#* | headcanon.

[taeyongfmd]

headcanon: solo career (2022)

word count: 766 words

220102: fifth full-length solo album (blacklight) + 220206: video on a personal youtube channel (memories in disorder | blacklight documentary)

ash’s fifth album is released with limited promotional activities. he does a short round on music shows to promote the single “paranoia”, but he doesn’t go on any variety shows or interact much with fans on social media. as a result, the song has a strong first week fan-driven performance but falls off the chart much faster than previous successful releases. most of the album being in english doesn’t help with its longevity among his korean fanbase either, although it does help him to earn a few more english-speaking solo fans.

blacklight was his most conceptual album yet and though some reviews called fatalism a concept album, and ash wanted it to speak for itself more than he spoke for it. this was partially because he was still taking things slow after returning from hiatus, but he was also tired of how commercialized and drained of meaning it felt when he went to different promotional activities and repeated the same thing over and over. instead, he packaged everything he had to say on it into a short documentary for his newly opened youtube channel and sent it out into the world in his stead.

2203xx: popular nickname (genius producer)

this nickname began to trend after a series of hit releases over the past several years, though his involvement in producing several songs on polaris’s map of the soul: 6 album as well as minjung’s lilac around this time is probably what brought it up again around this time. blacklight hadn’t been the turning point to really propel this nickname to dominance, but he had established himself a strong back catalog for him to be recognizable by this nickname that originated in fan communities.

220414: video on a personal youtube channel (thinkin’ bout you cover)

ash tricked his fans into thinking he would upload onto youtube with any regularity with this one.

there was no deeper meaning behind the song choice other than it being a song he’s loved for years and had been wanting to cover.

2205xx: solo inside spread for dazed korea

a contractual obligation of his calvin klein contract. it wasn’t particularly inspired or original, in ash’s opinion, but that wasn’t his purpose. he showed up, did his little coy-sexy thing, and got his paycheck. fans ate it up and they were momentarily distracted from complaining to dimensions about his lack of activities for blacklight.

220605: global brand ambassador for calvin klein

with dimensions’s plans for both polaris and taeyong seemingly going more global than ever and their attention in global markets spreading accordingly, ash’s longest brand deal is upgraded accordingly. ash considers trying to get out of the contract at this point because he’s so uninterested in being used as a product used to sell other products, but his team doesn’t ever even bother to ask if he wants to upgrade his contract. turning down the upgrade offer would surely end his contract entirely, so next thing he knows, he’s on billboards and on calvin klein websites across the globe.

220731: solo stage at lollapalooza

lollapalooza serves to be the highlight of ash’s 2022. headlining a huge music festival like lollapalooza had never even crossed his mind as a possibility until dimensions’s connections connect the right way and the offer comes to him as a shining gem in a pile of trash.

he gets to expand his visual world for blacklight beyond what he’d shown in the music videos and gets to perform on a big stage again on his own. it’s a dream come true, even if it’s stressful.

220930: portal solo single (“ballroom extravaganza”)

ballroom extravaganza is meant to be the start of a chapter two to blacklight’s chapter one. it’s his only music release besides his album during the year, which isn’t a low release rate by most metrics, but by his own past track record, it’s slow. it reflects the pace he wants to work at, the one that’s comfortable for him and unpressured by need for constant achievement and validation.

221231: solo stage at dick clark’s new year’s rockin’ eve

it’s not as exciting as lollapalooza, but he’ll take it. plans for him to be more active in the american market are clear by now and though he’s not sure the families watching new year’s rockin’ eve are his target audience, but it’s still cool to be able to perform on the stage in times square where he saw so many artists perform when he was a kid.

[miraefmd]

headcanon: base awards solo stage

word count: 462 words

selene’s comeback and filming for her drama kept mirae from being able to prepare a solo stage for most of the year end shows and award shows, but when the opportunity presented itself for her to do one for the base awards, she took it with determination to get at least one more awards show stage out there other than her mama one.

there was no time for any crazy effects or stunts to be incorporated into the stage, but mirae wanted something pretty true to the songs in their original forms anyway, with the added theatrics key to an end of the year show or awards show stage. the aim was more to showcase the songs she’d released in a way true to what they were instead of reinventing them completely. after all, they were successful in their original form, so there wasn’t any real need to entirely repackage them.

utilizing the connecting theme between bloom and gashina, the whole performance was themed around flowers, particularly roses and their thorns. this was emphasized by mirae’s outift for the stage, which tied in roses into even her stage outfit. 

the stage started with mirae descending on aerial silks from above the stage onto a table. this was the flashiest and most unique part of the stage, but mirae didn’t get to show off all that much of her aerial silk skills since there wasn’t much time to choreograph something safely and her stage outfit was also pretty restricting. this part of the stage was meant to representing a flower blooming, with a visual of such behind her on the screen. after her entrance, she began her performance of “bloom”, with the typical dancers and props (such as the table and chair). her dancers were dressed in black suits as they had been for a few of her music show stages, and they also had roses pinned to their lapels.

at the conclusion of “bloom”, red rose petals began to fall across the stage. a musical interlude played as a transition between songs and a short partnered contemporary dance sequence was performed by two dancers. mirae wasn’t involved in this dance at all and it was intended to help lead the shift in tone. during this interlude, more tables were brought in lined up next to the original table and a red tablecloth was draped over them. a visual of thorns starting to slowly sprout from the flower on the screen that was behind her the whole time was shown.

at the end of the partnered dance dance, mirae began her performance of “gashina”. this was again pretty true to her standard performance of the song, only with a short dance break (https://youtu.be/UtaJhujEpk8?t=198) added into the song near the end of the performance.

[miraefmd]

headcanon: gashina era

word count: 427 word

because mirae had been looking and preparing to make a solo debut for such a long time, gashina was actually one of the songs originally in consideration for her solo debut. she loved the song from the moment she heard it and everyone knew it fit her as a performer, but that fact is what made her fight for it not to be her debut song. she felt it was a little too predictable and she wanted to make more of an impact than she felt she would have with gashina as her debut.

instead, she eventually chose bloom and asked the company to hold gashina as a solo comeback. it wasn’t even sure at that point she’d get a solo comeback any time soon, especially if bloom absolutely bombed, but there was tentative plans for her to make a comeback within the same year as her debut, so she thought bloom and gashina would fit well as a pair.

when bloom did so well, gashina got locked in as her comeback single for release at the end of the year.

gashina is true to the side of mirae seen in selene’s music and even in her acting roles. when the song came out, a lot of fans called gashina the perfect song for her. it was probably bound to be a success regardless of the song since it ended coming out right when she was blowing up with squid game, but it’s massive success really reaffirmed mirae’s decision and her confidence in her control over her own career.

gashina doesn’t really push boundaries or have a message like bloom did and post-breakup empowerment songs may be a dime a dozen, but out of everyone one of those types of songs she got handed in the song picking process, gashina struck her as the most genuine to her own experiences.

mirae doesn’t like to see gashina as a direct follow-up to bloom in the sense of being a storyline since she thinks the emotions of bloom work better without gashina looming over them, but she thinks of them more of an anthology of experiences in dating and romance connected by the flower imagery. you can experience heartbreak and you can experience good sex and one doesn’t have to be the natural conclusion of the other.

gashina (and squid game happening around the same time) is what really made mirae confident she wanted to pursue a soloist career full force alongside her acting career, instead of prioritizing acting over it and releasing music when she gets the chance.

[taeyongfmd]

headcanon: ash & dimensions entertainment

word count: 863 words

dimensions entertainment wasn’t on ash’s radar in any way until days before he auditioned for them. he didn’t speak much korean back then outside of basic vocabulary he had he picked up from his dad and he was perfectly happy spending his time listening to his little, primarily american and british, pop punk and alt rock bands of the 2000s, so the big idol companies of the time weren’t in his scope of knowledge, much less struggling companies like dimensions.

his family went on a short trip to los angeles at the very beginning of his winter break from school in 2010 and he came upon an audition notice for dimensions entertainment at some bbq restaurant in koreatown. he, and pretty much everyone else in his life, knew at this point that ash was going to pursue music as a career, though his path seemed to be a few more years of summer conservatories and city and state orchestras before going off to berklee (whose summer program he’d honed his passion for songwriting at only the summer before) or the curtis institute, or maybe even juilliard if he worked really hard.

he got back to their hotel that evening and he looked up the company, which led him to their former groups. lotus and dios were fine and not too far off from what he’d expected to see, but it was when he came across arrest that he got really interested in the potential of auditioning for dimensions. had ash looked into it further, he would have learned that they were unsuccessful and had already left dimensions by then, but ash was pretty taken with the idea of being in a cool rock band and days later he auditioned with a green day song and a dream.

once he was inside dimensions entertainment as a trainee, he had a better viewpoint to have a true opinion on the company. he was as conflicted in his feelings toward the company as any newly thirteen year-old kid would be toward a controlling authority that was ready to place a giant burden on his shoulders on national television only a few weeks into his training period.

he felt as though they had a certain sort of faith in him that he didn’t have in himself with the way they nearly immediately assigned him as main vocal of a debut team and offered him more training in songwriting. even being restricted from speaking english felt like some sort of greater faith in him at first.

on the other hand, ash has never taken to a lack of freedom all that well, and, naturally, that lack of freedom came with being an idol trainee led to a certain amount of resentment. he kept it in during his trainee days for the most part, driven mostly by the pressure and expectation that came with being a public member of a team training for debut for nearly all of his time as a trainee.

then debut came and ash was too busy feeling lost in polaris’s concept to really ever assess his feelings toward dimensions. the first few years of polaris’s career involved a employee-employer relationship with dimensions that was strained but still had its good spots. about a year after debut, they started using songs he was involved with on polaris’s albums and by 2015, he was creating title tracks for the group. the ability to write kept most of his worst feelings toward the company at bay, like resentment for being overworked, exploited, treated poorly at times by staff, and not protected enough from overzealous fans.

when negative press starts to attach to his name and ash grows restless for the teenage recklessness he didn’t get to have is when things go south. as the scales of liability vs. asset start to tip back and forth, his relationship with staff representing the company becomes frequently contentious and he starts to take joy in the thought of giving the company trouble. any debt he’d once felt he’d owed to dimensions for polaris’s success fades and he wants out of the industry.

but they let him take the lead on his solo music and sometimes even have enough say in polaris’s music to make him feel like he has control. when he wants to make lofi rnb instead of mainstream appeal pop, they let him. when he argues he doesn’t want his face on his albums or for his music videos to focus too much on him, he can convince them. he doesn’t live in a bubble; he knows that’s not something to take for granted in the industry.

still, ash doesn’t intend to renew with the company, but the problem with carefully-taught child stardom is that he’s surrounded on all sides by people with an investment in his career for their own profit and he’s never been any good under pressure.

he breaks and re-signs and the cracks sting as they heal back over. he learns more than ever not to feel guilt for that spark of resentment that always sits in his stomach, but it doesn’t stop it from creeping up on him more than he’d like anyway.

[miraefmd]

headcanon: npc relationship (ji bumseok)

word count: 564 words

bumseok was essentially mirae’s first serious relationship. she’d dated casually prior, especially during her modeling trainees days, but she’d been young and busy ever since she’d debuted at sixteen, so dating wasn’t a priority for her. more than any kind of company recommendation to keep dating to a minimum, it was driven by her own need to solidify her career before she worried too much about anything else.

ji bumseok was a business man a few years older than her that she started dating in 2013 (when she was 20). it was as simple as him being interested in her and her being interested in him, and selene were out of the rookie stage, with schedules open enough for her to have time to have a more active social and dating life without it interfering in her ability to dedicate herself to her studies.

he wasn’t necessarily what she would have called her type; teenage mirae had been quite into the ‘bad boy’ type, but as a young adult, his stability appealed to her. he was very much more the bring-home-to-your-parents type. she never did, but she’d always suspected that if she did, her mom would take warmly to him and her dad would find him boring.

it took them a while to get truly serious (the threshold of which seemed to be bumseok actually introducing mirae to his friends and work colleagues), but once they did, he had a lot going for him. he was very affectionate and good at matching mirae in that regard in private (though he was much more subdued in all aspects when they weren’t alone; at the time, mirae figured it was out of respect for a private relationship. she didn’t want a partner who would make too big a show of their relationship anyway).

the downfall of their relationship came in the little cracks that got bigger with time. he had a way of downplaying mirae’s job as an idol in comparison to his own. he would never say it outright, only show it through his attitude and the way he seemed to prioritize his work over hers, and it was easy enough to dismiss at first, but over time, it became obvious to mirae that he didn’t take her career with the seriousness she did. he seemed to expect she would be happy to retire in a few years time and settle down into a homemaker role. mirae very much did, and does, want a family, but retirement, less so.

when mirae started to call him out on attitudes and expectations like this that bothered her, it’d lead to a lot of arguments. he’d say he understood her concerns, but it’d never last for very long and eventually he started calling her out on things, too. it led to a phase in their relationship that was a lot of fighting and then making up and then fighting again.

eventually, they started to fight less, but it wasn’t really the same as it was before. it felt less like they’d stopped fighting because they had less to fight about and more because bumseok stopped caring. 

long story short, she found out he was cheating. she cheated back. they broke up. mirae decided to live by the motto that it’s a million times better to be constantly fighting with your partner than feel like they don’t care anymore.

[taeyongfmd]

headcanon: base awards solo stage

word count: 441 words

matching aesthetic here.

ash’s solo stage for the base awards was created with the same performance director as his lollapalooza stage. now that he’s further into the creative process of his next album and he has a better idea of the world that connects the two albums, ash wanted to represent some of those themes in his stages. a lot of the performance is just ash and the performance director testing stuff out for his next tour.

it’s his most theatrical stage, something a little out of character for him. in his earlier days as a soloist, he was often known for performances that felt very stripped-back and personal, but he’s recently found it a lot easier for him to perform by taking on the character of this different version of himself he’s created for his music.

the performance starts out with ash entering onto a platform on the stage stage that is empty save for a single microphone stand, wearing a gold and white outfit (similar to this outfit, but not exactly the same). after a beat of silence, a sparkling golden image resembling wings appears on the screen at the back of the stage.

his first song is “ballroom extravaganza”, which he performs at the mic stand. as he performs, the wings fade out like dying stars and on the screen behind him show an increasingly violent storm as the song reaches and passes its climax. ash descends stairs from the platform to the base level of the stage.

at the end of “ballroom extravaganza”, the lights go out completely. when low lights come back on with “mito” playing in the background, his crown is gone, he’s mid-transition, with his shirt shed and a mask covering his face. for the beginning of “mito”, the backtrack plays and he does not sing. he kneels, removing the mask, and begins to sing the end of the song as giant black wings appear on the screen behind him.

the lights go out again, which is followed by the sound of thunder. a music box version of “paranoia” that reads as a more ‘horror’ remix begins to play in the darkness. when the lights come back up, ash is gone and a group of dancers dance to a hollow version of the “paranoia” chorus. curtains open behind them and ash steps out, dressed in all black as the song stops and dancers swarm him. he finishes performing “paranoia”. at the climax of the song, ash ascends the platform once again. he sits on the edge and large black wings appear behind him for the second time, but this time he seems to owns them more proudly.

[miraefmd]

opinion on selene’s eras, continued… again

word count: 440 words

“starry night” / yellow flower: although it wasn’t her favorite comeback musically or conceptually, mirae could appreciate that selene was doing something different they hadn’t really done before so far into their careers. the styling was far outside of her preferred as well, but for the whole four seasons, four colors project, mirae was understanding of the fact that each mini-album was supposed to cater more to one members’ charms than the whole group. she went blonde with short hair for this era, something she kept through her solo debut with bloom, but she’d consider that change her favorite aspect of the era.

“egotistic” / red moon: this era was a lot more her speed. the energy was a lot more tuned to her personal strengths and she felt that it musically fit her voice a lot better than the preceding era. she had a lot of fun with this era and she felt that she shined more than she did with the previous title track’s stages, even though this still wasn’t “her” era of the project. she only wishes she’d gotten to do some of the pole dancing in the music video and performances like the leader, but she’s settled with believing she wasn’t asked because she was so busy with other projects during the year and she might not have been able to give her all to rehearsing pole routines for staged. overall, “egotistic” felt very true to the side of selene that mirae finds comes to her the most naturally — that selene mix of powerful and sensual.

“windflower” / blue;s: “windflower” was back to the more mid-tempo and more pensive tone of “starry night”, although mirae would probably rank “windflower” between “egotistic” and “starry night” if she was going to make a ranking. it was very obviously not her era once again with its more laidback sound and performance style and again, not what she would have chosen if she’d been in the position to pick selene’s comeback tracks, but it spoke to a mature and musical selene that could last for the longterm the best out of all of the title tracks so far, to mirae, so she appreciated that. the styling was again not her favorite, but she’s come to accept that selene’s stylistis can have a very different for selene’s style from mirae’s own preferences. this comeback was a nice way to end one of the busiest years of her life and she was glad to stand on stage with her members, even if she sometimes wished the project hadn’t been going on, so that they could have had more space between releases.