rv-yena

[rv-yena]

“yeah, i thought that was a little weird when i saw it, too. especially since you’re underage.”

“dear choreographers– next time, if i could not grind against sean, that’d be cool. thanks for otherwise cool choreography. love mirae.”

[rv-yena]

rvkyle:

“i guess you’re right. how’re you feeling about the show so far?”

“to be honest, i feel like i could do better. it’s like i’m working harder than ever, but i’m still not quite good enough, you know?”

[rv-yena]

what's the concept you want to debut with?

“I’m not sure exactly what I want to debut with, but definitely not that ridiculous cute concept that so many girls have had to debut with. I’ve been told I’d suit it, but I don’t want to have to make my voice sound higher than it is or have my only line be ‘oppa, saranghae’. A concept in which that wouldn’t be expected of me would be fantastic.”

[rv-yena]

what do you see yourself doing in 10 years

“I see myself as an idol, taking the world by storm. And, if that doesn’t work out.. I guess I see myself working a hard labor job and taking care of my mother.”

[rv-yena]

ideal type?

“Someone who’s tall - or at least taller than me - would be a good start. A nice smile and a positive outlook on life. Someone who wouldn’t bring me down, but instead, help me become a better version of myself.”

[rv-yena]

☺❄?☮

☺ - Do they prefer sour or sweet treats?

Yena prefers a sweet taste, definitely. She can’t really handle sour tastes that well.

❄ -  Favorite season and why?

Yena’s favorite season is winter because she thinks the snow is pretty and she just associates the season with good memories. Plus, she loves to bundle up or warm up with a cup of mint hot cocoa.

☮ - Do they have an idol or someone they look up to?

She really admires Lottie from Harmony, but she actually really likes all the members of Harmony - they’re really impressive in her opinion.

[rv-yena]

ip3 | episode four | the hardest time in yena’s career

word count: 422

If you were to guess the most difficult part in Jeon Yena's career path, you might just assume it was getting scammed in her childhood - it had been a rocky situation, after all. Her mother had forked out more money than she even had just to try and help her daughter, and then it didn't turn out to be real, and their money was never returned. It was difficult, for sure, but that's not quite the hardest thing she's faced.

In 2015, Yena went through a very difficult time that very few people know about. She finally debuted, and it was everything she could have hoped for. She loved the girls she was promoting with, she loved the group's image, she loved her company, and most of all, she loved performing. It was a good time, but it was very short-lived. Seven months following her debut, the group disbanded due to financial issues within the company. They didn't want to take a risk with this girl group, so they gave up and told the girls that they would be demoted back to trainees.

Most of the girls stayed in the company, patiently waiting for another shot - but Yena fell into a very deep sadness and left the company, returning home to be with her mother. She thought she had achieved her dreams after fighting so hard for it, and even losing a shot at a normal childhood along the way - and then it was gone with a snap of the CEO's fingers. In her mind, it was her fault. She hadn't been good enough, she hadn't tried hard enough, she could have done something to protect the group; but truly, it wasn't her fault. It wasn't anyone's fault except the company's, for deciding that they were ready to debut the girls and then hitting the back button.

During that period in her life, Yena almost gave up. She lost sight of what she was aiming for and almost decided that she just wasn't good enough to be an idol, and she never would be. Her days were spent putting herself down and thinking about all the tiny mistakes she might have made while pursuing her dreams so recklessly. Instead of the always-smiling, bright and friendly girl that most people know her as, she became negative, insecure, and pessimistic.

She overcame that time and never speaks about it, thinking that people will call her weak for letting something like her group disbanding bend her so out of shape; but she hasn't forgotten it.

[rv-yena]

rvxsean:

Sean looked up when he heard the girl speak, smiling already just from someone approaching him. By then, they were already into the third week of Idol Project, but he still hadn’t gotten to know some of the other trainees as much as he would’ve liked. If he hadn’t known the Kang sisters beforehand, he probably wouldn’t have known any of the female trainees at all. It was much easier to find time to talk to the other male trainees when they were all together in the dorm after filming for the show, but all of the trainees were really only around each other when they were working on the actual challenges for each episode. 

He laughed softly when he heard her speak, just from how right she was. “Yeah, I’m still a trainee seven years in,” Sean replied. It was weird for him to think about how he was still just a kid when he started training with Radioactive, and now almost eight years later he still hadn’t debuted. “It does suck sometimes. Have you been with Three Sixty for that long?”

Listening to his response, Yena immediately felt more comfortable. He didn't seem like the person to go out of his way to be rude, so that worry was gone and her smile became more of a genuine one rather than a false confidence one. "No, I've actually only been with Three Sixty since... Early February..? Yeah, that sounds about right," She spoke, partially thinking aloud. "I started at an indie company, which turned out to be a scam, and then I was an independent trainee for a while, then I joined a different company that I later debuted with, but.. My group disbanded seven months after the debut, so.. I consider that training time, too. I joined Three Sixty early this year with a lot of convincing from my mother," She admitted.

"What about you? Have you been with Radioactive for all those grueling years, or have you ever trained anywhere else?" She inquired. In her eyes, staying with one company for anything over four years would be borderline torture - sure, it would be familiar, but even just being in a singular company for three years was almost too much for her. Seeing people get to debut without her had made her feel inferior, but seven years.. She couldn't even imagine it. Moving companies had been what made her training time bearable.

[rv-yena]

ip3 | episode three | weekly challenge

word count: 745

When Yena was informed of the week's plans, she was happy, to say the least - everything about it seemed so much easier and more fun than the week prior. What she wasn't so happy about, however, was the team she would be working with. Two of them were absolutely fine, and then... Chanmi. Yena didn't have any personal beef with the girl, but she had experience working with her for the second episode, and.. Oh boy. She was really a handful. Yena had had a hard time keeping her cool. However, she was still going to try her best to only focus on helping the team and improving herself, not picking fights - that wasn't who she was or who she wanted to be known as.

The first day that the team got together, Yena was all smiles and motivation. She wanted nothing more than to make her teammates feel comfortable and content with her. But, after the lines and positions were distributed, she became a bit more serious. Her mind switched into work mode, rather than play mode, and she knew it was going to stay that way until their performance. She watched the choreography video a few times - at regular speed, sped up, slowed down, and at regular speed again. She wanted to make sure that nothing went unnoticed by her or any of the other members; she wanted it to be as good as it could be, even though she knew they wouldn't present it as perfectly as SPICA had.

That first night, she stayed in the practice room long after the others had filtered out. She wasn't keeping track of what hour it was, or how long she'd went without a break, she only focused on dancing and sharpening her moves. She wanted to be impressive to the judges and to anyone watching from home and she didn't think she was at a level where she would stand out in her group if she didn't try hard. When she couldn't dance anymore, she ran over her lines - although they were easy enough, she still had to memorize them.

The following day, her limbs ached something terrible, and she was really regretting her decisions. She didn't say anything about the pain- she kept a smile and offered pointers to her teammates where she thought they were be useful, and accepted pointers that were thrown her way, as well. When night approached, although she wasn't satisfied with herself, she left at a reasonable, yet still late, hour. She didn't want to injure herself for trying too hard when it was only the third week, and not even a difficult song - that would be embarrassing. Plus, she'd have to admit that it was because she had an inferiority complex, and that wouldn't be good for her ego or her image, either, probably.

For the rest of the week, she was a lot more quiet and solemn that she had been the previous weeks, but she still made an effort to be kind and friendly when she was approached. She started what she hoped would bloom into a friendship by conversing with Minah a bit, who wasn't even half as frightening as Yena had assumed - and that was great, but she still felt a little out of place and just not like herself, though she wasn't sure why. She tried her best to keep smiling, but she'd find herself frowning before she even realized her expression had changed. She only hoped that people watching from home wouldn't notice and make a big deal out of it when she didn't even know what was going on with herself.

When the day to perform arrived, Yena was back to grinning and being social. She was still feeling so incredibly strange, but she knew that if there was one day that she should truly be careful, it would be the performance day. The cameras would be everywhere, so she might as well put a great amount of effort into keeping that happy expression on her face. 

Yena was critical of her performance afterwards. She made sure to control her expressions and as far as she knew, she hadn't made any mistakes - visible ones, at least - but in her mind, she felt as though she wasn't good enough. She had been distracting herself from negative thoughts since she had woken up, but the strange feeling she'd had throughout the week was making its return now that the hype was gone.

[rv-yena]

rvkyle:

“i’d rather be a background character than being criticised for having a short training period and being confident in myself…”

“you gotta think positively. it’s not like you suck or anything - things will start going better for you soon, as long as you think they will.”

[rv-yena]

ip3 | episode three | weekly confessional

word count: 402

"Are you ready?" The voice surprised Yena and she visibly flinched - she had been daydreaming. She offered an apologetic smile and nodded once, rising to her feet. "Sorry about that. I'm ready," She responded, then allowed herself to be lead into the confessional room. She didn't dread it as much as she had the first two weeks - instead, she was viewing it as what it was - an opportunity to express her feelings truthfully. She sat down in front of a camera, her posture straight and her head held high. 

"Hello, Yena. How are you feeling today?"

"I'm feeling great! I woke up in a decent mood. I was just caught daydreaming a little bit - couldn't help it. I just feel so happy," She answered genuinely, her smile seeming to grow. She wasn't sure why she woke up feeling so good, but she wasn't about to complain - a good day was something well-needed.

"Glad to hear it. Now, how did you feel when you were informed about the week's plans?"

"I was excited! It seemed a lot more fun and easier than last week, for sure. Plus, the song my team was assigned is fun. I used to like it a lot, so it was a decent surprise! Actually practicing was something else. It was stressful, but we powered through."

"How do you truly feel about your team?"

Yena couldn't help but laugh a little bit - sure, it was the same exact question as the week prior, but that didn't make it any less amusing. "I like them. Chanmi.. Well. I don't have anything personal against her, but I wish she was just a little bit more cooperative and understanding. Other than that, she's fine. I don't have any complaints about Hana or Minah. That's how I truly feel," She spoke, ending with an amused smile. 

“How are you adapting to dorm life?”

"I feel really comfortable now - it's been three weeks, so I guess that much is to be expected. I finally stopped walking into the wall late at night, thinking that's where the door would be. That's always a good thing, right?"

"Do you think your team did well?"

"I do, yeah. We all tried hard, and that's all we can really do, right? Just give our all. I'm content with myself and how I did. I know that I tried my absolute hardest, so I'm not going to criticize myself."

[rv-yena]

choerv:

“in case you all missed it, my daughter is in first place. my daughter. that one’s mine. she gets it from me, you know.”

“i noticed, believe it or not. she’s impressive. and she’s nice, too. she’s really the whole package. definitely more of a competition than i thought she would be.”

[rv-yena]

rvmercedes:

“Shit,” she repeated, her hand jumping to find a place over her heart in an attempt to recover from the shock Yena’s own shock had given her. “Then I’m sorry about that, too.” Glancing around the room to see if anyone else had been woken up by the exchange, Minah took count of how many people were still in their beds. Two, four, six, eight, ten. Everyone else was accounted for. Good. She wanted to say something else, but being too nervous to say anything lest someone actually wake up, she waved Yena out into the hallway.

Once the door was latched shut and they’d moved away from it a bit, she grinned. “Promise I wasn’t trying to kill you or anything. I fell asleep with my contacts in and I had to get up to take them out. I didn’t realize how far my bed was from the bathroom. Or how much stuff there is to almost trip myself on on the way there.” She couldn’t help but be thankful that the staff turned the cameras off while everyone was supposed to be asleep; her journey down the hall would’ve made for some majorly embarrassingly footage that the public would never let her live down. “Where were you going?”

Yena nodded once as she listened to the girl’s story, a little amused by the idea of her tripping over everything in a frenzy. Unable to hold back her curiosity, she asked, “Contacts? Do they hurt? When you fall asleep with them in, I mean. I’d hope that people wouldn’t wear them if they’re painful all the time.” Really, she was just happy that she had good enough eyesight that she didn’t need anything to aid her vision - she never looked good in glasses and the thought alone of contacts seemed uncomfortable.

“I hadn’t planned that far ahead of where exactly I was going. I just wanted to get out of there - it felt like the ceiling was mocking me. And, I don’t like to be around so much... Silence when I can’t sleep. It’s eerie, in my opinion,” She admitted dramatically. “I probably would have tried my luck at getting outside and taking a walk. It doesn’t seem like I’ll be able to sleep tonight, anyway.”

[rv-yena]

[rv-yena]

rvmercedes:

@rv-yena

She hadn’t meant to make much noise. Really. She was trying to be as quiet as possible, but that clearly wasn’t working out. Minah also hadn’t meant to fall asleep with her contacts in. It didn’t usually happen, but she’d spent nearly her entire night going over the songs they were given and testing herself on how well she could perform. Being as worn out as she was, the second her head hit her pillow, she was out. And now, a few hours later when everyone else was asleep, she woke up to the slight burn of overly dried out eyes.

Her vision, blurrier than ever, was no use in her pursuit of the bathroom. She was left to rely on her (admittedly poor) knowledge of the dorms and the feeling of the wall against her hands (and, once or twice, her face). But she made it there without any real injury. Taking her contacts out was a huge relief. She slid her glasses on and tried to creep her way back to her bed as close to silently as she could, but was a little shocked to find someone else awake when she walked back into the room. “Shit, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, just loudly enough for the other to hear her. “Did I wake you up?”

It was beginning to feel like time had come to a complete stop for Yena as she lay wide awake in her bed. She hadn’t had a hard time falling asleep any other night since moving into the Idol Project dorms, but for some reason, her eyes just wouldn’t stay closed. She was almost convinced that the pattern of the ceiling would be engraved in her mind every time she did manage to close her eyes if she didn’t look at something else, and so she stood up ever so quietly, tip-toeing in the direction of the door.

Something she wasn’t expecting was to come face-to-face with another person, the door creaking open before she could even make it out of the room. She flinched noticeably from the sudden surprise, but she tried her best to play it off as nothing. She didn't remember hearing anyone leave, but she also hadn't really been listening.  “No, you didn’t wake me - I've been awake. I couldn’t sleep. But, I mean.. You almost gave me a heart attack, and I think that might be worse,” She whispered back, offering a small smile.

[rv-yena]

( @rvxsean )

Yena searched for excuses to talk to people in just about anything and everything. However, she hadn't been as successful as she had hoped in finding excuses so far with the other trainees, and quite frankly, some of them were just too intimidating for her to approach, anyway. So when she heard that another trainee had also had the same title for nearly eight years, well, it was the perfect excuse. He seemed nice enough, too, so Yena wasn't afraid by any means - it could be her chance to actually socialize.

When she saw the said trainee, she approached him quickly and was speaking before she could even think about what to say. "Hey. I heard you've been training for almost eight years; I'm in the same boat. It really sucks, doesn't it?" Was she already regretting her choice of words? Yeah, a little bit. Was she going to act like that's what she had planned on saying? Most definitely.

[rv-yena]

ip3 | episode two | weekly challenge

word count: 835

The assignment of the week manifested as weight on Yena's shoulders, and she was full of nervous energy. To learn eight songs was a big enough challenge on her own - but having to work together with five other girls, assign positions and lines, and make sure everyone is synchronized? Well, that's asking for trouble, isn't it?

But on the very first day that the team got together, Yena acted like she was full of confidence, her smile appearing as bright and sunshine-y as ever. What else could she do? Showing her uncertainty or complaining about the assignment wouldn't do anything except give her an image that she didn't want to become known for. She studied performance videos of all the songs with great intensity, not wanting to miss anything that might be important to the performances. Her smile was temporarily gone while she studied the videos - it was almost like she was looking at the assignment as a job. And in a way, she was. She wanted it to be perfect. Not just for herself, but for her teammates, too. And as a dance trainee, she figured that she might be able to pick up moves that most of the others might not notice.

When it came time to actually begin practicing, Yena was practically bouncing in excitement. She was still tense with stress, but real progress was waiting to be made. She kept a hopeful outlook, even when a few choice team members couldn't get the moves after hours of going over them, or when others complained a little too much. She could feel tension brewing, and she didn't want to be the one to snap the thin line.

As the days went by and the time for the performances grew closer, Yena's determination grew tremendously. She thought she couldn't possibly try any harder, but she proved herself wrong on that one. She practiced any time she got a chance, and when she couldn't be in the practice room, she was softly singing her lines to herself to remember them or doing dance moves where she had the room. In the actual practice room, she danced until her muscles ached for a rest and then danced some more, making sure to give her teammates pointers whenever she saw something that could be better. But, for the most part, she knew that Mirae would keep them in line - that much had been proved by the young girl's outburst at Chanmi. Yena almost found herself snickering mid-dance as she remembered it.

At the dorm, Yena didn't have an eased mindset. She still sang her lines, still practiced the dance moves, still focused on the task they had been given. She wasn't the playful girl she had been in the first week - her smile remained in place nearly as often, but something had changed. Now she was knuckling down. She was desperate to improve her rank, despite the fact that she surely had enough time to do that in the next few episodes, as well. She figured it would be best to get ahead as soon as possible and show everyone keeping up with the show that she's a force to be reckoned with.

The night before the first day of performances, she made sure to get a whole eight hours of sleep - she knew others might think that that was the time to be practicing the most, but she figured it would be best to be in a good and energetic state of mind so that she wouldn't forget any lines or movements at the last minute. She would have to present the best version of herself possible.

Yena was beaming when she met up with her team the next day. "Hey. Did you all sleep well?" She asked, her voice trembling just a little bit from her nerves. She made sure to take the time to talk to each of them individually, offering little pep talks because, well, that's just who she is. She figured that with almost eight years of training under her belt, maybe her advice could be helpful in some sort of way. Hopefully.

The next two days turned into a blur almost immediately - most likely thanks to her nerves. Before she knew it, she was sitting in a room with all of the other trainees, watching videos of the performances. She made sure to applaud for each and every performance, but of course, her enthusiasm was most evident for her own team's videos. At the end of the day, she felt confident in herself. She didn't do as well as she had hoped, but she knew that she didn't do bad, either. Her teammates didn't disappoint, either - especially Mirae. Yena never doubted her from the beginning, but she was beginning to see that the girl wasn't just all talk - she had some serious talent. Even Taeha, who Yena had admittedly been unsure of, managed to keep up. All in all, it looked to be a successful week in her eyes.