- i'd like to try out for cassey, if that's okay! i might also change her name ahh
to preface my ideas, i've been listening to a lot of this song! the vibes i felt from the song carried over into the ideas i was thinking of, with main themes revolving around rebirth [ sort of ], a lack of meaning [ in life ], and change/a desire to leave a mark on the world.
for her story, i'm thinking that there's two primary timelines: the future, which is set hundreds of years foward, and the present. in the future, she was an idol, which should've been nice and all, except the world was literally dying. people were dropping dead left and right from a lethal and contagious disease, anger and grief turn functional humans into living husks, and all the technological advancements humankind has made in the last hundreds of years hadn't been able to stop the disease in its tracks. a cure has, however, been developed, but due to the state of the world and the expenses, distribution is only limited to certain people - namely, the idols.
in this future timeline, idols are revered like gods. they bring endless cheer, happiness, excitement and hope for the future with their lively music, dancing, acting, and so on. however, they're still normal, every day humans who work in the industry and managed to strike gold with their talents. enter cassey, an idol who feels as though life is pointless, with the catastrophes of the world at their constant wake. she was originally scouted for her good looks and for her musical prowess, and as an idol, the industry was unforgiving. people always wanted more music, more messages of hope, more signs that there was still a worthwhile life to live out. with the constant stream of demands and increasing dosages of medication to prevent the disease from taking its hold on her, cassey grew increasingly weary of the situations of the world. life was dull - what was the point when your very existence was treated like some sort of untouchable being?
at that time, cassey saw the world through gray lenses. despite all the cheer that her music brought to the rest of the people, it seemed as though a permanent raincloud hung over her head. however, she had to hide this from everyone else, because she’d simply be "treated" or locked away. idols couldn’t be sad or empty. it was simply unheard of, and anyone that felt those emotions expertly hid them up. cassey, too, did this.
in that future, idols "couldn't die" - they simply disappeared, covered up by the media, swept under the rug like nothing ever happened, like they never existed. cassey didn't want that for herself, so in an act of desperation, she staged an incident to fake her death in public to escape from the demands of the people and from the fear of being forgotten. the problem was that her death wasn’t faked - she ended up actually dying.
in this world, there is no afterlife for most people. if you die, you stay dead, and there’s nothing more you can do. that was the gods’ idea of a blessing, a reprieve from the tragedies of the world. however, for some select people, there is no end to the suffering for them. they are reborn, either into the future or far into the past. in this particular case, cassey is sent into the past, retaining all her memories of her idol days and moments leading up to her untimely death.
for someone to be sent to the past, it means that the gods have an important task for them. the gods wanted cassey to change the destiny of the world, before it was too late. this was a struggle for her because there was such a time gap between her different timelines, and it frequently messes around with her thoughts. in the present day, she is still an idol, but she has far less influence than she did before. change is difficult for a wary, growing, experimenting world that plays tentatively with the strings of fate, and cassey understands that as difficult as things might be, change needs to occur.
one big factor that sets apart the two timelines is how well the idols are able to cooperate with each other. in the future, it was every man for himself, with each person vying against each other for the top. that's where all the money, fame, power, and benefits came from, and if you couldn't establish a respectable position for yourself within the pecking order, then you were better off as an ordinary human being. only the "best" idols flourished, and having seen the view from the top herself, cassey was determined to not let that happen with the present timeline.
thus, she goes off to try and create more meaningful relationships with other idols in hopes of bringing the industry together more. whether or not she succeeds remains to be seen, but she does become friends [ or at least acquaintances ] with two other idol ocs of mine that i'm still in the process of developing, maiko [ singer/dancer ] and yasuhiro [ singer/internet star of sorts? ].
that's as far as my ideas go for now, but i'm really excited to dig in deeper into these relationships and see how it affects cassey and the present, as well as how much things would change in the future. a butterfly effect is unavoidable if things change, but how would the timelines work? what if they coexist side by side and are just in different places of the spectrum? because cassey of the future traveled to the present, would that mean there would be no more cassey in the future, or is the only thing left her corpse? if something big happens in the present, would it instantaneously lead to a similarly large change in the future timeline? there's a world of possibilities to explore with different timelines and dimensions and admittedly. i haven’t felt this excited for an idea in a hot second KJDKFJKGLKGL
