hiii, yaya here ( she/her ). back with a slightly revamped rendition of silver. don’t worry, she’s still mother but there’s a few changed details to reflect the fc change. as always, click the heart and we can plot. <3
— look who’s joining the infinite tour! only NINOMAE AIKO (SILVER), who is the LEADER of FLORA. i’ve heard whispers that the 28 year old is pretty RESILIENT but lowkey ABRASIVE. also, doesn’t she remind you of HIRAI MOMO?
ABOUT — PROFILE — PINTEREST — PLOTS
UPBRINGING
ninomae aiko was born smack in the middle of five children, two older brothers and two younger brothers. she was raised in a financially comfortable and very loving household.
considering how conservative japan can be, the neighborhood found aiko’s family a bit unorthodox. her mother was the primary breadwinner of their family, working in tokyo as an attorney. due to the commute from their hometown of nikko to the capital, her mother typically stayed in the city for the week, only to return home on weekends to spend time with her children. meanwhile, her father stayed at home with the children. the ninomae’s familial dynamics seemed strange to others. but for aiko, she grew up thinking that was the norm — a woman in control of her life, a woman who could have it all.
being surrounded by her father and brothers constantly meant that aiko grew up incredibly tomboyish. she loved to cut her hair really short, wear her brothers’ too big hand me downs, and carried herself with a natural toughness. she didn’t need her brothers fighting any battles for her; she could handle it herself.
since aiko had so much energy, her father thought it would be good to put her in ballet lessons to learn discipline and focus. she started at the age of seven. at first, she resented the lessons, rejecting what she thought to be a “girly” activity. she wanted to spend her free time, playing outside with her brothers out in the dirt. but once aiko finally gave dancing a real chance, she realized that she loved it — plus, her natural born competitiveness made it easy for her. aiko began to expand to different dance styles as she grew older.
at the age of fifteen, she got noticed at a dance competition in tokyo by an executive over at new star entertainment. they were in town to scout japanese trainees for their upcoming girl group. they offered aiko an audition.
she auditioned with a self-choreographed piece to telephone by lady gaga and beyoncé. she was accepted into new star in january 2011 and after an emotional goodbye to her family, aiko moved to seoul to start training.
TRAINEE YEARS
aiko entered the company building with one simple mantra — she will debut. knowing there was only one slot (if that) for a japanese member, she made every moment count. she had too much pride to ever be one of the girls sent home every month. due to this ambition, aiko often carried an intimidating, cutthroat aura about herself.
she wasn't an actively malicious soul, but she was unapologetic. and if someone's feelings got hurt because of her words and actions, it wasn't likely for her to apologize. despite her foreign background, the company was impressed by the tenacity and confidence that aiko carried herself with at such a young age. her intelligence and hunger made her a viable candidate for the leader position for the future girl group.
realizing she had a genuine shot of making the final lineup, aiko doubled down on her studies in both korean and english. she knew the key to an ideal idol was the ability to communicate globally — so she made sure she wasn't lacking in the department.
even before she was officially deemed the leader, aiko's later years of training usually involved her taking charge of the monthly evaluations and even participating in the choreography. her approach with the other female trainees was strict but came from a place of genuine passion and love. she was pinning all of her hopes and dreams on the success of this group, and she would do anything to make sure they did well.
the additional members of flora really helped her come into her womanhood. it was her first time being surrounded by women, which was drastically different than her childhood with a household full of guys. through building a sisterly community while training, aiko got a better sense of her style and mannerisms. her initially tough, tomboy nature got sandpapered down into an elegant, severe kind of femininity.
MUSICAL CAREER — death tw
after 3.5 years of training, aiko debuted with flora as leader, main dancer, lead rapper, and lead vocalist as her official positions. her stage name “silver” is inspired by the meaning of her name — 'sharp as a sword'. ever since her debut, she actually prefers to be called silver over aiko.
the public opinion of silver was initially lukewarm, with many neitzens wondering if a foreign member was the best choice as leader of a highly anticipated girl group. dahlias quickly warmed to her due to her strong dance skills and off-camera magnetism.
while silver acknowledges her performing positions, she takes her role as leader the most serious of all. from day one, it's evidently shown that she would not hesitate to go to war for her members. them being comfortable and happy is most important. dahlias call her “mama lion” for her bold and fierce care over flora, which is where her representative emoji (🦁) originated from.
she refuses to do aegyo. in fact, she will show absolute disgust at any aegyo.
silver is known for having a professional poker face and has never once been seen crying publicly for all to see. she saves those moments for when she’s in her room back at the flora dorm, by herself.
she always keeps it real with dahlias. while she loves them and appreciates their support, she is big on setting boundaries and doesn’t encourage the parasocial dynamic of being the idol the way others may.
on stage, she can execute the light feminine concept that comes along with flora but her offstage energy is much darker.
death tw // mid 2018, silver got a call that no one would ever want to get. her second youngest brother yuta was driving home from a party with his friends when he was struck by a drunk truck driver. he died instantly at the far too young age of nineteen. the news devastated silver and she immediately rushed back home to be with her family. new star announced to the world that silver would be taking a temporary hiatus for “undisclosed reasons”.
the only problem was that flora was at its peak after the immense success of yes or yes and silver’s absence meant that she would not participate in the best thing i ever did comeback or promote flora’s second japanese album. this incited the ire of neitzens, demanding to know the real reason why silver wasn’t active. rumors went rampant: rehab, a dating scandal, bullying accusations. k-pop fans weren’t satisfied until they knew the truth.
silver wanted to keep her family matters private for a reason, but unfortunately, they didn’t. a week after her hiatus was announced, a sasaeng uploaded pictures of silver crying at her brother’s funeral for the world to see. dahlias did all they could to try to take the private content down but it wasn’t long before outlets were reporting on the news. suddenly, a thing that silver wanted to keep between her and her family became a gross exploitation for millions to consume.
on top of that, new star was pushing her to come back to flora before she was ready. they only wanted to give her a three month hiatus, but she demanded six instead. once the six month period was over, silver still didn’t feel healed enough to be active again but the company did not care. flora desperately needed its leader. so, silver returned to seoul in time for fancy preparations.
safe to say, 2018 broke silver. not only was her privacy invaded by people who were supposed to care for her, but she felt like new star didn’t have her back. suddenly, this world she loved and wanted to be a part of for so long was something more sinister to her now. the walls were up and silver became more harsher and volatile, instead of the untroubled and rational person she’d once been.
she didn’t shield the change in her from anyone. in fact, she wanted people to see. she grew a reputation around the industry for being resentful and intense and even dahlias began to notice her personality shift. they lamented over the loss of the old silver, making youtube compilations and twitter threads for views and likes over the change in her personality. silver despises those kind of ‘fans’ most of all.
in the aftermath, silver’s now considered a bit of a hot topic in the k-pop industry. her appeal in the korea has declined while her appeal in the international space has inclined over the years. global fans tend to love her, call her “mother”, and think her idgaf approach is refreshing. however, those closer to home find her off-putting. neitzens can see that she clearly no longer wants to be an idol and tarnishes flora as a household name in result.
they’re kind of right. silver has fallen out of love with being an idol after everything. she hates this industry and its expectations with a burning passion now. but she refuses to leave it because that would mean leaving her members to the wolves. absolutely not. silver refuses what happened to her to happen to them. this industry wasn’t kind to her, so she refuses to be kind to them. even after the infinite merger, she hasn’t toned down a bit.
at the end of the day, she’s in this for as long as the other flora members want to be it. she owes them that much for getting her through her hardest of times. but in the meantime ? silver’s ready to be a fucking problem.
TOUR
if silver had it her way, she wouldn't have done a tour. but obviously, that decision was out of her hands. as a part of flora, she embarked on infinite's mega world tour. while she will never complain about the chance to travel with her members, the performing side of tour was agonizing for silver. she received a lot of backlash from fans because of her 'declining' stage presence and lack of engagement while on tour.
during tour, silver was approached by infinite about a solo debut. it wasn't the first time they've asked her — but she's declined every time. however this time, they were more insistent than ever after noticing the massive success of the maknae's solo debut. silver, realizing she had some leverage, eventually agreed with one simple condition: she got creative control. if she was finally going to give the company what they wanted, it would be with her ideas and under her terms. infinite was initially hesitant but eventually relented, allowing silver to debut with a much darker concept than flora.
CURRENTLY
silver released her solo debut '28 reasons' in october 2023. much like her as a person, the project was met with divisive reviews. there was praise surrounding the dark concept and bravery to try something different. but for those hoping for more of flora's signature sound, the album was disappointing. silver doesn't care about charts or reviews. for once in a really long time, she was proud as fuck of something in her idol career.
don't ask her for a solo comeback though, infinite. that was that.
ever since the end of tour and her solo promotions, silver's been pretty off the grid if there's no schedule for flora activities. she's been traveling and enjoying the much needed break after such an exhausting past couple of years.
she's lowkey considering therapy (shocker). ever since losing her brother, she hasn't wanted to open that can of worms. the idea of talking to someone about her feelings makes her skin want to crawl. however, her brothers have all started to go recently to deal with their grief and have encouraged silver to do the same.
TIDBITS
personality: resilient, abrasive, self-assured, confrontational, decisive, rebellious, shrewd, mature, vindictive
aesthetics: black coffee, profanity, winged eyeliner, restless nights, thunderstorms, lipstick stains, lace
is a proud mean lesbian ( please see: santana lopez, monet de haan, leighton murray, cheryl blossom, etc )
veryyyy sparse on social media. her stans are begging for content from the other members of flora. however when she does decide to pop in, weverse is her usual choice of social media. at least on weverse, the content she shares is more likely to be reached by REAL dahlias and dahlias only. you'll only ever see her in the promotional content on instagram, tiktok, and twitter otherwise.
hasn’t done an individual live in two years. she only does lives if she's doing them with nari and/or yani.
does not initiate skinship but accepts skinship from her loved ones
FOR REFERENCE
personality overview
character study — the stage
viral moments
scandals (wip)
more tidbits
