#rytsiwon

OOC INFORMATION

preferred name › sylv

pronouns › she/her

timezone › gmt -5

IC INFORMATION

faceclaim › bona, wjsn name › lee si-won

idol concept › siwon’s gained attention for her easygoing, girl-next-door personality — that, coupled with her slew of wisecracks and her no-nonsense attitude when it comes to her group members, has compounded into her title as the ‘father of the group’.

birth date & age › february 13, 1996 (21) company name › kaleidoscope records group name › bliss group position › leader

strengths ›

VOCAL RANGE & TECHNIQUE — siwon’s vocal abilities are profound. with a vast range and the ability to carry a song all the way through, she’s always been confident that her raw musical talent would get her somewhere in life. years of training have only upgraded what was a diamond in the rough; both her companies have given her the technical skills to achieve a mastery of her art form.

CHARISMA — a compelling person, siwon has the uncanny ability of being able to make a room glow with her presence. there’s an effortlessness to everything she does that makes others drawn to her, beyond just her powerful vocals; a personality that causes people to look twice.

weaknesses ›

PHYSICALITY — she’s not made for strenuous activity. a family history of asthma and a pampered youth means that she’s barely lifted a finger in her entire life, and that’s not about to start now.

DANCE — her years of training have given her what it takes to keep up with the rest of her group, but siwon is both lazy and slow to learn; it was not unheard of for her to be lectured by the dance teachers for performing half-heartedly. upon being sorted into bliss, she’s made some efforts to better herself, but her own physical ailments prove deterrents to great leaps of improvement.

positive traits › clever, imaginative, vivacious negative traits › blunt, detached, haughty

PERSONAL HISTORY

4)

Summer comes like a tide. One minute it’s pinks and greens and soft sun-kisses on her skin, and then the next moment it’s an insatiable heat that swallows her whole. Mother says the season is like her smile — unstoppable, untameable, wholly beautiful. That’s why they bend to her, bend like branches in the June monsoons. Never no, always yes, always you’re our perfect little darling.

She grows like this: brimming with love, humility on the side.

7)

Rinse, repeat.

The occupants of room 101 tell her that her voice is lovely when she runs through list of morning songs; they ask for more trot, and buy her their favourite singer’s album when she replies that she’s got no idea who he is. Every night during the warm season, the ahjummas that sprawl out by the beach to watch the sunset teach her the love songs of their youth. It makes Siwon a certain kind of happy to see the smiles on their faces when her voice makes them remember fonder times. She did that, with the song they call pretty, the song they call beautiful.

Her grandmother is a different story.

Grandmother sings her old folk melodies when she visits their village from time to time. Aging hands guide her own as she teases gayageum strings with clumsy eagerness; grandmother leads, Siwon follows. On the days grandmother can’t sing — when she’s too tired, too bed-ridden — grandfather tells her stories. How grandma used to stand on a stage and hearts would bleed for her. How she could make men cry with her song alone. How she mended wounds, lifted spirits, crafted new world with song. And she is more than fascinated: she is awed.

I want to be like you, grandma, she says one day. I want the world to love me like they loved you. I want them to be happy because of me. And grandmother smiles, presses a palm to her granddaughter’s dimpled cheek, looks at her with a something in her eyes undecipherable.

If it makes you happy, Siwon.

For now, it does.

11)

Future beckons, white and cutting in her hand.

The man doesn’t sugarcoat like mother does — calls her a little rudimentary, but overflowing with potential. Diamond-in-the-sand, the hidden gem of Haeundae. She takes the slip he gives her with shaking fingers, mouths B and K and B as she sees them on the paper.

Seoul calls, she answers.

12)

It’s not what she thought it would be.

All she’d wanted was to sing — to see a sea of faces smiling at her, hearts in their mouths and feeling changed because of her. But they make her move till her heels are calloused from the bruising, take the Busan dialect from her tone with sharp reprimands. Yet she’s anything but flimsy; she’s anything but her own will.

They say: you follow us, or we’ll end you.

She responds: you can’t end me when I can give you everything.

(They say nothing after, because it’s true. Twelve is an age of shifting bones, an ebb and flow of emotion. And she’s difficult and petulant and untameable like her smile, but there’s a something to her that’s unforgettable. There’s something to her voice that’s meant to be heard.)

14)

They tell her she wasn’t good enough. Not yet, not now. She tells them they’ve made a mistake. That she’s got talent boundless, that they’re wrong to think any different.

She leaves two months later.

15)

Busan, with her family’s praise and the ahjummas on the beach and the inn-goers that call her a songbird — all of it bores her. Mundane isn’t palatable after she’s had a taste of what could be, what should be.

One morning, she uses the last of her allowance on a ticket to Seoul; waits in line for hours in a February chill so cold her fingers turn blue. They still feel numb even after the audition, but she feels nothing save for the feeling of starting anew.

19)

“What’s ‘Bliss’?”

“Don’t you pay attention, Siwon? It’s the name of the girl group the company’s starting to pick members for!”

The viewers say they’ve never seen anyone so talented before — that she’s got such a voice for someone so young. She knows that, of course; knows that she’s better than the rest unequivocally. But they’re wrong — she’s not so young anymore, not so stupid as to forget past mistakes.

She thinks of Busan. Thinks of the apathy.

Thinks about being nothing.

.

They name her Bliss’ leader two weeks after the competition ends.

21)

Summer comes like a tide. One day it’s performing for thousands, and then she wakes up the next day and thinks: I feel different. She’s forgotten something in the midst of it all — she can’t figure out what. Looks into a mirror and wonders if it’s a part of herself, somewhere in the pull of the tide. But her smile is still there, bright like the sun — unstoppable, untameable, wholly beautiful.

She thinks of her grandmother. Thinks of her words.

If it makes you happy, Siwon.