she can.
AUDITION DAY
all of the cameras everywhere are a little unnerving, even though she works with a camera herself basically every day. she feels like she has to behave in from of them, which is a pretty unfamiliar feeling for her. gross. she refuses to be anyone other than herself, even on this show, but maybe she can tone it down a little.
the video in the gymnasium is cool. seeing the judges on screen, "talking to them directly," really makes it set in that she's actually, probably, maybe, going to be on a huge survival show. even if she doesn't make it past this round, they'll probably show part of her audition and her flopping, right? maybe?
it doesn't really matter. what matters is the new revelations the judges lead them with: a rapid fire question portion, and a special talent section. ahyoung honestly thinks it's pretty cruel that they didn't tell them about the special talent portion in advance, because all of her special talents require a camera or computer or something. she would've brought her bass, at the very least. she just has to pull something out of her ass. she looks through her purse to see what she actually brought with her for any ideas. she has makeup, but she doesn't know how to show any of her talents with that. maybe she could borrow a staff member?
she has nail polish too. she looks down at her nails, which she already painted for the occasion, but they're just painted. they don't have any designs or anything. she could do nail art? would that work? she figures they probably won't give her more than a minute to show off whatever talent she has. makeup would probably be more interesting, right? but she can probably do nail art more quickly. her eyebrows furrow together as she thinks. she thinks so much about it that she doesn't even practice her performance anymore.
at least until they call her into the audition room. then she runs through the performance in her head over and over. she's confident, for the most part, but seeing all of the staff that will be judging the performances actually makes her a little nervous. what a weird and unfamiliar feeling.
it's her turn before she knows it. she takes to the center of the room, grins, and introduces herself with a quick well-mannered and uncharacteristic bow.
then, she focuses. she knows the lyrics to this audition are basically muscle memory now. she knew all the raps before she even merged them together for one audition. her music plays, and she launches into the rap right away. only 60 seconds – no time to waste.
she's pretty sure, from the first several seconds, that no one can anticipate where the instrumental will be going. the rap is almost mellow at first, but after 15 seconds, it starts building. she still raps along, trying to mirror the instrumental as she does: start out lowkey, build momentum, and then when the "drop" in the instrumental comes, she tries to shift into something more powerful and energetic.
her audition ends off with quartz's iconic look at you, now look at me, and ahyoung smiles. she doesn't quite do the choreo for the original song, but she vibes, and moves her body, and before she knows it it's over.
the performance is, anyway. next comes questions. right. five seconds to answer each. that's pretty dangerous for a person like her, but she decides she won't try to filter herself, aside from like...swear words.
her first question comes: "what is the most interesting place that you have been to wearing the shoes that you’re wearing now?”
ahyoung looks down at her feet, and almost laughs. she's had these shoes for a long time. "detention at marina high school in california," she says with a cheeky smile. maybe that's a little too honest. whatever. ahyoung doesn't plan on lying. she doesn't care if it makes her look bad to The Public™.
"what’s your favorite useless fact?” they ask her next, and she almost says oh shit, because she wasn't prepared for this. "i've never known anything ever," she jokes to buy herself some time, and so she at least has some kind of answer if she can't think of a fact. surely there' something in her small little brain, right? "oh! opossums can give birth to like, 25 babies at one time sometimes. and they're like, tiny as––" fuck. tiny as fuck. she manages to stop herself, and saves herself by finishing with, "bumblebees." it's true.
“why do you want to become a kpop idol?” oof. of course they'd ask her a kpop idol question. she only takes a couple seconds, and then shrugs, and answers honestly, "i just think it would be fun." that's good enough.
they tell her they have one more question for her. “what can you bring to the table that we won’t see in any other contestant?” damn. they really want her to drag her fellow contestants like that? well – no, she doesn't have to, especially because she knows plenty of these people are more traditionally talented than she is. "nobody else is park ahyoung, you know? and i'm just, super cool," she grins again.
that's the end of the question portion. next comes her special talent, and ahyoung takes a deep breath.
"i just want you guys to know i would've brought my bass if i knew you were going to do this to me," she jokes. "but i guess – can i do someone's makeup? does somebody here not have makeup on, or like, light makeup on? i can totally make one of you men look like a kpop idol too, if you want."
eventually, it is one of the men that steps forward and volunteers. "wow, you are awesome, thank you for being such a good sport," ahyoung says with a genuinely grateful smile, and then she digs the necessary makeup out of her bag.
"okay, this would be better if i had more time, but you're still going to look amazing. just not as amazing as you would if i had like, at least 15 minutes. let me speedrun this." she applies makeup to his face quickly, and comments, "you have really nice skin. your skincare routine must be amazing. you have better skin than half of the girls whose makeup i've done before, for real."
she finishes before long, and steps away to assess her job. she nods in approval. good enough for a speedrun. she steps to the side to reveal the staff member to the rest of the staff and the cameras, and motions to him like that will smith motioning to his wife meme.
"hold on, this lighting is not the best, do you guys have a different light or something?" no. she quickly takes her phone out of her bag, turns the flashight on, and then shines it from the angle that she knows will show off the makeup the best, without blinding her model. perks of being a "professional" photographer: she knows a lot about angles and lighting.
"oh, you need to see yourself too!" she exclaims, and quickly changes her phone to a frontfacing camera so the staff member can see his own makeup. he doesn't give much of a reaction. he just nods. everyone is unreadable, and it's a little unnerving. they still say, "thank you, ahyoung, that's all."
then her audition is over, and she gives another quick bow before clearing the way for the next contestant.
ahyoung is living the dream, or something like that. she's wanted to be in a band for so long, and now she finally has one. it's honestly been fun just to play music with other people. performing on stage will be great once they get there, but that's mostly just a bonus for her more than anything else.
she likes everyone in the band, too. for the most part. sua is great, yejun is yejun, and yuwol is weird in an endearing sort of way, like one of those fucked up rabbit plushies she always gets ads for when she's on the internet.
ahyoung isn't stupid, though. she's lazy and usually doesn't give a shit but she's not stupid. yejun is weird with her. she doesn't really know why, but she figures she probably made a joke that hurt his feelings one time and he's all soft and sensitive and takes everything anyone says to heart forever.
honestly, ahyoung doesn't care about whether people like her or not. she does care about everyone having fun in the band, though. she can't really gauge whether yejun just always gives off kicked puppy vibes all the time or he's actually miserable here specifically. ahyoung is never afraid of confrontation, though, nor does she beat around the bush, so when they're packing up after practice one day, she decides to bring it up.
"do you actually want to be here?" she asks, and she doesn't mean it in an accusatory way. it might still kinda sound that way, though, so ahyoung decides to amend her statement: "i mean, like...i know jindallae was trying to get you to join his band, so if you actually hate it here you could just do that."
this would be the first time yuwol allows himself to step out of the cage that he had conjured around himself at the behest of his parents—but maybe he's being a little too dramatic about the whole ordeal. all he's doing his picking up a guitar and standing in front of a microphone to sing, using his own voice for once instead of hiding behind his violin as an outlet. which is a little funny, all things considered. whenever someone asked him what instrument he can play, his answer is always the violin. never anything else. it's the only one that counts, to yuwol ( and to his parents; its own can of worms ).
standing on top of a stage is nothing new, but he's doing this without his parents' knowledge. it's more of an underground performance if anything, not that known by those too narrowminded to venture out of their comfort zone like his strictly classical parents. at the very least, yuwol knows he's safe here, he can't begin to wonder what will happen if he's found out. he'll figure it out once he crosses that line.
for now, all he has to do is sing. so he does.
his performance ends within the blink of an eye, he was just given a few minutes to showcase his skills and there's a rotation to go through. yuwol exits his stage without giving much of a speech—the less they know about him the better. judging from the audience though, it seems he did okay? always his own harsher critic. he'll have to ruminate on his own later.
yuwol does want to hang around for a while longer within the premises though, intent on observing the other performances. much to his suprise, he ends up spotting a familiar face. ( @ahyoungbe ) is idling to the side, so he approaches her after packing his guitar—an instrument he started using again recently—back into its case.
"i didn't know you took pictures for events like these as well," he says in lieu of a greeting. just as usual, a polite smile graces his lips. "or are you also performing? i would've wanted to see that too."
ahyoung loves live music. if she didn't love concerts, she wouldn't be a concert photographer, but open mic nights are fun too. you just never know what you're gonna get. the people that are good at singing are nice to listen to, and the people that are bad are entertaining, so you really just can't go wrong.
the person on stage now ends up being of the can sing kind, and ahyoung realizes a bit belatedly that she knows him. she can't remember his last name at the moment, but she knows that's yuwol, and they've seen each other at enough events similar to this for ahyoung to consider him a friend. not that it takes much for ahyoung to consider someone a friend.
she knows he plays violin, but she didn't know he could play guitar or sing, and immediately she has an idea. she and sua are working on building a band, and they just cannot for the life of them find a singer that is the right fit. maybe ahyoung is just picky. she doesn't want to play music with someone whose voice she knows she'll get tired of listening to, or who seems like a fucking freak (derogatory), or who has the personality of a wet washcloth. it turns out meeting that criteria is kind of difficult.
yuwol, though, can sing, and is her friend. from what she knows of him so far, he's pretty cool. he's suddenly at the top of her list for lead vocalist, and even better, he approaches her first. "i take pictures everywhere, baby," she replies with a cheeky grin. "i'm not on the clock tonight, though. just hanging out. i like watching performances like these. it's like, forrest gump, you know – you never know what you're gonna get." she doubts yuwol will know that reference. to be fair, it's a pretty stupid reference. is that box of chocolates quote even from forrest gump? she's not sure. she's not a hag and she's only seen the movie once.
"i'm not really a singer," ahyoung laughs. she can sing, but she doesn't love it. she likes rapping better, honestly, but playing bass even better than that. "you are a singer, though. why didn't i know you could sing?" and because ahyoung is never one to beat around the bush: "i'm trying to start a band, and like, we've auditioned singers, but they all kind of suck. do you wanna be our lead singer?" maybe it's a little forward. never stopped ahyoung before.
if there's anything she and minju are good at, it's shopping, at least in ahyoung's opinion. she went into the christmas market today with nothing in particular in mind to buy, but with full intentions to look around at everything she could. naturally, it's ended up sort of like the target trips she used to go on back in california: she's ended buying way more than she intended to. it's fine, though. they're christmas presents for herself, and if she ends up deciding she doesn't need some of this stuff, she can gift it to someone else. a foolproof plan.
she has a handmade bag she bought for a reasonable price on one shoulder, all of the other stuff she bought so far inside of it, because she's resourceful. you can't live in california and come out of there still wanting to use plastic or paper bags you can't reuse.
in the other hand is some hotteok that was pretty cheap, apparently on sale for the festivities. all good deals, as far as she's concerned.
as they walk, eventually, her bag starts slipping off her shoulder, and she still has food in one hand, and struggles to get it back onto her shoulder with the arm it hangs off of alone. "hey minju, can you fix my bag?" she asks, holding her arm out horizontally so her friend can situate it on her shoulder again.
to be fair, ahyoung could probably just carry it in her hand, but she doesn't want to risk dropping it or it dragging on the street because the street looks disgusting.
they happened to pause in front of one of the fanciest parts of one of the department stores' light displays, and ahyoung gets distracted by it momentarily. "i guess this part of it is kinda nice," she says. "the part with the light up santa that we saw a while back is corny, though."
