#fmdos2

IN-’VERSE INFO

Following the performances on October 8, the competitors will go backstage to their dressing rooms for a little under an hour while the audience is instructed to vote for two songwriters whose performances they liked the best. These votes will be calculated and combined with online track votes based on a weighted formula, and then the competitors are brought back out. They are first told the cast members that got the most votes in the live voting and the online voting as follows:

- Live audience vote: Youngjoo - Online vote: Taeyong

The final rankings are announced as follows to announce the safe competitors from fifth place to second:

5. Suji 4. Taeyong 3. Joohwan 2. Sun

Choi Jihoon congratulates the four safe competitors and dismisses them from the stage to bring the four remaining on stage (Youngjoo, Kami, Eunah, and Jaewon). The competitors currently on stage represent first place, sixth place, and the two competitors who will be eliminated and he reminds everyone of that. After building suspense, he announces Youngjoo as this round’s winner and announces she’s won a prize: she’ll be invited to perform a solo set on one night of the Topaz Music Festival, a popular music festival held at the venue they performed at this round that will take place in November. The festival is normally for non-idol singer-songwriter types, and this will be the first time an idol has been invited to perform. (admin note: If the mun would like to officially confirm this claim as a prize, please submit this form to the points shop blog to have it added to her career page! The mun may decide the exact date for the festival around their muse’s schedule). She’s individually congratulated and then dismissed from the stage.

This leaves three competitors (Kami, Eunah, and Jaewon) and only one will be safe. After building the tension, it is announced that Jaewon has placed sixth and will be safe to go onto the next episode. This means Kami and Eunah have unfortunately been eliminated from the competition and the final overall ranking for the latest round is ultimately as follows:

1. Youngjoo 2. Sun 3. Joohwan 4. Taeyong 5. Suji 6. Jaewon

On October 10, the idols will once again return to the “recording studio” set they first met at on their first day of filming. Competitors will once again be seated based on their rank (first place in seat one, second place in seat two, etc.). Basic pleasantries will be gone through on camera recounting the last round and reminding everyone of the rules and structure of the show before host Choi Jihoon will inform them of their third songwriting mission:

“After the first and second round, you should all have an idea of who you yourself are as a songwriter and who the rest of the cast are as songwriters. You’ve seen their versatility and the areas they excel in the most, both as a performer and songwriter, but a truly gifted songwriter can work for others as well as they can work for themselves, For this round, you will all be asked to write for another idol who will be performing a song you wrote. No one will be able to get through on an established image or popularity alone this round, as the songwriter behind each song will be kept anonymous until everyone has cast their final vote at the live performances. There will be no additional requirements this round, so put your all into shaping a song fitting of the artist who will be performing your song this round.”

The competitors are given time to react to the prompt before they are dismissed from the main set to their green rooms. In their individual green rooms, they’re once again approached by a camera crew and given a form provided by production with basic information on the idol they’ll be writing for, although the exact identity of the idol is not revealed yet (admin note: please keep in mind muses shouldn’t really be able to narrow down exactly who they’re paired with from information on the forms since the form will be re-typed to remove the element of handwriting recognition and they are not informed the idols are limited to the three in-’verse companies). They’ll react to the information and be expected to talk about their first thoughts. After this, each musician will film a talking head interview in a private room with a small team of cameras and producers where they are asked the following questions:

How are you feeling about the ranking you received last round? How do you feel about it in comparison to your rank for the first round?

What are your thoughts on the song you’ll write this round based on the information you’ve been given about the idol you’ll be writing for?

How will you approach writing a song for someone else differently than you’ve approached writing songs for yourself for the first two rounds?

What are your thoughts on your other competitors at this point in the competition?

From October 10 to October 17, all competitors are given time to begin to work on a song or potential songs based on the information they’ve been given. They will be filmed both through the stationary cameras installed in the studio in their company buildings and will also be instructed to continue to use their self-cam to record their creative process as well.

The guest cast members will be made aware at this time of their role in the show: having a song written for them by an assigned cast member to record and perform. They will not yet be made aware of which main cast member they are partnered with and are asked not to discuss their guesting with anyone.

On October 18, all pairs will meet through either a filmed meeting at a coffee shop or through a filmed video call depending on what schedules allow. This meeting will be the reveal of their partner’s identity and during this meeting, the main cast member should be prepared to show the song they’ve been working on and discuss together with their partner about the song and any changes that may need to be made to fit the idol’s voice, style, or preferences. It is up to the main cast member how much they change to accommodate their partner, although they will not be allowed to completely redo the song at this point.

The main cast member will have from October 18 through October 27 to finalize the song and get vocals recorded from the other idol on the track. The pairs may meet up over the course of this time as they wish to work on recording and finalizing, although each meeting should be filmed.

There will be no “demo” presentation for this episode in front of the other competitors due to the nature of the task. Final mastered versions of all songs are due to the production team by the end of October 27.

On November 1, the final version of each competitor’s song will be released onto the base TV website and voting will open for online audiences. They will be uploaded onto streaming sites a week later so as not to reveal the writers’ identities.

On November 7, all competitors and all of the special guests will go to the regular building with the performance set from first episode, where their songs will be performed and voted on. As with last episode, minor set and prop elements are permitted, but they should be easy for the staff to get on and off the stage. The respective companies will be responsible for the styling and performance preparation of the performer. 

Once filming begins, the competitors will be informed they will be performing in a randomly generated order in order to maintain anonymity of the writers. The audience is asked to vote more on how well-written a song is for the idol than how amazing the performance is since the songwriters are the ones being evaluated. The performing order is revealed to be:

Wei - “Pit-a-pet” (written by Jaewon)

Huiseon - “Baby Baby” (written by Sun)

Aera - “Diver” (written by Joohwan)

Duri - “Heaven” (written by Youngjoo)

Charlie - “Iljido” (written by Suji)

Minjung - “Girl, Interrupted” (written by Taeyong)

As each guest idol is performing, the six songwriters and all five other guest performers will sit backstage in their individual dressing rooms while their reactions are filmed. Since they are in private, songwriters may react appropriately to the song they wrote. At the conclusion of each stage, each competitor will be given time to talk about their thoughts on the performance and song. In the final airing of the episode, only some competitors’ comments will be aired per song.

During the break following all six song performances, each competitor will film another talking head interview (admin note: please wait to complete this interview until all songs have been chosen and listed above):

Talk about the song you wrote for this task. How do you feel it compares to the first two songs you wrote for the show?

How do you feel the idol you wrote for did in performing your song? In what ways do you feel the song benefited from not being performed by you?

Which of the other songs/performances caught your attention the most?

Which song do you expect got the most votes online and from the audience?

OUT OF ‘VERSE INFO

As usual, the rankings for the second round were determined by random generation for spots among who completed the most tasks. In this case, spots one through six were generated by those who had all tasks completed in the #fmdos2 tag on their muse’s blog by the deadline. Two muses did not complete all of the tasks, so they took the eliminated spots. The only exception here is that the admin’s muse will not be eligible for the overall first place ranking unless they are the only muse who completes the most number of tasks. Proof shots of the name picker can be found here (note: admin is in EDT, while the deadline was in KST, so the names were drawn after the deadline).

The winners for separate live voting and online voting were determined using weighted selection based on the randomly generated overall rankings. Rank one got eight submissions into the generator, rank two got seven, rank three got six, etc. and the two eliminated muses got one submission each, and then names were drawn. Proof shots of the name picker for the live audience vote and online vote winners can be found here. A proof shot of the randomizer for performance order this round can be found here. Pairs were made simply by pairing the order of the main cast by seniority directly with the guest cast submissions by order of submission from earliest to latest. Only one switch was made to ensure all muses would be writing for a muse with a skill set or song availability significantly different from their own.

For this task block you will need to submit the following information: the song you would like to claim for your muse to create for this round’s task (and a performance reference if one is available and agreed upon with the performing muse) and the creative claims on it. Please note that the song choice should ultimately be the decision of the mun of the main cast member. Muns may discuss what the performing muse is comfortable with, but the song choice should be based on what the muse would write with the information presented to them and not what the performing muse would necessarily want written for them.

The form link will be uploaded here at 12AM KST October 10/11AM EDT October 9, twenty-four hours after this post goes up. The form link can be found here. A reminder of the limits of creative claims on each muse for the show can be found here. If you think there is a mistake or if a song is released that leads to a necessary update, please contact the main.

Songs Claimed:

Heaven - Gaho

Iljido - Moonbyul

Girl, Interrupted - Miso (prod. 2xxx!)

Pit-a-pet - Yukika

Baby Baby - Suran

Diver - YooA

SONG LIMITATIONS/REQUIREMENTS

The simplified theme for this round is “Written By, Not For”. Please read the prompt in the in-’verse info for full details on what this means.

For all rounds, a song must fit all general rules of music claims (i.e. matches muse position, is not too explicit, must be by an artist in the Korean music industry, etc.) and must receive admin approval.

For this round, these are the additional limitations and requirements on songs that can be chosen:

The song must be solo. This means it cannot be a collab or have a feature.

The song must be performed by the muse assigned by the show and the muse performing cannot have creative claims on a song.

In real life, the song must not be a title track according to Melon and cannot have an official MV. Special clips, live clips, and minimal production lyric videos are acceptable, but the song will have to be re-released on an album in the future to claim such videos as canon to the universe.

In real life, the song cannot have charted higher than a rank of 75 on Gaon’s Weekly Digital Chart at any point.

its not that difficult to write this song in particular. not especially if you had already a plan in mind that you wanted to set in motion. thoughts and colours had whirled around in her head as soon as she had pulled out that crisp little red piece of paper that now resided in her pocket, folded over and over, repeatedly upon its creases, smoothened out by lithe fingers and thoughtful manipulation of the piece of paper. 

she sets the self cam down in front of her, peering awkwardly into the camera to check if it was recording (perhaps in the process, unknowingly setting yet another meme for herself as she pulled a troubled, long face whilst trying to figure out the contraption just like the wizened old lady at heart that she was) as quickly as she could.

“is this record...ding?” she peers at the blinking red button, unknowingly having started the recording prior before she even noticed, before settling back a little unsuredly. “hm..i guess it is. hello hello.” she bent down towards eye level of the camera, beaming lightly in the direction of the camera. “its youngjoo here from silhouette, and i’m going to show you in a bit, a little of the song that i’ve been working on hard for our songs. i’m currently preparing for the meeting with my production team, since they’re most likely helping me with part of the productions of the song itself, and are probably waiting a bit for some of the lyrics that i’ve written.” she rustles, bustling about like a busy ant as she hoisted up her bag, hauling out a couple of thick files that she had made in preparation for this prior meeting that she had. 

she paused, letting the silence of the room fill as her leg bounced ever so slightly, eyes darting as she casted her eyes towards the door in a bit of a nervous unease.

“i really really want to do this song well, partially because i think i got lucky with the colour that i had, and red is pretty easy to interpret.” she mumbled, resting her chin slightly as she perked up at the sound of the doors opening, tilting her head to rest against her hand as she grinned lightly in the direction of her production team, wiggling her fingers in greeting as the room started to bustle a bit from the influx of people into its small soundproof room.

“so..”youngjoo rubbed her hands together slightly. “shall we start the discussion? i’m sure that everyone has received uh..the thumbdrive recording that i did of the song a few hours after i got the assignment for the song.” she lets her fingers tangle lightly through her hair in tender but mild contemplation. “so, the topic of the entire song is contrast, and the colour that i drew, luckily enough i guess, is the colour of red. i think one of the many things that people relate to when it comes to the colour of red is the idea of rage, and of anger. maybe a little bit of lust?” the paper rustles as she raised a hand to scratch her brows out of slight nervousness. “but what i thought of red being is the colour of regret. so i want the production to be something heavy hitting and grungy. but also not loosing that edge of slight etherealness that we’re know to have. ethereal sounds don’t necessarily have to be angelic, it can be dark and you know..”she trails off a little, trying to find the right words to describe what she was feeling.

“like empty space?” one of the producers piped up, tapping his pen against the table.

“mhm, something like that. i want a very..empty feeling in a way. so the more spacious the song feels, the better honestly.” its rare that she has such a clear direction on the type and kind, or even the theme of the song. “i’ve thought of the theme of the performance itself already. i want it to be sensual and slow, but also running with that undertone of rage and repressed emotions. most of the song itself will be set in the low jazzy register, so for the stage settings, the darker and closer the stage, the better. i want red lights to emphasise the theme of the song, and to remind the audience of the colour that i chose. i want to be closer enough to be able to interact with the audience, and to let them feel as though they’re close enough to touch me.” she laughed a little at her thoughts. “i have feeling as though like this song is very different from what we usually do, so despite my aims to actually hit the first spot this time--” soft laughter rings through the room at her words, and its finally youngjoo’s turn to heavily blush, shaking her head to free herself from her own mortification. 

“ call it being a little ambitious, but i like the thought of being able to maintain my standing in our songs. who knows, this is actually a good spot to put out my name and let people know a little more of my own capabilities and things that i can do. we’ve just recently made it known that i’m good at ballads with my full album, and everyone knows that i can do things with osts or jazzy songs from Masked Singer, so i think we can afford to take this little risk here and go a little sexy, grungy and almost emo or emotive.” there were slight nods all around as youngjoo heaved a mild sigh of relief at earning the approval from her production team, quickly concluding the meeting and handing the lyrics off to the production team for reference in preparation for their recording sessions. 

she had a lot to prepare for, especially after a hyped up performance that she was sure jaewon would eventually bring to the stage. 

as the room cleared out and the meeting ended, she sits in front of her self camera with a faint sigh, sinking into the seat as though speaking so much had drained her of all of her possible energy. 

you’ve had some time since you found out your ranking in the last round. how do you feel about your ranking and what pressure do you feel it puts on you this round?

“it’s a shame to come so close to last place,” eunah chooses her words carefully, fidgety hands working overtime in her lap. she especially doesn’t want to say anything about the way she’s a place higher than an origin member. she doesn’t think joohwan would care, but she has a feeling that there are some fans that are going to be angry. “i was really proud of my song from last round. i’m nervous that maybe my best isn’t going to be enough to get me through the competition.”

what are the first thoughts that come to mind when you think of the color you drew from the box?

“to me, gold is a winner’s colour. it definitely isn’t a colour i would ever associate with myself. the closest to gold i am is ... a rich autumnal mustard shade of yellow.”

do you already have an idea in mind for what you’ll do for your song this round?

“no,” admits eunah, cringing as the word falls from her lips. there’s no point in lying though. “i think this round is going to be a serious challenge for me. that’s scary, but i’m also looking forward to it in a way. it’ll be a good opportunity to get out of my comfort zone.”

after seeing everyone compete in the first round and knowing the task for this round, has your view on your biggest competition changed? who do you expect to do the best this round?