soft.

softness & savagery.  bae yena, vocalist.

[ideden-blog]

 --- going on hiatus to do a revamp of yena, ill see you guys on the other side  !

[deletednotused-deactivated20190]

what if

[ideden-blog]

idjaewon‌:

maybe, if he were someone else, he would. jaewon lightens up his cigarette.

“done with the party already, yena?” he speaks up, cigarette between his lips.

yena stumbled into the industry as if by fate, and the result of that is that she is incredibly illsuited for her surroundings. she lacks that anxious fervor. she’s a performer to the core, but she doesn’t possess the fiery desperation that so many of them do. hers is a quiet flame, a low burning coal in the heart of a fire, glowing steady and relentless. maybe the industry needs people like her, too, she’d thought at first. a stable fire, not the flickering intensity that burns out so quickly. she doesn’t mind waiting as her groupmates rise to prominence for this and that, acting mostly, or commercial endeavors. she’s in it for the music, even if her opportunity for a solo has been robbed her. 

heaven1004 feels like salt in the wound of that, when she’s hard carrying the song itself, when he of all people is her partner in the video, when the whole thing is a clear bait at the summer market and it works so effortlessly and so well that yena finds it alarming. 99 entertainment is lazy on the best of days, they shouldn’t be rewarded for their low effort pandering. still, at least that pandering lines her pockets. and she has the musical to focus on these days, too. something to flex her real skills, the vocal talents buried in simpering choruses and notes belted in the same range, every time, endlessly. 

annoying. 

she’s unsatisfied, these days. uninspired. tired of endless parties and the every increasing army of hoobaes, all bright eyed, all catty, all messy, all ridiculous in one way or another. so she’s off on the roof instead, sipping a drink - she doesn’t smoke. won’t do that to her vocal chords. she’s no masochist. or at least, not like that. she’s annoyed at the smell of smoke, doubly so when she sees the source. reaches out and takes it from between his lips, grinds it to the railing and flicks it off the rooftop when the flame is extinguished. “ruin your lungs all you want but leave mine alone.” she scolds, mostly just to infuriate him. she enjoys that, sneaking up beneath his skin. it’s the least he deserves, for the crime of loving her in the first place. 

she turns, leans back against the railing to look at up, framed in the harsh, distant florescent by the stairwell. “needed a breather. the desperation down there is cloying.” she pauses, glances over him. disheveled, mussed. “though i suppose desperate and vulnerable is exactly your style, isn’t it?”

[ideden-blog]

flush.

for @idjaesung setting: kcon party

when yena had been younger, and stupider, she hadn’t realized, really, what the consequences of a relationship could be for an idol. they’d hammered it in on and on, of course. but it wasn’t until they caught her with jaesung that she’d known how seriously they would take it. having never, truthfully, been an idol fan, she’d had no context for the fury they’d rained down on her. for how angry they’d been, that she’d risk so much, so foolishly. don’t you want a career, they’d asked her. but she’d been young then, and maybe stupid, and certainly naive. had had all of six months of mostly intensive dance training to introduce her to the idea of being an idol, and nothing more.  maybe you just don’t want this badly enough, they’d said to her. coldly. cruelly. 

and that had been the end of any solo talk thereafter. 

it’s been years now, more years than she wants to admit, and it’s still not on the table. instead they have her shaking her ass in cutoffs and a tank top. and who do they put in the goddamn video? 

none other than

oh jaesung. 

what a fucking joke. 

it’s not a joke, though. not a damn joke at all. instead, it’s a painful reminder that her future was once dashed her own hopes on the rocks of young love, left to languish and flounder thereafter. she nurses her drink with a sigh, tucked into a corner of the oversized venue, rendered ineffectually small in the face of so many bodies, so many writhing young adults. the cranberry juice stains her lips red, she sucks on a cube of ice, crunches it between her teeth involuntary when he appears from nowhere to loom over her, as if he’d heard her thoughts. 

her heart wrenches, thuds. 

“jaesung,” she notes, as if observing his presence more so than greeting him. wide eyes give him a once over, and she sighs a dramatic sigh. "fine, sit down. i know you're going to ask, so just do it." she determines, as if giving up on a fight she hasn't yet begun to have. "or have you for once got something better to do?"

[kimtae-yeons]

Stay

[ideden-blog]

so sorry for my absence. i’ll be getting to plotting for kcon now, ten years after you guys all got going. if you’d like to plot could you give this a like or send me a lil message? ty!

[ideden-blog]

protege.

[ideden-blog]

idsuran:

“its just really hard. i’ve been so worried about my girls, you know, her.oine and now jawbreaker, jiahn too, and worried about the comeback and now…about the show, and ellie’s screentime and jiahn’s reputation, i just want us to do well as a group, but the show feels so divisive. and like you said. a lot of them don’t…like me to be here anyway, too. it just feels like a lot of things to worry about.” she adds the last with a playful pout that she hopes offsets the heavy topic. she sniffles, pulls a deep breath, adds, “congratulations on your unit debut by the way.”  

oh heavens.  (pun perhaps slightly intended) the girl thinks to herself as she watches suran's face change. she likes her, she does, but she's always been too sensitive for an industry this brutal. she's got her heart on her sleeve, and while that makes for great music and performance abilities, it doesn't give her the ability to stand up under the pressure.

she's going to have to toughen up fast. yena knows that it's got to be brutal for her right now, with so much change and inconsistency plaguing her, with her being trapped in this nightmare of a situation, but yena knows also that these kinds of things will only keep coming. if it isn't this set back it'll be another.

still, she offers comfort where she can, sweeps her hand through the girl's hair and pats her on the back, between too-thin shoulder blades, protruding beneath her thin tshirt like they might break through her skin and prompt her to take flight, unfurling wings in the place of bone.

she doesn't bother hiding a soft, fond laugh as the other prompts a question, tries to change the subject. she's almost sure she can hear a cameraman do the same, despite himself certainly, and she gestures them away. "let a girl cry in peace, would you?" she playfully scolds, "surely you got enough by now. edit her nicely. she's having a hard time," the idol pouts towards them, despite knowing clearly that the lowly cameramen will have little say in things. but they'll both come off sympathetic for it, so why not? her image and seniority give her leeway to bend the expectations of propriety and restriction just a little bit anyway and thus she does so to preserve the other's privacy belatedly, to do her best to soften the uncertainty of the moment, the embarrassed energy that radiates from the other.

"try not to freak out too much. you've got a lot going on, but that's good. it just means that at least one of those things is likely to work out. it could be worse. you could be back in the basement." they'd once bonded over that, those concerns. "and thanks. i appreciate that. it's strange to be on stage with just the two of us." she wishes it was only her, and a different damn song, but that was idol life.

[ideden-blog]

hey everyone, sorry ive been mia. ive had some personal problems lately ;; ill do my best to get some replies out today and will send some proper welcomes/post a plot and thread call this weekend. ty for being patient with me!

[ideden-blog]

protege.

[ideden-blog]

idsuran:

“it’s hard, even so.” she admits, exhales heavy and pushes her hand back through her hair. “i like jiahn, but the group has changed so much. the balance is weird now. the dynamic is off. the company is…better but …” but why would they put me on this, she wants to say. why are they making me fight for my life, for my career, again - as if i haven’t done that day in and day out for the last bazillion years, at this point. she exhales heavy. “I’m just….tired of trying to prove myself all the time. when it seems like it just goes around in circles, endlessly.”

yena feels for the girl. she’s been paying attention to the dynamics between the trainees, after all. its her job to do so. and what she’s seen hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows. it was hard, to watch her dealing with that. but these kids, half of them were just that. some of them were barely even 21, just babies tottering around fresh out of high school on spindly legs and oversized heels, desperate to make a mark. yena could understand the theory of that, the desire to succeed, but she couldn’t understand the cruelty that came with it. 

maybe that was because her own path to success had been so abrupt and uncontested. she’s rolled up to a substitute teaching gig and left a trainee. she’d wowed her way through training and stood on stage, and nearly a decade later here she was. maybe she was lucky, maybe she was blessed. whatever it was, she was grateful at least for that. 

she wants suran to succeed too. 

she wants it for her so, so terribly badly.

after all, if anyone deserved it wasn’t it her? when she’d been working towards this so relentlessly for so long, after so many set backs, so many unexpected challenges. to deal with languishing in the dungeon of a company is bad enough (yena can attest to that). wanting to be taken seriously as an artist while also an idol? another trial yena understands. desperately wanting to debut solo but never being given a chance? one more that yena lives and breathes. but the rest? her company spontaneously going out of business, her old group being bought, rebranded, redebuted, a new member, and then pushed onto a show about debuting yet another time? god. if anyone needed their big break, it was suran. yena wished she could give it to her, but the best she can do is offer,  “they’re going to understand. soon, they’ll see. they’re not voting you to the center because you’re pretty. okay, well, not just because of that. and not just because they know you already. you’ve got what it takes. you’re well rounded. talented. just... hang in there, a little more. i’m sure kjh has a plan.” some kind of plan. maybe a good one. one can only hope.

[chieftacobluebird]

»  grown up.

[ideden-blog]

idmyungeun:

the majority of the day’s work was over and it was a dedicated rest time for all of the participants of the show: they had a few hours to eat, shower, rest, and revive themselves until they were allowed to practice again. myungeun had already ate this morning and was waiting for the shower in her room, but let all of the other trainees go in front of her (although she was the oldest in the room and had the opportunity to go first, letting all of the younger kids go only seemed fair). this break time – and consequently while she was waiting for the shower to open up – was spent decompressing on the roof, watching the sunset.

she’s meandered up to the roof before, though not with one of the contestants. 

she tries to keep her distance. yena’s been in the industry long enough now to know that trainees, rookies, they come and go in the blink of an eye. a year or two and half the groups at the music shows have changed over completely, it feels like. more and more filter onto the stages every year, only to vanish abruptly, to dip into obscurity and wink out of existence. so she tends, truthfully, to keep herself guarded. in the early going it was easy to get attached, to fight towards their dreams together, to cry together when one dream is ground to dust. but over time she grew tired of it, inured to the endless cycle. the ending, the vanishing, the distance. the resentment, too, that came from so many, friends turning on her as her career continued when there’s could not. as if yena knew what made such things happen. she’s seen enough beautiful and talented people fade away to believe now that there is no real rhyme or reason to it. 

which makes her participation on the show all the more awkward. 

how can she look all these hopefuls in the eye and not want to tell them “turn back now” or “this is really as bad an idea as your parents have told you it is.” how can she tell them “you don’t have the skills to make it” when she’s seen people with far less skill go immeasurably far? you shouldn’t have the skills to make it, more like, but half the battle is luck and luck alone. honestly maybe even more than half. 

she lingers on the rooftop even after san leaves, a cloud of smoke lingering in the air behind him, and she feathers a hand back through soft brown hair, nose scrunching, distracted by the presence of another she hadn’t yet noticed yet, glancing to the side to offer her a grin. “hello,” she hums quiet, blinks a few times, “myungeun right?” she’s noticed the girl, in the pack of vocalists from 99, has seen some potential there. enough that she remembers her name, which is no small feat. “getting some fresh air?”

[ideden-blog]

prism.

[ideden-blog]

idjiahn:

eventually the bulky camera pulls itself away, and jiahn smiles sweet, pretends like she might not know there are hidden cameras dotted around the room. “it’s challenging, but it’s offering me a lot more opportunities. like training with you, i think that’s probably every trainees dream, right?” jiahn teases this out with a grin, something that reads just a little more real. i know we’re both human, you know i need to act fake. that’s what it hints at. because she bets yena does know, her image is perfectly manicured. jiahn wants that too. “suran’s been such a huge help. i don’t know what i’d do without her in jawbreaker, really. she helped make me feel welcomed. like i really had a place there. she really deserves that center spot.” she adds on, because she’s still hoping to push their bonding story line into the spotlight.

there are cameras everywhere. 

yena can ignore them, because she’s grown used to that sort of thing. the subconcious awareness of angles, of her words, of her gestures and expressions that comes with years upon years of practice. she’d been awkward once, like these trainees. 

half of them plan every word they say into sound bites, leaving conversations stilted and bizarre to the listener. the rest stare into the cameras, or pander to them, or aggressively ignore them. some even seem to forget the fixed cameras that dot the room, visibly relaxing when the behemoth, rolling cameras are wheeled off by the crew. they’re awkward and unbalanced, they’re bright and youthful, with the exception of the half the boys who even linger around her own age, a refreshing shift in the industry, she thinks. if only all the girls weren’t children, perhaps they’d be moving in the right direction as a whole, thinking more of talent than of milkable, marketable years. but such things are impossible. 

they’re all a half step away from trouble and yena doesn’t envy them one bit. 

she’d not been thrilled about this whole thing, but she’s relaxed into her role well enough. she’s sure they’ll edit her blandly enough- her image is so well cemented at this point, through years of effort, that trying to break it down would be near impossible, and not worth the fight to do so, besides. they showcase her familiarity with san as a longterm performer, her playful barbs at yohan who seems to have very little to do when the girls are on stage, she criticizes some, encourages others, and now, now she smiles. 

“of course it is. i’m downright dreamy.” she lilts back as the other’s grin flickers playful. she likes her, she decides, spur of the moment, off the cuff. she bats her lashes exaggeratedly before she shifts, leans back in her chair slightly, pushes one out with a foot and gestures for the other girl to join her. “sit, you’re too tall, i can’t crane my neck to look at you.” another moment for someone to media play about, humor at her own expense. “you’re not jealous of her, not even a little bit?” she prompts, head cocking to the side curious.

[ideden-blog]

protege.

[ideden-blog]

idsuran:

and when there was a break in filming the practices, she lingered a little longer, unable to help herself. there may have been the slightest crush in place, in the twist of her stomach and in the riotous flutter of her heartbeat. “oh, thanks sunbae. unnie.” she tacks on, not sure how to address her, outside the show they’d moved to unnie long ago, with yena being a rather informal sort with those she found herself fond of, but the formality of the setting left suran defaulting back towards further propriety. her parents had hammered in the importance of respect in the industry, and in life, from an early age. it was hard to shake. “it’s been amazing. it’s been hard too, but, it’s a really important opportunity for jawbreaker…” she trails off, lips pursing into a pout. “i just hope the chanel thing doesn’t derail me too much.” 

it sounds vain, but yena is rather used to people being a little bit fluttery over her, a little bit starstruck, slightly in love. this is the sort of thing that happens somewhat regularly, when you’re marketed in the way that she is. it takes a certain special sort of charisma and charm to hold up visually next to someone as utterly gorgeous as im sooyeon, after all, and yena’s managed to do so for quite some time. 

so suran’s occasional stammer brings only the barest glimmer of a smile to her lips, and the girl’s uncertain stumbling through honorific prompts a gentle, “unnie is fine, don’t worry so much. even if i’m a scary mentor now.” she teases, cocks her head to the side, “though i suppose i ought to leave it mostly to the judges to be frightening. perhaps i shouldn’t have yelled at that last girl,” she muses thoughtfully, shoulders lifting in a delicate shrug of movement as she dismisses the thought. 

suran sounds rehearsed, but the important bits come sneaking out after, trailing on the ends of the canned response, and yena picks them up, dusts them off and hides them away. in an industry like this it never hurts to know the buzz. “i suppose the girls are probably quite cruel about it, aren’t they?” she murmurs, brows furrowing. she reaches out, squeezes her shoulder. “one photoshoot under your belt with them is basically nothing. they’re just jealous because they’re fighting against a debuted idol and, frankly, they’re a bit dumb. ostensibly they knew the premise of the show, right, i don’t see why they’re so catty and surprised now, as if you’ve done them some slight.” yena’s eyes roll and she waves a hand dismissively. “but you can’t expect everyone to be rational, reasonable, or even moderately intelligent. not when dreams are on the line. it’s the touchiest thing for most people.”

suran, unsurprisingly, does not look to be immensely comforted by the slightly harsh reality of her words. yena makes a soft sound and tries again, “they’ll learn. just wait them out. they’ll debut, and then they’ll realize too. that you had no choice. that they won’t have any choice. that they’ll do more embarrassing things those first few years than they can even begin to imagine, that they’ll get sordid offers from old businessmen and the same fans they’re trying so hard to grab at now will eviscerate them for the slightest misstep later. they’ll learn, and then they’re not going to hate you half so much as they do now.”

[ideden-blog]

prism.

for: @idjiahn setting: produce project episode 2.

kang jiahn.

truthfully yena remembers the trainee-- oops, the jawbreaker member -- for exactly three reasons. 

1) she performed alongside suran.  2) her legs are ten miles long (and a half, maybe). 3) the ends of her hair are purple. 

all in all its far more than she remembers about most of the other contestants, up to and including those from her own company. she offers the girl a casual smile as she enters the little room, looking up from the polished plastic keys upon which her fingers rest. “hello~” she lilts out at her, in her best television voice. her smiles is soft, her expression encouraging. she is the picture of a supportive mentor. she wants nothing more than to get up and leave.  “do me a favor and sing something, hm? anything’s fine.” she continues briskly, not one to waste time even in her kindest and most television ready moments. jiahn complies easily, with a readiness that speaks to a willing heart. yena listens raptly, nodding along as the girl finishes a brief vocal run. the statuesque girl looks down at her expectantly and yena’s lips purse.  “pitchy, and unsupported in the lower registers.” she informs her, cocks her head to the side to follow, “but i like your tone, and you’ve got a lot of promise. i caught a few of your early stages, actually, with the jawbreaker girls? you’re more stable even just from when i saw you then. that’s a good sign. there’s nothing like live performing to really shape up those vocals.” her grin tilts rueful. “we can talk about how to get a bit more power in there later, but for now i wanna focus with you on breathing.”  the lesson is simple enough, involves a lot of yena prodding at her shoulders or tapping at her jaw, pressing a hand to her own sternum, to her diaphragm, exhibiting the techniques she’s attempting to describe. “so lets look at the song, wonder girls, a real classic,” she continues, pushes the sheet music towards her. “show me what you’ve got.”  jiahn’s charisma makes it clear immediately as the girl falls into the demonstration that, frankly, she’s meant to be an idol. she can see how much she wants it, can hear the edges of raw talent there. kjh’s vocals, limited though her exposure is, are skilled enough, but it’s clear they rush through the promotional schedules, keep them active, don’t give them enough time off to really train up. hopefully jiahn will be an exception to that rule. “good, now, drink about  a half gallon of water,” she instructs with a wry grin, pushes the bottle over to her. the formal cameras leave and it’s just the two of them, and the hidden cameras obviously. she smiles a little, “how’s the show treating you? suran’s got nothing but nice things to say about you.” 

[ideden-blog]

protege.

for @idsuran  setting: produce project episode 2. 

“chin up,” she states firmly. it sounds like encouragement, but it’s instruction in truth. the girl dutifully lifts her head to suit, and the diminutive yena grins in response as the note resonates fuller, more clear. “better.”  she’s been fond of suran as a vocalist since the her.oine girls came onto the scene doing something that few others were, at the time. the girl crush femme fatale image had suited the group, despite the odds, and she’d like the strong body to the other’s voice. she’d liked the fire in her eyes too, that stubborn determination.  so it was a little sad to see her here, in this situation. not that they hadn’t worked together before, here and there, infrequently at best but still present. there had been enough years of overlap for them to have occasionally coincided at year end festivals mostly, given the truly dismal capability on both singularity and 99 entertainment’s parts, when it came to promotional frequency. at least 99 had had the company power to back up their admittedly poor choices, singularity...  well she was certainly happier to see suran under a new agency at this point. happy too that their new direction seemed to be doing well, even if she was largely unimpressed by the music itself. not that it was bad, but then again yena just wasn’t into idol music in general, didn’t tend to like the levity and performance forward intensity of pop these days.  it was sort of the ultimate irony to have her on this show, when she was so desperate to escape the cage of idol-dom, to escape the stigma that brought with it. she wanted to be an artist in her own right, ballads, beautiful runs that arched and lilted. she wanted musicals and musical integrity and she wanted to wear pants that went all the way to her fucking ankles. she wanted to wear shirts that weren’t made for ten year olds and she wanted to put her voice forward first, not her tits or her ass or her legs.  “you doing alright? with the show? congratulations by the way, if anyone ought to be center its you,” she commends the other, perhaps an inappropriate reaction from a mentor, but it’s the truth of things. suran has the years of experience and stage control to back it up, has the vocal talent to carry off the almost criminally simplistic song regardless. some of the 99 girls have vocals under their belts, but there’s only so much training can do, it can’t teach everything. you can’t learn how to innately command a stage, not until you’ve stood on a few. 

[userorgana]

[idsooyeon]

* pageantry

[ideden-blog]

ideden:

idsooyeon:

“and soon we’ll start 1004 promotions right? so much for my whole ‘actress transition’.” a little snort escaped her nose at the non-complaint. when others might yearn for days off and ample time between schedules, sooyeon herself would likely wish for the exact opposite. 

( and you know what they say, be careful of what you wish for ) 

“they won’t.” she tells her, but she doesn’t mean in cruelly. “you’re a woman succeeding. you’re making a transition they don’t want you to make, and you’re doing it well. they’re not going to relent for a long time. but the public, they’ll love you.” this, she firmly believes, is true. the sort of people to leave the comments they do on sooyeon’s articles are never going to stop. they take too much perverse pleasure in dragging down those infinitely beyond them. “you’re beyond what they can criticize anyway. you’ve got a plan. stick to it, ignore the comments.” 

she says this, she thinks, as much for sooyeon as for yourself. 

because she’s seen this unit layout they have in mind for them. she’s heard the song now and she’s read the lyrics, and she’s seen the shorts they’re going to put her in. they, as always, leave half of her ass hanging out. so your legs look longer, they tell her. but she’s not a fucking idiot. her legs look long enough proportionally, there’s a limit. 

but god, if she hadn’t cried. 

one look at that choreography demo - a chair dance straight into a chorus that consisted only of body rolls in a tight black dress or a cutoffs and tank top - and she was disgusted. with herself, mostly, for thinking she might have a chance at change with this. “yeah and to think they thought this would be placating me in my incessant requests for a solo,” she drawls alongside the other, groans softly. “I just want something with...with artistry. something real. i mean. starry night was a great step forward. i should have known they’d send us skyrocketing backwards at the first possible opportunity. it’s just -” she purses her lips, exhales. “getting old.”

99 entertainment is getting old. this career is getting old. she’s getting old. she’s tired of this. she’d read once about one of the snsd members crying when they were given gee to do as a concept. she’d thought at the time that that seemed like quite the overreaction for something that was part of the job. of course you wouldn’t like every concept. these days, the more she loves music and the more she wants to establish herself as something more than the queen of summer smash hits. she wants to be an artist, to stand on her own two legs, to have some real creative input. instead she’s just floundering around until they have no use for her anymore. she feels powerless and she hates it. at least they acquiesce to some of sooyeon’s requests.

[ideden-blog]

peaches.

isac. solo. 

she sinks her teeth into the fruit, ripe and ready in her palm. a soft blush of oranges and pinks and reds cradled in slender fingers. and then - bursting. sticky sweet, coating her tongue. there’s a hum in the back of her throat that rings musical and appreciative. 

gotta love a fan with a fruit farm who takes your peach aesthetic comparisons literally. 

she sweeps a napkin against her lips carefully, pats to preserve the lip stain that has been all but cemented into place. not that anyone can tell, with it’s distinctly nude shade, a ‘your lips but better’ sort of flush that softly suggests one ought to consider kissing her. peachy pink. it matches her nail polish. 

yena’s image is an imperturbable artifice, constructed with the utmost care. to the outside observer everything about her is relatable, an obtainable level of perfection, if only you tried just a little bit harder. close enough to tantalize but just out of reach. 

she is the endless, divine punishment of tartarus, the ripe and welcoming fruit for which tantalus grasped so desperately, ever appearing close but forever inching just a hair’s breadth away. 

isac is perfect for this. she suits the pink blush of the clothes, oversized on her diminutive frame, cinched perfectly at her waist. she ties off the shirt to accentuate the waist oft described as ant-like these days. never bothers to point out it’s because she is, in general, rather smaller than most people, has little to do with anything but genetics.  

she suits the ponytail, the tousle of hair that tumbles down her back, smiles sweet and soft and drifts aimless under the sun like a balloon with no string, bobbing and weaving through the clumps of idols to find friends here and there, to impart smiles and sweetness and the occasional snark, amongst those trusted few. she plays to her fans and she completes her single, foolish event with little trouble. bowling, what a game. how...delightful. she’s morally opposed to running for no reason, and isac doesn’t count as a compelling incentive. 

the sun is punishing, beats down on them like an angry overlord. it’s not a surprise to her, how ancient people one worshipped the sun. brilliant and beautiful and dangerous. ever observant. sometimes she thinks it might be nice to be swallowed up in it, in light and power. maybe she’s just a megalomaniac beneath everything. but she’d tripped fallen stumbled into the cruel world in which she lived now, twisting under the pressure, flickering like a candle. 

she wanted so much more. 

she was tired of their juvenile and pointless image. she was sick of “summer bops” and bathing suits and sunhats. she was tired of the beach - never wanted to see sand again in her life - and of roadtrip concepts and of smiling until her face hurt. she was sick of lyrics about friendship or her body or how men ought to want her. she was sick already of the subunit concept and all she’d done was read the title of the song. she wanted more than this. she deserved more. 

at twenty six years old with one of the strongest voices in the industry (if you asked her, which you certainly did not) it was about time she had a solo. if one of the little girls in honey could put one out, whynot her ? oh right, because 99 entertainment had all the promotional skills of a dying fish flopping about on the ground gasping for air. the magikarp of companies, to borrow a phrase milo had used once, as she lamented her struggles. but she's come this far, invested this much time. she's not about to give up now.

she licks the juice from her lips in a quick flick, a flicker of pink.

 she smiles. 

ready to devour.

[idsooyeon]

* pageantry

[ideden-blog]

idsooyeon:

“ah! i’m not sure if they told you, but we’re supposed to do a soundtrack for my drama?” as discomfort left her voice, worry settled instead. “i haven’t heard the song or anything but i’m pretty sure a rap would have no place in a historical drama… so it’ll probably be a ballad… which is just great for me-” 

im sooyeon sighed. age-old worries seeping through her veins, as if there was no way she could ever run away from her demons. 

reason enough to feel pretty. 

it fascinates yena that such a small feeling could be such a huge motivator. she fingers the curl of her hair beside her cheek with an idle hum. “well, as long as you’re happy, sweets.” she teases, pats at the much, much taller girl’s head. sooyeon was born for celebrity, clearly, with her constant narrative direction. “have you ever thought about directing? obviously you’re an actress, duh, but, like, you should consider it.” she tells her. it seems disconnected from the entire rest of the conversation, because bae yena’s monologues generally remain internal, but the idea is there regardless. it makes sense.

if sooyeon spends her whole life thinking in choreographed angles and precisely timed movements and actions and statements, imagine the directorial talent if she developed an eye for turning it outward, funneling it through the camera lens to focus on a set, on a stage? it seems to yena that the other girl was born with the skillset for such a thing. 

of course given the industry, they’d likely rather pluck out their own eyeballs than a) let sooyeon languish BEHIND a camera rather than in front of it and/or b) allow a female idol to have that much creative control or involvement in anything more than the most trivial of things. 

she’s growing to hate the little box she’s placed in. 

unlike sooyeon she had stumbled into debut with little awareness of what she was getting herself into. she’d never had the interest, and the rapid pace of her training, the whirlwind of it hadn’t given her much time to observe or think - in retrospect she thinks it likely 99 entertainment did that on purpose, pushed her through before she could think better of it, locked her down before she even realized she wanted to leave. 

“when did that ever stop any of them?” she points out wryly, brow arching. of course its revolting, but it’s also their lives. their livelihood. no sense ignoring the traumatizing but inescapable. it gets under sooyeon’s skin though, so she pats a hand lightly between her shoulder blades. a silent apology. 

“it’ll be fine. it’s not like we’ll ever need to perform it live.” and i’ll carry the vocals anyway, she doesn’t say. they both know it. sooyeon’s role in a ballad ost is mostly just to be in the show, the reason they get to do it in the first place and that’s important on it’s own. it occurs to her sooyeon might not even be thinking of this so, “besides, without you we wouldn’t be doing the song anyway. so you did your job. don’t freak out so much.”