Where’s Bobby in the deadbeat Miyeong Au? I got my own lil spin on this idea.
He is the son of a single mother, who saw Celine being treated so badly by the media and saw his own mum in her, everything the media said about her was something he’d already heard a thousand times over. So he decides that he could be better than the media who was so quick to disparage Celine. He gets into managing idol groups, small ones at first, but he’s quickly given the ones with scandals.
It’s his choice to go after misogyny rather than one of his idols that makes Celine aware of him. She may have been ousted, but she still has contacts in SLE. Contacts shes all too willing to use for her daughter’s sake. Bobby gets the job of managing an up and coming K-Pop girl group, protégés of the two Sunlight Sisters.
He’s the first one to be made aware of Rumis upbringing, because he sympathises with Rumis discomfort around the SLS. She breaks down one night, asks him why he’s so nice to her- the bastard child of a whore mother. Bobby tells her that they’re the same, and Rumi begins to trust him. Eventually, she tells him about her mother, and he picks his side.
He trains Rumi in the art of the spin, how to flip interviewers questions on their heads by making obvious their personal bigotry. Bobby is a prodigy in media training, and Rumi is his magnum opus. They work together to raise awareness for the difficulties single mothers face, beginning the long process to repair Celines reputation. No one but them can see what they’re doing.
Imagine Rumi, so angry at the way her mother was treated, turning herself into the media’s darling. Making it so that if Huntr/x or the SLS ever turned on her, they’d be the ones attacked the worst. Bobby protecting her, helping her change the publics perception with each game show and signing. He loves his girls, he never wants to see them fall. But Rumi is different, she’s his reflection.
King Bobby, give him a crown. 😔.
Industry question, questions about her family, about being the successors to the Sunlight Sisters all ending up sliding into a conversation about misogyny in the industry and society (because industry reflects society and idols are nothing without the fans).
Slowly, interview by interview, year by year, laying the groundwork so at the right moment, there can be a reckoning for the entire industry.
Ok but Bobby would have FEELINGS about working for the SLS mentee group, after how much he and his mom personally suffered bc of the way they talked about Celine.
I think he would be strictly professional and slightly icy with the Duo, warm towards the girls but helping correct all three when they fall into internalized shitty mindsets, maybe he'd be a little less close to them at first, and a lot more after they all know about celine being rumi's eomma.
I also think rumi gets him to meet celine fairly early on, and the two of them talk about the industry and rumi's role in it and what to do if their relation comes out depending on how long she's been cultivating her image, etc.
The duo is confused when Huntrix seems to love this guy so much. He's just an average manager, though good at his job, but just a guy, doesnt talk much, doesnt seem to care to be around very much (not when THEY are there, not that they know that). Gets nearly imperceptibly tense and snappy when certain specific sls songs or when they ask about his personal life. Meanwhile he's a completely different person when the duo isnt there, and the girls grow to love him (partly bc they meet after zoey and mira have had a couple reality checks and started watching their words at least a little. Time and effort will handle the rest).
Oh, actually, idea! Because why would this Bobby work with SLE at all if he feels so strongly? How did Celine find out about Bobby?
So consider;
It's a friendship/mentoring relationship that began when Bobby first wrote to Celine years ago when he was a young boy when the scandal first broke. Just simple words of encouragement in a child's scrawl that touched Celine so much she wrote back.
And this began a sort of penpal type thing where he would periodically write to Celine and Celine would always answer back with whatever advice she felt qualified to give at the time.
When he writes in one of this letters that he's thinking about going into managing idol groups, well, Celine was never management but she does know all too well the pitfalls of idol life and what warning signs to look out for and how to talk *to* management so they'll listen.
And at the end of that series of exchanges, she's essentially written a how to guide. Bobby tweaks some advice (some things have changed in the last ten years, though not as much as anyone would like), finds what works for him. But his debut as a group manager is far more successful than anyone expected.
(He finds a bouquet of flowers on his desk after his first group debuts. It's anonymously sent but he knows who they're from.)
Years later, more experienced and highly in drmand, he gets an offer from SLE to manage an upcoming girl group -- successors to the Sunlight Sisters.
He's about to decline the offer out of hand when he notices that Kang Rumi is one of the girls and, curious, he accepts the interview.
