#rkjune20eval

[rkchaeryeong]

Another month, another evaluation, and after almost a year of trainee-dom, she's pretty much gotten used to everything that came with trainee life. The previous month had been extra tiring, with her snapping at another trainee (even though she'd apologised right after and still felt quite surprised with herself. She wasn't necessarily the nicest person around but she was always in complete control of herself. Well, usually.), and family drama and all. She still felt as though glances followed her here and there, but did her best to ignore them.

Break time was especially nice, even if she was ambitious to the point that she was always practising whatever needed to be practised right now, no matter how much time she'd already put into it. “Here”, she said, sitting down near the wall of the practise room, so she could lean onto it, and held a spare bottle of water out to Taeyang. “I think we're progressing quite well,” she added, her mind was still in practise-mode and would probably need a few minutes before it was really able to relax and take a brain from practise-related thoughts. “What do you think?”

@rktaeyang

[danielxrk]

june evaluations

hi!! for evaluations, daniel wants to do sour candy by blackpink and lady gaga. no dancing, just singing and whatever lady gaga does in the song. since jisoo gets few lines and lady gaga has a lot, lines are totally subject to change to be more balanced, so don’t feel completely tied to whoever you choose for your muse! both boys and girls are welcome. as always, if there’s not any interest in this i’ll probably toss daniel into another group no problem! without further ado:

jennie: daniel lady gaga: rose: @rkseungjoon​ lisa: @rkseongmin​ jisoo:

[rkjibeom]

honey.

june eval starter for @rktaeyang​

at first, jibeom had been worried about being able to find an evaluation group for this month. compared to having the trainers shoving them into a group, june’s eval forced them to form their own groups in collaborations. he’s lucky that taeyang had an open spot for him as a vocalist. not that he minded being either a vocalist or rapper since he was able to do both. he just preferred singing. 

the other unfortunate part to joining eval groups is not knowing a single trainee. it’s been months since jibeom’s joined trc as a trainee but it wasn’t as if he branched out and met other trainees. all the more reason why he was incredibly thankful to the nova trainee for accepting him even if he was a little shy. 

gripping an extra water bottle in his hands, he steered himself in the direction of taeyang and held it out. “um, thanks for your help by the way...” he hopes his awkwardness isn’t too apparent but he’s been working on it. 

[rkpcy]

* monster in the building ,

@rkmason

another month, another new evaluation, another chance to showcase what he’s learned and what he’s improved upon. it’s all a part of the routine he’s had for three years and counting, and while he’ll always be grateful for the opportunity he’d been given, for the company taking a chance on him when they did (considering the abysmal showing he’d had in trying to pass off his attempt at dancing as krumping), he can’t help but feel a bit anxious every time a year passes by and he’s yet to hear even just a tiny inkling of even a rumor of a debut. but that sort of thing is out of his hands, so he tries not to dwell on it too much, choosing to keep his focus on the things in front of him, things he can handle.

he’s just grateful that minho hasn’t seemed to grow tired of working with him yet. despite being one of the more recently signed trainees, he’s the one chanyeol feels most comfortable around, and while he still can’t seem to ever open up about his own feelings or be comfortable hearing about others’, even just having a close friend around is enough to help calm his nerves. additionally, they’ve decided to focus more on the performance aspect of the song and their rapping, so he doesn’t have to worry about any intricate choreography this time around, either. “sorry, man, i just can’t help to outshine you this time around,” he jokes, a playful smile at his lips. “there’s only two of us, and, well, i’m the rap master.”

[yuzurk]

「  Be My Last 」 ⇢ Royal Eval June 2k20 | +3 CH ; +2 DB ; +1 Wk High Notes ⇢ Yuzu branching out once a mothereffin’ gain [ Q & A | Peppermint Chocolate ]

“ once again she signed up for two projects, not knowing she would be working on a third. ”

as the end of the month came around, yuzu was confident in her groups and her own skills to perform well. despite a million things swirling around in her mind; from worrying about gahyeon and her both making it into heartz, over how the other royal girls would feel once they found out they had auditioned to how this could be her last eval under royal and dowoon was the only fellow trainee she worked with for this potentially last month.

being a usually loyal and honest person, she almost felt like she was cheating when she kept her audition to herself from the boy who had gotten in trouble along with her. 

she made sure to push all these thoughts away though as she prepared for her performances. while q&a was technically her baby, she made sure to invest equally as much time into preparing for both performances, even when her own chosen song was the harder challenge for the triple threat. hitting these high notes and mirroring the vocal strength to match her own raspy voice was something she had to work with a lot of confidence to pull it off. 

the boys had been nothing but sweet during their rehearsals though and even while she performed with them, she was glad to have won them over for this eval. chris and vok were both in sphere and she couldn’t help but wonder if she were to see them more often in the future months to come.

waiting for results really wasn’t her strongest skill. 

on the other hand performing with seokwoo felt almost easy, granted the two had been friends for so long. it made dealing with her guilt towards dowoon almost easy. calming her mind with the thought she didn’t want to wake sleeping dogs, the female let herself go through that vocal performance easy as well. the added dash of rap a welcome change to mix things up. not getting to dance for this month again was a bit of a bummer for the girl who wanted to improve the steadiness of her vocal performance while dancing but at least that way she could confidently deliver without having to worry about any wavers in her voice.

at the end of the day yuzu was satisfied with both her performances. only a few days now till she’d find out if that would be her last eval under royal. 

once she was alone to herself, standing in front of the royal building the female sighed. perhaps all her worries would be for nothing and she wouldn’t get chosen but it sure did feel like a goodbye regardless.

[rkjordan]

❛ speak spanish to me

@rksungmin

picking lo siento as his eval song for the month had been a rather spur of the moment decision and not one he really put any thought into. which was more or less a given, given the fact he couldn’t speak spanish and had decided to take the spanish singing parts all the same. not the best idea he had ever had, but he supposed it was going to be fun. and he’d managed to find some other guys as well to do the song with him. which was great as this was supposed to be group evaluation and he couldn’t just do the whole thing by himself. 

he was sat with sungmin, feet propped up on the chair next to him as he leaned back, holding the sheet of lyrics in front of his face as he scanned over them. “sure you don’t wanna sing spanish with me?” he teased, peering over the top of the sheet at the sphere trainee. though he was only joking, the other trainee was taking the rap parts, as jordan was no rapper. best leave that to the people who actually could do it. 

[rkjisoo]

catch my mind,

@rklisa

the song they were set to perform at the end of the month had this charismatic quality to it; something that she is endeared to. upon listening to it the first time, jisoo quite frankly and to put it in simpler terms, fell in love with it. the chorus was catchy and it was fun in a completely subtle way. they did not have to wear bright colors or jump around on stage to capture the audience. the song was upbeat yet classy enough to do it all.

they were in the seocho building, practicing relentlessly. as she puts down her lyric sheet on the table, she turns towards her friend. “this song is quite nice, i don’t understand how i never heard of it before this.” she comments, a curious crease on her forehead. perhaps her ignorance had a lot to do with the fact that she is not the most avid listener of idol music, especially ones that seem to be somewhat unpopular. “actually, i think i know why.” she brushes off her earlier statement with a shrug.

“let’s run over the song again one more time then we should get food.” she says after glancing at her wristwatch to check the time. “should we eat here or go outside? the seocho cafeteria gets obnoxiously full sometimes.” perhaps it was an excuse to get some fresh air ( as fresh as it can get in seoul ) and a mental breather from practicing for hours on end.

[memoriesofyccjungrk]

tipping point.

a rkjune20eval starter for @rksihyeon

gahyeon has no problem with working with sia on her dance moves individually, actually she loves when other people want her help. maybe it’s leftover from her days as a choreographer, but the itch to teach has never quite gone away. so, when sia asked for some help, gahyeon was more than happy to oblige. the dance for ‘ wow thing ’ wasn’t exactly simple, after all – especially being that there were only four of them for this performance. it would be extremely obvious if someone was out of sync with the other, and this performance, like all their others, needed to show them working as a unit.

and gahyeon understood why sia needed help. not that sia was bad at dancing, from what gahyeon had seen from her early days in the mgas, she hadn’t been great – but had improved dramatically. but as compared to the other girls, gahyeon could tell sia wasn’t as confident in the movements, and that could ruin a performance. after a few comments while they were all running the dance together, sia and gahyeon decided it would be best to work individually, and gahyeon would help as much as she could. especially when it came to the choreography, the choreography was harder – and gahyeon couldn’t even explain how important it was to be confident, especially in a song like ‘ wow thing. ’

“ go back to that move, ” gahyeon says, standing up to stand side-by-side with sia instead of squatting in front of the mirror. she gets into position beside her. “ feet together – then apart, ” gahyeon explains, going through the step sequence before they’re standing on one foot with one arm wrapped around their middle, the other wrapped behind their heads. then they fall out of it, arms out to their sides – gahyeon calls out counts as they move through it. once they move through the transition movement following boom boom boom, gahyeon stops them. “ you know the moves, sia – but you don’t look like you’re sure. ” she explains, voice a bit exasperated as she puts her hands on her hips. “ you need to be doing these moves like you know them – you can’t be meek about it. the dance is hard-hitting, it’s sharp. ” she says. “ don’t hesitate, or you’re gonna stick out. ” 

[rkxdowoon-a]

Minty Fresh Beats

@rktaeyang​

He hadn’t expected to take up a rapping position in this month’s evaluation. But when his own evaluation plan had gone down like a lead balloon (Not even his own brother had wanted to help him. Such treachery!), Dowoon had floundered around trying to find a new group until Yuzu put him out of his misery and recruited him to one of her group. But with all the vocalist positions claimed, Dowoon found himself in the position he’s in now, playing the part of a rapper when he’d lost switched his focus into becoming a vocalist.

Oh, well. It could be far worse.

Sitting in one of the practice rooms, Dowoon is plugged into his phone as he listens to the song the group is covering. As ‘his’ part comes on, he mouths along silently, making a face when he can’t quite keep up with Moonbyul’s rapping. Letting out a discontent hum, he moves his phone out of the way and lays his hands on the table.

Dowoon begins to drum out the rhythm of his particular part on the table, albeit at a slower pace. It’s better to start slow and work your way up, after all. After a few renditions of the beat alone, he then starts to rap alongside the beat, slowly gaining confidence and speed with each round. He’s almost worked his way up to the correct speed when the door to the room suddenly opens and he’s cut off mid-word as Taeyang enters. Ears turning red, he hastily stands up and bows to the older boy in greeting.

“A-ah! Hello, hyung!”

[rkxjongsuk]

Delicious ||

@jkookrk

jongsuk wanted to do a fun evaluation this time around and show off his vocal prowess even more since the workshop of may reminded him how much he loves to sing. he remembered one of the most iconic collabs with lc9 and myname and he wants to do that song, since he can fanboy even more over the vocal styling of one of the best songs in his opinion. so of course, he’s going to go to someone he knows he can pull offf the hip hop vibe. 

seeing the target of his aims in the seocho cafeteria, he ran over and hugged the other boy from behind. “hello my beautiful cute friend!” he exclaimed, hugging the other tightly before letting him go. “so, kookie, got an eval group? because i got a proposal for you!” he exclaimed. he didn’t even wait for a response. “How would you like to be the J-Hyo to my Insoo and do Delicious?” he asked, grinning and wiggling his eyebrows.  

[rkbxlla]

「 loading... 」

starter for @yoohyeonrk

This is her first evaluation as a trainee in TRC. With her first and current girlfriend, Yoohyeon. Who, coincidently, will be part-taking in her first evaluations as a trainee signed in KT. Not at all surprising considering, they both got signed through similar circumstances, but that doesn’t make any of this less amazing. 

Drumming her fingers on her thighs, Olivia rests her heads on Yoohyeon’s shoulder as they listened to their chosen song for the nth time. She mumbles a few rap verses that she had down on the music notes rested on her lap, “Yoo-chan, wanna snack?” Olivia raps out instead of the lines written on her paper before her feeling a bit peckish with all the preparations they’ve done so far. 

[rkharuto]

❛ fanboys and girls

@yuzurk

maybe the idea of doing a song which had only recently come out was not the best of ideas. and it was not even like haruto was much of a convex fanboy. but an eval group was an eval group so he found he wasn’t going to complain about it much. it was better than failing the eval because he never managed to find a group to join and couldn’t come up with his own song to try and do. 

“so,” he smiled briefly across at the royal trainee (and convex fangirl), “you know more about this song than i do.” that was just a fact, though of course he had actually listened to it before agreeing to sign up, just to make sure he was actually capable of the rap he was required to do. “so uh, i guess that means you’re in charge. where do you suggest we start practicing, boss?” 

[rkevent]

Not only of rivalry and competition the industry is made of. Music is also created through a series of collaborations, be it between artists or counting the dozens of different professionals working behind the scenes to make tracks and comebacks happen. Rare are the times an idol will work completely on his own as joining forces with others to come up with incredible music is nothing new and utterly necessary for a fresh sound.

The options are vast and these are good opportunities to be creative and think outside of the box. It’s the chance to incoporate other styles in your music or make the fans know what your true essence is outside your group’s discography, that’s why units and collaborations have always been a tool used to reach other publics and have been crossing the globe in the past decade.

When trainees gather in the practice rooms of their companies on the first Wednesday of the month to hear about the next evaluation, coaches are waiting for them in front of a television to show some clips. After they talk about the importance of collaborations and working well with others that are not always your friends or have similar styles or skillset, they show some examples of it, including one of the latest collaboration for Station.

Combining forces to put together a stage to perform in front of the coaches on June 30th, trainees are allowed to team up with how many others they wish (same company or not) as long as they don’t perform solo and are instructed to pick a collaboration, featuring or unit song to showcase in one of Seocho’s practice rooms at the end of the month. Regular group tracks won’t be allowed this time. They have to either sing or rap live, dancing is optional. Their chemistry will be tested through the mouth and it should be convincing when they hit the stage.

In order to collect +2 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE AS YOU WISH and +2 DEBUT POINTS, write 250+ words solo or a four-post thread with another trainee involving the preparations for this month’s evaluation. For +3 POINTS IN A RELEVANT SKILL, +2 DEBUT POINTS and +1WK RELEVANT ACHIEVEMENT, write one 300+ words solo about your muse’s performance for this month’s evaluation. Please tag all your posts with #rkjune20eval and have them up by midnight EST at the end of Tuesday, June 30th. Threads may be continued after the deadline, but points can only be collected if the requirements are met before it.

JUNE EVALUATION (for the JULY 1st verification form)

[link to thread or solo about preparations]

+2 ___ POINTS +2 DEBUT POINTS NEW DEBUT POINTS TOTAL:

[link to solo about performance]

+3 ___ (RELEVANT) POINTS +2 DEBUT POINTS +1WK ___ (RELEVANT) ACHIEVEMENT (number of times taken + current level) NEW DEBUT POINTS TOTAL:

[rkmason]

                                           BAM BAM BA BA BA BUM 발라버려  ˟                                              (         GET READY TO REACT        )

preparations for this month’s performance feel more casual and he owes it to the fact that it’s chanyeol; that, instead, it feels more like they’re working on a song in their free time to cover for fun or to try and make their own as a challenge. it’s all fun and games until they burn with the passion to modify, create, master. 

a song like monster gets him hype at all times. a style he’s enjoyed for years, that he believes he could listen to in twenty years and still wanna mouth the words along. he says mouth because he’s sung aloud way too many times on public transportation in the past to the point that one of the local drivers in his hometown would tease him to stay quiet today. the energy in the performance itself relies a lot on them, on their individual prowess on the stage and their chemistry together. 

no matter how minho jokes about being a clown, he thinks that image is destroyed when he has a mic in his hand, a monster that tears his previous image apart, leaving nothing to spare, leaving everything on that stage. it’s one of the many things he loves about performing at all. you could be anyone and he remembers writing something like that to his previous ceo after the first time he was on the mgas, that he wanted to prove someone like him could do it, that he could be powerful and stand out in his own way. 

he gets it more now. even though chanyeol joked about it when they were practicing, of outshining him, he felt at ease with it, laughed. when baek jiyoung said it to him, he was hurt, spiraled into his own memories and he gets the difference all over again. he’s thought it about, thinks it again, it’s always been about his reaction, about him. being in trc is a great influence, but what helps him on stage is the journey he took to get here; it’s the fact that he’s more healed now and if that ain’t one hell of a confidence booster, he doesn’t know what is. his confidence practically oozes from his fingertips in the way he grips the mic, how he tosses his body into each gesture, pronunciation clear as he the energy between them bounces back and forth, climbs and peaks til the very end.      발라버려

[danielxrk]

✞ JUNE EVALUATION * COLLABORATION ; SOUR CANDY with @rkseungjoon​ and @rkseongmin​ june 30th, 2020

maybe it’s a strange song choice.

he orchestrates the performance-- runs into seongmin, who is happy to join him, and also happy to bring along another trainee from trc. strangely, daniel knows him, but only from an unfortunate incident last year where his dog ate seungjoon’s ice cream cone. 

there’s no deeper meaning to it. sour candy by lady gaga doesn’t exactly speak to his soul, but then again, egotistic didn’t really either. april was a tragedy, may hurt, and he’s determined for june to be better, so he decides he’ll try something fun. this song choice fits that bill, and he’s happy to work with the two boys joining him. (it’s a little funny that they’re all boys covering a song entirely by female vocalists, but he kind of likes the irony, too.)

the instructors made a point to test their chemistry, as they said at the beginning of the month, and he thinks they do well enough. there are no snags in their communication outside of seongmin trying to give over some lines to him and seungjoon only for daniel to insist he was the best fit to perform them and make the strongest performance. he thinks they do well, and he thinks it’ll translate well to performance day.

it’s a little bit of a shame that they’ll only be performing in the comfort of a practice room this month. after standing on stage for may’s evaluation, he got a little greedy for it. maybe it’s the remnants of cameo in him that wants to be seen-- that wants to perform this unconventional choice for everyone to see. maybe it’s better this way; maybe on the day of, he’d be too embarrassed and his nerves would get the best of him like they did for april’s evaluation.

yeah, this is probably for the best. god knows what he’s doing, so daniel doesn’t doubt it for long.

(it’s fun working with seongmin too, who follows him around most of the month. he hasn’t seen him in too long, and it’s all fun, so he doesn’t mind it at all.)

that’s the word he would use to describe the song choice, and their month of practice: fun. as always, practice takes his mind off of any of his troubles, but more than that, it makes june more enjoyable. he wonders, a lot lighter, if he’s already done mourning all of the recent loss in his life.

(when he’s home by himself, all of the busyness of practice and school finished with nothing left to do but sleep, he still stares at his ceiling and overthinks, even in all his exhaustion. it’s always about his friends, and the distance, and his loneliness.)

returning to seocho to work on their performance always pushes it all away, and when evaluation day comes, it’s all so far in the back of his mind that he doesn’t even know it’s there.

it’s not exactly nerves that surface when they stand in that practice room to perform, but more a little embarrassment. will the instructors think it’s weird? will they be able to pull it off? he pushes that from his mind too, and focuses on fun. more than that, he searches himself for that little extra spark he carried with him for empty enigma shows: cameo. cameo would eat this up, and daniel could use a little bit of that power and confidence now.

thankfully, there’s no dancing. the vocals aren’t too complicated, so the main thing is to encompass the right vibe: playful, and for lack of a better word, sassy.

he does the honors of opening the song, and there’s a lot riding on him. he sets the mood for the entire song, and with the power of cameo vested in him, he knows he can do well. 

he doesn’t really have time to analyze if he does or not once they start, more lyrics to deliver.

the performance keeps up the energy of the rest of the month: fun. 

he pulls it off-- he’s sure of it, and in these moments, he wonders why he ever doubted himself and his love for performing. it took him so long to believe he had any place on stage, let alone that he belonged there. empty enigma helped him to love it-- helped him warm up to eyes on him and music pumping through speakers and the electricity he only feels when performing. it’s not the same; he isn’t with his band, alongside his best friends, but seongmin and seungjoon are still good company. there’s no audience, and even if it’s just barely, he feels a little of that electricity too.

when the performance is over, it brings a familiar sort of emptiness-- a sadness that it’s over, an already budding greed to perform again. he used to feel it with empty enigma shows too, building up over time the more he grew used to the stage and the more he saw his place there. he hasn’t felt it in a few months. maybe it’s the cameo effect, or maybe it’s a sign that he’s getting better. he hopes it’s on all fronts.

[rkhyxnggu]

                                ╰☆╮ TAKE YOUR TIME ╰☆╮

Lo Siento - Super Senior (line distribution) | @rkjordan​, @rkdaehwi​

At last it happened - Sungmin was singing. It had been something he had been dreading since he first signed with Sphere. He was a talented rapper, but he couldn’t sing to save his life. He knew it was bound to happen eventually so he wanted to get it out of the way with this evaluation. Besides, he wasn’t the kind of person to leave Jordan and Daehwi to sing an entire song while he only came in at the end.

Preparations and rehearsals had been awkward and hard at the beginning since the boys were not that familiar with each other but by the end of the month their team work was top notch. Being the oldest by far, Sungmin had taken it upon himself to lead and watch over the other two during their time together. He had done the same for 6tunes - becoming the unofficial leader. It wasn’t that he minded. He just wasn’t sure if he had the best kind of personality to be a leader.

Sungmin had become instantly impressed with Jordan when he claimed he would learn Spanish for the song - something Sungmin could never do. He instantly respected the kid. It had been hard to watch at first, but by the end Jordan was nailing the performance and Sungmin felt somewhat proud of the younger male. Daehwi was a lot younger than he was but Sungmin respected the teenager and his rap skills. He was an all rounder - something Sungmin wasn’t - and he gave props to the boy for his talent.

It took a lot for Sungmin to gather the courage to sing during the rehearsals. He really only ever sang in the shower or with those close to him. It took a lot of encouragement from his group mates before he felt comfortable enough to even attempt singing at the evaluation.

When d-day came, Sungmin was nervous as hell. He was far from becoming a grand singer, but his singing had improved since he signed with Sphere. He knew he had to suck it up and get the singing eval over with. Sungmin did as much last minute rehearsing as he could before it came his turn to perform.

Sungmin started a bit shaky at first while he tried to relax and remember the choreography and the lyrics. His confidence at the beginning was lacking but as the song continued his confidence grew. By the end of the performance Sungmin was his usual charismatic stage-self.

There were a few mistakes here and there from the group during the performance but it had been a mostly successful evaluation.