The bite-size fanfiction series nobody asked for, Kpopalypse dreams returns again for episode four! Read on and give yourself “a new hope”, knowing that your dreams aren’t as fucked up as the ones in this post!
WARNING: if you’re actually the kind of person who requires warnings before blog posts, you’re a dickhead.
I am Eunsol from Bambino. I’m dressed in a long brown trenchcoat like the ones from 1950s detective movies. I’m standing at the top of a large lighthouse, looking at the view out to the sea and also inland. Then I notice several men in black suits moving towards the base of the tower. I know that they’re here to kill me, although I’m not sure how I know this. I quickly run down the stairwell to the ground floor, it’s easy to move down the stairs fast as they’re very steep, I can pretty much jump down them while holding onto the rail. I don’t see anyone as I quickly descend, fortunately none of the men thought to check the stairwell, I figure they must all be using the elevator. I reach the outside and run around the base of the tower, then try to conceal myself in a little concrete nook in the side. I see two more men in black suits approaching, talking to each other about how she “must be here”, and think to myself that I’m a sitting duck, I have nowhere to hide. However the two men walk right past me to the main lift entrance, not even noticing that I’m there. Then I realise why they didn’t recognise me – it’s the detective coat, which completely covers my body. I think to myself – without my cleavage on display, nobody knows who I am.
I’m in a swimming pool, as part of some sort of competition/game although I’m not sure exactly what it is. All the members of Girls’ Generation are here. Hyoyeon appears next to me in the pool, looking similar to how she does in the “Party” music video. She tells me that I’ve won the game, and as a reward I get to vote on what dance Girls’ Generation should perform on YouTube soon. I’m allowed three choices of any k-pop dances. I vote:
- T-ara – “Roly Poly“
- NOM – “Nature Of Man“
- VAV – “Under The Moonlight“
I’m watching TV, some shitty k-drama is on. Tiffany from Girls’ Generation is in it. She’s wearing a grey suit-jacket and underneath, a green and blue zig-zag striped jumper which is very tight fitting around her chest. She’s talking to a guy, and as she talks to him, she opens up her jacket and pushes her boobs into his side and pouts. She seems to be trying to use her sex appeal to persuade him to do something, but I’m not sure what it is – there are no subtitles to the drama so I don’t know what she’s saying.
My mother/Boram is driving me through the city, she asks me if I want to see Dumbfounddead, because he’s playing in Adelaide soon. I say no, I tell her that I’m not really into him.
Later that day I happen to be in the area anyway, so I figure I might as well go and see him because he might make a good interview subject. I meet him near the sideshow alley at the Adelaide showground, a dense maze of amusement park stalls. However it’s not showtime and all the stalls are rusty and deserted, in various states of disrepair. Dumbfounddead smiles and shakes my hand as we meet. He starts talking about his musical style, and how he likes to change things and do “yolo style” tracks as well as “proper songs” too. He asks me what song I like the most on his new album, I tell him that I like a song called “Grind”. We both listen to the song which echoes out from a nearby underground car park tunnel, it’s actually the music to Dynamic Duo’s “Jump Over The Slump” but with Dumbfounddead’s vocals on top.
We go around a corner and there’s a large chalkboard sign with flashing lights, listed on the sign are all the songs on Dumbfounddead’s new album in white chalk. Next to each one is some numbers, Dumbfounddead explains to me that this shows the results of a poll where people voted for the best track on his album. “Grind” is in the lead, but only marginally. Next to this sign is a brick wall with graffiti on it. Dumbfounddead tells me that people who listen to his album sign the wall to leave messages for him, and that I should write something because I’m a guest. I pick up some charcoal and write on the wall “Kpopalypse was here”, “cao ni ma” and “maximum determination”.
I’m in a bookstore section of a large department store. There’s a table of books, I pick one up which is about Netizenbuzz, it has the Netizenbuzz logo on the front. The book has the dimensions of a children’s book – large and hardback, but also very thin with few pages. I flip the book over and look at the back, the book talks about how Netizenbuzz was a small blog until it gained success by posting about T-ara’s scandal in 2012. I figure that the book probably isn’t worth looking at, so I put it down and go on about my day.
I’m teaching guitar to Crayon Pop’s Way. We’re in my teaching room at work. Way is wearing a blue tracksuit. She isn’t really interested in learning any songs, she just has the guitar sat on her lap and it pulling at the strings, like she’s trying to pull them apart. I take a few photos of Way with my phone. Way notices and asks me why I’m taking photos. I tell her that it’s because I need evidence or people won’t believe that she’s trying to pull the strings off my guitar when I tell them the story. She seems okay with this explanation and continues pulling at the strings.
I’m at SM Entertainment’s gym watching f(x) rehearse the dance to “Nu ABO“. All of the f(x) girls are wearing tracksuits except Amber who is dressed in a white sleeveless top and denim jeans. As I watch them dance, it seems that Amber is having some health issues – she loses her way at one point in the dance routine, and starts spinning around in a circle, while the other girls look at her confused. A few seconds later Amber finds her place in the song and continues on, but during the rap section she loosens her belt as if she’s having stomach cramps. The song ends and Amber suddenly bends over and vomits loudly onto the gym floor. I go up to Krystal and ask how it went and if everything’s okay. Krystal says nothing, instead she just stares at me. Amber then vomits loudly some more, distracting both myself and Krystal who look over at her, there’s vomit stains all down the front of Amber’s clothes. Krystal looks extremely unimpressed and doesn’t make further eye contact with me, seemingly deliberately. She says to the other f(x) girls “we’re outta here” and they all leave. An SM intern arrives with a mop and starts cleaning up the mess on the floor.
I let a bunch of k-pop girls stay in my house overnight while I’m out of town as they have nowhere to sleep for some reason. The next day I get back and the place is trashed – there’s mess everywhere and a massive dent in the tiled kitchen floor, the size of a ten-pin bowling ball. I round up all the k-pop girls (all members of various B-list groups – Stellar, Laboum, BESTie, etc etc) and ask who did it, but nobody can tell me. I then say that since nobody can tell me they’re all evicted but at least someone here should let me have anal sex with them. All of the girls say ‘no’ except for Stellar’s Gayoung, who enthusiastically agrees. Gayoung immediately strips down to some black fishnet/lace clothing (similar to the header picture but more fishnet) and starts rubbing her ass against my crotch. I start touching her body but all I can feel is the fishnet/lace material, I can’t actually feel Gayoung at all.
I hear Tymee is in Sydney so I catch a plane over there.
I meet a friend at Sydney airport who is involved in the Sydney hip hop scene, he says Tymee is staying in an apartment with him somewhere while she’s in town. He tells me that there’s two Tymee shows happening today -a Korean language show in the afternoon for hip hop types at a university campus and an “idol-oriented” show (whatever that means) later in English language at a club. We catch a train over to the university because I want to meet and interview her.
We arrive at the university campus. My friend explains that he has to drop by one of the dorms to see his ex-girlfriend, and we can go and see Tymee after that. We meet up with a few of his hip-hop crew and go to the dorm room where his ex-girlfriend lives. She’s in the dorm common room and her new boyfriend is with him, also some random people from a rival hip-hop crew are there, just standing around, like they’re prepared for some kind of violent situation to happen. My friend and his ex have about a minute of incredibly awkward conversation where nobody knows what to say, while everyone else stands around doing nothing except being “ready for something to go down”, which it doesn’t. Soon the meeting is over and everyone leaves.
We all go to the university cafeteria and have lunch. I remark about how awkward the conversation was and someone behind me overhears me and says something that I can’t quite hear but sounds like “I’ll fucking shoot you if you don’t shut up”. I decide to not say anything further. Two guys come and sit by our table, one of them introduces himself as “Sergey”, he has a Russian accent. He gives me a handgun and says “for your protection, be careful”. I say thanks and put the handgun in the belt of my pants. I get out of there as soon as I’m finished eating and go back to the train.
I sit down on the train, Tymee just happens to be next to me on the seat. She looks as she does in the “Cinderella” MV. “Convenient that she’s here”, I think, as I get out my phone to record some audio and we start an interview. I notice I don’t have much charge or storage space on my phone to record the interview but I start anyway.
“Hi Tymee, why are you in Australia?”
“I like this train, there’s lots of green in Sydney along the train track, I think it’s nice and I like the sky and the clouds here. I don’t know if I could live here but I think that I might get bored but then I don’t know. I think the train carriages are better here because they’re bigger. Hey, there’s my flat, you can see it from the train track! Isn’t that cool?”
Tymee points out the train window at the building where she’s staying and I take a photo of it, an ugly beige apartment block that sticks out above the train underpass. We exit the train and go into the flat. I don’t have much time left, so I try and quickly ask a few more relevant questions.
“Tymee, I think you have a very Australian attitude. What do you think about that?”
“I just do what I want, you know? There’s all these people who care about this and that, but I don’t care, I just want to come here and do things. Excuse me but I really need to take a shit and do my hair.”
Tymee goes into the bathroom, and comes out shortly afterward with her hair completely different, dyed light blue in some places and randomly shaved off in others. Some dancers appear, and Tymee goes with them into a large room at the rear of the flat that’s set up as a dance gym, they then start practicing dance choreography together. I assume that this is preparation for the “idol-oritented” show. I stop worrying about the interview as it’s clearly not going to be any good anyway as Tymee doesn’t really answer questions properly, I just sit back and watch the dance practice.
I’m playing guitar in a band, we’re playing some sort of blues music in a shopping mall. There are several people standing around the band, dancing. All of a sudden the band goes into a breakdown using the rhythm from the Wonder Girls song “Why So Lonely“, and all the band members transform into the Wonder Girls members. The fans who are dancing straight away seem to forget how to dance, at first standing around awkwardly, and then very gradually dancing to the beat as if they have never heard a song like this before and don’t know how to keep time to the new mysterious rhythm.
I’m in an outdoor plaza area where there are shoppers and cars, it looks a bit like the plaza in Sydney’s Kings Cross. Hitchhiker appears and starts dancing to “Eleven“. He is brandishing a small silver blade. He starts running around stabbing people while doing his usual dance moves. Blood starts splashing on his reflective body as the music plays and he continues to dance.
I’m at the radio station, I’m not doing my own show but another show with other DJs. I want to play the new Amber song that some people have been asking about but I don’t know where my suitcase with all the songs in it is. I play a song by industrial/power electronics group Navicon Torture Technologies called “I Want To Commit A Crime Of Passion” instead. I walk into the carpark and find the suitcase in the boot of my car. When I get back in the song is still playing and the other DJs have hired someone to make me some kind of cherry chocolate dessert, which they give to me in a small takeaway container.
Later I’m driving home after the show and I get lost in some gated community where all the streets are dead ends. Quite a few other cars are also driving around the same area, they’re seemingly lost too. A police officer turns up and starts fining the other drivers for illegal turns but he ignores me.
Netizenbuzz leaves a series of three cryptic posts on her site, in poetry type format. They all read the same:
Working all day
$33+
Nobody understands
People just want to hate
There are a few blurry photos on each post too, including one of NB in a wedding dress. I consider writing something in reply but I decide not to. I decide that I want to visit NB at her house instead to see if she’s okay.
I go to her house, an old-style white wooden cottage, and walk up to the front door. I ponder whether this is really a good idea to visit her and think that maybe I should leave. Suddenly, she opens the front door and she seems to recognise me straight away. “Why are YOU here?” she asks. NB is wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and along the exposed parts of her arms and legs are strange marks and bruises similar to those of Krokodil addicts. I wonder to myself if she’s addicted to drugs, and if perhaps she needs the web traffic from translations of negative comments on gossip articles to feed her addiction. I start to feel sad for her, but I don’t know how to help her. “Just passing through, sorry to disturb you”, I say awkwardly as I leave.
I’m going to see a concert where After School’s Jungah is performing solo. I’m waiting in line for tickets, in the foyer of the venue. One of my guitar students is here, she’s in line for the first ticket. She buys her ticket but then lets me take her spot in the queue to get her seat in the venue, she shrugs and tells me that she doesn’t really care where she sits because she’s not really into k-pop and she’s just here because of her friend but that I might enjoy a good seat. I’m worried because all the tickets have our names on them, will I not be able to enter if the names don’t match? I enter the venue, a theatrical style venue with sloped audience seats, and sit down, nobody stops me. I see that a small competition is being held with some of the diehard Jungah fans in the first few rows of the venue, but I’m not quite following it – I’ve walked halfway in on it so I don’t really know what’s happening, but it seems to be a small mini-event to kill time before Jungah gets on stage. I wait for the gig to start.
After a short wait, Jungah arrives, and everyone cheers. She starts singing a song, some truly horrid and forgettable slow ballad. It becomes quickly apparent to me that she’s lipsyncing the whole thing. At one point she has the microphone really far away from her face when a note comes in, and the whole rest of the audience also work out at that point what I already knew – that she’s just miming to the backing track. Mutters and booing start around the venue, and quite a few audience members start leaving. Jungah seems upset by this, she finishes her song and then Jungah leaves the stage through a side exit and runs off down a street, into the night. The diehard fans in the front who chose to stay run after, screaming “we love you Jungah!” “come back!” etc, but Jungah is too fast for them, and has given them the slip. The fans who gave chase gradually return back to the venue, looking sad and exhausted.
One of the fans at the front is k-pop v-logger Kpopsteve. He seems really upset with how the gig went, and says that he wishes Jungah wasn’t so bothered by the haters and that she should have continued. I ask him if he’d like to do an interview with me, he says yes. We go to his house, which is next door to the venue, and I begin the interview in his loungeroom. I have a 1980s style portable cassette player that I’m using to record the interview.
I ask him “Hi! How are you? Answer in as much or as little detail as applicable.”
His eyes light up. “I’m good! Hey, you’re Kpopalypse, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I knew it because of that question. You always use that fucking question at the start of your interviews, and your quizzes too! Wow you’re older than I expected, like, you could be my dad or something. Anyway I’m great yeah, just hanging about, doing v-logs, listening to k-pop, you know…” Kpoopsteve seems reluctant to get too close to the cassette player when he’s answering questions, it’s as if he doesn’t want to be recorded.
“What’s your accent, which country are you from?” I ask.
Kpopsteve gets very quiet. “Ummm… I don’t really want to answer that.”
All of a sudden, a demon appears. Well, actually it’s After School’s Kahi wearing a red demon onesie.
“I’M THE CHAT ADMIN DEMON! THIS INTERVIEW IS BEING MODERATED! ANSWER THE QUESTION!” she says, demandingly.
“No, I don’t want to.” says Kpopsteve.
“I DO NOT TOLERATE TROLLING! ANSWER THE QUESTION OR YOU WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE CHAT!”
Kpopsteve is polite but defiant. “It’s my house, I can do what I want.”
“WE SHALL SEE.”
The demon vanishes. A second later, Kpopsteve also vanishes, seemingly removed by the chat admin demon, and I’m alone in his house. I notice that Kpopsteve owns four dogs, of different breeds, but I don’t know what the breeds are called because I don’t know anything about dogs. I feel funny being alone in someone else’s house, so I open the front door of the house and wander outside onto a cobblestone area.
“Hey, I’m back! Did you miss me?” It’s Kpopsteve’s voice.
I turn around, Kpopsteve is behind me. “Oh… hi!” I say as I wave.
“That demon can’t fool me! It’s my house!” he says, smiling. We go back inside and continue the interview.
I’m intrigued by his dogs, they all look completely different. One of them is wearing a cardboard box around its torso. “You have some very nice dogs, which one meets required standards the most?”
“Well, girls can’t go past a royal dog”, Kpopsteve says, patting a tiny long-haired dog that looks like a smaller version of an Afghan Hound.
I want to ask Kpopsteve some deeper questions about k-pop but he starts reading the newspaper. He’s reading a negative review of the gig that we just saw. He says “the people who write these reviews, they don’t seem to understand. We’re just k-pop fans, it’s a competition and a get together, you know, it’s a social event. It doesn’t have these high expectations, we just wanted to have some fun and watch Jungah, you know?”.
I’m in the cobblestone area outside Kpopsteve’s house from the previous dream. It’s like a small courtyard with a slight slope. My girlfriend’s dad is here, he’s selling cans of Dr Pepper under a bridge. He starts chanting “Doctor Pepper, Doctor Doctor Pepper”. All of a sudden the song “Doctor Pepper” starts up. CL, OC Maco, Riff Raff and Diplo all appear, and they start dancing to the song. They all look exactly like they do in the Doctor Pepper video. I start dancing as well, and when Riff Raff’s rap part comes in, Riff Raff dances and I rap all of his lines.
After the song’s over I decide to walk home, along the way I see Riff Raff and CL on the front porch of a house, discussing music, League of Legends Oceania caster Froskurinn is also there. They start talking about Die Antwoord.
“I hate, hate, hated them when I first heard it, but now I kinda like them” says Riff Raff.
“I agree. They’re an acquired taste” says Froskurinn, nodding.
CL also nods, silently.
I’m in a shared student accommodation building. There’s an Asian man next to me, we’re both students living together. We’re watching a gif of Super Junior’s latest live performance. In the image, Siwon’s face gets very close to another man’s genitals in tight green underwear, I’m not sure which other member of Super Junior it is as we can’t see his face. The man next to me seems really embarrassed to be watching this. To save him the embarrassment, instead I go to Anti Kpop-Fangirl to see what’s new there. I can see that AKF has written a new article about some SNSD song that he doesn’t like very much and there’s 1159 comments on it, mostly complaining about his opinion. I then look at my own site and the traffic there has also multiplied, also with hate comments even though I haven’t written about the new SNSD or even heard the song myself yet, I think to myself that I guess people are having trouble telling us apart again. The guy next to me sees me scrolling through all the hate comments and says “you don’t really care about other people at all, do you”. I reply “yes I do – I care by not caring”.
Tagged: fiction, kpopalypse
