Neon is on the scene, everyone, stay tuned for their official debut with “Dalla Dalla” on April 17th! After some fresh debuts, some suggestions from members, and the unfortunate position of Pristin and Gugudan, we’ve shuffled their discography for what we truly hope is the final time to be a mix of Everglow, Itzy, and Pristin, using Pristin songs until those run out (it’s probably foolish to hope for a comeback, right? but we still sort of do...) and then relying on the hopefully prolific Itzy, which will helpfully mirror their sister group JiNX/Miss A. Consider this date (April 10) to be the date that the first in character teasers dropped for the girls of Neon, as well. Public reception will be more specifically outlined in Neon’s schedule posts going forward, and you can assume it will be favorable, but as in all Idolize cases it will be significantly toned back.
Members of Neon may now message us if they’re interested in a stage name to get them approved (though they are in no means required)! Upon the posting of the debut song, Neon members accepted prior to this date (April 10th) will be allotted 10 exp and 10 sp.
Please note: members applying for Neon after this posting should fill out the application distributing points equivalent to the sixth generation but excluding the purchase option.
HOT DEBUT FROM MIDAS, NEON CLAIMS THEY’RE ‘DALLA DALLA’
1. [ +722, -173 ] Wowow, the song’s more addicting the more you listen to it ㅎㅎ The choreo and song is so fun that I really can’t believe they’re rookies, this is Midas class monster rookies~
2. [ +541, -131 ] Ah, hm... how do I say this nicely... was I expecting too much from Midas? ㅋㅋ Seriously, what is this, it feels like 5 different songs mixed into one?? They were really overhyped... But of course they’ll do well because of their company ㅋㅋㅋㅋ What a world...
3. [ +473, -68 ] Dalla~ dalla~ dalla~~ The song’s catchy and the group’s charismatic, I’m already a fan!! Let’s keep rising, Neon!!
NEON INTRODUCED THEMSELVES AND PERFORMS ‘DALLA DALLA’ AT DEBUT SHOWCASE
1. [ +722, -79 ] Honestly, even though I’m not a fan of the song I can’t deny that their performance was really fun... I watched their debut showcase and their charisma on stage is really no joke, Midas trained them well ^^ Hopefully they’ll get better songs soon ㅠㅠ
2. [ +513, -41 ] This is why everyone wants to join a big company ㅋㅋㅋ The song, music video, and choreography were all seriously high class for a rookie~ And not to mention all the promotion they got ㅋㅋ They seemed so professional too on stage, I think they’ll do well ^^ Neon fighting~!
3. [ +273, -38 ] Will their newest venture be the next big thing??? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ I don’t think so... It’s funny they kept singing about being different from everyone else, but is there really anything different about them?? The song is weird and they’re not the first girl crush group out there, what’s so different?
LOADING INFORMATION ON NEON’S LEAD VOCAL, LEAD DANCE DANIELLA KIM...
IDOL DETAILS
STAGENAME: Dani
CURRENT AGE: 19
DEBUT AGE: 19
TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 15
COMPANY: Midas
SECONDARY SKILL: N/A
IDOL PROFILE
NICKNAME(S): boyfriend dani
INSPIRATION: the legendary female soloist boa is her idol, especially because their discovery stories are very similar.
SPECIAL TALENTS:
dance covers – play any popular song and there’s a 95% chance dani knows the choreography. it’s very common for her to cover songs from boy groups, girl groups, and soloists on variety shows for both random dance challenges and to show off her talent.
cooking meat – dani is your local barbecue dad.
finding cameras – she’s got a really good eye for finding cameras, even when they’re filming from far away.
NOTABLE FACTS:
was discovered at an overseas audition in her hometown of san francisco, california.
can speak english fluently.
likes watching horror movies.
really dislikes mushrooms and tries to avoid eating them as much as possible.
IDOL GOALS
SHORT-TERM GOALS:
since neon has only recently debuted, dani’s goal for now is to take their debut as far as it can go. it’s no longer about just herself as a trainee trying to debut, but to work with the rest of her members as a team. her goals for neon include winning number one on music shows, gathering more international fans, and becoming an overall more popular girl group in the k-pop industry. there are a lot of high expectations for neon, especially since it’s in a company as well-known as midas, and she hopes to live up to them.
LONG-TERM GOALS:
currently, dani is still very confused as to what she wants to do with her life and if being an idol is the right choice. her very personal long-term goal is to figure out whether she wants to stay on this career path as an entertainer, and if not, leave. if this does end up being the right choice for her, then she would like to make a living in the future off of simply her variety skills, such as a talk show, and eventually stop performing as her main source of income.
IDOL IMAGE
if it wasn’t her potential and talent as a dancer and singer that got dani into midas media, it was her eccentric personality. her character is one that’s hard to forget and even more difficult to ignore — daniella kim is unafraid of attention, even when she does something embarrassing. after years of midas media staff and management seeing her constantly crack jokes and act like a troll, midas knew that she’d be the perfect 4d factor of the group. most people call her dorky, but neon fans call her a “crackhead”. dani’s onscreen personality is very much similar to her offscreen, just more toned down to avoid coming off overbearing or annoying to netizens. midas hoped that this would bring in more attention for the group on variety shows as well as be refreshing for fans to enjoy a humorous idol with a very outgoing and non-serious image.
due to this bold image of hers, dani is often shameless with her actions and quirks. she has a boyish charm that makes her do things that make her seem like a boyfriend. fans swoon over how she helps fellow female idols up/down stairs, gives her jacket to members when it’s cold, and reenacts famous k-drama scenes as the male lead. known as neon’s “boyfriend” member, dani is often playfully flirtatious with neon members and other female idols. this coincides rather well with the group’s girl crush concept.
creating a persona for daniella within the group wasn’t too difficult of a job. midas took her offscreen personality and amplified it, playing it up on variety shows and other programs with special emphasis on certain quirks and habits that came off 4d and/or girl crush-y. gifs, videos, and photos of her fingerguns, winks, head pats, and the like probably bring in more female fans than male. it’s also not uncommon to see memes made of her.
IDOL HISTORY
born and raised in san francisco, california, both daniella and her older brother, david, did not have many opportunities to connect to or learn about their south korean heritage. she had no interest in dancing, singing, or anything of that sort. the only exposure to k-pop that daniella had was thanks to her father; silent car rides were replaced with south korea’s top hits, played by cds that her father would burn every few weeks. what started as famous ballads and trot songs eventually turned to something different as first generation idol groups became popular and the k-pop industry was born. daniella, uninterested in that part of korean culture, was more attentive to different things. she watched a lot more korean movies, dramas, and shows while her brother watched more music videos and enjoyed keeping up with his favorite idols.
david eventually joined his high school dance team after being so greatly inspired by his favorite k-pop groups. his parents supported him, happy that they had a son with passion and drive for something rather than nothing at all. in all honesty, they believed it was a phase. nothing but a hobby, just a fun form of exercise and a great stress reliever. both daniella’s parents and her brother encouraged her to join the dance team when she entered high school, and with some reluctance, she agreed. it turned out to be more fun than expected — dani made friends, performed at rallies, and even won top titles at competitions with her team. her dance talent was genetic, many of her friends would say. then they would laugh as daniella danced along to a k-pop song that came on during practice, because “i thought you didn’t listen to k-pop, dani!” it was completely unintentional, but k-pop grew on her slowly.
then came the year of goat: 2015. daniella, enjoying the beginning of her summer vacation after finishing her freshman year of college, sat at the kitchen table eating dinner when her brother burst out of his room. “i wanna go to an audition at least once in my life,” he said, trying to convince their parents to let him attend an audition of some sort. midas media was holding its annual global audition in san francisco, only a twenty minute drive from the kim home. “on one condition,” their father said. “take your sister with you.”
daniella went as moral support if anything, holding her brother’s papers as he practiced the dance routine he had prepared for his audition and fetching him water or snacks when asked. she had absolutely no plans or desire to audition herself and stood around to patiently wait for her brother’s dreams to come alive. she was at a vending machine buying a candy bar when a middle aged man asked her if she was here for the midas auditions, to which she politely declined. he encouraged her to, and david supported it. she was already here and she could just do it for fun. it’d be a fun story to tell her friends, if anything. dani, reluctantly once more, agreed.
to this day, dani still believes it was luck that made her pass the audition. she had the least amount of interest in this audition out of all the people there, yet for some reason she stuck. while she wasn’t the most talented of the bunch, the potential and the visuals were there. perhaps it was the funny konglish joke she told the audition panel that sealed the deal.
arrangements were made very quickly for daniella. david was jealous but supportive nonetheless, and her parents cried as they sent their daughter off to live with her aunt in seoul. never in a million years did they expect her to pursue a career in the k-pop industry, but this was what she wanted. at least that’s what everyone thought. at the young and naive age of fifteen, daniella experienced culture shock in her new home of south korea. on top of that, she spent everyday under the very tough trainee contract and schedule of midas media. the first two years were spent looking through rose colored glass — she couldn’t afford to question her life plans or dreams. she didn’t have the time or energy to when she was trying so desperately to keep up with the competitiveness and rigor of being a trainee. she wanted what every other person wanted: recognition. at age seventeen was when the questioning began. daniella loved dancing, and she was damn good at it now with the help of all the practicing she’s been doing as a trainee. she was also excelling in other skills, specifically singing. while her hard work was paying off for her personal improvement, there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. did she even want to become an idol? was this all worth it?
just as her doubts were hitting peak level, the universe swept in to save her in the form of speech. rumors about a new lineup. rumors about a new girl group. rumors about debut. they were, of course, whispers and gossip passed along between trainees in the studios and hallways. they couldn’t be completely trusted, but at the same time, dani couldn’t help herself. she had already spent years in midas, growing up under the care of trainers and music instead of her parents. she had worked so hard to fit into south korea’s cultural standards, changing her attitude and appearance. there was no way in hell she was going to let that go to waste when there was a possibility for debut. she refused to believe all of the emotional and physical strife she had gone through would go to waste.
and thank god she did. daniella has been good to midas, and midas has been good to her. placed in neon as the lead vocalist and lead dancer, dani has gone from not caring about k-pop at all to becoming a k-pop idol herself. even through all the late nights wondering what she’s doing with her life, the fleeting doubts of whether or not this career is for her, and concerning self reflections on her happiness and how to pursue it, nobody can ignore the popularity and success neon is gaining. besides, this is what she’s been waiting for all these years… right?
Did anyone see this bts footage from Polham? I’m originally a Midas fan and have been following Jane since before her debut, but these Choi siblings are seriously so cute? I’m so happy that the company casted them both for this promotion ㅠㅠ They look so cute and natural together.
I’ve heard that Dane’s talked a couple of times about how much he loves and dotes on his little sibling. Ah...if only my older brother would be so kind...I’m just jealous of Jane in every way. Unnie...please...let me live your life, just for one day ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
POST RESPONSE | [ + 198 ] [ - 17 ]
1. [ ㅇㅇ ] Jane is really such a natural at modeling though? She really has su~ch an aura about her. It’s obvious to see why Midas was pushing her for modelling even before Neon debuted.
2. [ 제인 도우 ] They’re seriously too cute together. Dane seems like such a dependable big brother...I hope someday they’ll get to release a Chain Station song or something, I want to see them perform together, too!
3. [ ㅇㅇ ] What the...? I didn’t even know Daein had a sister...? Wow...their parents must both be so beautiful, the class of their genes.
LOADING INFORMATION ON NEON’S MAIN DANCE JANG SOEUN...
IDOL DETAILS
STAGENAME: N/A
CURRENT AGE: 18
DEBUT AGE: 18
TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 14
COMPANY: Midas
SECONDARY SKILL: N/A
IDOL PROFILE
NICKNAME(S): stone soeun
INSPIRATION: the members of jinx, boa, cl
SPECIAL TALENTS:
Contemporary Dance
Plant care
Making kimbap
NOTABLE FACTS:
scouted while leaving her middle school due to her looks at age 14
a finalist on ‘mixed up’ from which she was supposed to debut
well known to be friends with various members of aurora
has a lot of plants around the dorm, you can 100% assume that any greenery is soeun’s
she’s often described as a nut you have to crack because despite her hard exterior, she’s soft on the inside
IDOL GOALS
SHORT-TERM GOALS:
soeun wants redemption more than anything. being that she’s still furious about not getting to debut with the girls from mixedup, soeun wants more than anything to finally debut, and to not feel so worthless. a part of her feels like she was cheated, and that she deserves to finally be in the spotlight, not sadly lingering behind. it was beyond embarrassing to return to midas after her nearly-successful attempt at debuting, even just for a little bit. she wants powerful choreography and a strong thrust into the k-pop world; she wants to do well in what she’s been itching to do, what was stolen away from her at the last moment.
LONG-TERM GOALS:
there’s a lot of things that soeun could ask for from her career. sure, she’d love a solo career, it’d always be nice to pursue something beyond neon. sure, she wants to establish herself in the industry, she wants longevity – but without something beyond the face painted on during performances, what was soeun? soeun realizes that her childhood was basically stolen from her, formative years spent locked away in midas’ training room hoping for debut. there wasn’t a lot of room for growth and looking back soeun regrets never really flourishing. soeun wants to understand herself, first and foremost, and become more than just that idol from midas who let them push her around all her life. she also wants to become more than just a pretty face, she wants to create – while she realizes that maybe they won’t have the freedom to do so, soeun wants to push what midas allows from her and dabble in music production and choreography, two things that she’s been curious about but too focused on debut to really pursue.
IDOL IMAGE
according to midas, the best thing about soeun is the malleability of her personality. instead of having to fix and play with her personality, they have groomed her for a certain image since she signed her life away. sharp, chic looks contribute perfectly to the image soeun watches being cultivated among the girls in the project group. while she wasn’t exactly the first person in the group soeun wonders if she was expected to be added to the group even when she was given the opportunity to go onto mixedup. a pretty, familiar face is always welcoming when a new group comes onto the market. although she didn’t go through many etiquette classes for mixedup, soeun could tell what they wanted her to do. she always knew she was a bit colder than perhaps an idol should be off stage – but on stage she was fire. it was supposed to be a shock factor – she put so much into her performances that she was thrilling to watch. that contrast was attractive to people.
neon is untouchable and powerful, requiring an image of calm coolness – they’re better than everyone else. it’s an image that isn’t far off from what soeun already portrays. a naturally stony expression gives her the upper hand and allows her more time for practicing rather than etiquette classes. she isn’t sure how she got away with it. especially being that she’s among one of the younger trainees involved with the project, she almost expected them to force her into a more childish, young, cheerful, youthful image. she supposes she’s among the lucky ones.
soeun has worked hard toward her debut, and nearly made it. she was almost there, before losing that altogether. although she’s been forced toward acting as though mixedup never really happened by midas, soeun can’t help but tend to be noticeably bitter about the experience, because although she wants to be prideful in her progress, she can never help but think about how close she got to debuting before the rug was snatched from right under her feet. soeun is determined to make sure it happens this time, and thus is viewed as a very strong and dedicated performer. soeun works toward what she wants until its perfect, and won’t settle for anything less than – because, well, midas won’t allow it. soeun’s the picture-perfect image of the trainee everyone wants to be – effortlessly amazing at absolutely everything she does. however, no one will ever know the hours of practice she puts into every performance, how hard she works to make it appear effortless. because she needs to be that perfect person for her groupmates. she had the experience to be a well-seasoned trainee despite her age, so midas was clearly milking it for all it’s worth.
behind that, there’s a lot of confusion. while midas thinks it’s a good thing she became a trainee so young, soeun now thinks it’s a curse. she realizes now that maybe her parents were right about not wanting her to sign her contract so young. between etiquette classes and being told how to act by trainers, soeun is confused as to what her actual personality is. she’s starting to believe she doesn’t really have one beyond the hollow shell she’s sort of taken the role of. no matter how fierce she may appear, soeun struggles with herself. she works hard because she doesn’t believe she’s good enough, and the incident with mixedup is one main reason why – after all, the project was abandoned and while she knows it’s because of money reasons, it makes her feel as if maybe she wasn’t ready to debut, either.
a soft personality lies far behind the walls soeun’s built up around herself, and only shines through occasionally with the members. she sometimes wonders if midas wants her to show that side, mostly because they only preen the girl of stone nowadays, especially as the girls in project n start to dwindle down. but every once in a while she hangs on the other girls, her arms tight around them, or holds their hands during practices and walking around midas, and she’s never quite shunned. her need for affection doesn’t outweigh her concern that perhaps that isn’t what midas wants from her image, but it’s something that she can’t really control. she never really grew up normally, instead taking bits and pieces of her unnie’s and sunbae’s personalities that midas decided fit her best. she’s lost her way and isn’t really sure she knows how to truly find herself. but being stuck in that limbo makes her easy to play with and control on midas’ end, so they’re not about to help her understand who she really is.
IDOL HISTORY
on a hot summer day in daegu, jang sohye and soeun were born to two enthusiastic parents. jang seunghee, an events planner, had been stressing over organizing everything for their wedding, their baby shower, everything, that she was taken completely by surprise when the day came that her two baby girls were due – she figured the likelihood of them coming on time was low, her mother had her later after all, and that she wouldn’t have to worry about it. however, the day came and seunghee was barely prepared; when she arrived at the hospital, taehyun was already there absolutely mad with excitement. the two girls born were beautiful, a perfect mix of their parents – they were going to be a happy family, everyone could tell.
but things were never perfect.
sohye and soeun got along for the most part, but one always overshadowed the other in something. as they grew older, while the girls looked the same, it was clear they were polar opposites. sohye took on a more docile role; she was the smarts of the pair. she appeared softer than her sister, her eyes maybe a bit less angular, her features slightly less gaunt. she was exceptional at anything she did in school, and excelled beyond anything her sister could’ve wished for. soeun, on the other hand, was a lot sharper. she was the one that you looked at as she passed by, an aura of ' i’m better than you ' exuding from her as she passed by, high ponytail and striking features. a resting bitch face kept people from ever doing wrong by her, and a cunning personality kept them coming back to her. she was better than you, even in middle school, and she was the person people wanted to be. no one messed with sohye, because her sister was soeun. no one messed with soeun because she appeared terrifying to anyone who didn’t know her well enough.
and it wasn’t that soeun wasn’t what people assumed of her, because she was very much her mother’s daughter. where she could be sweet and kind, she was also cold and untouchable to anyone she didn’t want in her life. perhaps that was why soeun and her mother never got along, why most of their conversations ended up in fights as soeun grew older, and why her more malleable sister was her mother’s favorite. why a part of soeun is still jealous that she never got her mother’s positive attention.
that’s not to say her childhood before midas was ever terrible, soeun actually enjoyed her time spent in daegu. misses it, even. she misses when things were simple and she didn’t really have to think for herself – not that she really gets to now, but you know. she misses being with her sister, always having someone there that she could go to. even if they were opposites, even if soeun didn’t always enjoy being compared to her sister, sohye was her twin. there was a certain connection there that couldn’t go away.
however, there was one thing that soeun actually excelled in that her sister didn’t. there was finally something that soeun was better at than sohye when their mother enrolled them both in ballet classes. like every little girl out there, soeun and sohye attended simple children’s ballet classes at a very young age, and actually enjoyed it together. however, their instructors always praised soeun, talked about how even at a young age she was such a natural talent. which was maybe why sohye ended up complaining enough to drop out of the classes. it was something that soeun could finally do to prove that maybe she wasn’t the useless sister. she wasn’t just the looks, she was also the talent.
until about age ten, soeun continued ballet classes and progressed perfectly. once soeun’s recital came around, her instructors were talking about putting soeun up on pointe once she turned eleven, something that her parents refused, knowing the damage the young girl could do to herself. soeun also expressed how bored she was becoming with the ballet classes, how she didn’t really enjoy it anymore, and she wanted to try something else.
that was when soeun started experimenting with different classes, eventually settling on contemporary. the movements were long and clean, with the poise and elegance of ballet, but it wasn’t as structured. more free, albeit more difficult. being that she’d been classically trained for so long, it was difficult, however soeun fell in love with it.
things changed a few years later when midas held a casting event in daegu. although soeun really hadn’t wanted to be casted, after all being an idol wasn’t exactly what she wanted to do with her life, she didn’t really have a clear direction, either. she wasn’t doing poorly in school, but she certainly wasn’t doing fantastic, and she didn’t really enjoy most of her classes. so, when she was approached walking out of school one day by a midas representative and asked to audition, soeun was surprised, naturally.
scouted primarily for her looks, soeun didn’t really think that she’d make it in the audition. although she knew she was a good dancer, she wasn’t sure she really had and singing prowess. but she didn’t really have a direction in life, so when she went home that day she mentioned to her parents. both were surprised she even considered it, her mother asked her what about college – soeun just stared at her and asked, what about it? to her, it wasn’t something that was in her future. her father asked if she understood that would probably mean leaving home, soeun shrugged and said she needed to experience the world.
it took a lot of convincing, but soeun showed up to the last day of the audition cycle with the signed papers, and performed.
they had to have been moved by her dance, because surprisingly, soeun made it – she was the only person signed from those daegu auditions. soeun was suddenly a trainee, and wasn’t exactly sure what to do with that information. she was put up in a dorm in seoul by midas and accepted into hanlim mutli-arts school after a recommendation to apply to the arts schools in seoul. before she knows it, she’s shipped off to live with a few other trainees in seoul at the ripe age of fourteen, plucked from her home in daegu to pursue something more.
being a trainee at the age of fourteen isn’t exactly an ideal situation, either. not only was she one of the younger trainees, she realized just how introverted she was when it came to actually speaking to the others and working with them. despite the fact that she was known to be this towering, intimidating person, soeun was suddenly a blank face, unapproachable, to the other trainees – most people assumed she was just full of herself, but in reality she was terrified. ripped from her home and pushed into a situation where she was practically alone, soeun didn’t know what to do – she was actually alone for once.
it was then that soeun realized why she stuck to her sister – because people didn’t speak to her without that kind face. people didn’t approach her for fear of what would come out of her mouth. sure, soeun wasn’t as mean as people first assumed, but how was she supposed to showcase that when she was too anxious to actually approach anyone?
the first year of her life as a trainee consisted mostly of soeun being alone and working primarily by herself, and crying herself to sleep because she was struggling so much. training wasn’t easy, going to school and training was even harder. although her teachers were understanding, they changed deadlines and worked with her schedule, she still struggled to do anything other than the bear minimum. although soeun once believed that her parents were against her being a trainee because they wanted her to lead a ' normal ' life, she realized quickly that it was overwhelming. like any new trainee, she really didn’t know what she was getting herself into.
there were a lot of times soeun was close to quitting. but someone on the staff – usually one of her trainers – stopped her. told her to keep going. she was lucky when one of the kinder trainers caught her crying, they were far more understanding than the ones that told her to suck it up or she wouldn’t make it.
but eventually, she realized that they were right. she wasn’t going to make it to idoldom unless she stopped crying. until she stopped feeling sorry for herself. until she worked harder, and she took after her sunbaes. it took time, but by the time her second year as a trainee rolled around, soeun made a handful of friends that she worked with. having other people there for her made it easier, and they taught her how to become the ’ perfect trainee ’.
never say no.
work hard.
practice until your feet bleed.
when they do, work harder.
don’t cry, it shows weakness to the trainers.
if you have to, don’t let them see you.
if an opportunity is given to you, take it.
the girl she was when she was signed was not the same girl who was approached by midas staff to participate in the program 'mixedup’. no, that girl would’ve never made it. shaped by the words of her trainers and sunbaes, soeun’s softer side grew hard. the trainers always talked about her amazing expression while performing, but noted that she was a stone wall otherwise. when they were given etiquette classes, soeun was the perfect solider. she did what they wanted of her without question because she had to. while she was fierce onstage, she was pliant to the trainer’s wills and allowed them to say whatever they wanted to her. she was a trainee, they were her trainers, they knew better than she did.
which was maybe why the main complaint that came from mixedup was that soeun was emotionless. she didn’t get particularly close to any of the other trainees who participated, because really that wasn’t what the show was about. she was a good performer, and that was what she showed off. it wasn’t about personable skills. although the audience was small, soeun was willing to work hard for the chance to debut.
when that chance was ripped away from her was the first time she really felt something.when the end of the show came and soeun was ranked as the main dancer, she was upset once she realized that no, they wouldn’t actually be debuting from the show. sure, soeun had heard talk that the ratings were low, that there were issues with debut, that a cancellation may be in their future, she didn’t want to believe it. ignored the possibility that maybe this wouldn’t be her big break. however, money problems caused the group to fall through, and forced soeun to return with her tail between her legs. although she left the opportunity sad, it didn’t take long for that sadness to turn into anger.
she was furious that she worked so hard for no payout. she was supposed to debut, she was supposed to be an idol – and yet, it wasn’t going to happen. although most of the trainees mostly felt sorry for soeun, she couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. she worked so hard for nothing, and now she had to return to midas with nothing to prove herself. she doesn’t regret taking the opportunity, she’s a known midas trainee now and she’s noted for her dance moves – but she is still upset beyond belief that she didn’t get to debut out of mixedup.
however, upon her return, soeun told herself that she refused to let it happen again. the next time she was in a lineup, it would work out. it had to work out. she realizes now how much she missed out on being a trainee, how fleeting a career like what she wanted could be. after the rug was snatched out from under her feet, soeun was determined to make sure it didn’t happen again.
upon returning, it didn’t take long before soeun was placed into the lineup for midas’ project n – which was most likely going to turn into a debut group once midas was ready to debut another group. and this time, soeun is determined to be a part of that. she works harder than she had before to ensure her spot alongside the other girls of project n. she’s willing to do anything, to be anything that midas wants from her. because this time she’s going to make it.
LOADING INFORMATION ON NEON’S LEAD VOCAL, LEAD DANCE LIU TAOYI...
IDOL DETAILS
STAGENAME: N/A
CURRENT AGE: 22
DEBUT AGE: 22
TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 17
COMPANY: Midas
SECONDARY SKILL: N/A
IDOL PROFILE
NICKNAME(S): bao bao, pigguri (reference to her love for eating and specifically her love for pig trotters)
INSPIRATION: taoyi’s inspiration stems from gemini and diamant’s foreign releases and the popularity of groups like twinko in taiwan.
SPECIAL TALENTS:
impressive flexibility, she’s practically a pretzel.
physical / facial impressions.
encyclopedic memory of movies and dramas as she’s used them as a tool for learning korean.
NOTABLE FACTS:
taoyi debuted in a group called “ice creamumu” when she was thirteen.
her parents own a seafood restaurant in hualien city.
her favorite genre is horror and she has a collection of pop figures of classic horror movie villains (chucky, jason, etc.).
since moving to korea, her favorite food has become jokbal (pig trotters).
when she’s really hungry, she can finish a family platter of korean beef all on her own.
IDOL GOALS
SHORT-TERM GOALS:
debut. isn’t that any trainee’s primary reason for living? taoyi wants to see neon climb the charts and make a name for themselves as powerful rookies with a drive to succeed. she hopes that midas do them the favor of pushing them effectively and intelligently so they don’t fall into the fire pit trap of being a flash in the pan.
LONG-TERM GOALS:
long term, taoyi wants to be a filial child and make enough money to take care of her parents and keep their business afloat while doing what she loves. she’s got a lot invested into the success of neon so she hasn’t planned incredibly far ahead but she’d like to get a leg in on television and variety or an endeavor that would allow her to promote in her home country as well. it might be ambitious but she hopes neon make it that far.
IDOL IMAGE
ambition.
it takes a certain kind of drive to reach the places she’s gone now. it’s ambition and drive and flexibility, she reminds herself, that’s gotten her where she is, that’s keeping her there and making her something that midas wants to hold onto. it’s her talent, her desire to improve that makes it easy for her to stay.
they take advantage of the fact that taoyi’s korean is still developing and frame her on-and-off cultural confusion as her being more of a ditz than anything - she’s a sweet, soft-hearted, playful girl who gets words confused when she’s speaking, forms her sentences in a way that’s all her own and comes across as “4D” and peculiar, but in an endearing way, of course. she’s not stupid, the promotions will imply, we assure you, she’s just a little different, a little off-kilter and super cute. she’s from taiwan! isn’t that fun and quirky, isn’t she so admirable for making it this far in spite of it all? you underestimate her now but wait until she hits the stage.
it’s easier to take risks with her, being that she’s not native to korea, and they take advantage of that - dressing her in a crop top and a high-cut mesh leotard for her teaser pictures and implying in no shortage of words that her waist, tiny and curved, is a talking point, that her body is something to write home about and that her talent is just the cherry on top. it cuts deep when taoyi thinks back on the harsh words encouraging her to diet harder, to shed an extra 3 kilograms before she can debut, laced with the threat that she’s replaceable. why, now, is her body something to cash in on when they’d spent so much of her trainee days shaming her for the thickness of her legs?
she’s the “secret weapon” but she spends her days hidden away and wondering what she’d done to deserve that kind of pressure. ever so eager to please, desperate, she hopes she doesn’t disappoint them. that fear, of being less than great, makes her break her own back, working herself into a sweat in all the time she has away from her group members, behind the scenes. sometimes she envies them, wishes she had the benefit of sticking her neck out and showing her face to the general public, she wishes even more that it won’t make her harder to like, more vulnerable to public opinion for being a new face in the lineup. when it really hits her, she works even harder, holes herself away in her bed and studies korean until her eyes hurt. she wants to get it, so she doesn’t look stupid, so she’s ready to cock and shoot. she has to get it.
taoyi, honestly, doesn’t know where she’d be right now if it weren’t for midas seeing something in her and taking her in like a fallen baby bird from a nest too far up, with wings that weren’t quite ready to fly the way they wanted to, the way they twitched and fluttered to. she feels like she’s owes them for their hospitality, their willingness to teach her the things she hadn’t had the chance to learn back home. thank you isn’t ever enough, is it? not for something as big and life-changing as this opportunity, so she takes whatever they throw at her in stride. if they want her to play the role of the giggling ditz with the abs and the reverse charms, she can do it, if they want sex and attitude and punch-hard dancing and singing, she’ll reach into the very depths of herself to make it happen even if it feels like stepping out of her own skin.
she cries like a baby when they cut her hair for the first time. it tugs at her heart like she couldn’t have imagined it would but she can’t tell if it’s the feeling of loss or the feeling of change that causes the tears.
it’s better, she always reminds herself, than wallowing in her past failures and taking a flight back home to face her family’s disappointment. she doesn’t think practicality ever suited her much anyway.
IDOL HISTORY
“hard work and discipline” is written in mandarin above the entry way to the liu abode, on a wooden sign worn and eroded by the years it’s sat there - the generations of importance showing in the cracks in the frame. it’s the liu family motto and one of the first things taoyi learned before she’d even learned to read and write.
her parents, from humble, traditional beginnings, own a restaurant that sits comfortably under their apartment in the middle of hualien city. taoyi grows up learning the ropes and watching her parents stress and squawk and worry about money, about keeping the lights on in their restaurant - in their home, so she stresses, too. she takes that stress and she internalizes it, she helps around the house in every way she can, she tries not to take more than they can give. the restaurant is something like a family heirloom, strong and mighty and generations old. she gets anxious thinking about life without it, she can’t imagine a life where she doesn’t wake up early every morning to help her mother take the chairs down off of every table and wipe down the bar counters, where she doesn’t sit in the backroom of the establishment and work through barrels of fresh vegetables to check for bugs as a punishment for bringing home a bad grade. and that makes her anxious, too.
taoyi is twelve when she decides that taking the ink sacks out of fresh-caught squid isn’t the future she wants for herself and she’s met with a chilly reception.
“how do you expect to be a celebrity when you can barely keep your room clean? how do you expect to get anywhere with those grades, taoyi?”
so, she does what any rational, determined twelve-year-old would do and runs off to stay with her grandparents. she lays her head in her grandmother’s lap and tells her about the dreams she has, about the vision she can’t get out of her head of her standing on a stage with a spotlight shining down on her. it feels more like a memory than a dream, it feels like maybe it’s a glimpse from a version of herself much farther down the line with the skills to make it happen, but her grandmother shushes her. she tells her there’s time.
time passes.
an opportunity arises, like many do, seemingly out of nowhere, months down the line when a man who introduces himself as “slade” walks into her family’s building, hands her a business card with a number and an address written on it and tells her to ask her parents about a shot at hitting it big. it’s too good to be true and her parents tell her as much but they don’t shoot her down, thinking that maybe a failure will bring her to her senses.
the group is called “ice creamumu” and the concept is this: radio pop, but put cute little girls in lolita dresses and bows and have them sing over elements and twinkly beats. she’s the replacement for another girl who’d called it quits and she wastes a year of her life “training” under a no name company with poor management and no industry pull to the tune of a song that doesn’t even chart. it’s a waste of money and her parents tell her as much when she trudges back home when her contract is up, backpack over her shoulder and tears in her eyes because she’d been wrong. she’d gotten to sing on stage and it wasn’t to a mass of adoring fans, but pitying onlookers in small venues and singular passionate male fans who made her uncomfortable.
the reason, they tell her, before she leaves for good, deletes their numbers and tears the paperwork to shreds in a fit of pre-adolescent rage, is that the concept is too obscure, hard to market and tone deaf to the current climate of the taiwanese music scene - maybe in japan, they say, but she doesn’t listen and leaves much like the girl before her had. it’d be hard for anybody to make it with a cute lolita concept in this day and age, they say. they make it sound like it was her fault for believing it’d work out in the first place. taoyi feels stupid.
she feels even dumber when she re-enters the real world, the work and school world, where she’s back to working in the backroom of her parent’s restaurant for free and struggling to understand her school work between her dance classes and the other job she’d picked up in the aftermath to help pay for them.
it’s three years of this, of her quietly working toward her dream and doing what her parents expect of her. “hard work and discipline,” she never forgets and she takes it with her through her final exams, she takes it with her when she learns at the local studio, carries it in her pocket when she feels like she’s wasting her time; she carries it with her when the end of her high school career comes and goes and she’s still here, living with her parents and working at their restaurant and checking the vegetables for bugs and never seeing past tomorrow, when she finds her second wind.
taoyi misses midas’s overseas audition in taiwan by a month and a half and by the time she hears about it, they’d come and gone and taken the trainees they wanted with them.
she doesn’t know what makes her do it, she’s not certain of what makes midas so special, but she feels like this is it, she feels like she has to go after them and find her place among their ranks. taoyi tells her parents that she’s leaving over dinner two days before her one-way flight to korea and they tell her she’s lost her mind. they can’t pay for room and board in a foreign country and they sure as hell can’t pay the fee that’d come should she change her mind about it all and that, something about that exhilarates her. it feels something like independence, it feels like choice and building herself a platform to stand on. it feels like the opportunity to prove herself a capable daughter, to prove that she’s someone they can be proud of. her parents aren’t so willing to let their daughter leave the nest all on her own and agree to let her pursue this pipe dream under the condition that her mother come along - even that’s a costly decision and in the forty-eight hours leading up to takeoff, they have many discussions about the impact something like that would have on the family business.
they reschedule the flight to a more reasonable date, giving her mother time to make sure there’s a replacement in order to keep things running while they’re off in korea. it takes longer than taoyi anticipates and she spends the bulk of her time waiting with a bad attitude made worse by the itch she feels to just go, before it’s too late, before something else stands in the way of her making something of herself. it feels like she’s waiting for her parents to catch up and watching the door close in her face and, yeah, maybe that’s a bit dramatic but she feels weighed down, jittery with the need to take flight. she feels it even when they’re in the airport set to go and it doesn’t stop until she’s sat in her plane seat.
and just like that, she’s off.
taoyi’s got enough saved to last a few weeks to a month without a job but she spends the first dregs of it on a room in a hotel after trying to communicate with the clerk first in poorly learned korean and then again, more successfully, in english. her mother takes over, thankfully, the adult between the two of them and negotiates a space for the both of them for the next week, at least. she doesn’t know how she’ll manage once her mother flies back home and leaves her here to fend for herself, and she wonders if it’d be to much to ask that she and the rest of the family pick up and move here, then just as quickly discards the thought. she hasn’t lost sight of the reason she came, she truthfully couldn’t have, even if she’d tried. she’s in a foreign country, seventeen years old and banking on something that’s far from guaranteed.
she’s broke enough as it is and the flight to korea for the both of them had been more than either of them could really afford. taoyi had paid for her mother’s ticket, pretending it wasn’t a big deal, like she had enough and then some to spend, but it’d made a larger dent than she’d anticipated. the hotel room doesn’t help, but it’s a stepping stone, she reminds herself, a means to an end. what’s an artist without a struggle? her mother calls her foolish. she isn’t wrong.
she clears her mind with a shower and sits prone on her bed with her laptop in front of her, opened to midas’s homepage just to double check, just to make sure that she’d come at the right time of year and the relief she feels has her falling backwards, sagging into the lumpiness of her mattress and staring up at the ceiling with tears in her eyes. thank god. she’d been so sure she’d miss it.
in the week leading up to open auditions, she and her mother get to work on acquiring a work visa, looking for places for her to call home, and a head start on learning how to communicate in this new environment. korean is more difficult than she’d anticipated. it’s the vocabulary and the grammar that trips her up but maybe it’s the anxiety that keeps her from learning it as quickly as she wants to. she’d never been a very good student.
it feels a little bit worth it when she passes her audition, when her mother signs her off and they fly back home to gather the rest of her things so she can make the move into the share house they’d agreed upon. it’s not the cheapest and the owner lets her stay under the expectation that her mother call the office every month until she turns eighteen, but it’s a place to rest her head every night.
it gets harder from there. she’s not used to the rigor that the company demands from the second she joins their ranks and her first few months are spent in tears as she gets yelled at in a language she barely understands and forced to do exercises she’s never seen before and forced to overhaul her entire diet for something made with the sole purpose of keeping her alive while she sheds pounds of healthy weight. taoyi sobs down the phone to her parents back home, looking for sympathy and crying even harder when she realizes that even this, a simple luxury like being able to speak to her family is going to cost her money that she doesn’t have. she doesn’t get the unconditional sympathy she’s looking for, just a reminder of the family motto, a promise that she has a home to come back to if, when she fails again. it feels like support, or at least their version of it.
hard work and discipline, liu taoyi. don’t let your family down, liu taoyi. you wanted this, liu taoyi.
they’re right. she’d asked for this, she’d gone out of her way to get here. it wouldn’t be fair to herself or anybody else for her to give up now.
so, she works even harder to catch up to her peers who’ve been learning on this level for years and spends every waking hour she can afford working towards the vague, intangible goal of being picked and chosen. half of every pay check she earns at her day job goes towards her back-home fund, intended to send back to her parents to show them that something’s happening, and the other half goes entirely toward her cost of living. she doesn’t have much in the way of pocket money. she misses out on a lot of the more costly outings with her peers, but she gets better and that’s what matters. her parents visit when money isn’t quite as tight and she looks forward to those days more than anything.
taoyi’s nearly fluent by the time midas picks from the sea of trainees for girls to use for their new project. the disappointment she feels when she isn’t chosen is hard to ignore and she pores over her own shortcomings. when she blows out her twenty-first birthday candle, she hopes there’s still time.
maybe it’s cheap that she gets her wish when another girl gets removed from the lineup but she doesn’t mind being a replacement, too beaten down and eager to give up the opportunity or be held back by something as petty as pride. they praise her immensely for her propensity for picking up where the other girl had left off, for being so quick to fit into the mold they’d built for someone else and make it her own. she’s got a power to her that they appreciate, something that they pretend to kick themselves over not seeing before. it’s a pretty lie - they’d known exactly who they’d wanted when they’d picked the other girl but she decides then and there to let them know that she should’ve been the one they chose from the beginning.
taoyi’s passion shows through leaps and bounds, she’s a well oiled machine of hard earned talent and difficult to ignore presence. it’s a lot of pressure to keep up, to maintain the illusion of strength that’s been cultivated over years of being told that she can and should always be better. she carries it with her.
they repay her by marketing her as their “secret weapon,” careful to hide her face from the public up until the teasers drop despite the natural desire of midas fans to do detective work to find out for themselves. she’s a hidden gem, the thing that’ll push the girls over the line and into their own kind of victory. no pressure or anything.
her parents have made it clear that neon is the last chance she has before they fly her back home and teach her the ropes of the family business. success is the difference between living her dream of becoming an idol, standing prone in the spotlight, and gutting fish in taiwan, getting a practical degree that she can make real money off of. she’ll do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen.
anything.
now, with debut looming over her, she feels like it may have been worth it.
LOADING INFORMATION ON NEON’S LEAD RAP, LEAD VOCAL CHOI JAEIN...
IDOL DETAILS
STAGENAME: N/A
CURRENT AGE: 22
DEBUT AGE: N/A
TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 19
COMPANY: Midas
SECONDARY SKILL: N/A
IDOL PROFILE
NICKNAME(S):
JJ (jaejae); which is a simple play on her birth name. Various other affectionate varieties exist (jiji, nini, so on)
MongJae; or “blank jae” for her expressionless face at rest.
INSPIRATION: Jaein was, naturally, inspired by her older brother who debuted some years ago in the music industry. Her secondary inspiration is cited as being label mates Olympus and Titanium, as she found their engaging concepts and powerful choreography compelling. She rarely cites female idols as inspiration sources, though she is known to be a fan of BoA.
SPECIAL TALENTS:
Cheerleading / she was a competitive cheerleader for a short time in high school, and has been instructed to keep a repertoire of her flashiest, most flexible, and more television spot friendly moves on deck in case they need to break them out.
Rap imitations / while she isn’t the best rapper to ever come onto the scene, she’s adept at humorously imitating the flow and style of hip hop artists the world over- from Eminem to Epik High. This perhaps stems from her complete lack of fear regarding appearing foolish.
Belly dancing / what began as an offhand fitness interest has become her latest variety primed talent, likely picked up on by management due to the fact she looks nice in crop tops and will inevitably be wearing a number of them.
NOTABLE FACTS:
Her older brother is an idol in another company, a fact she’ll be more than happy to bring up as much as necessary to ensure search rankings and fluff pieces.
She was (briefly) a competitive cheerleader in middle and early high school. She wasn’t particularly enamored with it, but it’s a fun fact for variety. She’s known for being quite athletic and graceful, able to pick up dances and sports/games well enough.
She often chose boy group songs to cover or perform for evaluations. She auditioned with Olympus’ Bad. She says her favorite songs are restrained, powerful, and alluring. As a result, she can do many, many boy group dances upon request.
IDOL GOALS
SHORT-TERM GOALS:
jaein is here for the fame, along for the ride. she wants to debut, first and foremost, and to continue her budding modeling career. she has little interest in the trite cf deals the company throws her way but acknowledges one must regrettably start at the bottom, aside from the attention and income (and as a result certainly wouldn’t mind doing more) but finds the photo shoots quite appealing. her hope is to debut to glorious fanfare with a song that provides her a chance to look and feel amazing. she wants powerful choreography, a strong rap section, and a line distribution that gives her a decent amount to work with, or at the very least a lot of mv screen time. she’s here to play the game and get established, whatever that takes.
LONG-TERM GOALS:
jaein’s longterm goals are difficult to pin down. what does she really want? how can she know what her goals are, at all of twenty two, fresh faced and foolish? a long running career for neon is first on the list. she’d like to at least keep the power of the group going until their contracts are up. they can disband then, as long as her modelling and commercial careers are stable enough that she can keep her income generated. in a dream world she’d put out a solo someday, something restrained, powerful, poignant, and alluring. she’d establish herself as a versatile performer (she’s got no illusions about her singular prowess in any one arena) and would eventually tour the world. debuting in japan would be nice, an international career, the world at her feet- you know the deal.
IDOL IMAGE
“people do not see you, / they invent you and accuse you.”
this is the curse, perhaps, of all beautiful women in an industry like this.
imagine the girl you’ve always wanted to be. effortlessly chic, delightfully cool, and generally rather compelling. it’s an easy gig for jaein to pull off, by virtue only of her appearance, in truth. thanks to that, she’s got a leg up on the whole “chic vibes” thing. they begin with her right away, teaching her to position herself, to pose, how to properly compose herself in front of the cameras. it’s not a wholly unfamiliar art to any young girl prone to taking instagram ready aesthetic pictures, but there’ s a finer art to it that she enjoys picking up, being given the chance to perfect.
choi jaein is easily assigned to a dance role, given the fact that her dance lines, when aided by long and slender limbs, appear both powerful and graceful and in truth this is something she’s been working toward tirelessly for some time now. it is thus, once more, unsurprising that the company would instruct her to lean on that, to emphasize her athleticism and her grace, in particular in those ways which would contribute to a somewhat sensual and powerful image. she’s not sure how her very distant past in cheerleading helps with that, but if they want her tumbling she’ll tumble. she knows the way the world works now- what midas demands she’ll cheerfully do, at least in appearance.
it’s the only way to ensure anything. jaein is no stranger to playing along as others construct images of her based solely on her appearance. jaein must be a bitch, jaein must be a slut, look at how much makeup she’s wearing, did you see how short her skirt is, and so forth. she’s tired of those petty things, of the nonsense of competition. this is not to say that she herself is not competitive, but is more specifically to insinuate she just doesn’t feel that threatened by people who project their own insecurities onto her, as she sees it.
“look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t”
beneath the veneer of snake pretending to be flower is yet a greater surprise, however. she’s a soft thing, at her core, with a sensitive and passionate spirit that are difficult to overlook, easily bruised and inflamed, a fire easily stoked and quickly waning. she flickers candle-like, a hypnotic dance that hints at some greater danger. she is the temptress and as much as that, she is the tempted. there is power, grace, and a charming softness, a lightness of spirit, a levity that breaks the veneer of chic and unstoppable.
they push her into modelling and she complies. they assign her a role to take in some upcoming teen drama and she complies, finds the prospect of leaning on a character not too dissimilar from herself in the initial state of restrained and serious and slightly bitchy demeanor (though she could give a shit about the purely subjective merits of one musical genre or another) and a lightening of spirit and greater levity (that of course must come about due to love, or something, which is an unfortunate crutch but she expects next to nothing from these kind of productions regardless).
jaein is important to the company simply because she rarely says no. she knows, in all honesty, that to do so is patently stupid, and that is is much more preferable to save up her bargaining power for farther down the line, and that the “dark history” engagements she embarks on as a trainee will be easily forgiven and forgotten as
time progresses. she wants to establish herself as a powerful figure in the industry, to eventually grow her image from that of the chic and graceful and tempting to something that holds a little more power. like certain famed soloists she’s interested in pursuing a performance and musical style that tell a story, pushing a concept of power and restraint as much as elegance and sensuality.
IDOL HISTORY
choi jaein is born on a pleasant enough day. there is nothing remarkable about the affair- no deaths, no suffering, no ill fortune. just an aggressively average family in an aggressively average apartment. but there is one rather important distinction that set the choi family apart.
good genes.
it’s the sort of thing you really can’t control. but choi jaein is born beautiful on the heels of an older brother who stuns with his looks- although his unruly, frizzy hair detracts slightly from the appeal. but he can’t sit still, and jaein is right behind him, silky hair pulled into pigtails and little frocks and frills dirtied with mud or rain or the grime of city life.
her brother has dreams. they grow big inside them, he wants things. he’s good, too. hapkido, soccer, track, whatever he tries out he picks up easily. as she enters school, her parents fawn over her brother and his many promising moments. they adore him. he’s handsome already, engaging. they love her too, of course, but her brother? he has promise. he’ll take on the family practice. he’ll be something.
so what will jaein do?
of course they expect her to succeed. jaein is pretty and sweet and well mannered, as a child, and this is a double edged sword. they’re not worried about jaein. she doesn’t act up, act out. she studies well and plays nicely with her friends (all of whom want to come over to jaein’s house in the hopes of seeing her older brother when he gets home from hagwons or hapkido). instead they see her mother’s tense smiles as her brother veers further and further off track.
by the time jaein is old enough to realize what her parents have put on her brother, the crushing weight of expectations and the misery of a lack of understanding, it’s too late for jaein to rebel at all. she takes stock of her life when her brother leaves to study abroad, looks around at hours of ballet, at vocal lessons, at chinese lessons, at hours of supplementary math classes, at hours spent learning piano, hours bent over books in hagwons that stay open far too late, classes that trail into the late evening, leave her clutching her books tight as she walks home alone.
like her brother she’s athletic, picks up on things quickly. muscle memory adapts and affects with flourish and flair. she ends up on a dance team in high school, cheerleading, because her mother says it would suit her, as long as she keeps her grades up. and she does. because jaein always does as is expected of her, without thought or question.
she doesn’t realize, perhaps, that questioning the will of her parents is even an option.
until her brother does.
he breaks away from expectations suddenly, severely, spectacularly. the next thing she knows he’s signing with a company, he’s becoming an idol. he’s becoming famous. she can find him on pann if she searches his name- for a long time it’s just comments about how attractive she is, and she boosts him with all the up votes her little heart can manage, because in this action he’s shown her what freedom could look like.
the fire in her starts when she realizes there is the option to be more.
there’s a certain image that appeals to her. something powerful and sultry, restrained and stunning. when olympus and titanium begin to work in that wheelhouse, toeing the line of frightening and furious and fervent, she’s hooked. she goes to midas. she auditions, sings her little heart out, dances the best she can, and okay maybe her face, her brother, her height, have a lot to do with it.
she’s not a stranger to that. resting bitch face and an objectively fairly attractive appearance have been in equal parts hindrance and help to her, rumors spreading secretly and stealthily, snaking through her high school, petty words on the lips of petty girls and hungry boys and she tells herself it doesn’t matter, holds her head high against it. when midas picks her up as a trainee in her last year of school and the word somehow gets out, it gets worse. by that point, her parents have all but given up on the whole family. not just one failure, but two? what’s the point anymore?
training is grueling. it’s brutal, it bears down on her with force and fury. but jaein? she has her parents to thank for the fact that she is excellent at working without question. she keeps her head down, she does her training and then some. they tell a group of trainees to start rapping and some of the girls protest- they don’t want to rap, they want to sing, they complain behind closed doors where they think it’s safe. but jaein knows better. years with her parents have taught her that in the end, what she wants doesn’t matter. it’s what she can do that will talk. if she makes herself valuable, that will do everything for her.
so she learns to rap. she practices her singing. she takes her modest dance background and learns to make it shine- charismatic and effective. she’s not the strongest dancer but she learns to be alluring, captivating, to pour strength and fire into her performance. it’s exhausting. it’s horrible. rumors swirl that she’s here because of her face, because of her connections. that she slept with one of the trainers, that she’s dating someone in olympus, or titanium, or whatever. that she’s just here to cause trouble, to make mischief.
she’s used to that. to the petty things that slip and slink. she becomes cruel in turn, sly smiles and wry smirks as a defense, at first, but she grows to find power in this girl that they’ve created of her. they don’t want choi jaein in the bookworm who never questioned the rules, a paper doll girl with no substance to her. they want her to be sultry, slutty, secretive and sly. and that choi jaein? she sounds a lot more interesting, honestly. and jaein doesn’t know who she is anyway. so why not? why not be brutal, why not be stunning, why not be these sensational and terrible things they accuse her of? she’s going to be playing to an audience for a long time, she might as well get used to it now.
