🖏🖑 https://projectdream4u.kr/members/kim-soojin [making this mess public now oh gosh]
WARNINGS – mentions of sIut shaming
in the context of antis' behavior toward
celebrities; i promise it's brief.
– also thanks to ilia for letting me poach
this whole idea. sorry you couldn't make
it, bud, but i hope i did this justice.
reality: kim soojin, 24, can't sing in the shower without abruptly cringing. cue flashbacks to her days as an toxic solo stan of aeon's seojin and one of 90% of trainees who flop miserably before debut. the shame sneaks up on her lowest moments. like when sbs cuts live interpreter staff (example at bottom right) who couldn't handle the medical jargon of pandemic updates. when live events go out the window. when dream4u dangles such tantalizing fruit and she is one day within the age cut-off.
on impulse, soojin signs up to audition... and promptly regrets everything, but she is too awkward to send a cancellation email and too earnest to deliberately fail. so here she is, trying one last time before she ages out of the industry, and hopefully not revive the jealous desperation that disgraced her the first time.
PERSONALITY – empathy +10 · perceptiveness +5 · cosplaying as functional adult +10
oh no, my dark past is showing
if there is one thing soojin could say to her past self—up to and including three minutes ago—it'd probably be "hoe don't do it." if she could say a second thing, it'd be "oh my god." outside (for now), soojin looks calm and professional, handling her like a seasoned -handler. inside, "her own blood paints the walls of her skull; it's only a matter of time before it spills."
^ her words, straight out of her only finished fanfic, 54k characters of star-crossed serial killers.
see, soojin wasn't just an idol fan. she was a hate on female staff for wearing lipstick brighter than oppa's suit because they must be "stealing his thunder" kind of fan. the trash people for trashing her admittedly problematic fave and claim all negative articles about him were paid-for by antis kind of fan. we're talking someone who wrote fanfic fever dreams and vivid conspiracies labling helix entertainment the root of all misfortune (which, to be fair, is not wrong). name anything an obsessed fan back in the 2010s might have done, and @seojinyoungatheart has either done it or would have done it if she stayed in fandom a second longer than she did.
anyways, now comes post-pubescent clarity with a world of cringe. mc chanhee walks by? cue flashbacks her fanfic starring him as a villanous paladin, hell-bent on smiting her mary sue self-insert (mage disciple of the church of jinyoung). she'd like a smiting right about now. don't let this poor man act like she deserves to breathe in his presence. same goes for everyone she has ever had a mean thought towards, which... given soojin's base inclinations, that is everybody.
salt runs in her blood, and petty pumps her heart. there is an undying preteen edge lord in her soul that wants to ctrl+f variations of her own name whenever there is group feedback, and she can't help the internal whine when she gets only 5 results compared to her team mate's 6. then comes the cringe once more, kicking the edge lord across the room for daring it to rear its ugly head.
at 24, soojin is self-aware enough to know her kneejerk cringe is rooted in self-hatred. she should not be projecting her inner mess on other kids stumbling to find themselves—but she does. oh, she does. soojin's thoughts can get mean. even if she quickly stomps them out before they can hurt anyone, it's too late to prevent a justified shoulder-load of guilt.
maybe it's self-flagellation, maybe it's maybelline
all this retrospect this gives her what would be a healthy level of self-doubt... if it were healthy. soojin has zero faith in her own judgment, and given her record in having opinions, can you really blame her?
it's better for the world if soojin just follows. so every idea is declawed to a suggestion, amputated into a question, then gutted entirely, all before she even opens . and when she does open , expect her to regret it in 0.1 seconds. if her idea is rejected, she'll wish she never spoke; if her idea is accepted, that's worse. now she's responsible for what happens next! cue backtracking and yeeting the baton to literally anyone else—ahem, sorry, "giving her dongsaengs a chance to shine."
that's how our communications major spins her fear of taking charge. "i believe [name] has fresh insights." "[so and so] has more relevant experience." "i am learning a lot from the younglings, haha!" she yeets the leader sticker claiming that "my age gives me a platform already, so i'd rather give others a position to be heard." sounds great, but it's all bull. the truth is soojin goes red at the slightest provocation and panics so intensely that she sometimes signs instead of talking. the truth is she can't decide because she is so afraid of being toxic or careless like she once was. once you realize your inherently limited perception, no amount of self-awareness is enough.
sad thing is, it isn't always like this. when soojin is actively striving for greater accessibility, her sense of purpose simply outpaces her anxiety. when she is among the people with/for whom she advocates, her listening does her good but she is full of questions, because the joy of giving others a chance to share outweighs her own fear of asking the obvious. behind the scenes at sbs news.
even the act of second-guessing herself can be helpful, she jumps to conclusions but never stops there, always pushing herself to think further. triple-quadruple-guessing means she's quick to reevaluate in the face of new info; she constantly revises prejudices and checks for consequences that did not occur to her earlier. when it works, it gives her more confidence and gives others confidence that she'll listen without getting defensive. this headspace served her well in activism, in teaching ksl (to nursing home residents, their loved ones, etc.), and in forging new bonds in the wake of her fangirl craze. yet the damned idol environment revives everything soojin hates about soojin.
a witch's pyre is a town on fire
if she burned alone for her penance—if giving up on herself put only her dreams on the line—that'd be one thing. but other people bear the cost of her self-loathing. when she guilts herself out of having fun, who do you think feels like they failed to cheer her up? when she keeps silent despite knowing something can't end well, who do you think suffers a preventable mess? if challenging herself to challenge someone else could've made a difference, she'll regretti that spaghetti all night because there's just no winning with this girl's self-esteem because it's not about her. soojin of all people can't stand to see her actions hurt others.
soojin at her peak™ is great at holding the trainwreck together until it sputters to the station. that's the big thing she has mastered over the years: practical bullting. college team projects taught her how to cut corners, and student-budget cooking made the best out of dubious ingredients. perfectionism? can't afford it. no one is going to shed their weaknesses overnight, so it's more sensible to hide flaws and, with the time saved, emphasize things each person can do well.
can't get the dance? stay in the back then pop out for easier bits plus a killing part. can't dance while ad libbing? stand there and do dramatic hand motions. can't sing? to the talk-rap with thee. the best idol companies distribute lines and pick formations aimed to bring out even the weakest link's strengths. soojin is neither the best nor an idol company, but if she can ensure the classmate who was busy planning a funeral still had talking points during the final presentation, she sure as hell can fudge this, screw that, and herd baby chicks into a minimum viable performance. even if her cells scream in terror the whole time.
and from the fire,
maybe she knew deep-down that despite the success and meaning she has found, she needed to face all the stuff she has tried to erase. what's the point of making all these mistakes if no one gains from them? if forgiving herself is the price required, then so be it.
at the end of the day, people are people, and so is she. that's what she needs to see, isn't it? she is not a trash pile doomed to forever atone for her past, and others don't need her deciding for them whether she is worth their while. soojin has part of this realization down—online hate is just a worn-out joke to her, and trainers/companies scare her less and less as their flaws grow apparent—so what's left is the hard part. the people most important to her, be it her team mates, her former idols, or the former targets of her hate. they're the ones she needs to set free and support as equals.
maybe kim soojin the perceptive unnie, pr genius, and genuine force of good can let the past die. use its remains to feed future growth if you have to.
country roads, take me anywhere
her parents had no delusions of grandeur when they left the countryside for the outskirts of incheon. they didn't even expect to move up in life; they just needed something after losing what they invested into their land in namwon. new employer wanted them in incheon, and that was that. soojin, for her part, was furious to part with her friends and her azaleas and her hours in the sun.
she threw plenty of tantrums, and all they did was break her parents' heart. they couldn't even yell at her, because they agreed. it was their fault she had to go through this. so they put all their energy into making money, even if it meant their daughter came home to an empty house and microwave dinners. all in the name of "giving her space." in the end, giving space only left them all more alone. when soojin got no reaction, she just marched off, anger deflating into an ugly silence.
school excited her for all of one day before she realized she wasn't going to be the popular girl here in the big city. in retrospect, her class wasn't as cold as small soojin imagined, but the contrast still hit like a truck. so, she latched onto the first group that would take her. the girls who gathered around a desk to view mvs had the lowest barrier to entry. all she had to do was ask what they were watching, and they pulled her in before she could second-guess her choice of crowd.
did she belong here? who knows, but soojin learned the lingo and tagged along to live shows all the way in seoul. what else was she going to do, go home to the zombies that replaced her parents? it's not like they had the money to send her to cram school. instead of feeling poor and pathetic about that, though, soojin can go see shows for which other kids had to skip their lessons. finding privilege in poverty and unattentive parents. the first delusion that idol fandom affords her.
the light of my life
when she heard a new boy group was debuting with a guy from her hometown, namwon, soojin got super excited... then super disappointed, when his gorgeous voice did not match his looks. she didn't bring up the group's name or her shared hometown with that non-visual member, lest her friends feel the need to "comfort" her.
part of her still wanted to like aeon so badly, but when their stage comes up... they were just so stupid? yet so happy? they looked horrendous! with fanny packs and flight goggles and everything. yet soojin couldn't look away. she watches the train wreck reach its , with fanny pack guy tripping right into the prettier vocalist, and her very soul starts to cringe. surely the stage is ruined now and the magic would end. but that beautiful man just laughs, like it's fine. like an on-stage collision is easy to forgive, because that's how family works. aeon was not the mess that she feared, but the one she needed.
soojin later learned that beautiful laugh guy was called seo jinyoung, and he had his dreams come true (if only for three minutes) that day. soojin can't relate; she had no such hopes, except the pipe dream of going back in time and never leaving namwon. but seeing and feeling someone else find exactly what makes them happy, with people who they so clearly loved? she went home in a daze and watched aeon's debut stage twenty more times that night.
maybe it's nothing special—idols have dreams, groups have bonds, la di da—but kim soojin didn't need special. she just needed something, and aeon's seo jinyoung just became her everything.
tu [dream] es mi [dream]
fast forward through the first few years. though aeon struggles, this brings the fans closer together. though her friends at school don't share soojin's obsession, they tolerate it with the bare minimum of "whoa, chill." of course, soojin doesn't get the hint and only gets more obsessed the more underrated her faves turn out to be. she barely spoke aside from unsolicited ted talks on how helix entertainment is totally sabotaging their boy group, just look at how they promote their actors and don't mention aeon at all when one of the members gets solo photoshoots! soon, she sat alone, and her rants went directly online.
had she not been shamed out of aeon's korean fanclub just as they took off in 2013, she might have become a full-on sasaeng today. but, good news, she did destroy her reputation online shortly after aeon got public recognition. her bias, jinyoung, got paired with "some red-lipped " for a scandalous duo song. all of soojin's jealousy, ty self-esteem, and misplaced protectiveness over oppa exploded into a series of nasty comments.
with unfiltered impulsivity, she posted relentlessly about how uncomfortable he looked with the y choreo and how obviously he was forced into it (which, to be fair, was correct at the start). unsurprisingly, she gets shamed off the Internet for being a psycho fan defending oppar who is clearly living his best life with the girl of the century and who is she to talk? oh, thinks soojin, smacked across the face in all ways except physical. you guys are probably right. sorry for existing.
for a hot second, she convinces herself she must be an idol too and "save" jinyoung from helix. her parents did not approve one bit, but mostly because they didn't want her to get bullied or hated on. and "giving her space" all this time did not leave them much room to speak up. this is how she joins the first company willing to take her. a complete mess and already bankrupt today, but back then, soojin was riding high. thanks to a well-suited vocal trainer, she was their best vocalist by far, and her certainty in debut definitely got to her head and tainted her attitude... until a new girl shows up with comparable vocals/visuals but a much, much more team-oriented personality. so soojin was out, and the one small mercy they allowed her was nulling her trainee contract two months in advance.
this is rock bottom, with all her worst traits coming back to bite her and no future to show for it. she had nothing now, except for friendships and opportunities she had single-handedly ruined.
no, i cannot dream 4 u
but in a way, getting canceled and dumped "saved" her. no one cared to doxx her and she actually got a chance to grow. soojin went to university because she didn't know what else to do, and her parents had saved so hard for her to be the first of the family with a degree. in a way, it was penance, full obedience in return for all her teenage bull. her parents were so thrilled about her scholarship to a slightly above-average uni that it made her feel even more guilt. if she had studied harder, soojin knew she could have gotten bigger money at a better school. she'll bear the cost of idol fever for the rest of her life.
what was she even going to do with herself? soojin majored in communications because it seemed proper enough and was the only thing in which idol training offered a leg-up. but that didn't fix her follower mindset and shrinking personality. soojin gained minor fame as the quietest communications major, and the tone of those rumors weren't flattering. directionless she remained, attending class just for the grades and guiltily returning to idol videos as comfort food..
what got her going in the end was just one random netizen's comment, "dude I'd attend concerts but it’s pointless cuz I wouldn’t understand the interviews." soojin, with her secondary account, asked: "waiii your korean is great?" "thanks bro," the netizen responded, "but im hoh."
"hoh" turned out to mean hard-of-hearing, and it was a whole new world for soojin. "hoh people can be idol fans???" ten insensitive questions and patient answers later, and she was diving down the rabbit hole of korean sign language tutorials. see, she always had the kind of privilege that made her think everything that needed inventing has been invented, so there is no innovation a non-genius like her could offer. but this... how on earth were interpreters and captions not a regular thing? wait, ramps and elevators were only standardized how few years ago?! such accommodations could help everyone, of any physicality, and more importantly, it would make shared spaces truly shared with equitable access.
the more soojin looked, the more she realized there was something bigger here. just as she was a person in progress, the world was still growing too; the future has never felt more shape-able, even make-able. it was a lot to take in, so she padded the revelation with two hours of half-assing her homework, but finally she had to face the fact. she, kim soojin, could actually make a difference.
and it turns out folks who can't hear are really, really worth listening to.
baby girl, all grown up(?)
the making of kim soojin, sign interpreter and accessibility activist, involved no private tragedy, no close relation affected by sudden disability. but personal stakes are not necessary to giving a . in the end, the girl who couldn't forgive herself for hot-headed actions also could not forgive cold inaction.
it did involve awkwardly inserting herself into various communities of deaf/hoh folks and realizing, oh , these are actual, distinct people! not just tools for her to feel helpful. with her brief savior complex dead in a ditch, her days filled with a huge, varied bunch from avid posters to people who pale at the word "post" and ask her what it means. (soojin, sweating bullets: there are not enough signs in the world to express how much i want out of this conversation.) but for all their differences, none of them gave one about her uncomfortable quiet or uncovered laughter.
so now what? soojin's got incredible friends of all ages and all kinds of life experience. she's got her own dream and might even get an improved world out of it. already, she and a vibrant cohort of colleagues, both hearing-impaired and not, have made great strides in the last few years for improving accessibility of public events and broadcasts. soojin herself is smiling brightly in the corner of sbs' news reports twice a week, living her dream as her hands do the talking for her. she even has own apartment and a dog! at this stage, her idol interests should stay where they belong, in the occasional fanfic and analysis of kpop promotion strategies.
but it seems the universe does not want that for her, throwing dream4u at her and making the age limit just one day before her birthday. a true last chance, it teases her until she gets tipsy and her " it" protocol kicks in. she wakes up the next day pleasantly surprised by a lack of hangover and applauds her restraint before freezing at the sight of her email. she asks every deity that will listen to send her a sign so she can properly suppress the part of herself that actually wants to do this... at which point covid-19 gets her fired and starts eating through the nursing homes where she used to volunteer.
well. soojin sits with her pile of bills, a confused dog, and her last roll of toilet paper. this is awkward.
ENTERTAINMENT BACKGROUND – she's been on tv, yes, but only in the corner of the screen of an sbs news report. for the hearing-impaired viewers, she is a household face and her smile made good news even sweeter. not that anyone else has ever noticed her there though.
– when she was allowed to volunteer at senior centers (i.e. before pandemic), she put on a kim seunghoon mini-concert for the elders who adored his ballads, and she sat by the tv translating for those who couldn't hear but wanted in on the deep lyrics.
it's not idol experience, but it's what she thinks about even though she knows dream4u will have subtitles. could they work this into the dance somehow...? but one look from the choreographer, and soojin will second-guess every cell that considered suggesting it.
– soojin shouldn't be here. she should stick with doing actual good for society and let the past die. kill it if she has to. but growth is not linear, self-love isn't always uphill, and some band-aids need to be ripped off. so, soojin tells herself she's here to lay this dream to rest. she'll give it just enough of a shot to not bring murderers to her doorstep, and then she'll give up for real... or whatever you like!
SCENE SUGGESTIONS – so will this last try at idolhood bring out the worst in her or can she help bring out the best in herself and everyone? i will be frank and say i prefer the latter. let her cringe, let her suffer, let her panic and watch disaster precipitate form her selfish inaction... but let's allow the wholesome to triumph in the end. in no particular order, i'd love for her to reach the point of:
– letting herself accept that these are her ducklings now ♡
– using bull alchemy to help her team... eventually. don't you dare make this easy.
– incorporating sign language even if it's just an ending fairy thing like astro's most wonderful rocky
– performing without abandoning her glasses and namwon freckles.
– if late-game solos are possible, maybe something like this? (imagine her glasses just weren't taped-on and got knocked off by accident in the middle)
– something like sign language covers and live-interpreting converts/mvs in her endgame!
anyways, enough about my mess of a daughter. if there are any other girls' scene requests that soojin can help fulfill, go for it. if adoption papers need signing or conflicts need happening, throw her in that fire and let her "this is fine . ‿ .)" her way through.
feel free to explore some old aeon characters through soojin. i think we'd agree that our dream4u crew is the focus, but having binged that whole story, i welcome any indulgence.
SONG SUGGESTIONS – if soojin had a theme, it'd be
now, a regrettable puberty later, soojin has finally come to stand on her own. "I’ve wished for something endlessly [and] I seem to have finally found it" ... but has she really? turns out suppressing her insecurities doesn't exactly mean growing past them. dream4u is her chance to meet the old light of her life and see him for something much more real, more human; same with hana, same with the trainees she'd pretended not to religiously follow on survival shows, and so on. it's all about blinking away the spotlight and seeing these people as human.
"the light that will be engraved, so it will never be forgotten" as we all moves on.
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