Pretending to be someone’s girlfriend or love interest is a skill which Minhee seem to be master of in late, she is a very good fake girlfriend but she would be a terrible real girlfriend. If she got offer drama role right now she probably is pretty good playing lovesick school girl especially all of this practice. This prank seems like a truly fun idea to mess with Gray as technically they are only giving him what he wants even though it’s real at all. The two trainees were leaning against the walls of the studio during a break stretching out their long legs even though Minhyuk was like long spaghetti legs, she gently knocks the others legs with her own. “Are you sure that they are not on silts huh?” she giggles little at her own joke before her attention was drawn by their target entering the studio, Minhee leaned on the other’s shoulder then whispers to him. “We need a code name for Gray maybe like the cloud has entered the building or something like that~” she gave Minhyuk’s sideglance to look over at his other rapper friend, “you ready? it’s showtime.”
"juyeon hyung!!!" seonho's voice echos with the energy and volume he puts behind it as he latches onto the other male in the hall. they had both been walking the same way so he wonders if the older was also on his way to a dance studio for practice. and as he thinks this another brilliant idea comes to his mind and the teen is tightening his hold and shifting so he could give the older a grin.
"hyung, are you going to go dance? want to go together?" his expression is rather excited puppy like right now, as if he doesn't at all expect to be rejected ( which he really doesn’t because what else could juyeon have to do right now? ). they're in the same group for this months eval so practicing together has become a norm for them and he quiet enjoys working with juyeon so far. the new trainee is interesting. "I can help you with the dance like a good sunbae!! I know there are some really tricky parts but if we work slowly I'm sure you'll get them down!" he's talking as if he isn't normally the issue when it comes to dancing, him and his two left feet. but really, seonho has been putting in the work as he always does--the problem with seonho is trying to get him to take a break.
kids going to end up practicing himself into an early grave at this rate.
♥ KT ENTERTAINMENT’S APRIL EVALUATIONS: JOINT PERFORMANCE WITH KIM TAEHYUNG- EXO - PLAYBOY
Playboy is a little... risque to say the least.
It’s most certainly out of Hyunjin’s comfort zone - even if it’s simultaneously a performance he wants to tackle. Still so caught up on the fact that he hasn’t had many of the same experiences others his age have had, he wonders if he’ll even be able to pull off a concept like this. Darker, deeper, sexier. Cute? Sure. Handsome? On a good day. But did Hyunjin consider himself to be sexy? Almost never.
Theoretically, he understands what needs to go into the performance to give it that expected edge. Narrowed eyes and a darkened expression, to Hyunjin what made ‘sexy’ sexy was almost entirely reduced to facial expression. During rehearsal, more often than not, he catches himself watching his own expression more than his dance in the mirror, trying to pinpoint exactly what sexy felt like.
In the end, it comes as a raised eyebrow midway through the performance. Through extra flicks of his hips and a slightly rougher vocal tone than what he’s used to mixed with the soft swing of the music. Certainly, the performance isn’t bad - in fact, Hyunjin’s rather proud of what he’s managed to do (given the fact that he has no experience to draw from). It’s just very different.
．．．☆ ☽
The cameras come crashing down and Hyunjin freezes, staring in abject horror as they fall in some awful mimicry of the domino effect, lenses shattering and cameras falling to the ground into million won piles of broken equipment. There’s immediate palpable tension in the air as the coaches rush forward, voices sharp as they demand the identity of this perpetrator. And when the blame falls onto Hyunjin and Taehyung, Hyunjin can’t even bring himself to protest the blatant untruth. Not when his mind goes blank and his hands can barely even stutter out half formed signs of wordless objections.
Hyunjin has never been good with ridicule, more specifically, public ridicule. Too many experiences with the discomfort of being called awful, awful things in public spaces only for everyone around him to turn away, miraculously blind to the little boy being called a ‘retard’ for communicating in unspoken sign with his parents. (People could be terribly cruel if given the opportunity). Something in him just shatters under the pressure of it, trust for the company and the pseudo-family he had made here chipping away ever so slightly.
Brain muddled and tongue thick and heavy in his mouth, verbal speech has become a lost concept to Hyunjin, but it doesn’t stop him from hearing the monetary compensation they demand citing damages that he hadn’t caused. There’s no way Hyunjin could afford one of those cameras let alone multiple of them so the thought of having to pay for all of this sends his brain into even more of a frenzy. His family gets by – but getting by in Seoul really isn’t enough anymore. Not when his parents both work in low paying blue collar jobs and it still isn’t enough for them to live comfortably. (The stipends are what really provides their family with any semblance of stability).
It all sends him reeling as they exit, white knuckled fingers clutching onto Taehyung’s coat and eyes already starting to water. Devastated that they could just accuse him like this, it feels so wrong and yet it was so readily accepted. Door shut behind them, it’s only now when he’s uselessly trying to blink back tears – soon straight up crying because he feels just that bad. It really does mark an awful day.
And Hyunjin – he rarely feels angry, rarely feels upset, but when they tell him it was just a prank, he can’t help it as he feels a bubbling of red inside of himself. In the end, this was just a joke to them. Although the dancer physically relaxes, there’s still visible tension in his expression, finding it hard to simply “brush it off” and accept the prank for what they deem a simple moment of fun.
As April is the month for pranks and fun galore, the coaches, spread across each of the four companies, have agreed that a little mischief wouldn’t hurt after all the hard work the trainees have been doing since the beginning of 2019. Throughout the month of April, the coaches have planned a camera prank for the trainees to be unveiled after their group performance on the last day of the month.
On April 1st, the trainees are rounded up into an auditorium at Seocho for a short presentation of what’s to be expected for the month of April. To not derail the planned prank, April 1st is without any hijinks and instead the presentation starts off charismatically with a coach stepping forward and calling out to the trainees that they’ve got fifteen minutes to divide themselves into groups for the month; each group can be a mix from different companies and genders as long as groups are made. The coaches also heavily emphasize that the larger the groups are, the harder the coaches will grade them on their performance at the end of the month.
Once the fifteen minutes are up, the coaches urge the groups to sit alongside each other as they’re presented a video of one of Convex’s stage performances of Mansae, where each of the members were able to successfully catch the camera throughout the heavy choreography and live singing. Without so much as a hesitation, the video is clipped halfway through as the coaches turn to the trainees and announce that this month’s eval, while seemingly easy, isn’t one to underestimate. Their task for the month is to practice a heavily choreographed routine, sing it live, all while being able to catch and find the eye of the camera. Trainees can practice trying to find the camera but they will not know how many cameras will be used at the final performance.
By the end of the first week of April, the trainees are to come up with a Korean song as well as it’s choreography and submit the decision before April 8th. Once approved, trainees will concentrate on this performance for the duration of the month until the final performance on April 30th.
On the last day of the month, each group of trainees will be led into a large room, separated from the rest who await in the one of the Seocho halls (click for reference), where seven cameras, and their respective cameramen, await them; all aimed at certain spots of the room. No instruction will be made as to which camera will be directed onto which person or which will be on at a certain time so it is up to the trainees to use their better judgement and their eyes to get both the best shot from each camera and to successfully catch the eye of the camera. The performance will begin when a coach announces over the intercom and says, ‘Performance start!’.
The performance will follow as practiced and once done, all the cameramen will leave, wordlessly, as the trainees are instructed to stay in the room. The cameras that were left behind will seem fine, except the very last one at the right, which had been wired to topple over once the door of the room is closed, causing it to fall onto one another. As such a domino affect ensues and all seven cameras fall over, bulbs and lens crashing and breaking on their way down. However, unbeknownst to the trainees, there will be an eighth camera hidden in the room to document the rest of the event after the collision.
The collision causes such a ruckus that the coaches run into the room, exclaiming what happened. The coaches will use their best acting skills to accuse the trainees in the room for destroying the cameras and asking them how they plan to pay for the destruction of the expensive equipment. It is up to the trainees to get themselves out of this mess in the most professional and effective way possible.
By the end, the coaches will discuss a punishment for the group of trainees before leading them out into the auditorium where the rest of the other trainees are to await in silence until each group of trainees return from their performance. When everyone is back, the coaches lower the overhead screen and simultaneously each video of the recorded camera prank blinks onto the screen with the coaches screaming, ‘Gotcha!’, revealing that the whole situation had been a prank, after all.
For +2 DEBUT POINTS, +3 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE AS YOU WISH, and +1WK OF A RELEVANT ACHIEVEMENT, write a four-post thread with another trainee from their group or a 200+ words solo about the performance-aspect of the evaluation (preparation or final performance).
For +2 DEBUT POINTS and +2 CHARISMA POINTS, write a four-post thread with another trainee or a 300+ words solo about their reaction to the camera prank.
Please tag all your posts as #rkapr19eval and have them up by midnight EST at the end of Tuesday, April 30st.
APRIL EVALUATION (for the MAY 1 verification form)
[link to thread or solo about camera prank]
+2 CHARISMA POINTS
+2 DEBUT POINTS
NEW DEBUT POINTS TOTAL:
[link to thread or solo about evaluation]
+3 ___ (RELEVANT) POINTS
+2 DEBUT POINTS
+1WK ___ (RELEVANT) ACHIEVEMENT (number of times taken + current level)
NEW DEBUT POINTS TOTAL:
after receiving both sceptical looks and criticism by netizens regarding his weak dancing, kang joon had decided to surprise everyone by working on it. he knew that he would never become a big dancer, even though he was flexible due to his taekwondo training. but he felt like a clumsy fool like him could never express himself through his whole body as artistic and dreamy as 'real', fullfledged dancers, when he just how to transfer his feelings through his hands into a piano.
but he knew he could work on it and become at least a moderate, average dancer who would not become a shame for his company once again. after focusing most of his energy into his dancing skills, he reached a level he thought was acceptable enough to aim at a strong, manly dance for the new evaluation. but even then he thought it would be a better idea to ask for a little help by those who knew her stuff.
as he walked down the halls, he came across yoojung who he had worked with during the big samsung show. since she had basically coached him and jaehyun during that time, he decided to approach her.
"hey, yoojung!" he called out to her and waved. "can i borrow some of your time to help me out with a dance?"
jaehyun doesn’t like ilhoon. in all honesty, he thinks ilhoon’s an annoying try-hard and he’d much rather not associate himself with the likes of someone like him. the both of them haven’t had the best of encounters; not since jaehyun’s threatened to expose ilhoon and quite possibly, ruin his career or whatever was going to be of it.
still, despite the unfavourable feelings he had towards someone like ilhoon, jaehyun wasn’t a complete monster. he’d been wanting to warn ilhoon about a potential stalker for a while and since the both of them somehow were in the same group this month, this seemed like the perfect chance.
“hey,” he says, walking up to ilhoon. “i need to talk to you about something,” he looks around, trying to ensure that there aren’t too many people around to eavesdrop on them. “you need to be careful. i think you’re being stalked.”
he wasn’t about to let ilhoon fall into the hands of a potential stalker, especially since the boy that jaehyun had bumped into seemed a little off the grid as well, trying to rake out questions from jaehyun. that definitely wasn’t safe, and would probably be worse for ilhoon.
❪ follow the light that is even more blinding ∙∙∙ ❫
it’s unfamiliar territory. picture this: park jiwon stepping out of her comfort zone. ( and so early on in her trainee career, it was ... interesting, to say the least ) but here she is, an unknowing duckling a gaggle of boisterous trainees, all uncertain of what’s to come. in the minutes to come, jiwon finds herself smack-dab in one of the scenes of her favorite movie genres. right before the jump scare -- the thundering, ominous music, the slow-crawl of the camera, the dim of lights and then the scare. it comes like a thunderous assault of nerves and panic as everyone scrambles around the auditorium, grabbing arms and limbs with no real game-plan in sight.
jiwon becomes the instigator as she fights tooth and nail for survival. what was the use of being a wallflower when the evaluation for the month could only be deemed something of the dog eat dog variety?
just how was jiwon supposed to ‘catch’ this so-called eye?
this is how she comes to find herself, momo, chungha, seulgi, lisa and saerom in a single group; sitting in their row, waiting for what’s to come. while taking initiative is always the smartest thing to do, it’s where jiwon fails -- she’s no leader, she was never meant to take ‘charge’ and be the voice of the people. hell, jiwon barely had a voice for herself. who was she to voice opinions and thoughts so freely to people she barely even knew?
and then there was the unforeseeable complications: apparently, they were all dancers.
it was like the devil had planned and laughed at their fate, they were all dancers; a gaggle of fools with the best feet to match. jiwon hadn’t been a trainee for long but she was sure this couldn’t be what training entailed -- this was a hardship jiwon didn’t sign up for.
she wasn’t a leader, she didn’t know how to handle this.
that’s why surprise comes second when they’re handing out parts, dishing out what they all believed they were best at and when it comes to jiwon: when she’s asked if she can sing, hesitance comes first with surprise a ringing second. sing? there was no way.
but really, who was jiwon to say no? she wasn’t a leader, but she also didn’t have the backbone to oppose.
in the end, she practices. while jiwon can’t say her entire heart is into it, she’s full of nerves and unease, she does her best to keep up with the lines and the beat of the song. she isn’t a born singer and ( barely ) six months of training can only do so much and while she tries to tell herself that the song isn’t a hard song ( the dancing was a doozy trying to memorize all the steps and counts but she got it in the end ), she can’t help but get hung up over the lines.
of course they’re no main vocal -- she can only offer her condolences to seulgi who seemed just as unsure of her part as jiwon did -- but, like everything jiwon was unsure of, there was no way she could do this confidently.
dancing? yes -- sure, obviously faking confidence was easier when dancing could become muscle memory and exhausted into bone. the dance is more girl-crush than she had expected. it didn’t look hard, too. and while it was definitely something one of her teammates back at the dance club would have liked, jiwon was more impartial -- if it got her through this month’s evaluations scotch-free, why not?
singing, on the other hand -- didn’t that take real skill?
the end of the month comes faster than she feared. she’s gripped by the turn of the clock and how april quickly fades to the last day. she’s worrying about it all the way to seocho, shedding her coat as they’re told to file into the auditorium before being dispersed into their individual rooms.
she despairs for the minute they’re given as camera equipment is tinkered and the men who stand behind them quiet down. the lights are bright along the crowns of their heads and jiwon can feel her sweat begin to swelter at her palms.
when the music starts: she can only hope for the best.
her voice rising from her throat the moment her limbs meet the floor and she’s smiling at the camera that’s directed her way. it’s blinking red eye a smile away --
APRIL EVALUATIONS ✰
behind the scenes ⇢ the camera prank
okay. it’s a little odd that they’re being held back after their performance. saerom purses her lips and can’t help but furrow her brows, looking around her at her group, still somewhat puzzled by the coaches instructions. this hadn’t ever happened before. usually she performs and then she is free to go. naturally, saerom starts jumping to conclusions, thinking about all the plausible reasons, some more likely than others, as to why they’re here still. maybe someone wanted to comment on their routine or maybe there was something wrong. all they could do for the moment was hold tight until they were given new instructions. seemed strange, but whatever.
saerom’s seemingly cool temperament disappears the moment the first camera hits the ground. she yelps aloud, before cupping her hand over her mouth, watching as one after the other, the cameras fall to the group, smashing; the lenses, all the buttons, the little bits and bobs that make everything work. thousands of dollars was surrounding them, only not in working order. saerom is mortified to say the least. she looks around at the damage before looking at her fellow group members in absolute horror, hand still cupped over her mouth. “oh my god.” she murmurs, shaking her head. she’s not even entirely sure what happened.
no one had moved from the group, so the most logical thing would be that it was an accident? or maybe the building was haunted? that’s a possibility. she keeps blinking repeatedly, trying to fathom a reason as to why the cameras would suddenly come down in the way that they did. when the door of the space flies open and the coaches return to the room, storming, their own faces flooded with horror. only less fearful, more angry, saerom feels herself shrivel up into a tiny blob, wanting to shrink and run away from the criticisms and harsh voices of the coaches.
the entire group is ushered out after they’re given a rather aggressive lecture. talks of punishing them arises and saerom can’t help but think back to the punishment rumours that circulated seocho for a couple of weeks. she’s horrified. what if they kick them out of the company? back in the auditorium, saerom finds herself more or less clinging to jiwon. all the possibilities of what could happen to them swarm her head, although everything dissipates when their reaction to the whole incident is aired on the big screen in front of them. saerom looks up and just shakes her head in horror. were they expected to relive it again, was the punishment coming?
turns out that this whole thing was a fun little prank. although saerom didn’t really see the funny side of breaking really expensive equipment or giving innocent trainees heart attacks. but still, she does find herself laughing just a little at the whole ordeal.
