oh honey;

  triggers: emotionally abusive parenting, allusions to hypersexualisation, implied alcoholism

so basics first, nam yena, yenny, 26 year old, cis female, she/her

she’s the... everything of calypso

ok no she’s their maknae, lead vocal, lead dancer, lead rapper, i know it’s a lot bear w/ me

she grew up in incheon as the middle one out of 5 daughters (...and oh boy... can you tell... the middle child syndrome is REAL) in a very strict traditional household, dad was never home and always working, mom was micro-managing every aspect of their lives

yena kinda was always the odd one out, wasn’t particularly gifted academically, didn’t really pull off the soft nd prim nd proper thing her mother demanded of her

there was a lot of rivalry between the sisters, to be the best, to get whatever little attention their parents held over them as a price to be won, needless to say there wasn’t much support to be found there either

yena hit her teenage years and realized that obviously she wasn’t gonna find the attention and love she was looking for at home and that’s when she discovered External Validation and oh boy has she not been the same ever since

got street-scouted for dimensions for having a pretty face and then skipped school to attend the auditions she somehow bullshitted herself thru on absolutelty 0 training

parents were Big Mad when they found out lol but they were also kind of frustrated of dealing with their Bad Child so they just shipped her off to seoul so 1) it would be someone elses problem and 2) in the hopes that if it blew up in her face she’d finally realize they were like Right or whtvr

as a trainee yena was kind of shoved into everything, like dimensions’ silly lil guinea pig, she came in as a blank slate and while she didn’t turn out to be outstanding in Any field, she picked all of them up quite well so dimensions was like ok bet bestie 

didn’t debut w/ calypso initially cuz she was like too young and hadn’t trained enough yet

only sike she debuted half a year later anyway cuz calypso was kinda messy w all these members leaving and suddenly she was trained well enough ig???

(spoiler alert: she wasn’t, dimensions was just fumbling but whtvr)

kinda sucked in their early years ngl but made up for it w/ sheer enthusiasm cuz wow this was her dream even if their music kinda sucked or whtvr and she could hardly sing live without embarassing herself

but like stuff got better as she got more experience and she slowly grew into the bad bitch we all know and??? love ig???

calypso got sexier and yena shed the last of all the doctrination she had received at home only to tip to the entirely wrong end of the scale, suddenly she was a sexi party queen with a big mouth and a mild drinking problem

nam yena only works in extremes ok its either shy wallflower or absolutely insane i don’t make the rules

calypso hit like, their little relevancy peak in 2014 and after that she slowly got pushed into more solo work as well

if she alrdy did a fuckton of different things in calypso get ready for her solo work cuz dimensions was like, youre gonna do all the things, brand deals, acting, magazine shoots, variety

pretty privilege ig 

no but yena’s biggest skills as an idol mainly lay in how likeable she can appear on camera and how hot she is and dimensions heavily leaned into that

yena rlly loved all her lil side projects and esp rlly rlly fell in love with acting

still enjoyed being an idol too but after their like 5 seconds of fame w/ expectation and female president, calypso kinda fell off again and now, like, 7 years later, not much has looked up for them since

doesn’t like, actively want to disband but she is just, burned out ig? so she wouldn’t really mind it either? like switching to some acting label and going all in on that rather than just, having to tend to a pretty much dead music career

definitely favors her personal activities and ends up cutting corners on her efforts as a calypso member when she doesn’t have the headspace/energy to give all her responsibilities 100%

(dw, this whole dramatic arc will only last for three months on, when calypso has their chart reversal.... i will not be held responsible for the person yena will be... gosh she will be INSUFFERABLE)

uh tidbits on her personality:

yena is definitely like the problematic drunk aunt, offering her juniors cigarettes behind the dimensions building and teaching them how to avoid their managers and all that

very loud and very outspoken, the kind of big mouth that could get her in trouble if she wasn’t so good at hiding all of that on camera, in her personal life tho, she Will go off and she will throw hands bitch

definitely tips into like, jaded and wary territory at times when it comes to trusting ppl and their intentions but thats just a lot of family trauma and generally shitty experiences with mainly men as a highly sexualised idol

big everybody wants to date me nobody wants to love me energy, being highly desirable and praised for being pretty has kinda fucked w/ her head and her self-esteem, definitely leans into like vain and super-ficial territory at times because of it

notorious party girl, knows all the good places idols sneak off to to get fucked up, has shown up to work morbidly hungover multiple times but haha nothing problematic about any of that :))

bi queen but also seeking external validation queen and attachement issues queen, good luck to anyone who like l*ves her or whatever

again, kind of cuts corners as an idol from time to time, has had some subpar vocal moments, lazy dancing, obvious lipsyncing but nothing rlly big ever came from it cuz... ngl who cares rlly anyway?

fiercly protective friend though, will not stand for any bs on behalf of the people she cares ab, also enabling friend, if u tell her u killed someone she’ll be like 

material gworl, not all that ridiculously rich (tho her personal schedules definitely help in that aspect) but loves pretty shiny glittery things. very heavily into traditionally ‘femine’ things like make-up and fashion, again, tends to get a bit super-ficial but god damn it let her enjoy the things she likes and that make her feel good, they’re probably the least harmful of her hobbies

tends to jealous and competitive behaviors, very much rooted in her childhood

dang this all got v sad and shit but like haha at least she’s hot and she knows it!!! 

talk about your reaction to your final ranking

no thanks, yena would rather swallow a lightbulb rather than talk about this godforsaken show for another second. but well, that wasn’t an option, she had tried her hardest to dodge this interview but her manager had warned her he would have dragged her in kicking in screaming if that would be what it would take. “i’m dissapointed of course.” yena pursed her lips. yeah no shit, understatement of the century. “to do so well the entire run of the show only to fall down almost all the way to the bottom in the finale... i don’t think anyone would enjoy that.”

why do you think you received the final rank you did?

because obviously, none of these people have any fucking taste and they were too busy sucking up to their faves, duh. but she couldn’t say that, even if she wanted to. “i guess we didn’t live up to people’s expectations.” when did calypso ever? dissapointment was the red thread of their career after all. “our stage felt less elaborate than some of our competitors, perhaps we failed to stand and made is more forgetable. it’s a pity really.”

which final performance, other than your own, was your personal favorite? if it’s different than your favorite performance, what was your favorite final song? why?

none of them, they could all choke for all that yena cared. fuck every other group and their stupid music, she hated all of them, right now she did at least, seething with envy and anger. “i enjoyed lily’s song, you think was really good.” sure, the song was good, yena could give them that. if only she didn’t stop to think about how lily had beaten them the same way they’d been beating calypso all their career long. there was a reason every girl group looked up to lily and not calypso.

other than yourself, which group would have received your vote for the win if you’d been able to vote this round?

“my vote would have gone to titan probably.” was it a coincidence that yena named one of the two groups that had ranked below them? of course not, she didn’t she could currently stomach giving credit to any group that had beaten them in the moment. they’d already outranked calypso anyway, why would they need yena kissing up to them on top of that?

if you could do the whole show over again, what would you do differently?

never fucking show up to the first day of filming, how about that? “i don’t know truthfully... we worked so hard.” and it hadn’t been enough, again, it would never be enough. maybe their best just wasn’t good enough. “maybe we could have tried to stick closer to what we did the first two rounds, because the people seemed to have enjoyed that more.” 

what was the most memorable moment of the show for you?

“being dubbed the show’s reaction queen was pretty memorable.” and if they would keep it up with the stupid fucking questions, they would get another fun reaction moment out of it, namely yena hurling a chair through the nearest window because of how fed up she was with this bullshit. it was late, she was tired, dissapointed, angry, humiliated, couldn’t she just go home already? “i’m glad i could show that side of myself and that it brought joy to some people to watch.”

is there anything you want to say to any of the other competitors? any congratulations or any heartfelt words for any friends you made?

“eleventh place is a group that has had an amazing year—”

truth been told yena had zoned out after those first couple of words. why would she pay them any mind? this was only 11th place they were talking about, 3rd from the bottom. it couldn’t be calypso, they had done too well for that, the general public loved them now and had consistently stuck by them since the beginning. no yena would only start worrying from fifth place onwards at best and even that would be premature.

she had nothing to worry about.

right?

“ —calypso.”

her group’s name being called sent yena hurling back into reality. blinking once, twice, readjusting to the bombastic stage around them. a soft murmur of surprised gasps travelled through the crowd, as if they couldn’t quite believe the result. and yena couldn’t either. this couldn’t be real. she had to be making this up. a bad nightmare or a stupid joke or something like that.

a hand curled around her wrist, the hold delicate, as if yena might actually snap and break if pressure would be applied. absent-mindedly, she registered the hand as belonging to one of her members, gently tugging her along as they were dismissed from the stage.

as they exited, yena could only feel the ice cold rush of humiliation travelling down her spine, her eyes directed to the floor as her cheeks burned with embarassement.

oh she’d been so fucking stupid.

it was ridiculous really, thinking that this would ever have gone every other way, to believe that calypso actually would pull through on something for once. that they’d prove themselves towards the rest of the industry.

instead they had yet again been set up to embarass themselves.

after everything, after all their hard work and best efforts crowned had only served to confirm what deep down yena had always known to be true: calypso were b-tier idols at best, they couldn’t hold a flame to the rest of the industry, they could never come close to things other groups could do barely effortlessly.

the newfound popularity of rollin’ hadn’t been evidence that calypso had it in them all along. it had just been a stupid stroke of luck. something entirely outside of their power that had just happened to them.

even now, with the general public still favorable of them, calypso hadn’t shown enough longevity to get through even a silly tv-show with their held high.

perhaps dimensions was right for questioning if perhaps they were nothing more than a viral fad. if the lacklustre sales of their repackaged album didn’t tell them that this absolute public humiliation on crowned would. 

god, yena could just about scream and tear her hair out, frustration heavy on her chest with no way to relieve it that wasn’t breaking something.

but she couldn’t do that, not right there and then. the last thing yena needed was to look like a bad sport. don’t get her wrong, she definitely was one, the faint sound of dazzle dazzle playing on stage amidst the cheers was enough to have yena hoping all of equinox would simply end up falling off the stage or something in the same vein.

not very nice of her, especially not towards her friends in equinox but in the moment, she didn’t have it in her to be happy for them. or for anyone who had ranked above eleventh place for that matter.

“it’s okay, we worked hard didn’t we? and we tried our best.” the voice of one of the calypso members rose out above the sound of yena’s own thoughts, causing yena to focus back on her group. they mostly all seemed some degree of concerned. probably because yena had been dead silent the entire time so far. a rare occurance for nam yena.