allure's character dump

[allure]

i very rarely reuse characters. i tend to make them tailored to the rp – and then more often than not they get abandoned because the rp doesn't last beyond the first couple of pages. i thought i should collect all the characters that took a lot of big brain power to create (even if they're kinda bad...) just so i can have a place to look back at all of my children. this is by no means all of the characters i've ever written, just the ones that aren't completely embarrassing.

oh kitae

✰ posted 25 Apr. 2016
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Kitae is a popular student at Cheonglyeom Private Academy, a school for stuck up rich kids and the rare scholarship student. As the eldest son, he's the heir to a large chain of Korean retail stores. His father has made it very clear that he expects Kitae to take his place after he retires, and Kitae has kind of gone along with it because what else can he do? It's not something he really wants for himself, but he doesn't see the point in trying to change the course of his future when it's been so carefully laid out for him.

He’s one of the brightest social butterflies you’ll ever meet; Kitae thrives off the positive energy of others. He’s very cheerful and optimistic, which seems dangerous for someone who's meant to enter the cutthroat industry of business conglomerates, and he has a bad habit of making endless excuses for himself and for others in order to stay in their good graces.

It’s not all unicorns and rainbows with the company heir, though. The sun does not, in fact, shine out of Kitae’s ass. He seems naive and happy-go-lucky on the surface, but he's a careful judge of character. It's difficult to tell what Kitae really thinks of any particular person since he's so friendly with everyone. He's not nearly as fond of most of his classmates as he would have them think. With as many friends as he has, Kitae doesn’t grow attached to most of them, and he can drop a friend as easily as one replaces a burnt out lightbulb.

Kitae's most closely guarded secret is that he's a bastard son. He is the product of one of his father's various affairs, and his father was careful never to repeat the same mistake. Kitae's stepmother is indifferent to her husband's unfaithfulness; the lavish lifestyle and esteem she enjoys as Mr. Oh's wife is more than enough to keep her close and quiet. Other than an obvious preference for his younger brother, his stepmother has never mistreated him. To his knowledge, Kitae has never met his biological mother. And as long as he keeps his secret under wraps, Kitae's inheritance of the company is guaranteed.

kim mijin

✰ posted 05 Jun. 2016
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TW: body dysmorphia, implied eating disorder

Mijin comes off as an excitable, vain, and somewhat crass girl. Having faced constant criticism at home when she was younger for not having the ideal body, she started prioritizing her appearance above most things in order to satisfy her family and her peers who, she believed, would judge you by how you looked no matter what kind of person you were. Though she has achieved most of her goals for her body, everyone still isn't happy. Those who are jealous of her or believe in "natural beauty" look down on her for dying her hair too often, wearing colored contacts, and wearing too much makeup. As a result Mijin has adopted a fuck you I'll do what I want attitude, even though she is still secretly very insecure and self-conscious. She pretends like she's all that so her peers will buy into it as well, and when she's on the defensive she instinctively plays the role of the coldhearted bitch in order to not seem weak.

Mijin's mother is obsessed with keeping up the family's good image, to the point that she didn't divorce her husband even after she found out he had been having a long-term affair with his assistant. She wanted her house, her marriage, and her children to look perfect. While Miyeon and Yoonchul, Mijin's siblings, were naturally athletic and loved playing outdoors, Mijin herself preferred to sit inside and read. At age twelve, her chubby (and therefore unacceptable) figure was showing no signs of going away, so her mother decided to take matters into her own hands. She was put on an extreme diet for a growing young girl. It was at this point that Mijin became hyperaware of her body and her many perceived flaws. She constantly worried about how fat and about "ugly" she was, and it began to affect her stellar grades. She was diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder a couple of years later and was prescribed antidepressants to treat it.

She wanted to turn her life around in high school, so she began trying different hairstyles, buying expensive skincare products, and practicing with makeup. She all but shrunk from a combination of nonstop exercise and barely eating. Though Mijin's weight yoyo-ed in a way that should have worried any rational parent, Mijin's mother was livid; she was afraid their family friends would judge her daughter for being too vain and self-obsessed. However, after receiving endless comments about how "Your daughter has become so pretty! She should become a model,” her mother decided to let Mijin do her own thing as long as Mijin didn't embarrass herself. At Seinteu Cheonsa's All Girls Academy, her mother’s school of choice, Mijin garnered a lot of attention for her gradual transformation. She lost friends but gained new ones, and quickly became one of the most popular girls at school.

It seemed everything she’d hoped for had come to her, but with the popularity came the whispers and the rumors and the insults. Mijin covered her heart in a shell of ice and shut down anyone who talked about her behind her back. Though she bantered playfully with her friends, she also kept them at a distance whenever sensitive subjects came up. She toyed with boys from other schools and broke their hearts and felt nothing but pity for them. A new worry arose: she couldn’t understand her friends. Why did they squeal over boys after school and bat their long eyelashes at them? What was the big deal about kissing a boy? She thinks she’d much rather like to kiss a girl.... but that is not what she is supposed to think, so she ignores her desires and bats her long lashes at the boys with the rest of them.

kai yohan

✰ posted 12 Jun. 2016
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Yohan’s parents weren’t interested in him from the get-go. His father gave his mother some money and then went back to the States, never to be seen again. He and his mother never stayed in one place for longer than a few months. Eventually, when he was ten years old, she returned to her hometown and dropped him off to live with his uncle. Having been “homeschooled” up to this point, Yohan struggled during his first years in public school after his uncle enrolled him at the local junior high. He lagged behind his classmates and barely escaped being dropped a year.

Many things have been said about Yohan, some more complimentary than others, but one word that often comes up when explaining his character is “spontaneous.” For the most part, it’s just a nicer way of saying he’s reckless and impulsive. Many of his decisions are driven by his search for fun; boredom, he'll often say, is the ultimate enemy. To satisfy his thirst for a thrill, he will happily break rules and shirk authority, confident that he’ll get away with it. Nine out of ten times, he does. It may seem like he’s not the brightest bulb in the box, but where he lacks in booksmarts, he makes up in spades in streetsmarts.

Though he is lovable and suave in his own way, he’s flighty. Yohan makes friends just as quickly as he leaves them behind for the next person that comes along. He has a way of making people feel extra special with his bright eyes and charming smile, though he doesn’t fully realize it, so when he suddenly moves on, it leaves the other person feeling like he purposefully led them on.

Yohan didn’t have trouble making friends in school, but he had trouble keeping them. He was used to the mindset that he would have to leave them eventually so he never let anyone too close, and they drifted away after a while. In high school, he fell in with the bad crowd. His uncle didn’t really care how late he stayed out, so Yohan was free to attend parties where recreational drugs, alcohol, and sex were a given, then come stumbling back home in the early hours of the morning. He never drank too much nor did he hook up with a ton of people, and he didn’t touch the drugs, but he still gained a bad reputation just by association. These new friends of his felt like family, though, so he didn’t mind the infamy that they came with.

He may be a troublemaker, but he’s not a bad boy. Leather jacket, motorcycle, breaking hearts left and right? Ya… no. More like collared shirts, razor scooters, and (mostly) harmless antics. He uses his puppy-like demeanor and face to fool people into thinking he’s just an innocent angel, though it’s likely that the opposite is the case. He’s observant, full of energy, and always on the lookout for good opportunities to fuck shit up enjoy himself. Whether it be going along with a lie that a stranger pulled him into (“Oh, uh, yes, of course this is my son! Can he get that free sample now?”), picking up the social cues in an unfamiliar environment in order to fit in (accidentally walking into that gay bar in Gangnam was an… experience), or being pulled into a flash mob (the first time his poor dance skills actually served him well), Yohan adapts well to change.

At sixteen, his teachers started asking about what he wanted to do with his life. While he was no longer in danger of being dropped a year, his marks were still pretty abysmal. His friends advised him to do something with his remarkable singing voice: become a solo musician, sit with his guitar on the curb and sing for people. Yohan wasn’t willing to accept a future as a simple busker. He auditioned for an entertainment company impulsively, got picked to be a trainee, and trained for only 10 months before quitting. He was put off by the amount of hard work and didn’t know if it was what he wanted anymore. To his surprise, his uncle yelled at him for throwing away the opportunity; his uncle had always loved him and treated him like a son, but he had never questioned one of Yohan's decisions until that day. Fueled by encouragement from his uncle and his friends, when a second opportunity arose just a few months later in the form of a K-pop survival competition, he decided to take it.

myo kyumin

✰ posted 19 May 2016
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TW: attempted suicide, domestic abuse

To most of his peers, Kyumin is a gentle, soft-spoken, smol bean of a soul. He's small, skinny, and has the cutest gummy smile – how could anyone hate him? But to his close friends, "Kyumi" is an almost entirely different person, dropping sarcastic remarks, dark jokes, and a swear word every other sentence. Due to a rocky childhood, he has major trust issues and hates the idea of depending on anyone aside from himself. He tends to instinctively assume the worst about people. When he gets too stressed out, he just shuts down and hides away from the rest of the world.

Kyumin's father met Kyumin's mother after a performance by the American National Symphony Orchestra in Seoul. In fact, she was a Korean-American pianist for the orchestra, and the two quickly fell in love. They married and settled down. He got a job as an accountant with decent pay, and she left the orchestra to become a stay at home mom for their newborn son. However, she spiraled into depression as the months went by. She yearned to return to the stage, to her life before all of its changes. To try to fill the growing void, she sat at the glossy black piano in the parlor and played concertos, sonatas, and waltzes for hours everyday for her son and began teaching him how to play. Kyumin knew the keys on the piano before he even had the alphabet memorized. If he had been older, he might have noticed the signs: the dinners tossed into the trash, the untouched pill bottles, the way she sometimes sat on the piano bench and stared out the window for long periods and snapped at him if he interrupted her.

She left a note with the promise to keep in touch, but she still went. Kyumin was ten.

The loss hit Kyumin’s father hard to say the least. Here was a man who had given up his dreams of becoming a writer to support his wife and their son (who, if he was honest, had been a complete accident). Here was a man whose wife left him with nothing more than a note, a dead end office job, and the responsibility of a young child. Kyumin’s father turned to alcohol and took up writing again.

It wasn’t until Kyumin was twelve and his father began trying to get his “fucking memoirs” (as Kyumin likes to call them) published that problems started occurring. Kyumin’s father would take out his frustration on his son. First it was just yelling and cursing, but this quickly escalated into serious emotional and physical abuse. The boy would be dragged around by his hair, thrown down the stairs, and choked until he was begging for air. Kyumin found himself casually pondering ending his life. He would take comfort in playing the piano in the parlor. It was an activity he associated with the fond memories of his mother, and he was pretty good at it to boot.

One day, when Kyumin was fourteen and had forgotten to check that his father was at work, the man walked in on him playing Claire de Lune. Later that night, Kyumin heard the piano being dragged outside, the splintering of wood, and the screeching of snapping strings. A week later, he tried to follow through with what he had been thinking about. It turns out that medicine gets less potent over time, so instead of shutting down his heart, the pills in the cabinet just made him vomit a lot. He figured he should end it before his father found out what he’d tried to do, so the next day he attempted to hang himself from the ceiling fan in his bedroom. He didn’t half-ass it either – the knots in the rope were secure, and he’d tested his weight on the ceiling fan beforehand. It almost worked, but a neighbor saw him through the window and alerted his father, who got him down right before he punched him in the face.

When he finally confided in his few friends about some of the problems he was facing, they helped him realize that he could escape as long as he stuck it out long enough to go to college. He started thinking about his future. When Kyumin mentioned that he wanted to pursue music as a career, his father vehemently refused. When Kyumin actually stood up and argued back at his father about the subject, the man threatened to throw him to the streets if he didn’t pursue something more worthwhile, like medicine or economics. Shortly after this declaration, his father actually got those fucking memoirs published. He used some of the money to send Kyumin (against Kyumin's wishes) to Sevit Academy, the prestigious and notoriously competitive boarding school. Kyumin is glad that of all the schools his father could have chosen, he chose a boarding school. His father still calls every once in a while to yell at him and tell him he better be making good grades or else. Kyumin still flinches at the sound of his voice. but he’s not so afraid anymore, not now that he finally got out of there.

At Sevit, Kyumin is doing surprisingly well. So well, in fact, that he was able to join the White Tigers, an academic club reserved for the students in the top 5% of the school rankings.

fujioka hana

✰ posted 12 Jun. 2016
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Hana, better known by her stage name 'Flora,' is a member of the K-pop duo LESSTHAN3 (stylized "<3"). She began her career as a child actress in Japan and became a K-pop idol trainee when she was twelve. Since she became a well-rounded performer with impressive singing, dancing, and rapping, she was able to make her debut when she was sixteen with Kim Iseul, a boy she befriended while they trained together and the second half of <3.

Singing, dancing, and rapping aren't her only skills: Hana is also a good actor, and her favorite character to play is Flora. Flora is sweet and bashful and adorable. Flora giggles at cheesy jokes and is filled with aegyo. Flora is a cute yet sophisticated performer, and she and I’Kim make an irresistible pair. She’s also a manufactured persona created by Hana and her company. Both parties decided that cute and fresh was a better concept than sexy and sensual for Flora. Hana wears Flora like a second skin, and when she takes her off, she’s not nearly as charming.

Hana’s actually kind of a bitch when she doesn’t feel the need to impress you (which, when there aren’t cameras around, is almost never). She’s straightforward and brutally honest, and she doesn’t care if you don’t like her because chances are the feeling’s mutual. She’s easily irritated and doesn’t hesitate to state her opinion when she's asked for it. She doesn’t sugarcoat anything she says unless she’s making a conscious effort to be polite (which, again, doesn't happen often in private situations).

Just because she’s a little mean doesn’t mean she’s cold, however—quite the opposite. She has a fiery temper that explodes like a flash fire but dies out just as quickly. Her honesty isn’t always a bad thing; if she cares about you, she shows it. Being friends with Hana is worlds away from not being her friend. She actually jokes around (if you like sarcasm, she has a great sense of humor) with her friends, buys them food and gifts on a whim, and acts less like the diva she's become and more like the person she has always been behind the fame. She’s very passionate about what she does and hates it when people could potentially achieve a goal but are too lazy or scared to try.

sun wooyoung

✰ posted 10 Jul. 2016
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On the surface, Woo Young is the perfect college student. His grades are good, he’s the president of the Student Government (i.e. Champion of the People), and everyone likes him. When they first meet him, most people assume he’s a goody-goody right off the bat. To many of his acquaintances, the idea of Sun Wooyoung getting wasted in the downtown bars is a laughable one, even when that’s exactly what’s happening every other weekend (to his credit, he takes his alcohol well).

Partying aside, Wooyoung is quite conniving and manipulative. He makes friends easily, but he's usually looking for ways to use them or to get something from them. He’s pretty good at it, too. Most of the time, the person he is taking advantage of has no idea that's what's happening because the Wooyoung his superiors and peers believe him to be is kind, witty, and humble. The version of himself that he shows to others isn’t actually all that different from who he really is. Well, except for the humble part. Wooyoung is very conceited. While some people might put on airs as a defense mechanism, Woo Young genuinely thinks he’s hot shit. He will accept any and all compliments because, yes, he knows he’s smart and handsome and tall and funny, etc. He thinks of himself as a step above normal, average people, and he only shows genuine interest in the people he believes are on that step with him.

Wooyoung is just extremely, infuriatingly charismatic. He has a 100% success rate at charming the hell out of the nearest ahjumma, and he can effectively talk circles around people to win arguments or draw out information. However, in spite of what seems to be above average social intelligence, he actually finds it difficult to read other people. He’s usually too focused on himself and what he wants to consider what those around him might be thinking, a flaw that regularly damages his relationships with others.

Wooyoung used to have a mom, a dad, and an older sister, but. A car accident when he was just six years old changed all of that. He was fortunate enough to be taken in by his wealthy aunt, and she treated him as her own and spoiled him just as she spoiled her own daughter. In spite of the tragedy that had torn apart everything he knew, he was able to grow up healthy and relatively happy under the care of his frivolous yet well-meaning aunt. Throughout his school years, he flitted from social clique to social clique, never settling in just one squad of friends. Strangers and even old friends criticized his capriciousness, labeled him as fake and a people pleaser despite his genuine attempts at lasting friendships. He came to understand that all of his relationships were meant to be only temporary, and the realization made him start to really live up to what people were saying about him. However, this turned out to be a rousing success; Wooyoung has perfected the art of getting people to like you even when the feeling isn’t mutual.

His aunt is Yuglyeom University of the Arts alumni, and she helped him get in. He started off his freshman year majoring in Film. True to his nature, however, he's fickle about his field of study and has changed it four times during his time at Yuglyeom (first to Creative Writing, then Drama, then Screenwriting, and finally to Cinematography with an added Drama minor). He’s always had an interest in telling stories. Somehow, he finds it easier to juggle a major and a minor instead of just focusing on one major. More concepts to keep his brain busy. He actually considered doing Drama as a second major but changed his mind after he was invited to become a member of the Student Government in his second year since he wanted to keep his nightlife alive (which wouldn’t be possible with the amount of work a double major and Student Govt. activities would force onto him).

 

[allure]

yanagi saebyeok

✰ posted 21 Jul. 2016
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Saebyeok, who goes exclusively by her English name "Dawn," is the daughter of Yanagi Yukio, the patriarch of the esteemed Yanagi family and the chief executive of the grossly powerful Yanagi group. Her mother is Nam Heewon, an ordinary Korean woman who Yukio fell in love with while Heewon was on vacation in Osaka. Yukio moved Heewon to England, where Dawn was born, in order to protect her and their future child from the judgment and scorn of his family members. Supported by the Yanagi group's bottomless bank account, Heewon and Dawn lived a very sheltered existence. Dawn's mother didn't speak English and rarely left the home, instead relying on their housekeeper to run errands. She held Dawn to very high standards in order to push her to become a proper, well-rounded lady. Dawn was expected to keep perfect grades while juggling a handful of extracurriculars, from cheerleading to art and music classes. This didn't leave much room for a social life, and Dawn found herself befriending people but never being able to spend time with them outside of practice or classes.

When she was 14, her father enrolled her in a Korean academy that he believed would be more fitting for a young girl of her "status." The academy was the most exclusive secondary school in the country and had an unofficial ranking system based on its students' looks, grades, and skills. After passing the school's entrance exam, Dawn was surprised to find herself at the top of the totem pole due to her obvious wealth, various talents, and pretty face. However, she gets quite a bit of criticism for associating with lower-ranked students, the most notable of which is Choi Elijah, her best friend.

Yanagi Yukio has an empire to run, and as much as he would have liked to be able to stay by his daughter's side, it was an impossibility. He gave Dawn three shiny gold credit cards and three simple rules: to keep in touch with him, to not get kicked out of school, and to let him know immediately if anything happened to one of her cards.

Dawn was used to having a packed schedule and impossibly high expectations. She’d definitely never been told– by her father of all people– that it didn’t matter how well she did academically. At first, she tried to replicate her old lifestyle. She joined a bunch of extracurriculars to fill her time and overworked herself just as she had before, but she burned out by the end of the year due to the overall increased difficulty of her classes. Dawn had a sort of existential crisis and lost all motivation to do anything, dropping most of her extracurriculars and letting her grades drop dramatically. She pulled herself together by the next school year with the help of friends and, surprisingly, advice from her father. Her grades stabilized to just slightly above average, and she was no longer focused on her mother’s ideals of being a perfect, “well-rounded” lady. Her only extra activity became her position on the academy’s cheerleading squad. Dawn finally began channeling her energy more into enjoying herself instead of working too hard.

She isn’t hard to get along with, being a laid-back and happy-go lucky girl most of the time. She prefers to go with the flow so long as no one gets hurt. Dawn is usually level headed and rational, the kind of person who shoots down stupid ideas as soon as they’re announced. She’s especially well-mannered around people she doesn’t know well. However, like most people, with her close friends she is goofier and more impulsive both in her words and actions. The difference between the two temperaments can be quite surprising when you cross the boundary from mere acquaintance to something more.

Dawn is dynamic no matter the time of day or night, pulling energy from some invisible well inside of her. It’s in her essence to always be ready to move onto the next pursuit of happiness. “I’m tired” are words that hardly ever leave her lips. Although her no-nonsense attitude suggests a certain level of maturity, Dawn does behave childishly every now and then (sticking out her tongue in response to a challenge, asking for piggyback rides, and whining when she doesn’t get her way). She can be seen as harsh to those with more tender sensibilities since she tends to resort to playful insults and goodnatured, though still caustic, jibes as a way of displaying her fondness for someone. Direct and practical, she’s very blunt in speech and usually doesn't hesitate to say things as she sees them, only holding back when she’s in the company of people she could possibly offend and has some reason to impress.

Due to her upbringing, Dawn is very high maintenance. Whether it be that the temperature of the room is just a touch too stifling or that her jacket doesn’t sit comfortably on her shoulders, she can find anything to make a complaint about. If she’s in a bad mood then you can expect a lot of grumbling from her. She really lives up to the hard-to-please princess stereotype when she feels like it. At the very least, she is accustomed to getting what she wants herself and not always relying on others to do it for her. It is only when she isn’t allowed to do something that she gets irritated. She takes much of what she has for granted and flaunts it without thought, forgetting how that might look to those who are less privileged.

Dawn's outlook on life is that she should be able to do whatever it is she puts her mind to. What could be seen as an impossible feat to some is just a difficult obstacle to her, meant to be challenged and overcome. She’s ambitious– strong of will and strong of heart. Along with being a hardworking and determined spirit, Dawn is endlessly loyal to those who have treated her right. Betraying her trust is an awful thing, of course, but she is not one to hold long and pointless grudges.

penelope hunter

✰ posted 01 Dec. 2016
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Penny is… an interesting girl. Most of her peers and even a few professors (the young, new ones who are way too involved in the university gossip chain) think she's a slut, a young woman with her legs spread open more often than they’re closed. No, she’s not misunderstood–at least, not in this regard. No jealous ex-boyfriend spread rumors about her or anything like that. The truth is, Penny likes sex and she’s not afraid to admit it. She’s promiscuous and open. Does Penelope’s shamelessness come from egomania or healthy self-confidence? To be honest, it’s a bit of both. To some (her friends and hook-ups), it’s just another charming point in her personality. To others, she’s unbearable. She doesn’t care, though, since she can’t really afford to.

The criticism and dehumanization she’s faced from choosing to own her sexuality and libido has given her a penchant for pretending she doesn’t have feelings as a way to cope. If someone insults her, she’ll just laugh and brush them off. Penelope puts up a wall of brazen remarks and cool indifference to hide deeper emotions. Penny is quite opportunistic and has a tendency to rush into things without thinking, but great things can come from that too. She’s not the brightest or the most conscientious soul, but dig deep enough and you’ll find she’s a pretty cool person with a big heart.

Penelope lives with her older sister in a small apartment. It’s clean and well-furnished, but still pretty tiny. Her sister is always busy with work and her studies, so they don’t get many opportunities to have sister-bonding time. Bridgette hears a lot of gossip about her little sister’s reputation and they often argue about it. Bridgette wants her sister to stay safe and not go down their mother’s path while Penny wishes her sister would stop nagging and trust her to know what she’s doing. Still, they love each other a lot.

It might seem strange that a 16-year-old is living under the guardianship of her sibling instead of her parents, but the story behind this is pretty simple. Penny’s parents got married on a whim after her mother found out she was pregnant. She was only 17, and the baby daddy was 22. As is the case with most reckless relationships, the marriage was not meant to last. Her parents quickly amassed a large amount of debt due to their gambling habits. They took out their frustrations on their daughter. Both were verbally and sometimes physically abusive to Bridgette and, less often, to Penny after she was born eleven years later. Bridgette left the house as soon as she turned 18 to attend a reputable college on a full ride scholarship. As soon as she had a stable job and was able to afford rent for the cheapest apartment in her area, she filed a civil suit against her parents and was granted custody of Penny. Penny was grateful to her sister for taking her away from their toxic childhood home, but she had been living in a large city before moving to the tiny town of Freeland Pines and found it hard to adjust both to the change in location and the change in people's mindsets.

lu miju

✰ posted 08 Mar. 2017
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Lumi is a K-indie artist signed with Amoeba Culture. She has a quirky, modern, and minimalistic sound layered with trancy synth, laidback snare beats, and tight vocal harmonies that makes for a uniquely textured landscape. She participates in the production of many of her songs, but the prime focus of her music is the lyrical composition. She takes pride in her songwriting, and her lyrics often flow like poetry. Her songs range in subject, from mature social commentary to dreamy, dactylic songs about friendship, self-discovery, and love. She often makes use of clever wordplay and extended metaphors.

For the first two and a half years of her career, Lumi accumulated a modest yet adoring fanbase - a cult following she called the “Lumi Nation.” It wasn’t until her most recent title track, “Seeing Stars,” that she shot to popularity in the mainstream. Her music has been receiving an unprecedented amount of attention in the weeks since, to the point where even songs from her previous album, released over a year ago, are climbing the charts.

She actually wanted to be a writer. Music was a distraction, a hobby - not something she felt she was good enough at to make a career out of. Writing, on the other hand, was something that Miju took to like a bird to air. She had always been at the far right end of the bell curve, consistently ranking in the top five in her class and throwing herself headlong into her studies. She won writing competitions in elementary school and junior high, and she was sure that she had found her calling at such an early age.

It was her parents’ idea to sign her up for Future Idol-star 2. Future Idol-star was a television talent show (similar to The Voice) for children ages 15 and younger. Twelve-year-old Miju wrote and composed her first songs on the show, and after 10 strenuous episodes, she secured second place. You could say the attention got to her head. Previously praised for her intelligence by her teachers, she was now heralded for her cute visuals and surprisingly touching songs by the media. She became, in short, an insufferable, haughty brat. Unfortunately for Miju, she didn’t realize it until she’d already lost most of her school friends due to her holier-than-thou attitude. She took the time to reevaluate her priorities, and decided it was probably for the better if she didn’t try to become an idol. After being contacted by several entertainment companies, Miju chose not to sign with any of them, much to the disappointment of her parents. Or so it was, until her cousin, a stylist for an artist under Amoeba Culture, took her to the AC building when she was fifteen. Someone who was someone recognized her. They were influential enough to pull her into an impromptu audition, which ultimately resulted in LUMI’s debut four years later.

jang seungah

✰ posted 22 Aug. 2016
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TW: suicide mention

You’ve probably met Seungah’s type before or, at least, heard of them. Cool, confident, blunt, snarky, and at times just downright threatening–sound familiar? She’s cocky but also insecure, though she tries to hide the latter as well as she can. Usually, she just comes off as arrogant (but she prefers the term “self-aware”). In her own words, Seungah is “eight times out of ten one of the hottest people you’ve ever seen.” Do not mistake self-assurance for self-absorption, however; she always pays more attention to other people than to herself. It’s more interesting that way. She’s a tease and a flirt, but she just wants the validation (and much more infrequently the possibility of a good lay) she often receives from being a tease and a flirt. She shows a softer, more pleasant side of herself to her friends, but strangers and acquaintances alike are the ones who are subject to the majority of her bad attitude and subtle ridicule. These traits stem from her huge superiority complex: another shield of defense to conceal her inner insecurities. So upon first glance, people see the typical aloof, sharp-tongued bad bitch. She fits the mold so well that it would shock many of her newer friends to find out that she hasn’t always been one. Far from it, actually.

She used to be an awkward, bumbling teenager with squishy cheeks, filled with well wishes. Though those times are long gone, much of her character, past the outer coating of toughness and 'too good for you'-ness, has remained unchanged. The aforementioned “softer” persona that appears when she actually enjoys the company of those around her is relaxed and positive. She’s still snide and sarcastic but her jokes come without the malicious tone and with a lighthearted smile. She’s always been playful and likes to mess with people, especially her friends. When she wants something, though, she’ll fight for it (both figuratively and literally). Despite her initial standoffish demeanor, Seungah makes friends pretty easily once the other party has shown that they aren’t daunted by her. Largely because of her superiority complex, though, she doesn’t like showing people how much they really mean to her and often downplays feelings of attachment unless the other party is also opening up to her.

Seungah’s parents had quite the love story. He was a young medical student and she was the waitress working the early morning shift at his favorite 24-hour diner. He frequently sat in till dawn just to talk to her. They had an open, foolhardy relationship, the kind that entailed reckless adventuring fueled by alcohol and drugs. She was only twenty-four when she got pregnant, he twenty-two, and she didn’t want to get married. She didn’t want to be tied down. Still, she tried because they were in love. And when bad things happen when you’re in love, you’re supposed to not give up.

But Seungah’s mother buckled under the pressure. She left the baby with her father "for the weekend" and then moved to Goyang without notice (at least, Goyang was where her landlord claimed she had been headed). She left behind nothing but a bag of diapers, formula, toys, and baby clothes– the things she had bought for Seungah before deciding that she wasn’t ready. Seungah lived with her father in a small house on the outskirts of Seoul for much of her childhood. For the most part, she was watched by either her grandmother or one of her father’s friends. Her father dropped out of med school so that he could work and earn money to support himself and her. From the moment she started school onwards, he encouraged her to sign up for as many extracurriculars as she could so that she could a) get away from the admittedly dangerous neighborhood where they lived and b) quickly find something she loved to do and set goals for herself from an early age.

She flitted from art to art, sport to sport, enjoying many but not finding the drive to stick to any of them for longer than a year at most – that is, until she auditioned for the school musical in her first year of junior high. She wasn’t a great singer and she was shy, so she only got a background role. However, being a part of a big production with her peers was a great experience, and she started participating in all the school musicals. What began as practicing the dances at home turned into learning other dances outside of the musical theatre context just for fun.

Over the years, her acting and stage presence improved, and she was given more major roles. During her first musical of her first year of high school, it was this stage presence that caught the attention of her drama teacher. He invited her to check out his friend’s dance studio, and that was how she began dancing as more than just a hobby. Just because she was doing competitions with the studio, though, didn’t mean she had stopped performing in the school musicals. By then she had fallen quite comfortably into the theatre kid clique and was hailed as one of the best dancers in the drama department, which sounded cool but didn’t do much for her social life. On stage, she was confident and charismatic; off stage, she was clumsy and uncomfortable in her own skin. One of the biggest contributing factors to her insecurity was her weight. She wasn't fat by any means, but her chubby physique set her apart from the other dancers in the studio, and being called "Bubble," "Squish," and "Marshmallow" felt demeaning rather than affectionate.

It wasn't until she and Boo Myeongwoo got together that she began to learn how to learn herself. He was the star player of the basketball team, popular and bright and energetic; she was the soft-spoken theatre nerd. It was like a Korean High School Musical. She naturally assimilated into his group of friends, and they all helped her loosen up, stop psyching herself out and just live in the moment. Myeongwoo was her first love.

The director of Seungah's studio was planning to relocate so she would be able to more easily take the many job offers she was getting from America. She opened a new studio in LA, and when she invited Seungah to come work for her as a full-time dancer straight out of high school, Seungah was shocked to say the least. It was the hardest decision she's ever made: whether to remain in Korea, attend an average college but stay in close contact with her friends, or follow her dream in a foreign country. Then the unthinkable hit out of nowhere; one of her friends committed suicide, and everything went to shit.

Myeongwoo spiraled into a deep depression, and Seungah... she wanted to run away. She tried to support her boyfriend and friends and herself through their grief, but nothing was getting better and here was this shining opportunity in California to escape the pain. So she took it.

kim aera

✰ posted 25 Dec. 2016
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Aera moved from the city at the base of the mountain up to the little tourist trap of Yunam. She seemed like a promising student at first, talented and vivacious in equal measure. However, she soon became notorious for her fierce jealousy towards a certain Lee Kitae. It’s not that clear what happened for her to garner this kind of reputation, but the adults picked up on what her classmates were saying about her. People who had never spoken to her before branded her as rude, arrogant, and moody. Suffice to say, she doesn’t have many friends.

At first, it may seem like Aera lives up to her reputation. She’s prone to moodiness and speaking very bluntly, even though she’ll insist that she’s just being honest. She also doesn’t go out of her way to make friends, although she was quite outgoing prior to moving to Yunam. It’s almost like Aera was a different person when she lived in the big city. She was more optimistic, more open, more naive. Aera feels trapped in this tiny town, and she’s become cynical and aloof since her incident with Kitae. It can be difficult to become friendly with her considering how skeptical she is of strangers, but once you get on her good side, she’s loyal.

Aera has a personal moral code that she follows and that anyone who is close to her will probably be able to pick up on. The main constituent of this code is the value of honesty. Her painful honesty is both a virtue and a vice. Aera hates lying and people who lie. This includes people who kiss up to others and those who have a fake persona. Unfortunately for her, she finds too many of those types around her. She much prefers genuine criticism over false flattery. Aera’s doubt in strangers can come off as pure paranoia, but she simply correlates someone’s trustworthiness with their sincerity. As a friend, though, she lets her guard down and doesn’t hold back. Her strange, offhand sense of humor makes occasional appearances. She’s still blunt, but she’s more mindful of how her words could hurt. She reveals herself to be a curious girl who can be surprisingly endearing and sweet. Aera thinks that her moral code is set in stone, but she makes more exceptions to it than she’d like to believe. She’s highly susceptible to sympathizing with the struggles of others (basically, sob stories) due to her strong sense of empathy. Other than this aspect of her character, though, Aera prides herself on being very self-aware. She’s not perfect, but she’s capable. She’ll probably never come close to being your greatest friend, but she’s one of the most earnest people you’ll ever meet. She daydreams, perhaps too often, but she can never sit still. She forgives, but she never forgets. And Aera knows it all.

Aera was born and raised in Seoul. Her father was a freelance photographer and her mother was a wedding planner. Put frankly, Aera was a happy mistake. Both of her parents were in their early twenties and were just getting started on their careers, but they rented a tiny apartment together where they could raise their daughter. As a child, Aera explored the city with her father way more often than she spent time with her mother. Her mother was the one with the stable job, so she was usually at her office downtown, and she had a distant relationship with her daughter. She also had a distant relationship with her boyfriend (Aera’s parents never did get married, ironically), which became apparent when they split a few weeks after Aera’s tenth birthday. Aera hadn’t seen it coming, and she took it hard. After a few disciplinary incidents at school and one instance of getting caught shoplifting, her father decided it would be best if the two of them moved to a new city.

Pyeongju felt like a small town in comparison to sprawling Seoul. Aera became a beloved figure in her district, garnering praise as a poignant singer-songwriter by performing in low-lit restaurants and even at a couple of weddings. She became interested in attending the arts college in Yunam, and her father agreed to move there with her since the town was a photogenic place that could be good for his business. Aera was expecting to gain a high degree of admiration from Yunam, considering her success in the much larger city of Pyeongju, But it turned out Yunam already had someone to admire, and things didn’t go as she’d hoped.

That someone was Lee Kitae. Aera and Kitae met in their Songwriting 3 class. It was an advanced class that she somehow convinced the professor to allow her to take. She was the lowly freshman, and not only was Kitae the seasoned upperclassman, he was the legend of Yunam. She was flattered when he seemed impressed by her artistry in class, and even more charmed when he asked her if she could help him with their first project of the year. He drew her in by putting on a show of vulnerability. Kitae “confided” in her about his secret insecurities, made her feel more special than anyone else. Of course, she developed a crush. By the time the due date for the project grew near, she had basically done his entire project for him. Aera pleaded with Kitae to turn in the song under both of their names, but he claimed the song as his own and left her to submit whatever she could throw together before the deadline. With his name on her work, Kitae accepted an A grade while Aera was given the lowest grade in the class.

He thought she would back down and move on like the other students he took advantage of, but Aera was not one to simply accept being fucked over. Being an outsider, she was unaware of the extent of Kitae’s influence. What she did next made sense to her, but to any true Yunam local, it was social suicide. She tried to tell other people about what Kitae had done, about how he was a manipulative jerk who had stolen her song. The only people who seemed to believe her was her songwriting professor and an older student, Bang Jaeseop, who had also been targeted by Kitae. Her professor raised her grade by a little and lowered Kitae’s by a lot.

Kitae was furious. In response, he riled Aera up when they were alone and then made her out to be a jealous bitch when she was cold to him in public. Oh, poor Lee Kitae, mean outsiders like Kim Aera bullied him just because he was too good! Aera’s social standing plummeted and she became an outcast. The only people who were nice to her were the other students who didn’t like Kitae and the even fewer number of people who pitied her. With the exception of Jaeseop, no one really wanted to be affiliated with her. To say Lee Kitae ruined her life wouldn’t be far of an exaggeration.

So when he turned up dead a year later, the suspicious and closeminded townspeople naturally pinned her as a prime suspect. Throw in her mental health issues and habit of making violent threats at Kitae when he was still alive and, well, things aren't looking good for her.

chu haebitna

✰ posted 09 Apr. 2017
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Haebitna is known for being charmingly... obtuse. He’s slow to catch on and has to be told a piece of information more than once before he can keep it in his head. He’s the student who confidently yells out “five!” when the teacher asks the class what two plus two is (right before realizing his mistake and blushing bashfully). He calls himself an “abstract” learner and often makes light of his perceived slowness, but he is actually quite insecure about it. Although Hae is not the brightest bulb in the box when it comes to traditional schoolwork, he’s bright in other ways. Practically bursting at the seams with charisma and cheer, he’s a refreshing ray of sunshine to some and annoyingly airheaded to others. He’s an extrovert who depends on other people for entertainment as well as support; therefore, he comes off as rather clingy and perhaps a bit too trusting. He seems to go off into a world of his own sometimes - he spends quite a lot of time daydreaming about Merlin knows what. He can be playful and energetic one moment, then lackadaisical and unmotivated the next.

Haebitna is full of ups and downs (possibly to the point of clinical concern). On the one hand, he is normally a very warm and reassuring presence. He has an empathetic nature that enables him to be very comforting and soothing when others are upset, even with people he doesn’t know well. He’s almost always willing to lend an ear for your troubles and a shoulder to cry on. But sometimes, his honesty translates into sharp words and his usually optimistic attitude turns sour and cynical. By now his friends all assume that these sudden changes in spirit are just simple mood swings.

Hae was born in a beautiful seaside town to two Muggle parents, eventually the middle child of an older brother and a younger sister. Like all wizard children, he had weird things happen around him while his magical abilities were developing, but to him and his family, it was just one bizarre incident after another. During a game of tag, he was pushed by his older brother into a geranium bush, the flower buds of which promptly popped into bloom despite the winter weather. Whenever he had a tantrum, the skies opened up without warning and poured down rain and lightning - but, strangely, only on his block. When his sister fell and scraped her knee, Haebitna bent down and whispered soothing words in an attempt to stop her tears while his parents rushed to get a bandaid. When they returned, there was no sign of the scrape. When Haebitna received the acceptance letter from the Bomnal School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, his parents were mostly just relieved that there was an explanation for previously inexplicable occurrences. He went off to Wwzarding school with a light heart and a thirst for knowledge.

Ufortunately, it didn’t seem like he was as cut out for magic as the other students. It took him longer to master spells and he lagged behind in all but a few subjects. During his first and second year, Haebitna faced bullying for his Muggleborn blood status, and his struggle with learning magic made matters worse. He even considered calling it quits with the whole magic thing and returning home. But then his concern was piqued by stories of the Death Eaters, who had terrorized Great Britain and were now rumored to be biding their time in Korea. Hearing about the unrest in the wizarding world convinced him to stay another year, and his third year went unexpectedly well. Finally settled and content with a new group of friends at Bomnal, Haebitna wondered more and more about what was going on outside of the school. His curiosity and desire to keep up with current events led him to joining the Jugumui Jonsadeul, a secret dueling club whose mission is to defend the school from Death Eaters should they ever attempt to invade.