mirae’s casual style at home, on a private day out, or at a friend’s party has its differences from her more public presentations of style (on stage, on camera, at the airport). in her downtime, she tends to dress to her idea of a mix of comfort and self-expression. while some designer clothes dot her off-duty wardrobe, she has a soft spot for items from small boutiques. since her early teen years, mirae would take clothes and tweak them to her personal style with the skills passed down to her by her mother, a seamstress, and she still does that from time to time to this day when she feels something would fit her a little better with a change. it’s not by necessity now, but she likes to have clothes with individuality, even if the difference is only in a hem or cut.
"nerves” is the most obvious bridge between ash’s last solo era (lovesick) and his current/upcoming one (blacklight). it could have fit on his last album if he’d written the song before it came out, but it’s a case of context in this instance that makes ash so proud of the song. it marks the beginning in the change in his internal processing of his past relationship from externally-based to deeper reflection on his own internal struggles in relation to it.
the director for “so beautiful” and “nerves” (and others off his album) is one he had long discussions with and suggested to bc because of his confidence in his understanding of the story ash wanted to tell, and he believes that really shows itself here. ash can’t imagine a more perfect music video to represent the feelings the song is about.
for his solo pictorial, ash hopped a plane to hong kong for a shoot inspired by city life, as well as, in part, the works of directors wong kar wai and satoshi kon and photographer wing shya. the shoot took place at night both outdoors on the street and in nearby indoor locations including a bar, a tattoo shop, a restaurant, the subway, and a studio apartment.
siren is mirae’s second comeback as a solo artist, following her 2022 releases “bloom” and “gashina”. it leaves behind the connecting link of floral imagery from her previous two songs, but serves as a continuation of the emotional arc. siren is jointly inspired by the concepts of a warning siren and the mythological creature called a siren. another dance pop song, siren is retro-inspired in sound. lyrically, the song is a warning to an ex-lover.
date: november 6, 2022.
word count: 487 words.
summary: mirae considers her past the day of her solo mini-concert.
notes: -
stage fright has never been a thing for mirae. the fluttering in her stomach and the electricity shooting up her arms before she goes on stages has always read to her as excitement, not fear or anxiety.
maybe it has something to do with how young she’d been the first time she’d stepped foot on a stage in front of a crowd of people — or rather, how young she’d been when she’d first stepped foot into the corner of a rundown bar to sit next to her dad as he played a song for a scattering of unenthusiastic patrons.
now she knows her purpose had been to earn a few extra tips (or a few tips at all) out of the mere appeal of the cuteness of a five year-old girl, but at the time, she’d made herself a star in her own mind.
at the end of the night, whatever measly offerings they’d gotten would be split between her dad and his bandmates. they had a deal to rotate who got the largest portion when the total couldn’t be split evenly, something that happened more often than not, but in retrospect, she thinks her dad got the benefit more often than the others. her cuteness must have worked on them, too.
back then, she hadn’t understood that when she begged him to use his tips on the way home to buy odeng or tteokbokki on the way home, her greed had been getting the best of her.
she looks back on it now and wishes she could scold the little girl who hadn’t fully grasped the reason her parents sometimes didn’t join their children to eat a meal or why they visited the seven thousand won buffet that let them sneak home leftovers so often even after she got bored of their dull food.
when she talks to her dad now, he never brings up her young greed. instead, he congratulates her on her mini-concert when she calls him to check in that morning. she can’t talk for long; she’s on the way to the salon when they talk, but she knows she won’t hear from her mom and she doubts her brother or sister remember, so she savors what she can get.
it’s not a full-blown concert. there are no fancy stage effects since so many concerts are crammed into such a short time, and she only has two songs of her own out anyway, but it’s her first solo concert after twelve years and it feels like a crown in its own way, even if many who have been around a much shorter time are also holding their own mini-concert for the series.
though the set is less than twenty minutes, she’s been in the studio practicing like it’s a two hour show.
that much she can proudly say about herself. these days, her greed never exists without twice the effort behind it.
date: early november
word count: 473 words.
summary: mirae considers what her next career step is.
notes: -
selene’s debut had been explosive. everyone has tuned in to see what bang sunyoung had created and they’d like it enough to hold the newly revealed act steady at the top of the charts. they’d been granted music show wins in record-breaking speed and the rare gift of hurdling over rookie of the year awards straight to a daesang for song of the year.
success isn’t foreign to mirae, even if she’s been told she works like it is. from some perspectives, success had been handed to her on a silver platter and, as such, unaffected aloofness is expected from her. some still perceive her to have such a quality on mere expectation alone.
for all she’s painted in strokes of effortlessly confident, enviable ‘cool girl’, un-wanting to try is one thing she isn’t.
she’s starkly aware of how critical the current moment in her life is. she’s watched squid game’s achievements almost religiously. there’s alerts set on her phone for any big news that comes out under squid game’s topic and she’s been playing the social media game so as not to waste the influx of millions of new followers to her instagram. if the spotlight from squid game alone weren’t enough, gashina has only made it that much brighter domestically.
it’s a new type of pressure she’s never really felt before from any of her individual acting endeavors or modeling, that it’s on her whether she flies or falls from here. there’s been meeting after meeting with management and a&r about what the next steps are and they’ve only grown in number since the mid-september drop of squid game. with her next drama postponed, it’s been script after script sent her way — more than ever before now that the chance of casting her means the hope of some of squid game’s attention rubbing off on her next project — and auditions that for the most part haven’t felt like the next right step. a&r makes a point of how global music can go. it’s easier to capitalize on the global music market and build her profile from there, they claim. gashina’s well-loved by global k-pop fans, so if they aim for a more general public with an english-language single, she has a lot of potential. in the meetings, she nods in silent agreement, but calculates in her head how to be seen as a multi-hyphenate instead of a one-hit wonder.
she’d once worried about being cornered into the label of only being an actor, but now there are forces in all directions saying which next step is the best, and none of the opinions seem to overlap well enough to blend them together into some masterful chess move of her own.
the clock is ticking on her chance and a decision has to be made before making one becomes pointless.
date: october 9, 2022
word count: 414 words.
summary: gold star media calls a little meeting and mirae isn’t happy.
notes: don’t read please this is so bad
there’s only a few reasons for gold star media to call every artist, actor, and model under the company into a meeting on such short notice. mirae runs through the list in her head on the way to the building: bang sunyoung’s gravely ill or just got bored of this particular part of her media empire and has decided to step down suddenly, one of their idols has finally fucked up so terribly it’s bringing the whole company down, or they’re being bought out by some massive corporation in an industry that just makes that much more than entertainment does.
the talk from right before new year’s has mostly faded into the background of her mind, so it doesn’t even occur to her it might be about that until it very clearly is.
there’s a unique mix of annoyance and bubbling anxiety she walks out of the room with when the meeting comes to an uncomfortable close. they may not have said anything, but mirae has little doubt the talk they’ve been warned of will be true, at least in part. if someone had it out for gold star, faked tax evasion would be too easily cleared to be a good method of dirtying their name.
it’s not news to her that the rich are greedy to keep ahold of their money. she’s known it since childhood and, in her adulthood, she’s brushed shoulders with more than a few people she’s sure loved what their financial power could let them get away with to retain that power. she’s even dated one or two, so there’s no claim she can make of doe-eyed naivety, but that doesn’t make it any better a look when people find out.
her company is supposed to be the last thing she’s worried about throwing a wrench into a good publicity run, and with squid game growing more popular by the day, she’s supposed to be in the spotlight for her work, not for the dirty dealings of a company she’s stood by every day for over a decade.
her manager must see the look on her face as she slides into the passenger seat of the van to return to her normal schedule because she gives her a look of trepidation from the driver’s seat. she doesn’t bother to school her face into something more neutral. being pissed off in a situation like this is hardly a crime. and even if it was, that would only make her even.
