BIRTHNAME Lee Choyeon
BIRTHDATE June 28th 2000
BIRTHPLACE Daegu
HOMETOWN Daegu
ETHNICITY Korean
LANGUAGES
▪ Fluent in Korean
▪ A bit of Japanese as the language she studied to try and impress Pledis, but she's not super good at it. Languages were never her forte.
FACE CLAIM Choerry
BACKUP FACE CLAIM Chaeyoung (with orange hair)
HEIGHT 162cm
WEIGHT 47kg
APPEARANCE
Three words: Bright Purple Hair. Under normal circumstances Choyeon looks pretty enough for an idol, not visual material or super striking but she has the v chin and the double eyelids and the bleached white skin, all checked off the list, not that it helped her with Produce 101 before. Choyeon isn't going to make the same mistake this time, she's spent a fortune to get hair hair a perfect blue purple to fuchsia gradient, try to overlook her in a formation now, Netizens!

TRAITS Proud, desperate, empathetic, stubborn, hardworking, introverted but practiced in socializing, fragile, insecure, did I mention desperate?

ELABORATION

Lee Choyeon the forgotten Pledis Girl, the one who was rejected, the one who wasn't good enough.

She's hears these words over and over, mostly she's said these words over and over. Looked in the mirror and thought these words over and over.

The words have given her purpose, they've given her meaning, they've settled into the base of her sense of self. Unworthy, unwanted, untalented, unremarkable. She's swallowed in them, drowned in them, and they have become her backbone. She has steeled herself with those words, armoured herself, powered herself with those words.

Oh yeah? Unworthy, is she? Unwanted, is she? Untalented, is she? Unremarkable, is she? She'll show them exactly how wrong they are. She is worthy. She is wanted. She is talented. She is remarkable.

Choyeon has worked and worked and worked obsessively to make up for everything she lacked before. She has spent countless hours in practice rooms making sure that her moves we perfect, her expressions are on point, her smiles are graceful and pretty, her hair flips just right. She's beaten herself up, moved herself to exhaustion, practices without pause to mould herself into the perfect idol. Hours spent talking to herself in the mirror, controlling her expressions, practicing speeches and interview answers and the prettiest way to laugh. Hours every morning and night for her vigorous skincare routine to ensure not a single blemish marks her skin.

They hurt her pride, they destroyed her self-esteem, she had to build herself up all over again and she built herself up  stronger and better and more determined than she's ever been before. She will show them everything they'd missed out on. She has to show them. It has to be worth it. She's spent every minute of her day working on this, she's quite school even. She won't need school, this is her future, she will get debut.

She has to debut.

Every cell in her body vibrates with that truth. She has to debut.

She will do anything to debut.

At least, that's what she wants. She wants to be able to do anything for debut because she has to debut. She wants to be someone cut-throat, someone who can take what is hers and stomp on anything in the way. She wants to be a Chanmi, she thinks being a Chanmi will get her results, but she just can't. She wavers. She knows each of these girls well, she loves some of them and isn't a fan of others but she knows them. They all want the same thing and she just cannot help but being empathetic, she cannot help but feel for them. And then some helpless trainee looks at her with puppy eyes and oops she just spent 3 hours teaching them the dance instead of meticulously practicing her own expressions and they're on the opposite team too!

She would sell her soul to debut but she wouldn't sell out the other girls.

~*~

Taking this out of the aesthetics zone: Choyeon is practiced, everything she does is practiced. She's not naturally charming by far, that's the thing that wrung her neck during Produce 101 so she's had to compensate, she's taught herself how to talk and act like an idol would. It's all politeness and smiles and saying the exact right thing, it's boring honestly. It's insincere but she doesn't know how else to be. Real Choyeon is boring, real Choyeon chokes up on stage, real Choyeon says the wrong thing at the wrong time, real Choyeon isn't even worthy of a bit of screentime. Real Choyeon gigglesnorts at Miyoung's jokes, real Choyeon encourages Doori's clumsy baby steps into idoldom, real Choyeon rolls her eyes at Sera's pessimism, real Choyeon gets mesmerized by Jiahui's music and intrigued by her silences. Real Choyeon cares fiercely about all of them no matter how much she tries not to, and oh does she try. She's hyper aware that there are limited spots in this new group, spots that they must now share with the Starship girls, and she won't debut with most of them and it hurts her heart. She must steel herself, mut armour herself, must find her strength, but how her heart hurts.

Real Choyeon is not enough. Idol Choyeon is her only chance.

Idol Choyeon has to be good enough.

What little 7 year old doesn't dream of something completely unattainable? I want to be an astronaut! I want to be a rocket scientist! I want to be an actress! I want to be an idol! She's already taken dance classes at this point, though she's not super good at them, she's usually the one in the back of the formation during recitals doing the wrong moves but beaming at the spotlight. Most 7 year olds dream of stardom, most parents say "maybe when you're older". Choyeon's mom isn't most parents, Choyeon's mom has heard about idols buying houses for their parents, heard of the net income a successful idol can have, has her won delusions of glamous, and Choyeon's mom takes her on a week trip all over Seoul to audition for as many reputable companies as they can.

And Pledis calls back.

Choyeon is starry eyed as bags are packed and she's moved into a packed dorm in the glamorous but filthy and busy and noisy capital. She's far too young, probably, but the industry likes them young don't they? It's exciting but it's also terrifying and most of the girls are older than her but not all. There's Kim Youju, the other 8 year old girl trembling in the lobby of the audition center, other 8 year old girl stumbling into the practice room. All the hardship, the training and school balance, the ever disappointed managers and trainers, the weigh ins started before puberty has even been reached, the waiting and working and crying and laughing, it's all worth it because she has Youju and they're in this together and they're going to debut together. They whisper late at night, collapsed in the training room. They exchange homework for the next school day which Choyeon knows she'll end up sleeping through but she did one half of the homework and Youju the other so at least they won't get into trouble this time.

1 year turns to 2 years turns to 3 years turns to 4 years turns to 5 years turns to 6 years and then there's a chance. Something is happening. The Pledis girls are being sent to an audition for some new girl group survival show, supposedly a really ambitious one though nobody knows if it'll catch on or not. Probably not, survival shows have notoriously low ratings, but maybe they can get some exposure before they debut. Debut. They're gonna debut. Late night whispers grow more excited then, the waiting is over, it's actually going to happen. 

Produce 101 is hard, she's confronted with how unprepared she is, but how can she be unpreprared? She's trained for 6 years, why is she still not good enough? Not good enough for TV either, apparently, as becomes evident very quickly. She struggles at every turn, Pick Me is hard and she lands in C, Bad Girl Good Girl is fine but she gets no spotlight, Growl is actually amazing but their boring uniform costumes and low rank make them forgettable individually. Who cares that your dance group did great when it was no Bang Bang and nobody can remember your name?

Nobody remembered her name, nobody remembered Pledis trainee Lee Choyeon. She was eliminated the lowest ranking Pledis girl. But it would be okay, right? They wouldn't drop someone based on their screentime? It was going to be a big group! She'd trained with all of them!  They sent her to Produce 101 for a reason.

They dropped her.

They dropped her like she meant nothing, like she hadn't given 6 years of her life to Pledis already.

They dropped her and they took Youju from her.

No, Youju left her behind. Youju started training with the other new Pledis Girls, started preparing for when Kyulkyung and Nayoung returned and they would debut, started performing regularly at the theatre again and Choyeon?

Choyeon was alone.

She was young, they told her. She could still become an idol, this wasn't the end. If she trained hard and improved she could be a part of the next generation of Pledis. This was not the end.

Choyeon didn't know what to do so she did the only thing she knew how: she believed them and she kept going. She focused her frustration and harnessed her anger and betrayal and vowed to become better, to become the perfect trainee, to become worthy. She quit school, almost in a move of self-sabotage to ensure that there would be no future for her but debut. Now she had no choice, now she really had to work for it. Now she really had to debut. 

She had no more choice.

And then Pristin flopped. Well, Choyeon thought they'd been doing well but management talked about decrease in numbers, decrease in buzz, opportunities dried up and those who had once been glamorous idols got smacked down to the rest of the mortals. Choyeon felt a bit of glee, secretly. They'd left her behind but not for long, they'd failed, they'd failed without her.

And now there was another survival show, but this time Choyeon was going to win, this time she wouldn't be forgotten. She'd do anything not to be forgotten. She was going to show everyone that they'd made a mistake, that Lee Choyeon is a STAR, that she'd worked so goddamned hard to become a STAR. Please, please, please don't leave her behind again. Please let her debut this time.

Please.

She has to.

▪ choyeon knows a whole lot of kpop dances from countless of trainee evaluations.

▪ She trained with the Seventeen boys and she's on frendly terms with some of them. She remembers playing around with Dino, Vernon, and Seungkwan, her and Youju being the babies of Pledis. She used to have a huuuuuge crush on Seungkwan, like HUGE, in the way that tweens can fall for any cute boy who's nice to them: with big eyes and drama reels in their head. She was so painfully obvious about it too, the whole of Pledis knew about it and endulged her when she totally thought she was being sneaky.

They all laugh about it now the few moments they run into each other, she the loudest, but he still kind of makes her heart beat faster.... she'd die before admitting that though.

▪ She doesn't have a creative bone in her body, her musicality doesn't extend past does what other people tell her to do. She might choreograph something very simple but that's the limit of her abilities honestly. That's what you get when you're an idol robot.

▪ She adores Park Soyeon ever since they were together in Growl. She's still impatiently waiting for her to debut, why the hell aren't they debuting her she's so talented!!

▪ Honestly she roots for any of the underrated Produce 101 girls when they debut.
 

▪ KIM YOUJU 
Entered the company together, best friends forever, they practiced and laughed and cried together until Produce happened and Youju got whisked away for Pledis Girls and Pristin and Choyeon was left all alone. A lot of the resentment at being left being gets projected onto her and Saeyool. Secretly Choyeon just wants everything to go back to normal, she just wants her best friend back, but she's built this identity on being desperate and being angry and being hurt and she's too proud to forfeit that but her heart aches for what used to be.

▪ SHIN SAEYOOL 
Probably something like: Saeyool was always more Youju's friend than Choyeon's, she liked her well enough but not how she loved Youju and when they debut some of her hurt and rage got projected onto Saeyool. She's almost angrier at her than she is at Youju, there's an element of you-took-my-friend-from-me even if she knows it's irational it's still there and she can't stand Saeyool, especially not now that she's joining this survival show too. Saeyool (and Youju) had their chances, and now they have to go and try to overshadow her again??? Hell no!

▪ ZHANG JIAHUI 
Maybe something like: the girl who entered Pledis just after she (feels she) lost her former friends, someone to latch onto but it's never the same as with Youju, you can't just replace your best friend. Learns to love Jiahui for who she is not for who she replaced.

COMPANY Pledis
TRAINING PERIOD 9 years
TRAINEE LIFE
Training training training and more training. Choyeon takes it all very seriously now, she has to improve, she has to prove herself. She's probably known as the hardest worker at Pledis, the one who can always be found in the practice room, the one (nearly always) turns down forbidden snacks in favour of maintaining her weight, the one who's been functioning on negative sleep for ages now she doesn't know how to function any way else. Still, she's close to her fellow trainees, some more than others. They're all in this together and try as Choyeon might she can't cut them out of her life even if it would be easier. She's known them for years after all and she's so soft deep inside.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
▪ PRODUCE 101 - eliminated in Ep 8 rank 57

EP 4 Battle Evaluation: Bad Girl Good Girl / Lim Jeongmin
EP 6 Dance Evaluation: Growl / Park Gaeul 

She was the forgotten one, the one without much screentime whose presence never made a dent in the show. Sure, she was a Pledis girl, but Mnet clearly had their favourites and Choyeon was at the bottom of the barrell, it was a miracle she ever made it through the first round. Is it really any surprise that Pledis decided not to invest more in the girl who had failed to garner any attention at all?

that, Choyeon thinks.

She'll show them all how wrong they were.

TALENT TWIN Choerry,
BACKUP TALENT TWIN Olivia Hye

SKILLS
▪ vocal - 4/10
▪  rap - 3/10
▪ dance - 7/10
▪ performance - 8/10
▪ variety - 4/10

OTHER TALENTS anything that you think might be useful. here

CONCEPTS 
▪ cute - Her least comfortable concept, she's mostly trained for more girl crush concepts as she got older, but she will give her her best like she gives everything her best. Failure is not an option after all.

▪ y - She's quite decent at this, she's practiced the smoulder and she thinks she has it down quite well. How a hair flip can show off a bare shoulder, how a body roll can entice the viewer, how a perfectly timed lip bite can sway the audience.

▪ girl crush - That's her thing, that's hands down what she's best at, and the purple hair fits it perfectly as well. She's practiced the smirks of confidence, the looks hat aren't as forward as a y concept but show a very top kind of power, the hip sways that say I'm better than you and my hips know it.

▪ other - Whatever it is she's going to be studying videos and expressions and practicing every gesture in the mirror to make sure she's got a foundation to stand on. Ballad is impossible of course, she doesn't have the voice for it and her expressions and dance are her forte.

She's practiced a lot of boy group choreo which requires a whole different kind of power, a confidence that is all of one's own instead of obviously projected for the viewer, a sharpness with which to execute the moves, the hair that suddenly becomes part of a real haireography, and she's quite good at that too (see: Choerry in the Fire and Cherry Bomb covers slayingggg) (Or Butterfly in general, that choreo has haireography DOWN one idaero at a time). That might be her favourite, that strength and sharpness and range of motion and THE HAIREOGRAPHY. Yes she definitely loves boy group dances most.

COMMENTS Hi! Sorry this took so long to finish but I hope you like her and her place in the complex Pledis web
SCENE REQUESTS Only 9 members participate in LOONA's Cherry Bomb cover, just saying....
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