→ it’s time to speak up !
— posing for pictorials…!
honestly, he isn't quite sure why he'd chosen this workshop.
sure, the idea of modeling has crossed his mind before, what with people always telling him he had the height and looks for it, but he's never really considered it as a viable option when it came to his future career. it's not even really that he has an aversion to it; it's just that he doesn't know if he'd be able to do a good job, since he knows there's a lot more that goes into it than just standing there and looking good.
perhaps this is his way of broadening his horizons, to see if he had the chops to actually become a model one day, not as a career on its own, of course, because he has other dreams, but maybe for those pictorials he always sees idols participate in, or even ednosements.
it's a bonus that he actually knows the instructor. it makes him feel more comfortable in practicing his poses, despite there being a whole group of other people who may be watching him and criticizing him in their brains. it also helps that he's pretty much shameless and couldn't care less even if he was being made fun of.
hands down, his favorite part of the whole thing is when he gets to actually put everything he's learned throughout the workshop to the test, getting valuable tips from doyeon as he does so. he can't wait to see how the photos came out, and to show them off to anyone who will give him even a minute of their time.
he hadn't known what to expect out of this event, but now that day two is over, he's glad he decided to participate in it so much. now only day three awaits.
→ it’s time to speak up !
— point-dance lessons from karma...!
he's just gotten out of his final workshop of the first day, feeling good about the ones he's attended so far, having expanded his horizons just a bit. even if he had to sit through two hours of lecture, he still think it's been a good day overall, and he might just mull over the idea of expanding what his dream looks like, adding possibilities he never thought possible to the list of things he wants to achieve.
he's on his way out, planning to head back to the trc building for some training before heading back home when he hears a fairly familiar song. it makes him stop in his tracks, trying to decipher the source and where it's coming from. it takes him but a few seconds to realize that the song is being sung live, and there's an accompanying roar that can only be the sound of frenzied crowd.
he contemplates for a moment if he should check it out or just head back to the company building, but his curiosity gets the better of him and his feet are leading him toward the noise to find trc's very own k.arma performing their latest hit. a smile immediately blooms on his face, pride swelling within him. he really has no reason to be so proud when he's contributed literally nothing to their debut or promotions, but it's not something that can be helped.
he readies himself to head home once again when the performance is over, but when the girls begins speaking and teaching the point choreography to the audience, he thinks he can stay just a bit longer, even if dancing has never been his thing. the fact only becomes more evident as he learns and sees that people around him are doing a much better job at it than him.
despite the jab to his self-confidence, he's glad he stuck around to learn the dance, and when he finally leaves for the day, he feels full and content, ready to take on the next two days with gusto.
march 2020 evaluations
hero by monsta x // ref & line distrubution
feat. @rkmason & @danielxrk & @rkhwichan & @rkyoona
└ ┘
the day of evaluations, as always, arrives sooner than later, but he doesn’t feel rushed at all, or panicked, or nervous. after all, it’s not every day that he gets to perform a dream concept, performing the skills in which he feels the most confident. yes, there’s still choreography, and yes, it’s still difficult, but because he feels so self-assured, so ready, he can’t feel anything else but excitement.
from the start, he oozes confidence, not even an ounce of self-doubt visible in his voice or his body language. he stands up on stage like he was born for it, like it’s his to have, his to take, his to own. his introduction is short, launching into choreography with him at the center, and though he knows his dancing could still use some work, a more refined sharpness, it doesn’t show on his face or his movements.
it takes nearly the whole song until he’s able to shine again, rapping his lines with a distinct clarity, neither mimicking the original rap nor creating something so original that it doesn’t fit in with the song. this, too, he takes like it’s his, like it was made for him instead of another idol.
it’s how he’s approached this whole thing, the whole concept. he raps it, sings it, dances it like it was specifically made for him and this group, like they had no one else as a benchmark, setting their own bars to reach and overcome. it’s how he plans to approach anything that’s thrown at him in the future, if he were given the chance to make his own way, to stand on a stage with his own music, and not covering someone else’s because no matter how he looks at it, he only has one thing in mind:
→ hello, welcome to trc farms !
— rkmookies au; farmhand park chanyeol, the eggplant lover
he's usually up before the sun has fully risen above the horizon, the sky painted with just a touch of reds and oranges and yellows. it's quiet at this time, neither the twins nor his mother having even stirred in their sleep yet, and he actually has time to think as he eats his simple breakfast of rice and soup before heading out on his way to the farms in his classic (read: old) pick-up truck, bought at the local car lot for a fraction of its original selling price.
his first task of the day is to check on the eggplants, their deep purple hues such an exciting way to start off the day. seeing how they've grown and plumped up is as exciting to him as any show they air on the television these days, and on the days they're particularly ripe like today, he makes sure to text minho to let him know. fresh eggplants are the best, after all.
(sometimes his phone dies before he can send the text; on those days he just visits minho personally, taking the eggplants out for show.)
the order in which he checks the vegetables after that come in no particular order, each one treated with the same love and care, but less than the eggplants because favoritism is a hard habit to break. time flies as he inspects and cares for each vine, tree, and sprout, noting their growth with each day that passes. lunch on the farm consists of fresh ingredients, prepared by the farm's chefs, filling him with the warmth of home.
sometimes, he's tasked with dealing with sellers from the grocers, or trading with other local farms. he's always loved days like those, but even more so recently after meeting with a particularly beautiful farmhand from royal orchards to exchange produce.
today, he'd gathered up all of his courage to ask her to meet him in the evening out in the orchards for a date. only time will tell if she shows up, but he's got a gut a feeling that she will.
days come to an end as the sun sets, the brilliant blue melting away into the dark night in brilliant hues of reds and oranges and yellows and pinks, a sight he beholds on his drive back to the house where his mother greets him and his brothers try to tackle him to the ground. they've yet to achieve their goal, but in a few months' time, chanyeol thinks he'll end up on the dirt path leading up to the front door soon enough.
some say that routine is boring, the death of spontaneity, but chanyeol doesn't think that's true. there's moments to be had in routine, and he wouldn't change this life for anything else in the world. there's beauty in simplicity, and the life he's living is the most beautiful of all.
bonus ! headcanons galore
favorite vegetable: the eggplant. obviously
loves farming so much that he even has a garden at home
lives at home with his mom and two little brothers
his pick-up truck is a light blue 1960 ford f100 custom cab
was raised close to the farm all of his life
very naive and simple; has never visited the city, and things like double entendres are lost on him (see: eggplants)
a lot more mellow than rookies!pcy---whereas rkpcy is chaotic and spontaneous, mkpcy is glued to his daily routine and thrives in it
the alluded to first meeting for mkjisoo and mkpcy: they came across each other by a chance errand and, awed by her beauty, asked if she wanted to see his eggplant. naturally upset by this, she started scolding him, only making him confused. he then said he was going to show it to her, reaching into the basket he held in front of him, at which point she began yelling until he pulled out an actual eggplant. at that point, she began praising him for such a beautiful vegetable, and that genuine praise and awe is how he fell for her
february 2020 evaluations
forever young by blackpink
chanyeol: jennie/jisoo @rkmason: rose/lisa
arranged by: chanyeol
└ ┘
one would think that with an evaluation that seemed so catered to his specific skill set, he would know exactly what he wanted to do, but while that was partially true, it also meant that he had so many things he wanted to do, and not a single clue how to narrow down all the ideas going through his head. rap covers of pop songs, rock covers of rap songs, ballad covers of trap songs, the sky was the limit and he was flying so high in the clouds that he didn’t know how to find a way down anymore.
thank god for minho.
as prone as the two were to chaos and messing around, they also worked well together whenever they got down to it, with minho offering a guiding light through the growing mess that was his own psyche. it had taken some time---a lot of time, actually---and with the deadline looming ever nearer, he was able to knock some sense into him to choose a genre, a group, anything at least, a scolding that had resulted in a flurry of song suggestions, one that they were able to narrow down by the end of the day.
with the hardest hurdle done with, what came next became a little easier. it was still a bit of a struggle to choose which direction to go with the song, but in the end, he decided to keep the basic feel and identity of the song in tact, instead creating an arrangement that wouldn’t give it a completely new sound that it would become unrecognizable, but change it up just enough to give it a different style, an unplugged version, if you will.
he’d spent the entirety of that day’s free training session and most of the night arranging and composing a new background tracking to the song, as well as a slowed down melody to go along with it, and by the time morning came along, he was ready to present it to minho. all that was left now was to divvy up the parts and polish everything up, which, with minho and all of his talents and patience, was the easiest part of the entire process.
and it all led up to this moment, now, as he stands in front of the coaches, mic in his hand ready to perform his heart out. the song isn’t an original, not something he’s made from scratch, but it almost feels like it, and it’s been a long time since he’s bared that part of himself to the coaches, the last time he’d done so being years ago, doing the audition that had gotten him a contract to sign on as a trc trainee. it brings back vivid memories, and makes the three long years he’s spent at the company seem like mere months.
he doesn’t know where he gets the confidence to sing when he could have so easily stuck to rapping, showing off, by far, his most impressive skill, but it feels a little stale, a little lacking if he were to do that, so he tries his hand at singing. the song isn’t incredibly difficult note wise, but there’s a lot that needs to be conveyed within the easy beat and rhythm, something he isn’t exactly trained well enough to do yet. in short, it’s a bit of a struggle, but, as usual, he’s trying his best, showing a different side of him, fresh.
it’s a stark contrast from when he does actually get to rap, the sole section in the song where he gets to show himself at his best, calm and confident, like he was made for the stage. he’s just happy, exceedingly happy, that he doesn’t have to dance for this evaluation, and by the time he’s back to singing, he’s able to hang onto that high to drag it out through the rest of the song despite not having another chance to rap again.
the song ends far too quickly, the performance done before he can get his fill, and he supposes that’s the magic of it. he’ll never feel satisfied, will never feel full, and he can’t wait until he can take his rightful place on stage. until then, he’ll keep trying his best to improve so he can stand in front of a rapt audience with pride.
→ hello, it’s your happy virus, park chanyeol !
--- spop mc auditions
auditioning to become an mc is kind of a strange thing. he’s never had any experience with it, and despite his confidence in his abilities to just talk, it’s still a bit different than what they’re being asked to do. throw in the fact that the practice scripts they’d been given are for some sort of dance program, and he’s thrown for a loop. sure, he’s never thought about doing mc things before, and had that one time playing around with joy in the studio pretending to be a radio host, but this all just feels like foreign language-speaking country, and he’s being thrown into the ring without a translator.
but he’s never been one to back away from a challenge, and even though his dancing is still pretty sub-par when compared to everyone else in the company, it’s still improved quite vastly from when he’d first started, so that’s at least something.
not to mention, he has a great support system all around him, with friends who wish to see him do well despite them technically being competition, and those who inspire him to do better, like dylan, who’d even told him about a potential debut opportunity coming up for him, lending him some practice by acting as a debuted idol while chanyeol could take on the mc role as a sort of dry run for the whole audition process.
and then there’s wes, who’s becomes somewhat of an older figure to him, someone who had recently just told him he’d been thinking of leaving dreams of the idol world behind as someone older, someone who’s been at the company longer, someone who’s third trainee contract will be expiring in a few months. it always pains him when someone leaves, and he always tries his best to be understanding, but it hits a little different when it comes to wes, who has been there as his mentor from day one, a sort of calming figure to his chaotic energy, and he just can’t see why he would give up now, after six years (but maybe that’s his own wish for him not to leave talking).
despite his impending contract termination, though, wes is still willing to sit through auditions with him, and he couldn’t be any more grateful. who knows when he’ll get an opportunity like this again, not just an audition, but the chance to do something with wes. it’s almost bittersweet.
but just like always, wes is able to reel him in even before the thing begins, and he’s able to concentrate on the task at hand rather than on future goodbyes.
“welcome back to isq! it’s your boy wes…”
“and your happy virus, park chanyeol!” he poses with his face framed in his hands, voice as high energy and peppy as usual, with no sign he’d just been lamenting, a practiced trait, if ever he had one.
“ah, you know, i’ve been feeling kind of weak in my limbs lately,” wes says, massaging his limbs as he fakes a pained expression. “the doctor recommends getting more exercise, can you believe it?”
chanyeol gasps, going off script, covering his mouth with his hand. “even more exercise? with your godly physique? then what should we do?”
wes breaks, snorting a laugh. “mm, i think i need more dance practice anyway…”
it’s chanyeol’s turn to laugh, because out of the two of them, he’s the one who needs dance practice the most. still, he speaks, his line, evidence of his laughter coloring his words. “oh? is that what i think it means?”
“i think it does~”
“then it’s time for!” he jumps up from his seat, proceeding to dance, twisting his hips as he says his next line. “the shanghai twist!” undoubtedly, he looks like a god damn fool, but he’s having fun, and isn’t that what being an mc is about anyway? if you’re not having fun, it shows to your viewers, and it affects the broadcast. at least, that’s what he’s been told during lessons, and it makes far too much sense for him to doubt the validity of it. “then, let’s get started right away!”
the next few minutes of the fake broadcast consists of him and wes both trying out choreographies of current idol groups and trying to mesh the together by combining the legs of one song with the upper body of another, and it’s just as disastrous as he’d expected, and hoped. being good at something is one thing, but to fail in front of others, now that’s something hilarious. it’s as if he hadn’t trained for more than two years as a trainee, his body flailing all over the place, unable to keep up with both choreographies at once. he can’t quite see himself as he dances, as he’s concentrated on the examples in front of him, but he can certainly imagine, and that makes his laughter nonstop. the sounds of wes’ laughter don’t really help his case at all.
by the time the segment is over, he’s completely out of breath, bent over in exhaustion. it had looked so much easier in the practice script, but it’s also so much more fun to do in actuality. it’s time to give out points, and wes is quite generous, giving him some points for looking like a mixture of a zombie and a hyperactive ape, but deducts him for not knowing what choreography he’s trying to imitate, ultimately leading him to a negative score.
chanyeol is quite the opposite, hard on his friend because he knows how good he is at dancing and how much easier it was for him. “120 points for skill, 30 points for technique,” he begins, only to turn it around, adding, “minus 90 for making me look worse, and minus 30 for that shirt.”
unfortunately, he’d miscalculated his math, which meant that wes still won in the end, with -20 points, but he thinks he’s okay with that as he laughs, out of the hilarity of the situation or because he’s pretty much tuckered himself out.
the audition ends rather uneventfully, but as they both leave, wes wraps his arm around his shoulders, ruffling his hair. all of his life, chanyeol had been an older brother, an older figure, seen himself as someone who needs to protect others. it had been a while since he’d had a figure who could look over him, and when he realizes that’s why wes’ coming departure from the company is hitting him so hard, he does the only thing he knows how: he pushes the thought away for another day.
instead, he grins, giving wes a light gut punch, pretending it’s for showing him. “watch out. next time there’s a rap battle, i’m taking you down.”
never mind that there will likely not be a next time.
december 2019 evaluations
commercial film improv
provided object: pepero box
└ ┘
as a master weaver of tall tales (read: liar), chanyeol is an expert at putting on a face and rolling with whatever comes out of his mouth, belief in his lies resting upon his features, often indecipherable whether or not he's joking around or speaking in all seriousness. it's an art he's mastered over the years, a mechanism meant to keep himself from diving too deeply into anything too emotional, a pretense of shallowness to keep him from going over the edge. to put it frankly, park chanyeol is a great liar.
a natural acting talent, he is not.
there's something quite different about being put on the spot, trying to go according to a script or presenting an item to the public for purchase. a lie is simple, made up on the spot, often outlandish and outrageous, spoken with a straight face that says he believes everything he's blurting out. so when they put a box of pepero in his hand and tell him to make up an impromptu cf, he stands there frozen for a few moments, wondering if he can pull this off.
if he were at home, dared to do this by his friends and family, he'd go overboard, crafting some elaborate story of knight and dragons and ghosts for good measure, but he thinks if he remembers the coaches' words, to take it seriously, and it's hard to craft such a large tale in thirty seconds without all the necessary cg and cast extras.
so he goes with what he knows. pepero is heavily linked to couples and romance, and he thinks he's had good practice at that over the past year and some odd months and because jisoo isn't there, the camera will have to be a stand-in for the moment.
he approaches the camera with a smile, as if the lens were her bright brown eyes, pretending to cover its eyes without actually touching the equipment, allowing for a bit of space at the bottom of the shot. he's internally dying inside, hating having to show this side himself in public to others, but he tries his best to hide how badly he's cringing at the moment. "wait. don’t open your eyes yet,” he says, voice much softer and gentler than usual. he pauses for a moment before speaking again. “okay, now.”
he moves his hand and backs up, arms perpendicular to the ground as he does a quick spin. “how many days has it been?” he asks, pretending to take out several sticks of pepero, saying the number ‘one’ cutely as he pretends to eat four of them. “eleven eleven?” he then holds up the box. “then let’s continue to be together for the rest of this box...”
he then steps to the side, free hand making a sweeping gesture as if there are stacks and stacks more of pepero boxes, “and all of these, too.”
he steps back into the center of the shot, as if it’s a new scene, holding up the box in his hand. “pepero. joining hearts since 1983.”
the cf, in his head, is over with that line, and he takes this opportunity to crouch down to the ground, every part of his body curling into itself. he thinks the worst is over, but then he remembers...
november 2019 evaluations
special busking events
📍 sinchon-dong, seodaemun-gu, seoul
└ ┘
it’s just three days after his birthday, and if these freezing weather conditions are nature’s gift to him, then he’d like a refund as soon as possible.
previously, he remembers the sweltering heat, and at least back then, they had ice cold water bottles and coolers to help combat the heat, and while handing out heat packs helps in short intervals before they're given away, there isn't much to be done about the chills once those heat packs are gone and he's standing underneath a tent that provides no protection from jack frost and his mischief.
but that's not the only difference he notices from the last time they've been forced to do something similar. back then, he'd only been a trainee for a month, confident as all hell in his rapping skills and not much else, least of all his ability---or lack thereof---to dance, and while he still wouldn't call himself good at it by any means, nor does he ever believe he'll reach that level, he notices how much easier it is for him to pick up choreography, to move his body, to at least appear competent, and blend in with the group rather than stand out with his terrible dancing. and that's something not even the cold can take away from him.
(he makes a vulgar joke to wes about what the cold can take from him, but he's quickly scolded by the elder trainee and the staff member standing closeby.)
the day begins to wind down, and he's actually quite surprised at how quickly it had gone, even in these last few hours. sure, he's almost as exhausted as he was last time (almost, because he came prepared this time), but despite the cold, he actually had fun talking to random strangers and handing out heat packs. he can't remember the last time he'd had time to do that, to engage in random conversation, to fill up his social meter to the very brim. it's a nice change of pace for once, and while he does miss the random encounters and seeing new faces every day, he still wouldn't trade his current situation for the world.
he doesn't know how much longer it's going to take, but he's on his way. the dream is just out there in the distance, and he just has to reach out there and grab it.
