#famedverification

[gyujeongfmd]

starter for @fmdxsuji / gsm building

tackling on too many things — that’s never been of issue. but as of late, he feels nothing short than being spread out so thinly that his knees start buckling with each step that drags him through gold star’s hallways. call it a physical reaction, or maybe, it’s just the effect of his fifth americano of the day and a cesspool of work left to be unfinished.

luckily, he’s packed his smoke break to the brim. the stench probably lingers, but then again, he’s never given two shits as to how he presents, nonetheless to a label mate he barely knows.

they’re better off being called strangers with the abysmal interactions. yet, his resume consists of nothing more than what feels like: gold star in-house producer number one. (he makes himself at home when he opens the door, tosses a nod in lieu of a formal greeting, finding some sort of fixture in the empty seat by the production table).

“so, i’m gonna be upfront now. i’ve created so much shit in the past weeks from reggae to classical mixtures to edm — the only idea i have left is city pop. inspired by japanese pop from the ‘80s.” he tilts his view to meet hers, a beat of silence for the response before he cuts that short too. “a stretch from your ballading career, but take it or leave it as you will.”

[minjungfmd]

starter for @fmdjuyeon / bad boy, sad girl

she’s not ignorant to murky waters, and where she stands now becomes a testament to playing with fire. tip toeing between the lines, inside the studio space — the canvas lies blank, and the words don’t fill the void like silence does. iterations upon different word play, and each one feels like a sham lined with pretty little lies of never-ending fairytales. 

songs writes when inspiration dawns, but when inspiration swallows you whole, what’s left is nothing more than deflected gazes and a lack of honesty that dissolves the second she opens her mouth.

“i don’t like sharing my creative process, but there’s a few lines in my head, gnawing. and if i don’t share, i feel like i might collect the remnants and burst, so just listen — don’t tell me you hate it, or don’t tell me you like it.” 

a preface, a wall she builds before the wreckage ensues. the melody’s already engrained in her head, a picture she paints of a figure that stands an arms length away. “i’ve been fighting for quite a while, somewhere twisted coding. i don’t know what’s in my mind.” she pauses, lets her teeth press against her lip. “hypothetically, it’s song about a sad girl — why she’s sad? because she can’t figure a boy out.” 

[bavariansecretsociety]

Masonry has the authorized power to  print wealth wealth

Come and make your world a better place on earth join the FREEMASONRY now and accomplish your mission to see riches, power, prosperity, protection, fame,  promotion, knowledge, wisdom,

Come to the FREEMASONRY  follow the light 💡💡

[fmdtaeyong]

@minjungfmd — no blueberries lyric & melody verification — probably around august(?)

it’s nighttime again. if he had the energy for it, he might read some sentimentality into that, but as it is, he cynically sees it as a given. he doesn’t have anything to do these days, as a consequence of bc finally giving in to his incessant requests for time off when it’d finally started to look like it would affect their bottom line, but other people are busy. they have lives. equinox is making a comeback soon, or they already have. he hasn’t been doing a good job of keeping up. or rather, he’s purposefully avoided news about the idol world. if he’s disconnecting, he has every intention of doing that fully.

he clicks around through the files on his computer, searching for what he’d named that track he’d been working on before. with a relaxation of the tension in his shoulder he hadn’t realized he was holding until it was gone, he pulls it up the track in his program and finally shifts his focus from his computer screen to minjung. “i have this track, but i’ve been having trouble putting words and a melody to it. care to give it a shot with me? it’s supposed to be for my next album, if that ever happens. i want to capture the feeling of the, i don’t know, the horror of... struggling to connect. people who don’t know you and you don’t know them, or even people you do know, but there’s that wall there and it kind of pisses you off but makes you wanna... run away from it basically at the same time. like distance... consuming you kind of. the little things about human connection that fuck you up in the head because it’s all just... fucked and eats you alive when you think about it, you get me?”

[fmdjoosungarchive]

location: mostly his apartment studio (#sololivin #ilivealonecallhim)

date: oct-nov 2021

word count: 1254

tldr; verif for alice’s celebrity, full melody & arrangement! alice asks sung to write a debut for her and sung fixates on perfecting the alice model

over the year, sung felt like he’d been asked to create for other idols much more often than he’d ever expected. he wasn’t sure yet how he was supposed to react to the change. up until then, he’d continued to be surprised and grateful whenever someone specifically wanted to work with him, whether it be for songwriting, choreographing, or even appearing in their music videos. some, like minjung, he’d come to almost expect working on music with, whether it made it to the final album cuts or not. others caught him entirely by surprise, like alice.

a member of his favorite group saying she valued his songwriting skills, asking for him to write her not only a song, but her debut solo release. as grateful as he may have felt, the notion was also quite daunting. adding on to it, he’d been given a starting point, in her own lyrics. double-edged, it could be, to finish a song rather than start one. while it narrowed down the possibilities into something more manageable, it also added the challenge to be mindful of the original author’s intent.

for a debut, in sung’s opinion, it should reflect the artist. in a group, the concept and skills that shine most would be on the forefront in order to accurately depict what people could expect to see in the future if they decide to follow the group. the same applies to soloists, yet even more intimately. personality and specified image had to combine with the unique skillset from the person.

he had to put more thought into writing for alice than he might for another person, which is why the day he received the lyrics, he holed himself up in his studio. in his favorite swivel chair, legs pulled up, they functioned as a table setting for the notebook upon them. along the first empty page of the booklet were two bulleted lists of notes, qualities of alice that he might want to incorporate into the piece.

one side of the page had skill based notes about her timbre, approximation of vocal areas he could surmise she felt most comfortable in, vocal limitations he could think of, notes reminding him of references of her halfway-to-raps. while he didn’t want to stretch her too far for a debut of all things, he needed to find the right balance between comfort and sonic interest.

the other listing focused on personality, styles, and concepts. at the top of the list was sweet. at the forefront of her personality, sung would think almost anyone who met alice would describe her as such. she’d been placed in the sweet group pre-debut, and even if that may have been skill based, it was the right placement in more ways than one. in other various bullets, sung mentioned concepts he felt she stood out in most, concepts from other groups he felt like she could pull off well. writing those led to noticing a commonality between many of his additions to have been songs from the latter half of the previous generation of idol music. he could easily see her owning the bright and heady stylization that dominated concepts in 2014 and 2015. of course, the eventual concept direction of the track wasn’t his to choose, but there were inspirations he could pull from that time nonetheless.

the gears, and therefore pen, turned towards sound. from the concept he was thinking of, the sound often focused on aggressive bubblegum pop, but around the same time, there were other sounds popping up. r&b picked up steam, especially in western releases. girl groups and soloists were doing more sexy concepts than recent times. electronic music had also taken a different route from the style that overwhelmed the turn into the 2010s. before, it was very... t-pain, lady gaga style, harsh and overt, autotune used like another drum or keyboard. transitioning within the mid 2010s, he hadn’t seen it used much in idol music, but in the west, a softening of the same styles used earlier in the decade and right before. thinking about it then, that trend did end up coming into idol music, only, much more recently. many group songs of the last couple of years mixed edm in with their music, first in chorus drops, then in chorus anti drops. while he underlined anti drops, he wasn’t sure if it would fit in with this release. alice may be enough a charismatic dancer to fill an empty space, but breaking a song for dance didn’t seem fitting for the ethereal, gentle-souled lyrics he’d been handed. he’d have to come back to that idea later.

after about an hour of writing down different thoughts, and semi-categorizing them by current usability, he decided the place to start was to invoke the underlying energy of mid 2010s pop edm. he shifted to his computer, and started by creating a few different beats. for then, he’d let himself run wild with them, so that like the passage of time, he could soften the sound later into the right era he was looking for. sung drafted up layer after layer of different beats before retiring for the night.

given idol schedules loved to get in the way, it was another few days before he had the time to continue working on the song, though he couldn’t deny that he kept thinking about it over time anyway. mostly, in the vocals. sung couldn’t be sure what the instrumental would sound like yet, and mixing the two was part of the process, but whenever he found himself humming a tune, walking between schedules, in the shower, washing dishes, he’d stop to ask himself if it sounded suitable for alice, and if the answer was yes, he’d record what he’d hummed. so, by the time he got back to the studio, he had gotten a little further in the process than where he’d left it.

he uploaded his humming clips to his computer, though, for the moment, they’d sit almost unused. the first thing he needed to do was look through his beats again, narrow them down, and rework them. looking through them again, a couple were a little too turn of the decade, which made his job easier, though after getting to only a few, the decision became more difficult. instead, he gave them each a trial run, reshaping and adding onto each just a little to see what might be the easiest to turn in the direction he was thinking, in the end leaving him with the victor.

the more he filled out the original beat, though, the more he thought about anti drops, and the more he wondered why he should stick to an exact formula? what constituted a pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, verse, was completely his to decide. with the right amount of stretching in the pre-chorus and chorus, an anti drop could work. it would also be the easiest place to show the song’s inspiration, and give alice some time to breathe, especially since this was her debut. he’d spoken to more than enough other idols who debuted solo and felt like their stamina wasn’t taken into account. sung wanted alice to grow through this release, and whatever came next, but he wanted to be respectful while he did so.

a debut was meant to be a good experience, and if sung had the opportunity to further that in any way, he needed to put in the extra effort to make it great. he really hoped she’d like the piece.

[fmdduri]

famedverification - flu.

character(s) involved: mentions of minjung. about: duri writes the full melody for @minjungfmd’s flu. trigger warnings: n/a. notes: i haven’t written a verification self para in like ... a year so i’m a bit rusty, especially on melodies, but i put my heart into this <3 word count: 891.

duri, in a way, was a bit nervous. he really liked being able to create melodies, and he’s created a lot of melodies for himself. he was well versed in it, especially after he had studied a lot on it, and started to create melodies for his own songs. but, in turn, he has never actually made a melody for someone else to use.  first and foremost, when it came to the creative side, duri was a songwriter - in that way, he has always been really good with words. but, he was also someone that really enjoys challenging himself. so, he had graciously accepted making a melody for someone else - he was always someone to graciously accept everything that came his way, because he’s grateful for everything that he gets. plus, it’s for minjung, who is someone he considers to be a good friend, especially because of the times that she has comforted him when need be. he was ready to take on a brand new challenge. 

he makes his way to his home office, where he does all of his music type of work in that space. it was a rather nice space, that didn’t have any distraction - besides for maybe the large shelves that contained duri’s entire book collection and another that’s filled with albums. but, in hindsight, that was really the only distractions that lingered within the space... and probably the musical instruments that were about. but, that didn’t count because someone of them were going to help - even if he was mostly going to be using the keyboard that sat underneath the desk for when he writes melodies. nonetheless, he was here to get to work. moose had followed him into the space, laying down at his feet underneath the desk. both kangaroo and peanut always liked to listen to the stuff from a distance, never wanting to be directly involved. 

he opens everything up, all the information in his email, and the program that he needed to do his work. that’s something that only, ultimately, takes him a few moments. however, after regaining all the information that he had needed, as well as getting the programs up, he kind of sits there for a few moments. truth be told, he wasn’t entirely sure where he wanted the melody to go, or what he really wanted it to sound like. so, he simply had to take a few moments to sit there, and chose what he should do - what makes the most sense for what he was provided. his fingers tap on the desk, as well as taps on the keyboard itself. 

then, it finally hits him. the song needed to sound whimsical. the sick feeling of falling in love, at least to duri, was whimsical in a way. so, it would make sense to create a whimsical sound for the song and one that would fit minjung’s voice. even so, it make more sense to have a whimsical sound that almost, in a way, was an empty vessel for minjung’s vocals, in some sort of way, and have minjung’s voice carry the whimsical sound of the melody itself. so, duri decided to get to work on this, simply because the inspiration had struck, and he needed to get it out. for this, he decides to mainly use a sequencer.

his fingers touch the sequencer and he plays something for a few moments. but, he scratches that idea and moves onto the next. duri does this over and over again, until he finally decides on what exactly he wanted. he decides that the first few seconds would remain empty, before the melody would actually start. his fingers hit upon different areas of the sequencer to give him the sound that he wants, creating the beginning. he stops it again, leaving it to be silent for a few moments, before his fingers are tapping on the sequencer again. especially, he would be repeating the things over, to create something that was a steady stream. some things would be taken away, then added back in, depending on the section of the song. once he had determined he had everything, he stops the recording.

duri listens back to the melody a few times. of course, being a bit of a perfectionist with music, he’d go in and fix a few things, cut out in areas that he felt would be better to be completely empty to make the whimsical thing a bit more prominent with just vocals. though, in the end, it was a bit more dancey, rather than whimsical. but, even so, duri liked the word, and liked the idea of it feeling whimsical, to be perfectly honest. for a long while, he’d sit there listening to it, going over it, and deciding that this was it. he really looked forward to hearing the melody be mixed with the arrangement and lyrics itself. but, for now, he had just sent it over to minjung and those at gold star media. once that was done, he’d close everything down. 

he’d lean down, petting moose. “want to go watch a movie?” he asked, a soft giggle as moose starting wagging. “come on,” he says, before he leads moose out of the office, shutting the door behind them to go join kangaroo and peanut on the couch.

[fmdxsuji]

summary: suji gets called in to help out with a song date: some time in late june word count: 965 words, excluding the lyrics notes: creative claims (partial lyrics & partial composition) verification self-para for @fmdjiah‘s UR!

promotions for her own mini album have come to an end, and so she doesn’t understand why minwoo’s asking for her to come into his studio. for all she knows, there’s nothing else she has to be preparing for other than equinox’s comeback. 

when she does arrive, she’s met with a few familiar faces. some people who are in-company writers and some who are not. she’s only really close to minwoo and his own crew and so she settles onto his couch before looking upon with a look full of questions. 

“we were just writing some music when we got stuck on the lyrics. i just had to call the best lyricist i know.” his voice is filled with teasing, and she can’t help but chuckle at the way he’s trying to fluff her up. suji doesn’t need him to hype her up like this, but she realizes it’s his way of appreciating her in front of some people that she doesn’t fully recognize. 

“what can i say? i’m a master of lyrics,” she replies before getting handed a piece of paper. it looks like a mock up of the current lyrics so far. there’s some wide gaps in between, and she’s surprised to see that the chorus is pretty much missing. she can empathize since she knows how difficult writing choruses can be, but that only confuses her even more because surely, these professionals can come up with something better than she can. 

taking a quick look at the lyrics, she gets a gist of what the song is mostly about. it’s another love song, like most songs are technically, and the verses that are already written almost seem poetic. it’s a little burdening, but then the composition plays and she gets a peak at the demo. there’s a lot of gibberish that she can’t understand since it’s meant to give her a taste of how the melody and composition goes. she’s quickly humming and singing along until they get to where she assumes is the chorus because that’s completely empty. 

there’s lots of references to light and the sun. the story seems to be alluding to this love being the light of their life. “cause you are,” she begins to almost sing as she starts scribbling down some lyrics onto the clipboard in her hand. 

the light that fell on me you are, like a beautiful dream

there’s one too many eyes on her for her to feel comfortable, but the lyrics don’t take too long to come to her. immediately, she can recognize it as one of those parts that will get finished right away. she thinks that’s something that just happens with songwriters, and she always feels lucky whenever that aha moment comes to her. 

with seven rays the whole world is dyed even more beautifully always, you are

as if she’s finished some big deed, she taps her pen down once she’s done jotting down the lyrics. hanging it back to minwoo, she asks for the demo to play again. 

there’s some kind of humming when the bit that’s supposed to be the chorus comes out, but she can tell that nothing’s really complete. it’s a little odd seeing that the rest of the song seems to be pretty much finished, and they’ve figured out a good part of the melody too. however, once again, she understands how picky choruses can get and how they’re usually the part that needs the most focus.

“what happened to the instrumental in the chorus?” she inquires while taking a look around the room. 

“we couldn’t agree on whether we should keep the piano in the background or go for something different. it seems a little too stagnant if we kept it through for so long.” 

suji’s not sure if she agrees. while she’s absolutely certain that the people in this room have a lot more experience when it comes to writing songs, she can also confidently say that she has the experience of performing such songs. if she wasn’t told beforehand that the song was in the makes for someone else, she’d almost have mistaken it as a gift to her from minwoo and his crew. 

a song like this one where the focus seems to be on the vocals, a good piano accompaniment can be all that’s really needed. “i don’t think so. i say keep the piano but just change the way it’s being played. like the chorus is meant to be sound like a build up without sounding too different, right? you can just change the dynamic and maybe add some more prominent strings? that might help it sound a little different.” 

to this day, she doesn’t really consider herself a composer or a producer. the thing she’s most confident in is lyrics, but she’s heard a good number of songs in her life to have opinions. in a flash, minwoo has accounted for her opinions and plays the track once more. 

once it comes on, she finds herself singing along with the lyrics she had jotted down not too long ago. it takes a few turns, but she seems to settle down on a melody that fits with what was going on in the verses. 

“might as well sing the demo for us or something, suji. you’re doing all the work here anyway.” with a laugh, she shakes her head but she does continue singing it so minwoo can get a grasp on how it’s supposed to go. “once you get to the lat chorus, you can change the melody a little. ballads like this need a little more towards the end since, as you said, it can get a little repetitive. whoever sings this is gonna have to belt out some notes.” suji’s practically implying that she’s glad it’s not her. what she did to herself in fine was already enough. 

“thanks for your help, suji. we might just go with this.” 

“any time.”

[fmdmichelle]

The first line she wrote to this song came to her on an airplane. Amongst the clouds, at witching hour, two cocktails in, it hit her, and she frantically searched for something to write it down with so she didn’t lose it; scribbling it haphazardly on one of the napkins she was given with her beverages. “People are together and they stare at me. ‘Where is he?’” It sounded so simple at the time, but she knew that, with all she’d been going through, she could build upon it more whenever she was seated in front of her piano back at home. In the comfort of her space, with a heart as heavy as her’s had been, she could begin to unfold the meaning of the line like it were the petals of a flower—allowing it to bloom organically with her heart and soul taking the place of sunshine, and rain. That, however, was a few years ago, and though she’s tried her best to complete it since then, she’s picked it up and put it back down many times; it taking its time to sparkle beneath her beams and fully blossom.

She knows that it’s a vulnerable piece, and she thought that that’s why nothing was coming of it; blaming it on fear of unpacking the feelings she felt then. Though, as it’s been awhile since she read through the first verse she wrote, she realized that that wasn’t the answer. No, instead of her being afraid to tap back into that mindset, it’s more that she’s moved on from it completely—finding it hard to reconnect when it was yesterday’s heartache. That realization gave her an idea, though. What if she picked up where she left off with new eyes? What if she infused how she felt back then with how she feels now; with the fresh feelings she’s enduring? It lit a flame within her soul once more, and as she sits before her piano, she’s allowing her heart to do the talking—her fingers covered in ink markings from the tip of her pen after hours of scratching out lines and replacing them with others, and reorganizing the verses, and choruses, so that they flow, and sound coherent; so they tell a story.

Wanting to hear it in full, Michelle straightens her posture and begins to play the introduction; allowing it to run for four bars before she sings.

❝ You left me in this big world... You surely knew that I’d be totally alone in this place... People are together, they stare at me— ‘Where is he?’ ❞

She sings that line and half-smiles; feeling proud of it somehow.

❝ You left me with no choice, So I chose the way of locking up the door, So no one could tear it apart again. I slammed it hard, for you to hear, But I left my window open... ❞

That part speaks to her in a way she can’t exactly describe, especially since when she jotted it down, she was thinking of a certain moment in time that only took place a couple months back. All she wanted was for this person to hear her cries despite being so guarded from them, and it caused confusion in both herself and her stance in their relationship. She knows deep down that she should’ve been more vocal about her state of mind, but it was a difficult situation to navigate; and honestly still is.

❝ You were not part of me, You were my everything— Everything we had was the dream of my childhood... Yeah, I wanted a family. ❞

The chorus pained her to write; an admission that, while they weren’t together in a romantic sense, he was still her everything. He reminded her so much of home when she needed it the most, and she cherishes him for that. She always will.

❝ You were not part of it, You are the everything— Isn't that your reason why You want me to stay? I can't live without you in this big world. ❞

He’s still everything. She can’t live without him. She wonders if he really knows that, and she’s unsure if it makes her pathetic or not, but she can’t help if it’s her truth.

❝ You left me in this dark place... Didn't even have room in your heart for my last words, But my sad-face... For you it was a happy-face, To hide my tears away from you. ❞

Another section that hurt to face head-on. It’s cathartic and therapeutic to explore such deep emotions in this way, but it also resurfaces the pain that was felt. This verse references the day she confessed her true feelings to him, and he ran away from her. Instead of conveying how it made her feel then, she kept a straight face until he left—not wanting to cause anymore harm to him then she already had.

❝ The scars too deep; The deaths too painful. Not strange at all— In this big, messy, cruel world we live in.

But I had you, Yeah, I had you. Ever since I met you I finally had feelings— Small hopes and little wishes— I had you. ❞

It’s no secret that the current state of the world is somewhat grim. It’s not a surprise to her that tragedy is still befalling people—herself included. Each new trying time leaves scars on her heart and soul. However, through most of these moments, she’s had him to lean on. He made her feel seen, and whole, even in her darkest hours; even if he has no idea. She met him when she was new to Korea, when she genuinely felt like a fish out of water with no one to talk to, or relate to, and in a sense, he gave her hope that everything was going to be okay; that she was going to be okay.

❝ You were not part of me, You were my everything— Everything we had was the dream of my childhood... Yeah, I wanted a family.

You were not part of it, You are the everything— Isn't that your reason why You want me to stay? I can't live without you in this big world. ❞

It concludes with a repetition of the chorus; softening from the vocal climax of the bridge—the big belted note she decided to add in for dynamics, flavor, and emotion. When she’s done with the run-through, her fingers lift from the keys and return to her lap; a deep breath following suit as she deals with the weight of of her words. After hours of revisions, scratching out lines, and reworking the structure of each lyric, Michelle finally feels as though she’s finished it, and as draining as it is to have performed it due to the exhaustion she feels, she feels proud of herself for picking the song back up. It’s definitely one that she feels good about unveiling, even if it’s such a personal piece. Needing a break, she downs the last of her cuppa chamomile and decides to retire; needing a deep slumber to recover from her impassioned journey.

[taeyongfmd]

— ballroom extravaganza.

date: spring 2022.

word count: 1937 words.

summary: -

notes: verification for ballroom extravaganza. would love to say this is proofread but i’ve taken that word out of my vocabulary and i’ve just come to accept it now.

when ash auditions for dimensions entertainment, he’s thinking little beyond abstract visions and a hazy passion. he has little greed for being famous. when he thinks about what he wants out of a life as a ���pop star’, there are no visions of fans screaming when they see a sliver of his face peeking out from between a hat pulled low and a mask pulled high at the airport or trends of his name on social media. he doesn’t really think about how he fits into it at all, only how his music does. signing a contract with a record label means a chance at people listening to his music one day beyond the snippets he shares with his music teachers and his friends.

when he’s not yet thirteen, being a singer means making music and being heard. it has nothing to do with media training or diets or injecting toxins and acid into his skin for the sake of beauty.

he doesn’t know much about dimensions entertainment itself either, other than the simple fact that they make music out of their headquarters in seoul and when he searches the internet for them, he gets results for artists that are clearly legitimately putting out music. it’s not some scam company with nothing to show for the auditions they hold. he may not have heard of any of the artists names, but he has albums to show to his parents to convince them to let him audition, and that’s enough. he evens adds a few arrest songs to his playlist, despite his inability to understand most of what they’re saying in their songs.

at the time, he has no inkling that in his first weeks in seoul, when he tells people through elementary korean that dimensions was his first audition and he chose them without trying anywhere else, they’ll respond with a skeptical look with a meaning he won’t understand until he’s had more time to grow in his understanding of the dynamics of the industry. 

appearing on next generation isn’t enough to get people to really care about his music. polaris doesn’t do much more than cover songs on next generation and their presence in their pre-debut days seems poised to establish their personalities more than anything. there’s not much personality to latch onto in a boy composed of long silences and awkward attempts to escape the camera’s gaze.

the first taste ash gets of the very thing he’d thrown himself into the cyclone of idoldom for isn’t until years after he’d begun, when he stays up all night to watch the reactions of fans to the first song on melon bearing his name in the credits, but it isn’t until i need u that the awareness that he’s finally getting to do what he’d always wanted to hits. though he’d had to move an ocean away, learn a new language, and battle through years of being forced into a mold he never could quite squeeze into, he’s writing music and singing it and people are listening. at that point, it’s an audience mostly kept captive by all the trappings of an idol boy group, but it’s an audience listening and he doesn’t let it take away from the feeling of glory that they might not all be there because they care what he has to say through his music. 

that feeling is the feeling that keeps any of it worth it for as long, and yet still as fleeting a moment in the grand scheme of things, as it does. debuting solo and emptying out everything that’s built up renews it somewhat, but it fades quicker. no original high can ever be truly replicated, but he chases it to the ends of the earth nonetheless.

somewhere between nineteen and twenty-four, writing becomes a nonstop marathon. in a way, his very first song for polaris had taken him sixteen years to write. in the same way, his very first solo album had taken him nearly twenty years to write. it’d been the build-up of his entire youth that had birthed it. childhood and distance and sweat and first love and wanderlust, it had all been bottled into a single album to signal the emotions of his youth to the masses, his very own bildungsroman. everything since then had been ending one chapter to launch immediately into the next. he’d cross the finish line, but all he’d get was a pat on the back to take off on the next leg. it burns him out, turns love into stumbling over his own feet as his lungs collapse, his heart left lying on the asphalt where it had burst out of his chest years before.

his whole body starts going numb on the leg of the race that leads up to his fourth album. there are expectations now of what he’ll do. he’ll pen tracks about love and heartbreak over a stripped acoustic instrumental or croon over a thick and silky beat. giving everyone what they want in his music becomes a shield he holds up to try to keep them from aiming their barbs at him personally, but it’s a useless venture when the shield is made of nothing more than tissue paper.

his legs finally give out and dimensions wheels in barricades to obstruct the vision of his crumpled body from the public, but when he comes back, he doesn’t come back the person he’d been before he’d left. he’s missing something now — perhaps his heart that’s dried out miles back on the concrete in the midday sun. the air is hotter than ever as polaris rockets closer to the blazing center of a supernova and he falls yet again, and his stumbles become harder to shuffle away into some back corner, both to the public and to himself.

it’s a miracle that blacklight comes to him at all.

but whether it’s something like a miracle or not, ash doesn’t believe in them, much less bank on their reoccurence.

by the time spring is unfurling the buds on cherry blossom trees in a new year, he’s resolved not to force music out of himself if it doesn’t come. he’s been there before, trying to dig into the desert to find a well of life water sprung anew, but determination to do something isn’t enough to make something out of nothing. 

he’s mostly writing for others these days, but the guitar chords that spring to life as he sits on the couch of his studio are too heavy with the emotion of his own reflection for that to be their fate this time. they’re a trickling waterfall of notes at first and he lets them sit on the pads of his fingers as he repeats them. there’s an itch to reach for the computer and get every hint of something recorded so that he can turn it into dimensions, but he holds himself off from the greed to bleed himself dry for the sake of validation from those who see the calluses on his fingers as nothing but a sign of coming fuller bank accounts.

the truth is, no matter how much ash plays and records and empties himself, a day will come when his name is nothing but a footnote. everything polaris drops these days glides to the top of the charts and floats its way to dozens of more awards for dimensions shelves, but he remembers the night in jeju when it’d first settled into his bones that ears will one day turn from his just as the eyes do. there are few who get anyone to listen as long as he already has. what more will he have to offer in five years, a decade? music has long been the source of his confidence, but he’s seen now how easily what had once felt like an endless well can be stripped from him.

if he doesn’t have that, what does he have at all? who is ash kwon and what lives inside of him if not music waiting to be distilled?

he thinks his prime may already be behind him. it hasn’t been the same since that fall before lovesick and he hasn’t been the same since that summer away from seoul in jeju. he’s twenty-four, but he’s been working at this for over a decade, which is longer than most who step into the industry last. it will break him down one day or he’ll be cast out. the worst of all, he imagines, would be to be forgotten.

because, really, what does he have other than the fraying hope that if he keeps writing music, someone will keep listening?

it’s not sadness in the melody he repeats and builds and bends in the air around him in the studio, but something he can’t quite put a name to. not quite emptiness, not quite silent resignation.

after a while, he lets himself pull out his phone and record the melody he’s been turning over in his head.

when he listens back, he’s reminded of ‘nerves’ at first and he wonders if he should pitch it into the deleted files of his phone. becoming a one trick pony pumping out the same song over and over again is one way to lose his spark. (some would say he’d crossed that line already years ago, and a calling card is nothing more than a boring formula.)

he lets the music sit in his phone for a while, but on nights alone, he comes back to it. even when he’s not in his studio, he brings it up when he’s scouring for food in his kitchen or laying and looking at the ceiling of his bedroom. 

it feels so blacklight, with the guitar and the detached vocal melody he can hear over it in his head. he’d hinted that there was more to the world he’d built with blacklight, but he’d never been quite sure if he could commit to ever sharing that more. he doesn’t know how much of himself there is to bare in such a dark reflection of his own psyche in the vulnerability of mass consumption.

but then, what else is he supposed to write about?

he’s getting ahead of himself. one song doesn’t mean a whole album. he takes the moment for what it is and makes a song. one song. that’s what he has at the moment, and thinking too far ahead will only drain him more.

crying guitar layers itself between the dying heartbeats of drum rhythms and thunder rolls over rainfalls. his own voice becomes an instrument, as it often does, an ominous wave of vocalization in between the columns of instrumental crescendo.

he’s written about the fear of fading a few times in his life, but it’s always the lurking shadow, never what comes after. it’s only natural he look at what could come and fear it, but the best stories are told about what happens after the apocalypse, not before it. and he’s seen a glimpse of that afterworld in his own mirror.

in writing, he lets himself turn and look that lurking monster in the face.

when the story comes to an end, will it be the same again?

he sees himself singing on the remnants of a stage that’s been completely demolished. a fire dies in the background, having already consumed until it had its fill. the sky falls in pieces and ash stands in the center of it. he screams until every emotion flies out of his chest, up his throat, and fills the skies with its dark wings.

and no one hears him.

[heyheyheyyyyyybb]

Mmmmmmmmm you turn me on you do

[gyujeongfmd]

famed verification — missing you

summary — writes the song sometime in 2018, picks it back up to use on his album four years later. warnings — none wc — 1860 (not including lyrics)

it starts with a whistle.

the no bullshit of overproduced music or too many notes jammed across the screen of a computer.

it’s the tune he whistles empty-minded, strolling through the corridors of gold star, his home. the streets, the late night pull of coffee. and to a degree, it’s almost as if he’s in his own romantic comedy as the star gallant in distress — going through the woes of living life in a bustling city he can’t seem to comprehend.

instead, he shelters himself in the safe haven of his studio, presumably as a getaway from the schedules and nonstop promotions of whatever song’s he’s supposed to be crooning to on stage. sometimes, he uses imagination for his own matters — an escape to pretend like he isn’t tethered to a company that doesn’t give the slightest damn.

young. that’s what he calls age nineteen — now, in retrospect, the age just seems like sheer misery. especially when he’s sitting down on the same chair he should’ve replaced eons ago, writing the same songs for the same company willing to eat him whole if it meant an extra buck in their pockets. how he manages to keep on going? beats him, and he swears it’s just a matter of habit at this point.

habit, sure.

exactly why he’s sitting down writing a poppy song that seems so far out of the constraints that he’s held to in regards to music. usual choppy beat patterns with the mix of occasional trap, excessive autotune that smears the melody into a cacophony of just sheer sound, incoherent words. yet, somehow, he’s nearing the end of his twenties, writing a song that starts with that damn whistle he’s been recording for the past hour.

and with any pop song, he knows it’s the keys next. sure, that’s how it always goes when his brains racked haywire — he’s lost any creativity to diverge into anything different. instead, he just starts punching in chords like it’s nothing. minor, major. duos. triplets, and through a series of mixed takes, he ends up with a duet of electric guitars and the mash of keys — all scrawled up the screen.

save for later, he’ll finish it another day.

another day comes when he needs another escape. a quick excuse composed of: sorry, i have to get back to the studio. works like a charm each time, and he echoes on like a broken record when the only pieces left of an easy way out’s the void of the percussion. 

there’s an easier way out, he knows. knows enough that he’s saved some mediocre cliche baseline to the line of presets in logic, and now, it’s just a mellow cliche pile of bullshit he’s created. (he pretends it takes longer to create than it does, kills time with nicotine and the constant back and forth path to the coffee machine).

contrary to popular belief, settling that image of a ‘creative’ artist’s easier than what meets the eye. 

it’s forcing each piece together, each preset and string of chords. the beat reminiscent of whatever pop replays on the top ten charts, rotating through the speakers lining the streets of busy seoul. an addition of a steady piano line, highlighted with the primitive outlines of an electric guitar — boom, you’ve got yourself the next best steady seller (at least, what he can manage on his end). so, by the time the piece is done, and he stamps his piece on another track seemingly ready to enter the conveyer belt of gold star’s possessions, he knows — he better use the remaining time well.

the song done, already playing in the back. (he doesn’t bother to double check, no alterations needed. it’s a dead piece, signed haon.) his eyes catching a glimpse of the time — about three hours he can milk and pin the excuse on ‘buffered artistic freedom’. and all of this bullshit turns into an escape — the only way he learns to manage a slip away from the world he signed onto.

-

he calls it a funk when he’s in the loop hole of singsonging each melody one by one. a funk when he swears he hasn’t sold his soul completely, and isn’t an empty outline of what he used to be — giving the same sort of beat that coincides with the back track of a song. the cheap way out, and he’s damned if he isn’t a sell out now.

it’s all about contradictions in the industry. play the game right, and you survive. if not? well, you land in the same predicament he sees himself in now: on the tail end of his golden twenties, writing songs for a shit company. all while pretending he’s a golden product on display, happy. satiated. full.

the songs turn into meaningless nothings, and it’s a probable cheap shoot out for another group. in that case, he turns into logistics — following the patterns of everything outlined before. the top ten? he listens. easily, it turns into a quick fix of mismatched notes, punched together in a cheery pop tune. the melody doesn’t stray far from its roots, and the back track drowns out any distinctiveness of the words spoken.

note taken.

he copies and pastes method one, humming to an empty mic. it can’t be called rap, can’t be called singing. an easy pass for the token member of a group who offers nothing but cheeky looks and winks to a moving camera and carefully calculated choreography. (no shits given, he takes the first few cuts, and chops it up to fit the fragments into a puzzle on a screen).

see, the finicky thing about creating group music is in the details. weaknesses, strengths. masking each inadequacy enough that it’s failed to be seen through the movements on stage. but he’s given to boundaries or lines, no group in mind nor the tone deaf features of its members. instead, it all lies in the possibilities. possibilities for another paycheck cashed, royalties becoming a matter of survival — the only morsel of hope keeping him afloat when he finally reaches some semblance of liberation.

no outlines, no rules. so, he’ll continue down, revving up the hums in a tongue-twister of beats, dancing between the lines of singing and rapping. 

for an issue of creative blocks when he’s rambling through the same patterns for what feels like hours, there’s another cure. it’s the punch-first effect of singing a melody, smack-dab in a middle of a song that drones out the same.

gyujeong takes his pitch a notch higher, still no words form on his mouth. (today’s a day for the creative process — or at least, he tells himself.) warped words to a slowed down melody, mellowed out, still stagnant to the whistling patterns echoed in the beginning. one space bar down, he pauses the take — repeat. 

call it being a workaholic because he’s far from a perfectionist.

there’s take two where he subdues the melody, rolls it down to a slower beat. another take, and he fleshes out the beginnings with another iteration of the high-pitched hum echoing through the mic — internally, he’s lamenting over the fact he’s given the slightest damn to a song that doesn’t mean shit in the end.

he’s a creature of habit. this habit, he works.

a lazy yawn escapes his lips, the finale to the take that’s finally dented a sense of suitability for what he’s envisioned in his mind. a gut feeling that can’t be ignored: he’s sold his soul. waived his rights, and now, he’s on the one-lined path to creating ddandara music for nobody who gives a fuck.

-

it’s three am. and he really shouldn’t be on this downhole mess of old songs written circa 2019. somehow, he manages on the screen going through each half-assed recording of ideas, rushed songs written too quickly and passed over with no polishing. instead, it’s just choppy — evidence of how too many americanos in one night leads to a lapse of judgement, and a finite amount of creative freedom.

under the layers of shit songs, one after another, he recalls the recording. a peculiar recording with no coherent name — titled: eatshitgoldstar.wav. the title’s enough to garner the first crack of a smile he’s given in days, and curiosities triggered the double click to listen.

he leans back on his chair, languid and lazy. hour four or five he’s been in the same position, imprinting his spine on this chair he really ought to be replacing sooner or later — still, save that for another day because tonight, he’s dousing his self-woes and misery in the bitter taste of shitty songs he’s written.

thirty seconds in, he’s ready to turn that shit off. a mumbled mess of whatever he was trying to say that night completely obliterated with how the melody syncs with the backtrack, and he deems it one of his finest pieces to go in the trash. yet, something inherent like a moth to flame keeps him listening till minute two.

what the hell, he’s got nothing to lose. he listens to its end.

the whistle’s like a mindless thought buzzing through his head, and keen judgement should scrap it. re-write it to something worth substance. but there’s just something he can’t articulate as the melody reverberates through his mind — it’s catchy. it’s taken a piece of interest. he brings open another vocal layer, and turns the mic back on.

now, it’s a matter of puzzle placement.

despite how many open pieces and fill in the blanks he’s left with the mumbling jargon pressed into the melody of the song, he’ll take it over the melancholy of heartbreak and never-ending line of tears he’s wasted.

the tears pass, and the melancholy remains through the only explicit thought ringing in his mind. 

maybe, i’m missing you 

it echoes, drags on. repeats in sequence one line to the next, right in the middle of the song. in any other sense, he could attempt another concept — avant guard in the imagery of the lyrics. in retrospect, the only thing he can iterate over and over is the jab in his gut that mirrors the same sentiment echoed into the mic.

there’s no halfassing the song at this point, not when he’s already pulled out the notepad from the corner of his desk and the pen strewn on the other side. the end of the pen tapping against the quick-paced beat of the line, he turns again and again to each point of honesty. (the mask unravels. he’s let all guards down. truth prevails)

memories of you and i, i thought were always good only misunderstandings that weren’t cleared up and scars remained, and i hated it i knew i should have held in the words ‘let’s break up’ till the end but the days we used to fight and argue are way better than now

it starts with the cliche, grass is greener on the other side. ends with how he stands on the other front, looking in — the grass scorched with the heat of the summer sun. withering away into hues of yellow. it’s only how he reckons, the beginning brought a sensibility of warmth sans the faux extension of the sun. 

a few more words scratch against the top of the notepad. solitude no longer synonymous with liberation, instead it rakes in the waves of desolation.

(post-breakup, and he can’t salvage anything besides a few shitty songs).

[minjungfmd]

celebrity creative claims verification

summary — a gift for someone, now seeing the light of day warnings — none wc — 1936 (not including lyrics)

“i don’t want this song on my album.” 

firm, and unwavering. her voice dims down low before a pivot on her toes, and a stomp out the door. her line’s drawn, and it’s the boundaries of the song written as a gift from the start — a recipient who’s only a fragment left in her memories.

-

(dated sometime in 2019) (first iteration)

it starts early night, how she’s cooped up in the apartment. old ragged hoodie sized too big, something she’s stole from the nook of his closet during the early morning wake-up, and the tip-toe coffees. she holds it close, knees hugged to her chest with the hoodie wrapping over. the iterations of the melody lines itself as a soft ballad, fluid in how the motions from one note to the next wrap itself into a somber hug akin to the morning blanket that hugs your body during a fall night.

no words yet, but she knows the words already write themselves with the person in mind.

the piano notes trickle from little chords to notes, succinct with how she tapers her voice to hum along the background. it stays choppy like a soft staccato that has no direction between the bellowing emphasis from the ending notes, the beginnings with the smoothening of the middle lines.

it’s the stronger definition of how the melody punches itself into the song. a contradiction to the somber ballads she’s written of the past — it preaches the opposite: a celebratory cheer up with the bunched up notes that burst at the seams of the song.

she’s never pressed her voice in this far. yet, the iteration stays with the way her voice falls surreptitiously into front stage center of the track.

and when she leans back, she’s not sure what she has. a mixture of sounds weighing from the light-soft of a ballad. and the next, a poppier punch to the up-beat pattern of her voice picking up its pace, in line with the stronger touch of the percussion oozing in with the piano. a conundrum, and she leaves it at that

-

weeks past, and it turns into nothing but little tweaks. here and there with the sounds of her mousepad clicking into the next trance of sounds — turns out, weeks off. a vacation, no comebacks, no anything results in the formation of overworking for a project never to seize the outside speakers. instead, it halts inside the echoes of her apartment, the sounds one by one finalizing into a pattern of what she wants to convey: a cheer-up ode.

no rhyme or reason for how she postulates the connections, nor how she rationalizes the melting sounds of each instrument piecing together one by one. 

and she’s nothing more than an outline of what her past discography says. the same slow-moving sounds in a melody-focused song. the one-way mold she knows. starts off with the same instruments, the same choppy progressions. all the way into the languid pull of the melody floating together pieces of the song — a cliche? a cheap shot? an easy gift. no, maybe. she hasn’t decided that much yet. for now, she continues on humming the melody that’s engrained in her head, not budging one way or the next. it rambles on as her mumbles fall to the shift of her chin — if anything, she makes note to get back to it later. least, that’s how it always goes.

-

it’s another shut in day, and she leans back on her chair. presses play to the backtrack taking over. eyes to ceiling, eyes close — she hums, piecing together another facet to a song unfinished.

“i’m having a bad streak lately.” “the public hates me.” “my company wants me to lay low.” “i don’t feel like eating.”

it all transcribes into excuse after excuse. a downtrodden heart, plagued in grays balancing the weight of public opinion on one shoulder while the other droops down, shielded from the rest of the world. in turn, she renders herself useless. nothing helps, no words to trigger a domino effect of joys, nor any food in the world to suffice as a pick-me-up. instead, all she has in her hand are the melodies she paints in yellows and the words, at the very least, to transform into a makeshift balm for the wounds punctured deep.

you’re my celebrity

cliche, maybe. how she’s wrestling in the day-to-day panic of being caught in the public eye. sunglasses, masks, hats — the only guise to conceal any trace of who she is. yet, job duties call and she’s thrusted into a world where cameras and mic packs that dig too deep are the norm. human figments on the television now an arm’s length away, the charm of being star struck dulls down when it stabilizes into the new assimilation of life.

so, maybe that’s what makes him different. different in how she sees the world, feels the giddiness in her heart lilt up a step with each hello and every goodbye. all the stars around, and yet only one fails to negate the dulling-process monotony rakes in. 

from the silly expressions, off-handle comments. the jokes her father would make to the pinpoint outfits that could spot him a mile away, it’s all charming. all endearing, all humanizing — she learns by being an observer. wonders, how it is to be blind to a situation where he’s center.

don’t forget among the cloudy days you’re a star painted with a left hand can’t you see how beautiful a true uniqueness can be?

but lately, he’s looking nothing like a vessel. and she’s once again reminded the limits of humanity, and how her words no longer offer the crutch of support. no longer the precipice of comfort — instead, the only thing she can do is sit and watch. the smile dulls down, and his laughter doesn’t pierce like it’s used to. cut down by the revolt of public outcry for a small mistake, and now — he’s painted a martyr. an example of public enemy number one. (some how, he manages to keep his head held high in the light of flashes. it only wears down behind the scenes).

so, she writes a song. melody in one hand, the other weapon in her right the pen. tracing down each word to who he is, and how she draws him.

she draws him in gold and ivory. laced down to the wire of what she calls home. her own celebrity, where she pools her own love. collects each fragment and locks the memory away as a keepsake for later. 

your weary face looks like someone powdered you off, the heartbeat went too quiet

you have no idea, still not fully bloomed written for you (a bygone love poem)

with the nib of the pen still on paper, her fingers tracing the lines of the melody in her air, it’s still a resolution of helplessness sighed out into the silence. a song, her best bet a collection of words and the soft spoken words of her heart — honesty, she’s whispered time and time again inside early mornings. (he doesn’t hear her. too wrapped up in his own head). 

-

so, when she finally unveils her piece. same position: knees hugged to her chest, pressed close. chin rested on her knees, and she holds the same quaint anticipation following the last few seconds left on the track. her eyes hover towards kiyong, lips pursed together and eyes shot open.

no words, context clues pick up. a hint of: what’d you think?

she sits in the eyes of the observer, her chin tilted right. the prediction unclear, everything’s a variable.

he leans back, palms pressed against the floor. dead-pan face of empty-headed thinking soon transforms into a wide-grin, eyes creased. an expression that feels novel by now (her heart jumps, but she remains stoic.).

“thank you.”

her lips stretch wider, enthusiasm building on the tip of her tongue. “do you feel better?”

“it’d be a crime if i didn’t.” 

his smile dulls down, silence ticks. she takes the clue. “what’s wrong now?”

“you know.. i like edm a lot. ballads are nice, but i like edm a lot these days — ever think about making an edm song? you know, boo booo boom with laser lights?”

“you know, you’re essentially saying that if i warp this song into an edm song, you’ll feel better?”

he nods his head up and down, quickly. a realization that this extends beyond a joke, half-meant to be taken seriously. and she takes the bait with how she throws a pillow, her body back on the couch in tune to the loud groan that extends the obvious: she’ll be back in her studio first thing in the morning.

-

(second iteration)

so, it starts the second time. this time, distractions forming in the rustles of the kitchen — the late night ramen stowed for moments like this. her hands on the mouse, once more. the inspiration dawning from the beat overload she hears from calvin harris and swedish house mafia (any other reason, and she wouldn’t ever bear to house the hefty beats in the room of her studio).

but love makes you do crazy things, and she pleads insanity.

insanity in how she rips up the chorus from the middle, buffering each sign of celebrity with a cut-up repetition. sounds foreign, a genre no longer tailored to her safety house of soothing guitars, pianos and the light percussions. today, renders the opposite effect. 

it starts with the heavy bass placed in, the reverberations bleeding in through the speakers. the essence still holds stationary when she keeps the piano chords, only embellishing through the snare drums spread out through the end.

(introspectively, she examines whether she knows what she’s doing: answer’s obvious, she doesn’t).

instead, it takes in pieces of what edm she knows, the minuscule definitions leading to the heavy synth. synth heavy, that makes the bread and butter of an edm song — at least, that’s what she picks up when she’s spent hours listening to too much calvin harris in the past hour. the chorus takes in for the same turn how she slows down the vocal sample from her own voice, skews the tone deeper. 

it turns into a mismatch of puzzle solving, an on-site problem thinker: she’s never been on. yet, here she, toying with the different settings on a screen with no end point in sight. the vocal stays steady throughout the breadth of the song, that much she knows — the bolster of the main melody that strings together the song. 

she presses play, leads to the cacophony of noise defined foreign. the noise’s enough to cast her away into the notes, ignorant to the footsteps following into the room. and when she feels like she’s being watched, she turns slightly to the sofa behind her, greeted with nothing more than the scent of ramen permeating through the room.

“is that the new song?”

she nods her head, takes the chopsticks from his hand. 

“see, edm does sound good — this is my point that i should start helping you with music.”

her eyes roll, and she points her stare. “and that would be the equivalent of me deciding to be your co-star on a drama. do you see it’d be a lose-lose for both of us.”

-

stomach full, and now she’s waging an impending food hangover when she steps back into the desk. positive review from the only source that matters, and she’s back to the fixtures of deciphering key after key in a learn-as-you-go distortion of the original song. by the time she’s done, the first iteration leaves nothing more than the skeleton to the new — the outlines full force, but filled with electronic noise. 

a search for something new comes in new ways, the last way she’d expect from the start. 

[bavariansecretsociety]

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[fmdtaeyong]

— as if the ending is already decided.

date: spring 2021-ish. word count: 607 words, excluding lyrics. summary: you’ve heard of ash whining over npc ex #1, now get ready for ash whining over npc ex #2 ! notes: writing verification for lyrics to jiah’s “foresight dream”.

he hasn’t seen yumi in a year when they cross paths. last time they’d seen one another, it’d be harsh words and cold shoulders, accusations that were thrown back and forth like sharpened knives and none of the making it up to each other they usually did so quickly.

like the night he’d met her, he’s supposed to be the center of attention, the ambassador of the brand, the resident guest of honor, but he’s shrinking away from the crowd that approaches him one at a time out of obligation. she shines far more brilliantly in the spotlight than he does, but he’d always loved her best when they were in a world no one else could enter.

he shouldn’t be thinking about their past at all. he hasn’t caught her looking his way once and he refuses to put any weight in the rumors that swirl around her at all times, but he’s heard she’s seeing someone else now.

the ink speckling her collarbone above the neckline of her dress draws his eye across the room and for a moment stopped in time, he’s brought back to the night he’d pressed her against the railing of the balcony at that bar in tokyo, head dizzy with vodka and the taste of her lips, and encouraged her to get it. it blurs into all of the times he’d pressed kisses to it after.

had he known then they’d fall apart as everything else seemed to, or had he really thought they’d be any different from every time before?

the thought clings to him the whole night as he takes careful steps to avoid her so they aren’t accidentally pulled into the same conversation and only lets it settle into his mind when he’s in the back of the car driven by his manager on the way home. he pulls up the notes on his phone and writes by the light of the screen itself and the lights of the city illuminating the blackness outside of the car window.

the flickering street lights will lose their light soon the sickly sweet moment is a fantasy from a long nightmare

he’d like to say he’d still been naive back then. in some ways, compared to the present, he had been, but he hadn’t been a kid when they met. neither of them had been ignorant to the realities of love when they’d started and that’s why they’d never been anything permanent. from day one, he’d resisted and she’d never questioned it, and that’s why he’d fallen so hard. who thinks of needing a safety net when they’re convinced they’ve avoided the tightrope entirely?

he knows better now. before her, he’d written about dreams of forever, but dreams are fleeting subconscious imaginations.

love. it’s a funny thing. to deny the rush of passion is to deny truth itself, but no high will ever be as good as the first and when it dies out, you’re left standing sober in the middle of an empty street.

don’t you think it’ll be over once the butterflies wear out? it will cool off as fast as we passionately loved each other

he hadn’t tried to approach her because he knows it’s over. even if it starts again, it will end in time. yeseo had been the one to teach him that.

sitting in his studio in the early morning, he rounds the sharp edges on the words he’d written into something more palettable. he’s inked this feeling into song so many times now, a periodic injection of reality to kill that filthy blossom of idealism that sits in his chest waiting for its chance to bloom again.

it all ends the same, he reminds himself, which is to say it all ends eventually. he writes the words for the him of thirteen, of nineteen, of twenty-one, of twenty-four, of now.

they could all use a reminder.

i want to believe but i keep getting scared if i’m left again i don’t think i can heal again

[fmdjoosungarchive]

location: dms n gs practice rooms

date: feb or march i dont make the rules

word count: 538

tldr; partial choreo for gyu’s any song (the meta of this is hilarious ik)

when sung had heard from his manager than gold star representatives were wanting to speak with him, sung froze. he couldn’t think of what they might want from him, so of course his mind jumped to some kind of reprimand for leaving too many water bottles around when he was fifteen.

as one of his biggest surprises, they were asking for him to create a choreography for one of their soloists, haon. sung had had situations in the past where idols themselves had asked him to create something for them, in which case that question was then brought up the ranks before anything got done, or there were situations where he created something, and it just happened in the lap of another company, but never before had he been requested by a company other than dimensions.

gold star media, at that.

briefly, he’d wondered if it meant that after all of these years, and what success he and quantum had managed together, they finally trusted and believed in him and his capabilities. those thoughts only lasted a short period, though, before sung pushed them away. there was no real sense in it; he’d never get his answer.

after all of the meetings had passed, and the papers had been signed, the first thing sung did was get haon’s number so that he could call him. often, when sung was tasked to create a piece of work for someone else, he wanted to check in, see what their preferences were, if they had any, and feel out the overall situation. although he wasn’t a big fan, a good chunk of the time he had those calls, he was met with apathy. facing the knowledge that so many idols didn’t like being idols --anyway. haon wasn’t all that different. sung tried his best to read between the lines, and came away with that he was looking for something simple, and easy, which were two words sung would almost never use to describe his style of choreographing.

however, sung was open to the challenge.

the song stood on the foundation of a popping, upbeat set of piano plucks, and like most other hip hop songs, added slapping beat to keep the time register. it had a groove to it, naturally, so sung could see why gold star wanted to add a choreography to it. yet, with a beat so incredibly rhythmic, he could play off of that.

when he’d met with the other choreographer he’d be working with, that was the first thing he suggested, to play around with how repetitive it was. he’d also shared haon’s preference for the simple and easy, and suggested that they rely more on the backup performers to paint the picture, and include haon now and again. but to start them off, he made a guess. from the brief amount they’d talked -though at the time it’d felt like forever- sung would make the guess that haon took his musical presence quite seriously, and wouldn’t want a typical idol dance. so, sung went into the conversation always thinking this had to be cool.

the song’s lyrics were already not the happiest, but contrasted with the bright tone, why not not take the choreography too seriously?

[fmdduri]

famedverification - move.

character(s) involved: mentions of @fmdjake. about: duri writes the full lyrics for @fmdrioh’s move. he writes a spicy song. essentially, duri was writing this song for his next album over the summer, but it ultimately doesn’t fit the vibes of what he wants, so he gave it to rioh. trigger warnings: n/a. notes: i once again have not written a verification self para for like... 6 months so i hope this makes sense! word count: 2,088 (minus the actual lyrics used).

he’s in love, that’s the simplest way to put it, and it’s something that he just really needs to write about. however, duri seemingly decided to go for a different route in really explaining the entire thing in a song - the type of love that he was going to write about. the type that he and jake seem to partake in pretty often, the type of love that jake gives him - it was simply just one of the love languages the two have together. so, duri was simply going to write about that, since he wanted his next album to be all about love - duri’s a romantic, a hopeless romantic, and someone who’s really able to romanticize things, so it seemingly just made sense for him, right? not to mention, duri already planning his next music project; he liked being ahead. 

his pen taps against the notebook as his mind thinks of things - he writes down potential words that he use, ideas, as his back is sat against a wall. he hums to himself, a method to help him think, in a bit of an odd manner. he writes down a few different words such as: makeup, stance, dance, rhythm, move, and gesture. in some way, it’s the word move that speaks to him, so duri decides to circle it, making that the main purpose. however, he takes a few of the other words, writing question marks by them as an idea to potentially place them in other sections of the song, they were words that would make sense for him to use within the song itself, he thinks. though, he also underlines “rhythm” twice, thinking that’s something that works well with the word “move” that he was focusing on.

now, the hardest part was thinking of how he wanted to go about the words in the song - oh, and making it straight. seemingly, the latter was always the hardest.

luckily, duri thinks he can get away with and not gender it, which would be nice, considering what it actually means to him, in the long run, and what it’s about. but, there was no need for him to actually actively explain that, simply leave it up to the imagination. nonetheless, he writes out the very first verse that comes to him, an innuendo to what he’s talking about. he wanted to portray one of his love languages with jake, so this had seemingly made the most sense to him.

the moves are starting again, under the dark lights your elegant gestures, secretive looks you reflect on the clear window, your flickering moves with this strange feeling, this breathtaking attraction

he takes it to be something a bit on the... well, adult side of things, where also being something that can be taken as dancing with someone you might have feelings for. in a sense, it’s something that makes sense to duri, hiding things within other things is something that he can tend to be good at. nonetheless, he continues on with that thought for now, going back to the word, “rhythm” that he had underlined twice within his notes, deciding now would be the best time to use that.

you got got the rhythm you got got the rhythm under the dark lights your moves captivate me your elegant gestures, secretive looks

he draws arrows away from both of those sections, placing those as both the chorus and the chorus respectively, deciding that those two would go best together and it really just shapes the entire song for duri. he leans back again, pen sitting upon the paper. he taps it after the notebook once more however, trying to figure out where he’s going next, what he’s going to write next. he looks upon the words he had written at the top earlier, seeing if he has any inspiration striking. but, he thinks he’s lost a little bit on what to do. 

he decided that he was going to switch the place that he was in, deciding to go out to the back garden with the dogs. it would be nice to get the fresh air, instead of staying inside; though, he was sure it wasn’t going to last all that long outside, considering the fact that it was rather hot out. but, it’d be better than nothing, right? nonetheless, he takes a seat underneath the tree in the back, his back leaning against it. he opens up to the “move page” as he’s calling it for now. before he’s back to tapping the pen against the notebook, the dogs running around as they do - kangaroo behind them trying to keep up. there’s a soft laugh leaving his lips, before duri goes back to looking over the page. 

duri decides to draw inspiration from the summer heat, deciding to do something with the word “makeup” that he had written down earlier. he tries to figure out what exactly to do with that. before his mind goes to a few american movies where the female presenting lead has her makeup smudged and the shirts are all wrinkled, even when they were once crisp and clean. while of course, relating it to himself and jake. he puts it into words in the way that he would always be able to give that magic touch to. 

so your carefully applied makeup can smudge leave it alone, you’re beautiful, oh oh even if your crisp shirt gets all wrinkled it’s alright, look straight at me, eh eh yeah

that’s when he comes up with another part, it seemingly flowing into his mind, needing to come out the pen. he comes with the idea of only being able to look at that person; which in duri’s case, it’s jake. he’s only able to look at jake, no other guy; no celebrity crush or anything else, he’s in awe of jake in every moment, especially the ones that are intimate. the sight, in those times, is all that he has because jake is doing the work.

for a moment, i erased everything only relying on my sight with awe, oh oh, i’m only looking at you

he places a note with an arrow coming from the both of them, telling himself that the what he just wrote would come before the other part when he goes to fix the song entirely, knowing this wasn’t the way it would flow. obviously, it looked a bit weird. but, in truth, this was always how duri would work; come up with the ideas, let words and stuff flow, before he would actually put it all together, and writing notes to himself on where each thing would go, and where it may fall within the song. 

he decides to work off the things that he had written previously, off the smudged makeup, and looking straight at the other person. it would make things, in their entirely, flow a bit better, but it was nice to get that full on inspiration from the things that he had already written. this time, he decided to talk about hair and well, there was obviously a reason for that, with hair getting tangled from... well, that is another thing that could be left up to imagination. nonetheless, he goes for it, using words that jake has used upon him, while also relating it to moving, to dancing, and the other things.

so your neatly brushed hair can get tangled leave it alone, you’re beautiful, oh oh even if your proper stance becomes loosened it’s alright, look straight at me, oh yeah

that’s when it hits duri to work off of looking once again, the facial expressions that occur, and all of that. though, he’s not entirely sure how he wants to phrase the words together, nor what exactly he should say. but, there was a lot of things to do with looking, and it’s not like eyes were looking directly at you, but there were facial expressions to express - especially in dancing, this was definitely more of the dancing part, that was for sure. nonetheless, he just lets it flow, let the words come to him to write down.  

not a single face expression, not a single sentence can express all of you because we’re perfect just the way we are don’t even worry at all just like that, repeat just like that, repeat

duri becomes stuck again on what he wants to do next. he knows the song isn’t finished at all, but he doesn’t know what exactly he should say next, how to really finish out the song. nothing on the paper seemed to be something that would actually kick off the song because it didn’t sound right when he places the pieces together in his head like puzzle pieces going together. so, instead, duri just kind of decides to close the notebook over because he would just sit there, trying to decide what to say and what to do. it was better not to dwell, because he could simply just come back to it, it wasn’t like it was going to disappear or walk away.

so, duri spends the time playing with the dogs now. knowing the fact that moose can’t coming over to stare at him to see if he was going to play. so, he had gotten up, deciding to run around the yard with the dogs, throw the balls, and pretend to throw the balls, so that he could only slightly throw it to give kangaroo a better chance of actually getting the ball, as the other two are just too quick for him. this goes on for some time, a bunch of happy laughs and giggles, as well as the happy barks of the three dogs. before everyone decides they’re tired and it’s time to head in. 

duri grabs his notebook, leading the dogs inside, and he decides to start dinner. his notebook sits somewhere upon the kitchen counters, just so he wouldn’t forget about it, and he grabs things to make it. once he starts, and things are cooking, he goes to grab something else. that’s when he sees the wine bottle (of which duri isn’t an alcohol drinker, but it was something that stayed in the house for jake or whenever his friends wanted a drink.) that was when it hits him, the beginning of the song. he moves quickly, going over to the notebook, where he talks about being drunk on a strange mood - the adrenaline of dancing, the adrenaline of the love language, the pureness, and letting yourself go.

get drunk with this strange mood you can let yourself go but you can’t escape from me right now, when we’ve become so listless

he does the same thing again, drawing an arrow with a note, telling himself that this was the beginning of the song. he closes the notebook, he’ll come back to it after dinner, but it was something that would sit within his mind as he cooked, as he ate, and even as he cleaned up. but, he did his best not to think about it, since it was dinner time, and it was time to really just focus on that. so, that’s exactly what duri did. he made dinner, he enjoyed dinner as he ate, and he cleaned up after; as well as cleaned the kitchen as he did after every meal he made within the room. 

finally, he was able to get back to the song. so, he grabs the notebook, makes his way over to the couch, where he sits, and he looks everyone over. he takes two lines of the chorus that he wrote, before writing that twice, telling himself in his notes that it was the end of the song; it gave a nice closing, as he sang some random ballad beat to himself. in the notes, as well, he tells himself to repeat the chorus twice before this ending, to really bring the song out with a bang.

(you got got the rhythm you got got the rhythm) (you got got the rhythm you got got the rhythm)

onto the next page, duri takes his pen, eyes going back and fourth as he wrote. he was going over the notes, as well as the words that he wrote. he was piecing his puzzle together, piece by piece, making sure everything flowed nicely, just as he went over it in his head. he fills the page with the words, with the songs, and he’s really just making sure that everyone ended up in the way that he wanted. he’s rather satisfied with it, as he goes over it a few different times. it really just showcased one of the many love languages that he shares with jake, his lover - as well as moving to the beat of a song, in a sense. 

though, as duri gets up with the notebook, going into the office, just so he can transfer it to the computer; he realizes, this is a song that doesn’t make much sense for him to sing. due to the fact that duri’s not a dancer and making it a ballad was just something that would ultimately, not end up working. but, he’s okay with that, just as long as someone else would get to sing the song that he wrote because this was one that he just so happens to really, really enjoy. nonetheless, his fingers quickly typed it up, and sent it off to bc entertainment to have a look over; telling them it was not meant for him, and asked them to please take good care of it going to the right home. he closes out the computer, before going to relax for the night.

in the end, it finds the right home.