hey y’all! this is denver [sh/th, cst, also the mun of seo daon and do jihan] with ydh entertainment’s soloist noh saetbyeol / saena. you can find her career info here, her stats here, a pinterest board for her here & everything you need to know under the cut! as per usual, please like this post if you’re interested in plotting and i’ll come to you asap. ♥️
i.
tw for brief mentions of body image, disordered eating & a toxic mother-daughter relationship.
noh saetbyeol was born may 30, 1998 to an, uh… unwell single mother. her mom is a raging narcissist who had gone through a number of failed relationships/engagements/entanglements and ultimately decided that all she really needed was a child who would love her unconditionally. never told the father that she was pregnant, and saetbyeol never attempted to find him as she grew older.
early in life, it was pretty much saetbyeol and her mom against the world. there were occasional visits from other family members (saetbyeol’s parents and sister mostly), but again—her mom was a raging narcissist, and those relationships felt the affects of it as well so they didn’t come around much. for a while, she had her mom on a pedestal.
her mom had always kind of wanted to be an entertainer, but never had the confidence to actually pursue it considering she isn’t/never was conventionally pretty. but her daughter was! never put a ton of pressure on saetbyeol to do well academically (which was nice) but did push her to take dance and vocal lessons and to take them seriously (which was less nice). umm… eventually saetbyeol learned to like it! it made mom happy, so it made her happy—however, the older she got & the better she got at performing, the more her mom would criticize her body/looks. was always trying to “help her” look better through providing smaller meal portions and giving unsolicited advice. naturally, their relationship had started to deteriorate.
attended numerous auditions starting at age 15, never got signed. still, she was working with professionals to continue to strengthen her singing & dancing skills and eventually she was good enough to get a spot on some fucking competition show as an “independent trainee”. her mom encouraged her *not* to do it and instead to continue looking for a company that would take her right away, but she decided to go through with it anyway. was one of the most popular picks amidst people voting at home, but was less popular with the actual panelists/judges on the show and ultimately didn’t make the cut but was immediately picked up by ydh. trained for eight months before she debuted.
had a burst of popularity in the first ~year of her career, went viral a couple times & picked up a majority of the fanbase that she still has today. however, has struggled to reach *that* level of success since—has yet to have another song go viral, is pretty well-recognized and most people who hear her name know who she *is* but she’s not really bringing in new fans like she used to. present-day, she’s trying to figure out what her next move should be to get a little more attention/popularity. also attempting to move away from the aegyo-centric image and concept she’s (mostly) stuck to so far while needing to find some other point of appeal.
ii.
publicly, saetbyeol is incredibly upbeat. most of her songs speak of bravery, hope, self-love & confidence, and her personality mirrors it well. she comes off as this happy, sweet girl who doesn’t doubt herself for a second—she’s always smiling, she always has something nice to say, and she’ll do any aegyo or fanservice that’s asked of her in a second. seems incredibly genuine and is generally seen as a role model of sorts for young women & girls.
but most people who know saetbyeol personally probably know her as… well, a raging bitch. because she is a raging bitch. used to be, anyway—very recently, she became self-aware and realized she needs to treat people better. before that, she was a nightmare. at best, she was passive-aggressive and high maintenance; at worst, she was confrontational and condescending.
admittedly, she has a *lot* to unlearn and it’s going to take some time. still has an attitude ad tends to treat people a little unfairly, but has gotten really into journaling as a means to understand herself and her feelings more deeply. it’s helped calm her down a little bit. has looked into therapy but isn’t quite ready to take that big of a leap yet.
is and always has been pretty lonely. nowadays, she’s putting a lot of effort into meeting new people and making genuine friends. can seem a bit overzealous, like she’s trying too hard to fit in or pay attention or even *be interested* in other people. again, baby steps… but she’s trying!!! and maybe it’ll work!!!
iii.
open to any & all plots, but here are some thoughts to get the ball rolling:
a younger/newer idol who used to look up to her, but was quickly disillusioned when they met her. now that she’s on this self-improvement kick, she feels like they deserve an apology.
a mean girl friend… someone she’s spent countless nights shit-talking others with. of course, that wasn’t all that there was to the friendship, but… well, it was a lot of it. and saetbyeol doesn’t really want to be that way anymore, so she’s started slowly breaking away from her—is there any resistance? does she think that saetbyeol thinks she’s above her now?
a friend who was always genuinely too good for saetbyeol but stuck around through it all anyway. maybe they saw that she needed someone who actually meant well in her corner or maybe their low self-esteem wouldn’t let them break away from her; whatever the case, she’s hurt their feelings a hundred times and doesn’t feel like she could ever truly make up for it. they swear that it’s okay and they forgive her. do they mean it?
an ex whom saetbyeol treated as an accessory. she swears that she truly loved them, but they never felt it—she was always focused on her phone when they were together & diminished their feelings any time they tried to talk about being hurt. recently, she’s been trying to come back into their life & they’re suspicious of her intentions.
new friends who feel a little perplexed by saetbyeol. on one hand, she is nice—on the other, she kind of seems like she doesn’t really give a fuck when they’re talking. maybe it’s all in their head?
idol-actresses or actors whom she’s met at auditions / someone she is/was interested in who had heard of what a bitch she is and won’t give her the time of day because of it / idols she really admires (worships the ground that her haute pink bias walks on, probably trying to become a part of her inner circle) / etc etc!
