hi everyone! i'm denver (23, she/they) and i'm happy to be here with both seo daeun and han seongmin (pinterest). like this post if you're interested in plotting with seongmin and i'll dm you asap <3
biog
born mar 19, 1997 in muju-gun, a touristy mountain town. only child to a newly-wed couple. they married because of the baby, but they really, truly thought that they could learn to love each other. they tried their hardest. for a few years, it was enough. they did everything that they could, everything that they should have. they treated seongmin well, they took him on family trips, they took plenty of pictures, they made him feel loved. and then the reality of it all started to creep up on themâthey didnât really love each other, and boredom was leading to wandering eyes. cheating was leading to fights, fights drew out over days, and family time came to a screeching halt. it was affecting the kid.
there were a million and one ways that they could have handled this, and they picked the worst one. they drove over to seomri-myeon, where seongminâs dadâs parents lived, and they dropped seongmin off for the summer. just until we get things sorted. it wonât be long. seongmin was 12, and he loved and trusted his parents. he believed it wouldnât be long.
the eternal chip on his shoulder is that his parents never did come back for him. they visited sometimes (but never together), and every time they did, they brought more of his stuff. you might need this, you never know. it didnât take him too long to catch on.
even still, he spent a few years in a state of denial; because of this, he didnât treat seomri like his new home. he was a loud, problematic kid. he wanted attention all the time, and he got it in really annoying ways. he didnât really care what people thought of him because he kept telling himself that heâd be âgoing homeâ soon.
and then he reached the glorious age of 16 :) his attitude took a sharp turn from just being an annoying, lonely kid to being angry at the world. presumably because this is when he fully realized/accepted that his parents were never coming back for him, and that theyâd even stopped calling, but who really knows? maybe it was just the teenage hormones.
spent the bulk of his teenage years talking shit, pushing the people who cared about him to their absolute limits, and preaching about how he was owed better things than seomri. he carried this attitude through high school and then trade school (where he began his training in blacksmithing), an apprenticeship at sobaek smiths, and then he fucked off to a bigger, better city to continue training elsewhere. good riddance. was gone from 2022 to 2024.
just fyi, if youâre wondering how he got into blacksmithingâitâs just kind of how life panned out for him. heâs never had any big goals or passions in life, and his grandparents encouraged him to pursue something that would always kind of be needed, so he did. đ¤ˇââď¸ he doesnât hate it, it kind of just is what it is.
but i digress. in late 2024, his grandmother got sick. she didnât ask him to come back, but his grandfather did; and even if he hadnât, seongmin probably wouldâve come back anyway. they had taken the role of his parents when his actual parents had quit, and he figured he owed them this.
so he came back to seomri, and he came back a changed man. aging, the exhausting nature of his work, and a newfound sense of responsibility had softened him. some people may have been apprehensive of him being back at first, but he quickly showed his new attitude. heâs not angry or difficult anymore; heâs dutiful, polite and generous. he works hard and he takes care of the people around him. all of the people around him. he goes out of his way to help people however he canâheâll help old ladies load their groceries, heâll pay for someoneâs coffee if they canât find their card, and heâll stop if he sees a car broken down on the side of the road even if he thinks he probably canât help. heâs embarrassed of the attitude he had when he was younger and he is always, always trying to make up for it. very much the type of guy to think his worth is determined by how much he can help/offer other people.
but back to 2024. he came back to take care of his grandparents. he didnât plan on it being long-term, so he didnât get a job; he had enough in savings to get him by for a few months. but then those few months passed and his grandmother was doing alright, but he realized heâd become afraid of leaving again. afraid that something bad would happen, afraid that heâd get comfortable elsewhere just to be called back again, afraid that his grandparents, now even older than they were before, wouldnât be able to take care of themselves or the fuckass dog theyâd adopted when seongmin was gone (see more below). so he stayed. he got a job at sobaek smiths where heâs a journeyman now đŞ and became a trained farrier as well so he can take care of the local horses when they need shoeing. and itâs a boring, hard life. but he wakes up every day and he does the same shit and itâs mostly fine.
more on his fuckass dog. sheâs an ugly thing. the first day he came back to seomri, he saw her on his grandparentsâ porch and hoped to GOD that it was just a scraggly stray. alas, she was theirs. their precious dog gongju. (how precious can she really be if her fur is dirty and matted and her nails are overdue for a trim?)
anyway, since the dog was theirs and he loves them, he started to take care of it. he got her groomed + continues to keep up with her appointments to this day, he feeds her the best food he can easily attain, and he tries/tried to train her. sheâs dumb as rocks so he doesnât really try very hard anymore. also refuses to call her gongju, because there is nothing princess-like about her. he calls her kkabi.
so a typical day in his life looks like this: he wakes up with the sunrise (his sunrise is artificialâdef has a sunrise alarm clock since living in the woods doesnât allow for much natural light), he cooks breakfast for himself and his grandparents and kkabi (yes, really, but trust that her breakfast is NOT the same as theirs), and then he fucks off to work where he sweats all day, and then he comes home and he really just wants to shower and eat but the damn dog is on the porch waiting for him so heâs gotta wipe her paws and brush her coat so he can let her inside (yes, really), and then he walks in and his grandmother is waiting at the door basically to ask him what he wants for dinner and for a second he thinks about ending it all. but he talks to her kindly and she cooks while he showers and then the family eats dinner together. theyâll play a few games or watch a show maybe and then the grandparents will go to sleep and seongmin might go to the bar or something where he really wants to interact with people but heâll end up staring at a wall and nursing the same drink for an hour. rinse, repeat.
as far as his personality goes, heâs kind of boring. was really loud and noticeable when he was younger, now heâs pretty quiet; will engage in a conversation if someone else initiates it, really likes chatty people who can just talk at him and not mind that he doesnât have a lot to say in response. if you ask him what he likes to do? âoh, not much.â if you ask him what he wants to eat? âoh, i donât know.â if you ask him how he feels about seomri? âoh, itâs fine.â very neutral on the surface, but also very polite. at his core he is NOT a very good person, but he has a strong grasp on whatâs right and wrong and he tries very hard to act right. i think heâs realized that people like him (lower class family, hard labor worker, deadbeat parents) are kind of viewed in⌠a certain way⌠and he very much wants to not be that, even if he⌠is that. his world kind of revolves around other people nowadaysâhe lets other people talk, he lets other people make the decisions, he does what other people ask/expect him to do. it doesnât exactly feel unfulfilling because he stays busy enough that heâs not really thinking đ¤ about what he wants. he doesnât even know what he wants. heâs given up on getting what he wants.
that said, heâs also not super emotionally intelligent and he also doesnât know himself very well. like he says he doesnât like to do much but then you see him in the woods on a trail in full hiking gear with his dog and sheâs got little boots on too and itâs likeâŚâŚâŚ okay, You Donât Like Hiking? because heâs obviously put so much money into it. and he's always at the grocery store buying the most expensive fertilizer they have for his garden full of flowers/greenery that he knows too much about but he doesn't think of that as a hobby/interest of his because he got into it so that his grandma could stop being the one to take care of the yard. like he DOES do things, itâs just like pulling teeth to get him to actually remember/share what he does with his time.
fears things he can't control (time/aging/sickness), intensely believes in (and fears) the supernatural, is liked by most animals he meets, watches a lot of movies to live vicariously through the characters, is kind of clumsy and overall bad at most things that aren't manual labor, really likes crazy ass people who are difficult/high energy/nonconforming/wacky in any way really because at least they've got more going on than he does.
kind of lacks a backbone. like i said, his world revolves around other people. he doesnât want to upset other people, and heâs always trying to make up for his past wrongs (which really werenât so bad that he needs to be making up for them forever likeâŚ) so he wonât rock the boat/stand up for âwhat he believes inâ if he even believes in anything. he supports the local musicians but will probably never be at the show and will damn sure not express this around oldheads. offers hefty discounts on custom orders for whatever metal accessories/instruments stands/etc musicians may need (even jam theory tbh he doesn't care) but this is a word of mouth thing and if you tell his boss or any of his oldhead friends heâll stop doing it.
also makes various decorative yard stakes/weather vanes/hair pins/etc that you can come take a look at in the small retail area at sobaek smiths :) likes to make pretty things with ugly metal because it makes him feel better about how hard and tiring his job actually is. i imagine a lot of old aunties have his stuff in their yards and i think most old people in the area like him for being a good man who works hard and takes care of his family. and this is partially why he wonât rock the boat because likeâŚâŚ.. he put a lot of effort into being seen in a positive light!!!! even if itâs only baby boomers who like him and everyone around his age thinks heâs boring as shit.
plot ideas
friends i guess....... he's kind of fickle because he's pretty much always been convinced that seomri isn't his home. doesn't like to get too attached to people because of this, even though he's 29 now and certainly doesn't seem to be going anywhere. he's a decent friend, though, and if you get close enough to him his personality (yes, he has one) actually starts to come through. he's a huge shit talker.
best.... friend...? someone around his age. would like it if they grew up together basically (keeping in mind he moved to seomri when he was 12) and they've stuck with him through all of his terrible phases. supported him when he left, supported him when he came back. spends most of his free time with them.
a million people who don't really like him because he was a dick to them years ago and just started acting different without ever actually apologizing. people who remember him acting like seomri wasn't good enough for him.
someone whose mom or whatever really likes the yard stakes/plant hangers/etc he makes. they come to the shop a little too often and chat with him politely, he thinks they're coming for him, he makes a comment about it, it's embarrassing for everyone.
any fellow billiards fans??? who's he hustling at the wheat barrel on the rare occasion he's three drinks in...
something like an ex except they never dated because he's "not a permanent resident" of seomri and they don't ever want to leave. some lingering resentment?

















