#south movie Headlines

[gunsatthaphan]

~ Monthly BL Breakdown: July 2024 ~ 

🫐 Happy August!!! 🐝

Disclaimer: ALL shows can be streamed here or here, as well as on Youtube and other platforms. For more info on where to watch what, check out this post! 

New breakdowns are coming at the end of every month - feel free to add stuff! -> previous breakdowns

What came out this month? (green = seen/currently watching)

🌟 Takara no Vidro - July 1st (Japan)

🌟 This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans - July 5th (Thailand) ✅

🌟 The Boyfriend (Gay Dating Reality Show) - July 9th (Japan)

🌟 The Next Altitude (BOC lineup event) - July 9th (Thailand)

🌟 Century of Love - July 10th (Thailand)

🌟 Meet You at the Blossom - July 11th (China/Thailand/Taiwan)

🌟 Heavens x Candy - July 13th (Japan)

🌟 Sky Valley - July 20th (Philippines)

🌟 I Saw You in My Dream - July 24th (Thailand)

🌟 4 Minutes - July 26th (Thailand)

🌟 Love Enemy - July 26th (Thailand)

🌟 Mitsuya Sensei no Keikakutekina Ezuke - July 26th (Japan)

🌟 Battle of the Writers - July 29th (Thailand)

Monthly Likes / Dislikes

❣️ - 👎🏻 No series but I find the whole Y-Find thing really fucked up like what are they thinking? I know it's the usual capitalism but to leave the winner with nothing but a paycheck and NO rights to their story whatsoever is wild to me. Kinda makes me want to write a story about Thailand's biggest company completely screwing over their fans and submit it lmao 💀

New series & movie announcements

🎥 Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 P.S. You (starring Yoon Phusanu) - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Buddy Boy - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 Project Red (movie, starring BillkinPP) - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Dear My Paradise - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 I'll Turn Back This Time - Date TBA (Taiwan)

🎥 Host Friend - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Pretty Boys - Date TBA (Philippines)

🎥 Luminous Begins (prequel to The Luminous Solution) - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Eternal Butler (sequel to Anti-Reset) - Date TBA (Taiwan)

🎥 The Hell Guard - Date TBA (Thailand)

Other news from the BL world

❗️ After the withdrawal of Chimon W. from the upcoming BL Perfect10 Liners, GMMTV announced that company-newbie Santa P. will be taking on the role of Gun and thus become Perth's new partner in the show. Furthermore they announced that Chimon will still be taking part in the upcoming series Hide & Sis.

❗️ The production company Headliner Thailand announced that actor Seng Wichai will no longer participate in the upcoming BL project The Bangkok Boys due to scheduling conflicts. It has not been revealed whether or not his role will be recast.

❗️ Actor Frank T. made a post on Instagram, announcing the end of his ship with fellow actor Long Shi Lee, saying that there won't be any more joint projects as they are pursuing separate acting careers.

❗️ The annual Digital Awards Thailand were held on July 14th. The following BL actors/productions won:

UpPoom - Most popular pairing (My Stand-in)

GreatInn - Couple of the Year (Wandee Goodday)

MeenPing - Best Couple in a Sports Themed Series (The Rebound)

MosBank - Best BL Couple

❗️ Max Nattapol (Manner of Death) and Na Naphat (Until We Meet Again) will be paired as a side couple in the upcoming GL Petrichor. The show is an adaption of the novel of the same name and author Sammon has been confirmed as the screenwriter. An airdate is still unknown.

❗️ Former GMMTV actor Mike Chinnarat has joined the cast for the upcoming Domundi BL Your Sky as the character Oh. An airdate is still unknown.

❗️ GMMTV announced that their newly announced project Y-Find will accept submissions until August 31st. The project gives (only Thai) fans the opportunity to submit original BL/GL stories, one of which will be chosen to be extended and adapted into a series. The winner receives 30.000 Baht (~800$) and has to sign a copyright transfer agreement for the story and will not be involved in any of the further productions processes as all rights will be transferred to GMMTV. (wtf lmao)

❗️ The Korean vlog-style BL City Boy Log is getting a fourth season. An airdate is unknown.

❗️ GMMTV released a statement, declaring the end of Ohm P. and Nanon K.'s work as a pair and the end of the OhmNanon ship as a result. The pair debuted in Bad Buddy in 2021 and reunited for Our Skyy2 in 2023. According to the statement they want to pursue separate careers - Ohm will be the lead in the upcoming BL Kidnap where he is paired with Leng T. while Nanon has taken a step back from acting.

Upcoming series & movies for August

👉🏻 Sugar Dog Life - August 4th (Japan)

👉🏻 Summer Night (bl side story) - August 5th (Thailand)

👉🏻 Cosmetic Playlover - August 6th (Japan)

👉🏻 Monster Next Door - August 8th (Thailand)

👉🏻 First Note of Love - August 12th (Taiwan)

👉🏻 The Paradise of Thorns - August 22nd (Thailand)

👉🏻 My Idol - August TBA (South Korea)

[lurkingshan]

Anticipating the LITBC Adaptations

One of the questions @bengiyo asked us this week is what parts of the book we are most looking forward to seeing in the upcoming film and drama adaptations. I had a good convo with @doyou000me and @stuffnonsenseandotherthings in the comments here, and I wanted to talk a bit about why I am excited for these adaptations.

Most folks who watch a lot of South Korean media know that there is precious little LGBTQ+ representation in Korean dramas and film. In mainstream kdrama, we are lucky if we get a queer side character a couple times a year, and it's even more rare for those characters to get a romantic partner (but not unheard of, see Be Melodramatic my beloved). There has been a big uptick in Korean bl production over the last few years, but most of those projects are underfunded and fly under the radar (with notable exceptions like Semantic Error, The Eighth Sense, and Love for Love's Sake). So it is a very big deal to me to see two mainstream adaptations of Love in the Big City, a story that is undeniably centered on a queer lived experience.

Let's talk about the film first. When I first saw the announcement that we would get a film adaptation starring Kim Go Eun, Steve Noh, and Kang Ha Neul, I was ecstatic. These are huge names in Korean media, drama headliners and movie stars. Now, does the choice to focus only on part 1 and center the story on Jaehee mean this project likely won't feel fully rooted in Young's queer perspective? Absolutely, we should recognize that and manage our expectations accordingly. But there will be a mainstream film about the relationship between a woman and a gay man living together, and that is already a very big deal for South Korea. We have to look at this project from the context of Korean social politics and recognize that it signifies progress. And I am still hopeful that Young will feel like a fully realized character, even if we are unlikely to see the full extent of his depth and complexity represented in this film.

And that is where the drama comes in. Sang Young Park himself is the screenwriter for this adaptation, and based on the production photos @my-rose-tinted-glasses shared here, we are getting all four parts of the story in this version. The cast here is not as famous as the film headliners, but they are recognizable, solid actors who have had main roles in other dramas. I don't know how these two projects came to be made at the same time, so I can only say that having them premiere around the same time is genius, whether by intention or happenstance. Because I can easily imagine that people who are exposed to this story for the first time via the film might then go check out the drama, where they will see a much fuller picture of Young's life and an authentic queer experience. @archiveofmystuff shared that there has been some reporting about the long process to secure funding for this full novel adaptation, and I'm not surprised it was difficult. But with Sang Young Park attached I feel confident that we will get a solid version of this story, even if it can't get quite as explicit about all the gory details as the novel did. I can't wait to see Young, Jaehee, Umma, Hyung, and Gyu-ho on my screen, and I'll be so curious to see how he structures the show to fit the four parts of his novel into eight 50-minute episodes. There are so many exciting possibilities and I am feeling optimistic.

TL; DR: it's a big deal that these adaptations are being made, and it will surely result in more people seeing Young's story. It's a signal of positive progress in the Korean media landscape, and I welcome it.

[livwritesstuff]

this is an edited repost of something I wrote last year for the 10-year anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School (now 11 years today). to say the least, it’s a difficult day for a lot of people, including me. i wrote this all in one go just as a positive outlet for the things this day evokes and i went back and forth on if i would post it, but i know i’m not the only one who has been affected by these events. if you’re someone who finds this day to be a hard one, this one is for you.

tw: references to gun violence and school shootings

It’s late morning in December 2012 and Steve is watching the news. He isn’t really paying attention to the current segment about opiate use, too busy being completely annihilated in Words with Friends by his eleven-year-old, who just played the word ‘jinxes’ for 23 points, the bastard.

He’s mid-way through sending Moe a text (“get off your ipod you’re in class”) when the channel’s Breaking News intro interrupts the interview that he’d been ignoring. He looks up to see that the headline has changed.

Steve sees shooting, and then elementary school and feels his heart jump into his throat the way it does any time he hears sirens when his daughters or his husband aren’t home – not because he really believes it’s for them, but because it could be. There’s always a chance it could be.

And he’s got two kids in elementary school right now.

He makes himself read the headline in full – it clarifies that the school is in Connecticut, nowhere near him and his house and his children’s schools in the Massachusetts suburbs, but it does little to remedy the panic that has his heart going a mile a minute.

Steve sits for a while, eyes glued to the TV as the anchor slowly ad-libs, clearly waiting for any new scrap of information.

On the first commercial break, Steve checks his phone. He’s got one text – from Moe telling him to play another word in their game. He responds back with the message he’d written before he’d become fixated on the news.

On the second one, he texts Eddie, tells him he loves him and asks if he’s heard what’s going on (he knows he probably won’t get a response for a while – Eddie is notoriously bad at checking his phone and that’s when he’s not in a meeting he’s been looking forward to for weeks, as is the case today).

By the third, they’ve learned the school is on lock-down, but not much more.

Everything he hears after that is nothing short of harrowing, and leaves Steve feeling sick to his stomach.

Eddie finally texts him a couple hours later, after the news anchor has been switched out for another, to say his meeting ran late (an actual director had reached out to him saying she was interested in adapting one of Ed’s books into a movie – today was the day they got to talk in person) and he hadn’t known any of this was going on, but he’s on his way to pick up Hazel from her AM kindergarten session.

Steve’s day continues. He makes lunch, he finishes some laundry, he responds to emails, always with one eye on the news. His shock at what was occurring mere hours south of his home, subsides, slowly replaced with a dull horror because he’s seen a lot of things in his forty-six years of life, but nothing like this. One by one, his three girls return home from school and he hugs each of them like he always does, but today it’s a little tighter.

It’s a Friday, and Friday night is movie night in the Harrington house. It’s Robbie’s night to choose (she picks Spy Kids, like she does every time she gets to pick the movie since it came out last year). Before they start, Steve and Eddie tell their kids what happened. They do their best to find an explanation that is sufficient for ever-precocious Moe, but not too much for Hazel, their sweet kindergartner who only just turned six. Once the movie starts, they all pile under the same blanket, and where there’s usually fidgeting and arguing and occasionally having to pause the movie altogether to wipe tears and wait on a time-out because someone weaponized a foot or an elbow after they weren’t given the big bowl of popcorn fast enough, tonight there is quiet and stillness.

The next day, the girls are back to their normal, bickering selves, but Steve still can’t shake the aching feeling in his chest every time he thinks about what happened the day before. He starts to get that itch in his brain, the same itch he'd felt after he ran out of the Byers’s house in 1983, after he turned back and saw those Christmas lights flickering, the itch where he’s gearing up for a fight.

As the months go on, Steve finds himself reading into gun control laws, finds himself with multiple non-profits fighting for them bookmarked on his computer, finds himself following politics for the first time in his life as he watches bill after bill get shut down by both sides of the debate.

Honestly, Steve isn’t sure why he cares so deeply about this – and not just what happened in Connecticut, but the issue of guns and gun safety in general. It’s not like he hasn’t fired a gun before. It’s not like he’s never seen their value (he still remembers that drive to the War Zone so many years ago). It’s not like he hasn’t ever felt safer with someone nearby wielding one, even if that someone was Nancy Wheeler.

Maybe he’s a little too familiar with children being the casualties in a war they didn’t choose to start, didn’t choose to fight in, and if that had made him angry at nineteen, he’s irate now, now that he has a six-year-old like the students in that classroom in Connecticut, now that he has an eleven-year-old like El when she escaped that lab in Hawkins.

It wouldn’t be the first time Steve threw himself into a battle that had nothing to do with him, that he knew very little about, because he knows what happens when children get caught in the crossfire of a battle that has nothing to do with them, and he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he sat idly by and watched it happen again.

[korn-official]

The Kerrang! Challenge starring Jonathan Davis & Munky!

This weeks contestants are:

Name: Jonathan Davis and James 'Munky' Shaffer

Occupation: Tortured singer and guitar-mangler & Kerrang! stage headliners, KORN!

Specialist Subject: Clowns, blindness, and obscenities.

**

1. What is BSE most commonly known as?

James: "is it a European thing? Oh great."

Jonathan: "Mad Cow's Disease?"

James: "Yessss!!!! Good guess, man!”

Jonathan: "I'm a vegetarian now, and BSE was one of the reasons I stopped eating meat. It freaks me out. I don't want my fucking brains running out my nose."

2.On entering the EEC, how many cigarrettes can you bring with you?

Jonathan: "Oh, man, What the fuck is it? Three?"

James: "Remember being on the boat at Dover, and there were all these guys with cartons? I'm gonna say 30 cartons."

Jonathan: "We'll say five cartons."

Kerrang!: "It's 'chokey' for you, then."

3.How many installments of "Childern of the Corn" have there been?

Jonathan: "Three. The first one's the dopest, the second one was kind of cheesy, and the third one I didn't see. Bet it sucks."

4. Who won the Euro 96 competition?

James: "Nobody in the band's into sports"

Jonathan: "What is Euro 96?"

James: "Just pick one."

Jonathan: "Norway."

5.name Slayer's second album.

James: "There was Reign in Blood, then ...."

Jonathan: "Seasons in the Abyss, maybe.."

James: "We'll say South of Heaven"

Kerrang!: "It was Hell Awaits.”

(The duo scream with the embarrassment of it all.)

Jonathan: "Fuck, I knew that song. Play it backwards and it goes, "Join Us", I liked it."

James: "Sicko.”

6. Name Keanu Reeve's rock band.

James: "I saw them on The David Letterman Show.”

Jonathan: "Er, we’re gonna suck…”

Kerrang!: "not as badly as Dogstar."

7. Who plays Quentin Tarantino's brother in From Dusk Till Dawn?

Jonathan: "Haven't seen it. Bruce Willis?"

James: "Boris Karloff."

8. What was the first single from Bon Jovi's keep the faith album?

James: "Keep the faith, that was it. Oh fuckk, I should have got that wrong. Oh no..."

Jonathan: "You fucking rocker!”

9. What is maize more commonly known as?

Jonathan: "Corn, we use Maize as a dummy name when we do warm-up shows."

10. As a result of losing her royal title, how much money has princess Diana been given?

Jonathan: "Was it 43 million pounds?"

Kerrang!: "No, she's not that important."

Jonathan: "I heard a story that when Diana and Prince Charles went anywhere, people had to build a toilet. Then the toilet seat got sent back to the Royal Family, so no one could ever sit on it. The whole monarchy's fucked."

11. Who directed the Italian horror film "tenebrae"?

Jonathan: "Oh, Fellini?

Kerrang!: "No."

Jonathan: "Fellini is the only italian director we know."

12. What is 15 percent of 400?

James: "Oh, man, mathematics."

Jonathan: "Okay, 10 percent will be 40 bucks, is it 45?"

13. What colour is London's Central tube line?

James: "Lime green.“

Jonathan: "I wasn't down there. so I can't tell you. We suck. How many have we got - two?"

14. Which band's second album is named "Ignition"?

James: "Ah, Offspring."

Jonathan: "They're from Huntington Beach, where we started the band. They're cool, but I'm not into that music at all. Noodles is a really nice guy, although he seems to be full of himself."

15. Who played the photo-journalist in "Apocalypse Now"?

Jonathan: "Dennis Hopper. He is in my favourite movie, 'Blue Velvet'. I wish I could live 'Blue Velvet'."

16. Whereabouts would you find the human tragus?

Jonathan: "That's a hard one…I'd say the face. Fuck, it's the head. Is it a bone? The ear. Morturary College comes in handy again."

17. Which rap band sampled a riff from Slayer's Angel of Death?

James: "Public Enemy, 'She Watch Channel Zero?!'. When we were 18, we used to play that in the recording studio."

18. Name the four horeseman of the apocalypse.

James: "Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper"

Jonathan: "There's the white horse, the brown one..."

19. Which comedian recorded a live album and vidoe called 'no cure for cancer'?

James: "Denis Leary. He's raw, man. He's hosting a new comedy over here, called 'London Underground' or something.”

20. What are the ingredients of a good bloody mary?

James: “Vodka, tomato juice, celery, tabasco, and a dash of pepper."

Jonathan: "Worcester sauce and maybe some long green beans. They're great for a hangover, and on a plane too. I don't know why, but God they're good."

21. What do the opposite sides of a dice total?

Jonathan: "Seven, I know that from shootin craps."

Kerrang!: "Isn't that a tad messy? Boom ching, I thank you."

22. Spell the word enema.

Jonathan: "E-N...There's a 'Y' in it. fuck it. E-N-Y-M-A."

23. if a Londoner said that they were going to "up the apples and pears", what would they mean they are doing?

Jonathan: "Fucking— drinking? We have no clue.“

Kerrang!: "Up the stairs."

Jonathan: "Okay, I've gotta remember that. 'I'm going up the apples and pears, man.'"

24. How many centimeters are there in a foot?

James: "A hundred?"

25. Which is the correct saying: the yolk of an egg is white, or the yolk of an egg are white?

Jonathan: "The yolk of an egg is white, no?"

Kerrang!: "It's yellow.”

James: "Oh, man. that's like 'which is heavier, a pound of rocks or a pound of feathers?'. That is cool."

[nevermindirah]

I'm a lucky duck who lives in one of the markets getting the limited release of Dandelion! Per Nat's request here are my thoughts to tide you over until it's more widely accessible.

As I said in my immediate reaction post, KiKi Layne was built for the big screen. This movie is full of gorgeous closeups of her. And medium-sized shots, and distance shots, and ok maybe it's just me, but bless this movie for making her a singer-songwriter-guitarist, because this means there are so many lingering closeups of her hands, and oh mY GOD NOT TO BE A LESBIAN (gender-neutral) BUT >:)))))))))

I could look at KiKi Layne all day, and now I could also listen to her sing all day. Her voice is beautiful and so expressive. She said in press leading up to it that she was nervous to share her singing voice and maybe that had something to do with just how expressive she is as a singer. Maybe sharing that is more intimate for her than the on-screen nudity this movie also has, and which is also compelling as hell.

This pro review notes that KiKi contributed to the music writing, which is so cool! It also acknowledges that much of the dialogue isn't quite right, often a little too like an essay or a headline to be organic for these characters, while getting at how forgivable that is in a movie whose soul is in the music and the visuals and the chemistry.

Somewhat miraculously for a movie with a white writer-director whose skill isn't primarily in dialogue, about a Black lead in a mostly-white place, it's conscious about race without being didactic. Dandelion is wary of going to white redneck territory for a music competition, and there's a sequence where microaggressions turn into shitty petty crime, but she's also not the only Black person in the sea of likely [redacted] voters. The movie does get a touch didactic about the struggles of women in creative industries, so maybe it wasn't a product of careful effort so much as Nicole Reigel's limited perspective, but the result works. Antiblackness isn't The Conflict of The Movie, simply a shitty part of the background radiation of Dandelion's life.

The music is so damn good. Soundtrack album here! Though the album tragically leaves off two of the movie's best songs: the stunning final number where Tracy Chapman vibes meet Prince, and a cover of 90s white boy song Hey Jealousy that starts off as mere pleasant background track introducing us to KiKi's voice and turns into a sleeper thematic tornado. Once you've seen the movie go look at Hey Jealousy's lyrics and backstory so you can join me in screaming about it and these characters.

Dandelion is a little movie, marvelously so. It's about just a few people in a short time in their lives. I hadn't thought about it like this until now but there are several thematic as hell shots of one or two characters shown tiny and off to the side amid sweeping rocky nature. The artsy shots of flowers superimposed on emotive faces aren't my taste but the overwhelming scale of the landscapes really spoke to me and now I'm realizing this is why.

There's a thing about some side characters wanting to be the biggest band in the world that's kind of an example of the clunky dialogue and kinda perfect for how wonderfully small this movie is. It doesn't matter where Dandelion's career goes after this. These scant few weeks of her life make for such a rich story on their own. This moment in time matters, even if these events don't turn out to have any more effect on the characters' futures than they do on the timeless mountains and prairies of South Dakota.

Fandom people are probably more likely to connect with this movie than the average non-musician viewer because of something that baffled me about a review I wildly disagreed with. Apparently some people can watch this and not understand how fast two people can develop deep intimacy and attachment despite barely knowing each other, just because they make art together. I don't understand how that reviewer didn't understand. You make art with someone and you're in each other's souls. It's intoxicating to collaborate with someone who gets what you're trying to say with your art and helps you make something that best captures the ineffable but crystal clear thing you're trying to say.

Not so intoxicating that you can no longer make rational decisions — but, well, in a way maybe it's the more rational decision to keep chasing the high of drift compatible creation, even when the person you've found to be your musical brain twin is maybe a not great choice in other ways.

Purely for Book of Nile reasons this movie is a damn gift. Tons of shots would be so easy to swap out one scruffy white boy's face for another. (Though Thomas Doherty is the same height as KiKi, which I personally enjoy, it's fun to have variety.) So much of the lyrics are extreme bait for gifsets and fic titles. (Tiny for the movie but very big for the BoNers spoiler: SHE LITERALLY CALLS HIM OLD MAN.) The first two thirds of the movie I kept thinking how perfect this plot would be as a BoN musicians AU — until a twist where I was both so pissed on Dandelion's behalf and internally screaming BOOKER WOULD NEVER.

As I was watching the final scenes I kept waiting for a thing to happen that didn't happen, a certain way of resolving the romance. The ending we do get left me yearning a little. But starting a few hours after leaving the theater the yearning subsided and now a week later my satisfaction with the ending has fermented into a yearning only to listen to that last song on loop forever. (WHY is it not on the soundtrack. I mean, TRACY CHAPMAN MEETS PRINCE.)

One more thing before I go. Dandelion is another thrilling expansion of the repertoire of KiKi's characters in terms of vibes and aesthetics. She looks so different than Nile in a theoretical mirror image outfit of practical boots and jeans and an oversized borrowed button-down thrown over a tee. None of KiKi's other characters, not even gentle Tish, would look so at home in delicate florals, doubly so when they're paired so effortlessly with a comfy denim jacket. And KiKi's physicality here is unique to this person: Dandelion, Theresa, a guitarist. Wholly unlike Margaret the dancer or Nile the warrior. Maybe someday Nile will grow locs like Dandelion's though.

In conclusion: watch Dandelion! I'm as glad I saw this in theaters as I was glad I watched Don't Worry Darling at 1.5x in a small corner of my laptop and only slowed it down for Kiki's scenes. The limited release is real limited, alas, but if you have access to a biggish tv to stream it on I'd strongly recommend making that effort. Both for the landscapes and those gorgeous closeups of Kiki's face.

[restlessmaknae]

dating (hypothetically)

One helpful act on a stranger’s part leads to a headline article the next day, and in 24 hours, your whole life takes a turn when the stranger is revealed to be the heartthrob rocker, Cho Seungyoun.

➳ Characters: solo rock singer!Seungyoun x female reader/you

➳ Genre: comedy, fluff, showbiz au

➳ Words: 7.3k

➳ Warning: mentions of paparazzi, crazy fans and therapy

➳ A/N: Dedicated to @lily-blue

➳ WOODZ taglist: @dat-town

➳ Check out: my WOODZ masterlist

Straight out of a kdrama: WOODZ is pulling his alleged girlfriend out of harm in new pictures

One of today’s hottest items, Cho Seungyoun (also known by his stage name WOODZ) was seen in a rather intimate position with his alleged girlfriend on 20th May at around 9pm in Sogong-dong. In the pictures, we can clearly see the heartthrob rocker and a mysterious young lady talking in front of a 7-Eleven store, the girl reaching something out to him, then the multitalented singer-songwriter pulling her towards him - out of harm as a motorbike is seen passing by. The close scene is making fans swoon worldwide as it looks like a scene straight out of a kdrama.

However, some fans expressed their disappointment that their favourite singer is seen around a young lady as he has not announced that he was taken. On top of that, just a month before the incident, WOODZ was quick to reassure fans at his latest fansign that he was single, and went on to explain that his songs were mostly about searching for one’s self-identity, telling his haters off and raging about today’s society because he did not have a lot of experience in love.

Meanwhile, WOODZ debuted as a solo rock singer in 2021, and is one of the emerging artists of today’s music scene in South Korea, shaking up the hearts of young girls with his aesthetic and high-energy MVs, head bobbing songs and even his not so secret tattoos (which you can see in this previous article).

Check out the pictures of WOODZ and his alleged girlfriend below!

What do you think about the news? Are you happy for WOODZ and his alleged girlfriend?

Most of the time, you would not read such articles. You didn’t care about celebrities’ rumours, you watched their movies, shows and listened to their music, but you couldn’t care less about whom they dated and whom they didn’t. You knew that it was usually fake either way, or if it was actually true, then it was disgusting that paparazzis could put pictures up on the Internet, and the celebrities in question would be the ones receiving all the hate, not the ones who took the pictures without the others’ consent.

However, now, you were the one involved, you were the one seen in the pictures, and given the location, given the unmistakably hanging 7 on the sign behind you, anyone who frequented this particular area knew that it was this specific 7-Eleven, not somewhere else. Your boss had been meaning to fix the hanging 7 that was pretty much a safety hazard now, but to your luck, it was caught on camera just like your work outfit and your dyed blue-black hair even if your face was blurred out. Anyone who could put two and two together would know that you were working here, not just being here on a casual date with this so-called heartthrob at 9pm.

“This is just unbelievable, who do they think they are?” You exclaimed angrily as you tossed the phone showing the article back to your co-worker, Yohan. He was the one who had brought up if you had seen the article published early in the morning after you had asked him why there were more people here than usual, and why they were giving you odd glances. So while Minhee was taking over the counter, you and Yohan were in the staff room, away from the curious eyes. Who knew when paparazzi would show up here at this rate?

“I thought the same. You and a rock singer dating? Please,” the younger boy huffed as if he had any right to talk about your non-existent love life like that when he himself wasn’t any better. When a pretty girl showed up at the counter, he basically malfunctioned. He could only be bratty to girls who treated him like a younger brother - yourself included.

“We are not dating. I was just giving his wallet back because he had left it on the table inside the store, then he thanked me for it, and then, the motorbike guy came, and yes, he did pull me towards him, but it was anything but romantic. I felt so awkward, I wanted the ground to swallow me up.”

“But why? You are the one who always complains that chivalry is dead!” Yohan pointed out with a raise of his eyebrows, and you had to give it to him that he was right.

“I don’t know, it was just… weird. He’s practically a stranger!” You reasoned as you leaned onto the shelf with the uniforms, your head throbbing ever since you had laid your eyes on the article. This could not be happening… This had to be a dream… You were the most ordinary person on Earth, why did you have to get caught up in a dating rumour with a rock singer?

“So you didn’t even exchange numbers that would mean you could contact him now?” Yohan broke the momentary silence, his face pondering. You, on the other hand, gave him a deadly glare as if he had asked if you had killed a person.

“No, of course not. I’ve told you there’s nothing between us.”

“It’s not too good then. How are you going to discuss what to do about the whole situation?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if celebrities discuss these things when they are rumoured to be with common people,” you reasoned, letting out a huff of air at the end of your answer. You ran a hand through your hair, not caring about the mess you would leave behind because it was a mess either way. Not just your hair but the whole situation.

As if it could get any worse, the door of the staff room flung open, and your manager walked in with his hands on his hips.

“Would anyone mind telling me why people are asking ME if the girlfriend of a certain singer is working here? And by anyone, I mean you,” he said as he pointed at you. Oh, come on, could this get any worse?

“Look, there’s nothing going on between me and that certain singer, I swear. I just went after him last night because he left his wallet behind. That’s all.”

You tried with your most confident tone and your most convincing puppy eyes, but you should have known that didn’t work on your manager. He wasn’t a bad manager, if anything, he was a reasonable boss. However, what he hated the most was drama, and if anyone caused trouble, he would go absolutely feral. Good thing that he hadn’t yet done so.

“This is still not good. People are flooding the store, and they don’t even buy anything. How did they even know it’s our store?”

“It’s because of the hanging 7 above the door,” Yohan chirped in, and even though he wanted to be helpful, it didn’t work because your boss just became even angrier.

“Fine, then I’ll fix the sign now, and you should take the day off while we figure out how to keep the peace of our store.”

“But-” You tried to protest, but your boss didn’t let you, and told you firmly to take the day off. He even mentioned that you should try to dye back your hair in case that would help with people not recognising you around here, and whilst it was reasonable on his part, you felt like a child being reprimanded for something you hadn’t even committed.

May it be your fury or the fact that you had the whole day to yourself afterwards, but you had a plan: if you didn’t know how to contact that so-called singer, you should find out where his agency was, and maybe, they would help you settle the case if you were cooperative.

Or so you hoped.

When you let Yohan know about your plan before leaving the store, he insisted on accompanying you. He came up with sillier and sillier answers as to why (what if crazy fans would flock you? What if someone would throw eggs at you? What if they wanted to throw you out of the agency when they got to know why you were there?), so you told him you would wait until the end of his shift, and then you can go together. In the meantime, you looked up this so-called WOODZ’s agency - it was his own agency according to the articles which made everything more and less intimidating at the same time -, and spiralled down into the hellhole of the internet, seeing too many versions of the story of last night, but none of them were true. Some even went as far as to say that you had been kissing after this singer had pulled you closer to him, and one commenter even said that she saw you leaving the store with the celebrity. Absolute nonsense, absolute bonkers. If you hated gossip before, now you absolutely detested it.

Getting inside the agency was no big deal as it seemed that there was an exhibition part of the building about the artist’s life that fans could visit, but getting through the receptionist to talk to Cho Seungyoun himself was more difficult.

“We can’t just let anyone inside that says that they are the girl in the articles.”

“Do you think I would come here for fun if I wasn’t that girl?” You counter-attacked the receptionist dude who couldn’t let you in for safety reasons which you could understand, but still, his explanations were getting on your nerves.

“Crazy fans do exist,” Yohan blurted out absent-mindedly beside you, totally not helping the situation. You gave him a deadly side-eye before turning back to the receptionist.

“Do they even dye their hair to the colour of my hair?” You threw the question at the dude behind the desk, then threw your hands up in the air out of frustration. “Then, what can I do to meet him? Can’t you just tell him that I’m here, and he can see for himself whether it’s me or not, then problem solved,” you suggested as your last piece of hope, and that seemed to spark something in him.

He gave you one long stare before picking up the phone and calling someone (hopefully the so-called heartthrob), then randomly took a photo of you, and when you asked what it was for, he explained that it was for identification to send to Mr Cho as he called the artist. Yohan mumbled something along the lines of ‘how cool’, and before you knew it, you were given a visitor’s pass, and told to go to the fifth floor.

“And what about me?” Yohan puckered his lips at the receptionist who seemed to be on the edge already.

“And who would you be?”

“Her colleague. Her emotional support colleague who wants to make sure that she’s treated right,” he answered all too seriously, and if you didn’t know him, you would say that he was overreacting, but you knew that he could be very adamant when it was about people who were close to him.

You two had been on good terms ever since he had started working at the convenience store and given that you were older and had worked there already, you had been the one to show him the ropes, and you had developed this sibling kind of relationship quickly. He and Minhee could talk about all the boyish topics they wanted while you gave him life advice when he needed it and got him out of trouble when he messed up an invoice or clumsily broke something.

“Fine. But no pictures or videos, either of you,” the dude warned you both before giving out a visitor pass to the younger boy as well who giddily followed you through the gates, and eventually to the fifth floor.

As soon as you stepped out, there was a 30-something guy waiting for you two who introduced himself as Han Seungwoo, WOODZ’s manager. Then, he led you to a meeting room after a few empty corners, and when you stepped inside, the rock singer was already there, looking up from a bunch of documents when you stepped inside.

Last night, the singer had been wearing a casual grey hoodie, similarly plain sweatpants and no make-up. He had looked like your typical boy-next-door, although he was far from a young boy now, and you had no handsome neighbours like him. Even though you would have wanted to deny, you couldn’t deny that he was attractive, not in a pushy way, not in an overwhelming way, but there was a certain degree of boyishness mixed in with his muscular features, and he just looked nice, even as a casual visitor last night.

Now though in a chic white shirt pulled up until his elbows, sliced back hair, slight dark make-up, he did look extra fine. Damn it, it would have been easier to shout his head off (to find a solution to the problem at hand, of course) if he hadn’t looked like that.

He stood up, bowed at you two before signalling to the chairs on the other side of the table.

“Good afternoon! Please, take a seat,” he greeted you two politely, and you exchanged a glance with Yohan beside you. Was he always extra nice, or was it because he didn’t want you to get more frustrated because he believed that you weren’t in the best mood? Either way, he was like a real gentleman, and even his voice was gentle (was a rock singer allowed to have such a gentle voice?) as he introduced himself officially while all of you were taking a seat at the table.

The artist’s manager sat beside Seungyoun himself (he mentioned that he preferred his real name, not his stage name) while you and Yohan were on the other side, introducing yourself quite clumsily, to be honest. However, Seungyoun didn’t give you an odd glance when Yohan introduced himself as your little brother-like colleague who was definitely not your boyfriend before he wanted to know.

“Well, thank you for the information,” Seungyoun chuckled hearing the younger boy’s words, and his eyes turned into little crescents as he was laughing. That was really cute or something, but you weren’t here for that. You were here to get out of this mess.

“So uhm… I don’t know how people do this usually, but can’t you release an article saying that there’s nothing between us, and explain what happened exactly? It’s giving me a hard time at work, people are flooding the store and asking questions. My manager is also quite agitated,” you explained in one-go, hoping that all this newfound information will make him empathise with you enough to agree to your plan.

There was a few seconds of silence when Seungyoun and his manager exchanged a glance, and you felt your heartbeat picking up its pace. What if they thought you were crazy? What if they didn’t want to stir up even bigger of a mess? Such thoughts crossed your mind, but the casual way they gave in eased your worries.

“There’s no guarantee that the public would believe you two, but we can try with an official release on the agency’s side,” the manager articulated solemnly, and you nodded immediately, knowing all too well that the public could think whatever they wanted despite the truth being far from the situation.

So you got started on putting together a statement, and since you were already there, Seungyoun wanted you to have a say in this. Not because he didn’t remember what had happened the night before (you couldn’t have wiped the memory from your mind even if you had wanted to), but because he wanted your consent as to what they would put out. Yohan nudged you in the side hearing that, and you mouthed a why, but he just gave you a smug, boyish grin in return. What was he up to, jeez?

The statement took longer than you would have thought so, and Yohan got so bored in the meantime that he started scrolling on his phone. Thank god he did though because another mess was on its way, it seemed.

“Oh… Ooohh… This is not good,” he vocalised while you were doing the finishing touches on the text, and all eyes were on him now. He pushed his phone to the middle of the table, an anonymous post with the title ‘WOODZ’s alleged girlfriend is seen at the artist’s agency' open on it. You immediately snatched the phone and scrolled down to read what they had to say.

“I saw WOODZ’s alleged girlfriend entering the boy’s agency earlier today, about an hour ago. She was seen with another guy who seemed like her brother or something… Either way, here are the photos I’ve taken… You can clearly see that it’s her, and now we can be even more sure that he’s dating her,” you quoted from the post, your mouth hanging agape at the end as you looked at the photos taken of you and Yohan entering the building. Even though you both had masks on, your dyed hair was still the same, and it seemed that it was enough for the eagle-eyed fan to spot you and make it into an announcement.

You felt like the ground opened up beneath you. Just how… Why… How did this even happen? How could showbiz be like this? When the rumours and drama were far away from you in magazines and on online boards, it did seem bad, but not this bad when you were directly the target of these rumours. It was one thing that you had gotten swirled up in one rumour, but to be caught up in another one? Sure, you could have been more careful when you had entered the building, but should you be paranoid from now on?

“I think at this point it would be easier if you two just… dated,” Yohan blurted out casually, and you felt your eyes widen as you gave him a glare.

“He has a point,” Seungyoun’s manager, Seungwoo, voiced out his opinion as well, and given the singer’s solemn face and lack of response, you had a feeling that he felt the same way.

“That does not solve the problem of me not being able to work because of what’s happening at the store.”

“You can work here. We have some vacancies,” the rock singer suggested seriously, his eyes boring into yours. You could tell that he was being genuine, and since he was the CEO of his own company, he could make it work, but still…

“Wouldn’t that make everything worse?”

“Well, that depends on how you see it. If you work here, we can give you a piece of mind as no one will bother you here. You can also come in from the back or from the garage which are for staff only, not through the main entrance which is for the general public. We can also appoint you a security guard if you would like to. It’s my company, so we could also make adjustments as you see fit. You wouldn’t need to feel like you inconvenience anyone because this is what we do here, that’s our job,” he announced confidently as if he had practised it already. Maybe it wasn’t a surprise that he could lead his own company, he seemed to take everything into consideration while speaking eloquently about a matter.

“We can’t do that elsewhere, but I also understand that you have your own job, your own goals, your friends and colleagues there, so it might not be your first choice,” he added a bit belatedly when you still didn’t speak up. He kept the eye-contact with you, but that just made everything worse because you wanted to believe him. You felt like you could believe him when he looked at you like that, but it was still so sudden, so new and so… scary.

“I… I think I need a bit more time to think about this,” you concluded when you found your voice, and the artist and his manager both nodded.

Seungyoun asked his manager to give you a pass if you needed to come by in the future, you also exchanged contacts, and you also decided to drop posting the official announcement for now. The singer told you to contact him anytime you felt like you needed it because of the situation, and before you would have left, he even apologised for the trouble.

“It’s not your fault. You can’t change the fact that you are a celebrity,” you responded out of empathy, and you saw hurt flash across his orbs, but you didn’t want to ask about it. You were sure that he had his fair share of hardships while being in the spotlight even without articles being written about him.

Maybe he was going through one right now as well.

Working at Seungyoun’s agency seemed like the most reasonable choice given the circumstances, but it took you a whole bunch of supposedly helpful things - such as writing a pros and cons list - and totally unhelpful things - such as tossing and turning in bed at night for two days in a row to make that decision. In the meantime, you went to dye your hair to black and cut it jaw-length short - shorter than it had ever been - so as to at least confuse the paparazzi or fans if they passed you by or came by the store. You still got odd glances, but at least you could have some peace of mind before leaving the store - and your lovely coworkers - behind. Your manager let you quit immediately given the circumstances, and Seungyoun let you join a few days later when you felt ready and had enough of being scooped up at home. You were more nervous about going outside when you were alone at home than when you were actually outside.

It didn’t mean that it wasn’t scary, but they were really nice at the company, and apart from Seungwoo, the artist’s manager, and Wooseok, the receptionist (you got to know his name later on), no one knew who you actually were, which was a relief. You had your own pass, your own duties as an assistant in the production office, and since you were a newbie (and that’s how you had been introduced to everyone on the first day), no one looked at you weird or deemed you incapable. They showed you the ropes, and soon enough, you were sucked into the world of album production, concept making, marketing plans and merchandise distribution. In the meantime, the rumours died down a bit though it didn’t mean that you were 100% rid of your fears and slight paranoia whenever you stepped outside.

Seungyoun, on the other hand, was kind and polite like the first time you met him - to be precise, the second time, but the first one at his company -, and when you bumped into each other in the corridor, he frequently halted to ask how you were doing and what you were up to. He did that with other employees as well, so you weren’t an exception, but it felt nice that he cared nevertheless. Especially because you knew that he was super busy recording for a new album, and he had his own company to run, so he had a lot to do.

You did look him up in the meantime, listening to some of his songs, and actually found yourself growing fond of his own style, especially when you felt like you could conquer the world while listening to a few of his angriest songs (they were great for singing in the shower when the stress got to you).

However, you didn’t really look up his stages and such, so when you were in a meeting to decide on his outfits for his next comeback and they were showing old press and stage photos and even videos of past performances, you were taken aback to see more revealing clothes on him such as sleeveless shirts, blazers without anything underneath and tank tops. You hoped that no one noticed that you were visibly shocked because you sure were. Seeing him in his usual cardigan and cotton pants combo or elegant, usually loose shirts were common, but seeing him like that on stage… well, that made you feel a bit uneasy because he seemed to know the power he had on his fans.

Days went by, the comeback was closer, and days got longer as everyone prepared extra hard. So after a long day when you wanted to have some time to yourself before leaving for home and joining the hustle-bustle of the commuting city centre, you went up to the rooftop of the company building. You looked at the buzzing city beneath you with all its sparkling city lights while taking a few sips from your carbonated drink and trying to ease the headache that was creeping onto you.

However, when the door to the rooftop flung open, and Seungyoun himself walked out, you felt uncharacteristically bashful as if you had been caught red-handed being here. It was common for colleagues to come up here during breaks, you just happened to be here on your own now. Well, he didn’t seem to mind your presence either, just asked if he could join you.

“Sure. It’s your company after all,” you told him semi-jokingly, and he reciprocated your smile as he stepped beside you, leaning onto the rail just like you did. He had a really charming smile, you had to admit, and it was lovely when his eyes turned into little crescents because he was someone who had that typical cute eye smile that could make girls swoon.

“Sometimes I still find it hard to believe that it’s mine,” he admitted as he looked at the city. You had read that he had been writing and producing songs, even being a back-up vocalist for a lot of acclaimed artists before creating his own company and debuting as a solo artist. You didn't know before that people could be paid a lot from royalties, but he sure had his name on a lot of different artists’ songs, and he had also been working part-time before becoming a full-time musician. So he had absolutely worked hard for it, that was one for certain.

“Is it better or worse to have your own company?”

“In a lot of aspects, I think it’s better because I have a lot more freedom, I have a lot more say in my artistic direction, but on the other hand, if I get into a scandal or my sales go down, the whole company could suffer the consequences including the trainees and solo artists that are here now,” he concluded as eloquently as always, and you couldn’t help but think of the dating rumour that you two had been a part of.

“I’m sorry that-”

“You don’t need to be sorry for that. I didn’t mention the scandals because of that,” Seungyoun cut you off before you could immediately go full-on regretful mode. Then, he gave you a soft, gentle smile, and continued slowly yet confidently. “Part of being in this industry is about dealing with the rumours and groundless accusations. They are pretty much inevitable, so one needs to work on themselves to withstand it. I also did that through counselling, and I still see a psychologist from time to time. They’ve helped me a lot at the beginning of my career, and it’s good to have those sessions to clear my mind and give space to more important thoughts and ideas.”

You heard of the free psychological consultation artists, trainees and employees under the company could sign up for, and you applauded Seungyoun for the initiative and also for speaking up about the matter. It must not be easy for him with the stigma around mental health in the industry, but that was just one more reason you looked up to him.

Since he shared something more vulnerable about himself, you decided to do the same. So after a long breath, you shared with him that you had also seen a psychologist when you hadn’t gotten into university upon graduation, and you had believed that all of your dreams had been crashed and taken away from you. It had been such a dark time for you, something that you didn’t like talking about, but it led you to start working at the 7-Eleven and make friends with your colleagues - something that you had never taken for granted afterwards.

“What would you have wanted to become? If you don’t mind sharing,” he inquired after sharing your sentiment that reaching out to a professional in times of need isn’t unnecessary, but rather brave.

“You’re going to laugh-” You started tentatively as the young man turned towards you to give you a semi-offended glare.

“I won’t, I promise.”

He looked at you like a puppy that was waiting for a treat, eyes all shiny and bright under the dim lights around, and after a long sigh, you gave him your answer.

“I wanted to be a journalist. Not the gossip magazine type, but maybe writing about hidden gems in Seoul, travel content and interviewing people about their life stories.”

When you finished, there was a moment of silence before the boy erupted into laughter. You almost threw hands at him because he had promised not to laugh, but before you could do so, he justified his action, still giggling.

“I thought you would say something like… I don’t know… astrophilosophy, and that’s why you said I would laugh.”

“What? Would you have laughed if I had told you so?” You raised a challenging eyebrow, but in the next moment, you also found yourself laughing along with him.

Gosh, it seemed so easy to be around him like this, it almost seemed easy to imagine that it could always be like this with him despite you two having quite a bit of a history yourselves. You didn’t even want to think about the what ifs regarding your future, you just enjoyed this moment and the conversation you were having.

You didn’t know just how crazy a comeback season could be until you found yourself in one, but it was super busy, everyone was doing a lot of work, and although you were only an assistant, not the ones actually making decisions and tracking sales and engagement, you were always on the go as well. It kept your mind occupied, so you didn’t have to worry about your paranoid thoughts that actually easened a bit once Seungyoun made his comeback and mentioned that the truth wasn’t what was written in those articles once asked about it at a fansign.

He didn’t outright deny anything, he shared only this much, and asked fans to understand that if he didn’t come out with a story on his own, it was to protect the privacy of the person involved (aka you), and he wanted to be as considerate as possible in such an intrusive situation as it was. It seemed to calm the nerves of the fans, and since the boy didn’t post anything suspicious on social media or said anything that could indicate more, the rumours died down. Seungyoun even won at music shows and his album sales were solid, so the rumour didn’t seem to affect his comeback (thank god).

Yohan was having the time of his life in the meantime though, watching variety shows of Seungyoun during his breaks at work because he was loving the idea that you were now working for the singer (he said it was like a fanfic coming true). Instead of you, now he had Minhee and Hyeongjun - the new employee to replace you - to chat to, and as quiet as Minhee was, Hyeongjun was a chatterbox, so these three really gave you a headache with all their questions in the groupchat Yohan made for you all. Somehow it seemed that you adopted these boys as little brothers, and they were living their best life being your adopted siblings.

Thankfully, your parents were also reassured that even though you changed jobs so quickly, you managed the new tasks and responsibilities well, and despite them not having heard of your rumour before, you came clear to them, and explained everything. As expected, they believed you over the rumours and were extremely happy to see that the singer protected your privacy, yet stood up for you (and himself as well).

However, even with a pretty successful comeback season ending, work didn’t stop, and it was true for you and Seungyoun as well. You needed to ask him about some materials, but when you asked his manager, he told you to check his office first. The singer wasn’t there, so Seungwoo suggested his studio.

As you got closer to his recording studio, you could already hear an unfamiliar melody in the hallway. Not that you had listened to all of his songs (okay, maybe you had done so a few times), but you knew most of his songs, so you guessed that he wasn’t practising but rather working on new songs. You decided to ask about it once you knocked on the door and he let you in.

“Are you working on a new song?”

“Yeah, work never stops, and it’s good when inspiration hits,” he explained as he looked up from his keyboard, a weary albeit gentle smile playing on his lips. Even though you were here to ask a work-related question, you couldn’t help but pry a bit. You knew that he was always so enthusiastic to talk about his music to anyone, so you hoped he wouldn’t mind.

“It sounded a bit different from what you usually put out. Are you venturing into something new?” You quirked an eyebrow, curious and genuine as usual. He dropped a shy smile, scratching the back of his neck as if he was unsure what to call this new song.

“I want to, but I’m just experimenting for now,” he reasoned almost timidly, and this was the side of him that you usually didn’t see in a work setting. You saw clips of him being shy when fans complimented him or when other musicians called him their role model, but he was usually this confident, ever-so-ready-to-take-on-the-world kind of artist and CEO at the company, so it was rare to see him in such a state. 

“Do you want to have a listen?” Seungyoun inquired as he kept the eye-contact. There was no challenge in his eyes, no fear, no pressure… He was just there, suggesting something that you didn’t know whether he suggested to a lot of people, but you didn’t have any reason to say no.

So you took a seat beside him while he was clicking something on his computer, then the first few accords of the song started slowly, calmly. It was like walking on the beach, by the ocean, reminiscing about the past while getting lost in the crystal clear water peacefully reaching for the sand under your feet. Then, the song gradually picked up its pace, and the waves started crashing down on the shore, unpredictable and hard, like a sudden rainpour that brings heavy winds, dark clouds and unforgiven rain.

The song went back to a more tranquil pace after the first chorus, but the waves hit again at the second chorus, and the water kept coming and coming through the bridge, and with one last burst of rage, it came to an end.

You felt like the air was sucked out of your lungs when it ended, the song felt so personal and raw. Just like how in those movies, you see all these flashbacks while the character is rushing to turn their life around, this is how you felt when you were listening to this song, and when it ended, it seemed like there was an intersection where you could choose where to go, what to take away with you.

“Wow… that was… amazing,” you jumbled the first words that came to your mind because truly, you were very positively taken aback.

“Did you really like it? You can be honest-”

“I really liked it. It was really heartbreaking though…” You admitted as you turned your head to look at the singer. When he was all scooped up like this, many empty water bottles on his desk, bright, wide eyes waiting for your answer, he seemed more like a school kid hoping that you liked the idea he had or the small thing he had put together than the CEO of this very company.

However, there must have been a reason he let you listen to this song, and even though you could have easily dodged the question, you decided to ask about it.

“Was it inspired by real life? You don’t have to tell me if you aren’t comfortable…”

“Yeah, it was,” he told you directly, cutting you off. There were a lot of instances when you could feel the emotion in a singer’s voice, and Seungyoun’s song had to be the prime example of that. It was like he was bleeding through the syllables, that’s why you had such a gut feeling. 

You didn’t even want to push for more because he seemed to be zoning out after his answer, but a few seconds later, he started sharing the story behind the song.

“I had a relationship before I became a solo singer, and part of why she left me was because of me potentially becoming famous. We kept getting into arguments, and I knew I couldn’t ask her to stay because I understood a part of her reasoning, but after a while, she always found something to nitpick, and nothing I did seemed to please her. It just got messy, and I didn’t really write love songs because it was difficult not to be reminded of the whole experience. But now the inspiration just hit and this song was born in three days,” he shared without batting an eye.

The more he talked, the more your heart churned, and you wondered if it were to ever be released, how would this particular girl react to it. Seungyoun wrote in the song that he was madly in love, but he was tired of the arguments, and how she always left him first, leaving him behind, bleeding and badly hurt. It might have been even messier than you could have imagined.

“I’m so sorry,” you mumbled tentatively, though you wished you could have said more, said something better. You knew that relationships could be messy, but hearing about someone’s experience who was this gentle and who had such a big heart, you had this feeling that you wanted him to have the best possible relationship he could have. You wanted to see him happy, you wanted to hear his love songs that were more joyful. Was that weird?

Seungyoun’s raspy voice was the one that brought you back to reality.

“I just don’t know if I can ever ask anyone to give up a part of their privacy to be with me,” he shared like a sorrowful plea, and this time, you didn’t need to search for the words. You were ready to give him your point of view.

“Look, you made it happen in my case as well. I think you’ll be able to work it out if both parties want to.”

“Would you really let it?” Seungyoun inquired, and you didn’t have to ask him to specify what he meant. You knew that he was asking about you agreeing to a public relationship, and given that you had that experience or semi-experience, you knew that it was both easier and more complicated than one would think. Yet, it wasn’t the idea that surprised you, it was the way he asked about it. As if he was asking about it in your case as well. As if he was asking about it because…

“Like hypothetically, of course…” He added belatedly when he saw you gaping at him like a fish, unable to blurt out any coherent words.

“Of course…”

“If we actually dated, would you really be willing to give up a part of your privacy for me?” Seungyoun asked head-on, and though you were dancing along the lines of the hypothetical-not so hypothetical question, your heart was bouncing like crazy.

“Yes. You’re a great person and you deserve it. I mean, if hypothetically I was in love with you, I would feel that even more intensively. It might not work out, but at least I would want to give it a try,” you confessed straightforwardly, each and every one of your words genuine. From what you had seen and what you had experienced beside Seungyoun, you had a feeling that he would be the most caring, most considerate boyfriend who would want to do nothing but protect and cherish his significant other, and even just the thought of it sent a pleasant shiver down your spine.

His lips blossomed into a coy, yet joyous smile, and you had to look away for a few seconds to be able to think straight. Afterwards, you tried to divert the topic to the actual question you had come here to ask regarding work, but even after you dealt with that and left his studio, you had this fuzzy feeling in your stomach.

Oh boy, were you in love?

You didn’t mean to, but somehow you blurted out what you had talked about with Seungyoun regarding you two hypothetically dating, and Hyeongjun went crazy in the groupchat. He said that it was a sure sign the singer was in love with you, but you shrugged off his words.

Nevertheless, the more you tried to pay attention to Seungyoun’s actions towards you, the more you realised that despite him being a very polite person in general, he wasn’t like that to other employees; he didn’t get them their favourite brand of fruit juice at the end of long days, he didn’t have hour-long conversations with them on the rooftop of the agency, he didn’t share more and more songs with them in his studio after working hours, he didn’t offer them to give them a ride home, and he most definitely didn’t fall asleep on their shoulder once he pulled an all-nighter in his studio and was tired the next day.

On the other hand, with him, it wasn’t like crashing and burning, it was a gradual landing, not an instant fall. You both needed time to open up, to be more sure about the other’s intentions and feelings, and slowly yet surely, you walked towards the same direction. There was no grande scene either when you confessed, it was just like any other day, it was just like any other recording studio session when he showed you one of his songs, and somewhere along the lines, he admitted that his question wasn’t about hypothetically dating, and you admitted that you knew.

Afterwards, you were both smiles and giggles, and nothing really changed, except that there was an even more peaceful air around you two. Apart from that, everything was the same, you still kept things professional during working hours, but one thing was for sure: at least you could tell Hyeongjun that he was right: Seungyoun’s question wasn’t actually about hypothetically dating.

You didn’t even mind though.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story of mine! Let me know what you think!

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for WOODZ or for other artists, consider signing up for my taglist here.

Hope you have a lovely day/night! Take care! ❤️

[lyledebeast]

Social Mobility

Obviously, there are a lot of problems with The Patriot's representation of slavery, but the fact that so many discussions of this center on Benjamin Martin overlooks an interesting possibility concerning this character. That Martin not only hires free men to work his land instead of using slave labor but also does heavy farm work himself is often read through a Doylian lens of making the hero more sympathetic to a modern audience. But what if we consider this choice through a Watsonian lens? What would that say about Martin?

First, he clearly does not hire free men to help him out of any moral distaste for the practice of slavery . If he felt that way, it is unlikely he would have married into a slave-owning family once, let alone twice. In the one moment where he does seem to support racial equality, his insistence that Occam sign for himself could be more about assuring the loyalty of this lone Black man who will be fighting alongside White volunteers. Perhaps, for the moment, Martin is stepping outside the White fantasyland of The Patriot where Black people simply do not escape from their enslavers when the opportunity arises. And maybe this reality is also behind Martin's choice to use free laborers for his own farm. Notice that not only he but also his sons play a role in planting, as we see when he asks Nathan and Samuel about the progress on their chores at the start of the movie. Most often, people parent in the ways they were parented, which raises an interesting possibility. Martin chose not to have slaves because he does not come from an enslaver family and has been used to doing his own labor, but now he has more land than he can manage himself even with the aid of four work-aged sons.

How on earth did this occur?

Well, it could have something to do with his being a war hero. That could also explain how a man who farmed his own land was able to marry into a family wealthy enough to afford slaves in the first place. Perhaps his marriage to Elizabeth was as much a reward for his wartime service as his marriage to Charlotte many years later. Women did not buy slaves for themselves in the colonial South, so Charlotte's are likely part of her inheritance from either her father or late husband (mentioned in some versions of the film/script, but not all). It would have been very unlikely for a woman to marry above her class, but a man could do so if he chose the right means of advancing himself. Looked at in this light, Martin's actions at Fort Wilderness, that made him a "hero" and for which he claims to feel such deep regret, gave him not only the land he owns but also the mother of his children, the gift that kept on giving (and giving and giving and . . .)

"I advance myself only through victory." "The honor is found in the ends, not the means." If my reading holds merit, these words from the villain's mouth actually describe the hero's trajectory far more accurately than Colonel Tavington's. As despicable as Tavington's actions are, he is only seeking upward mobility through tried and true methods, as Martin's experience attests. I've always found it funny that Tavington insists he can never return to England with honor but expresses no concerns that having committed war-time atrocities against Americans could impede his thriving in America. People in London for whom Tavington's victims are merely a newspaper headline will be appalled, but their flesh-and-blood Loyalist neighbors ? They'll get it!

Tavington's claim to his second James Wilkins that their burning a church filled with Patriot civilians will be forgotten is dubious at best. Most likely he knows better and is only saying that to ease Wilkins' conscience. But the reason such an action would live in infamy is not because it was particularly brutal by colonial standards. It's because the victims were White. The British Empire was a deeply White supremacist institution, and as movies like The Patriot show, that is a holdover from imperialism that we have yet to part ways with.

[sinosauropteryx--prima]

National Fossil: Peru

We‘re continuing our travels through South America and the next stop is Peru.

Once again, you get to vote on which one should represent the nation. As always, it could be a fossil that is just exceptionally well preserved and beautiful, had a huge impact on paleontology and our knowledge of the past, is very common/representative of the area, is beloved and famous in the public eye, is just a very unique and interesting find, or has any other justification.

Perucetus: The first contestant has just been described earlier this year. Named after its home country, the giant whale made headlines because it might be the heaviest animal that ever lived, even surpassing the modern blue whale (just keep in mind that this is still very much up for debate as Perucetus‘ estimated size range spans from “just“ 85 t to well over 300 t; Art by Adam Works)

Livyatan: In case one giant whale is not enough, Peru also offers you Livyatan, named after the biblical monster. It was first discovered in Peru, where it lived about 30 million years after Perucetus. It was similar in size to its modern cousin, the sperm whale. (Art by Balasz Petheo)

Megalodon: It seems to be an unspoken rule of paleo that you cannot mention Livyatan without pointing out that they shared a habitat and directly competed with megalodon, fighting brutal battles to the death (honestly, they were probably both chill and just stayed out of each others way, but whatever…). Since it had a global distribution, picking megalodon as a National Fossil might be a bit controversial - on the other hand: There have been fossils found in Peru and no other country has claimed the giant shark yet, so this is your chance to call dibs on the famed movie monster.

Inkayacu: Next up is a cute penguin! Well, cute might be the wrong word considering it was almost as tall as me. Inkayacu lived about 35 million years ago during the Eocene (btw great time to be a giant penguin) and is known from very well preserved fossils, including feathers. From the material researcher could even tell its coloration and unlike its modern relatives, Inkayacu was reddish-brown and grey. (Art by Ripley Cook)

Thalassocnus: Ground sloths are among the most iconic prehistoric South American fauna, and this one is not just your regular weird giant ground sloth - it was a semi-aquatic giant ground sloth! There are multiple species of these guys known, all from slightly different ages. They show very well how they transitioned to a more aquatic lifestyle over time, making them a great example for evolution in progress. (Art by Mark Witton)

Macrauchenia: Lastly we have the “long llama“ as the name translates. Since today llamas (well, vicunas, but same difference) are Perus national animal, I wanted to give an option that resembles them. Macrauchenia actually belongs to a now extinct line of hoofed mammals that lived in South America back when the continent was still separated from all other land masses. While they weren‘t too closely related to our modern camels and llamas, they probably filled a similar niche. (Art by Olga Kobrina)

[theburgessobserver]

Burgess Observer(Aka Frosts town newspaper)FINAL ISSUE!

News!

MAIN HEADLINE:

Hathway wins election by a landslide!

Yes,it's true he won the Presidential elections by a landslide because a landslide blocked his opponents road out of his house and caused him to miss most of the last campaigns which were decisive as he had a lead.But without appearing to address several key states he had a decisive defeat and lost by a mere 0,1 percent of voters!Hathway is a relatively unknown candidate and was at a disadvantage to win,then again he was not known for anything bad either….

Pages 1-6

Local News!

GIANT MIRACLE!

Last night somebody(or somebodies)built an intricate 18 foot snowman of Paul Bunyan.As part of the Burgess snowman competition it won first place by a landslide!But no one has come forth as to who have built it,whoever did it must have done quite some work on this Ice giant as it is very detailed and looks life-like and is well…gigantic with the ice being practically melded together as if by magic.Whoever you are we all would like to thank you(and your team)for this not only is it the biggest snowman made in the county,but it also caused a rapid increase in tourist and sight-seekers visiting.

Pages 7-8

Other headlines

Meteor Mystery

Last night Mt.Palomar picked up an asteroid the size of a small town it was heading towards the western seaboard,Scientist reported i could destroy a large part of the western seaboard and while the ICMs were being ready to knock it off course(or destroy it if neccesary)it dispersed under unknown conditions seemingly by itself and NASA is completely puzzled,to add to it somehow it wasn't seen until it was very close to Earth,and it being unknown why it wasnt picked up until then. According to experts its calculated impact point was Arcadia Oaks Ca.

Pages 9-11

Rescue,Repair and Renovate

After years of neglect ,thanks to a public fund and renewed interest the Local Drive-in theater called Forbidden Theater:The Terror from beyond fear!Is reopening,after being built in the late 40s and thriving for a long time till lower attendance due to the opening of the town cinema,it made a comeback thanks to support and new interest for movie nights in the cold night and fresh air and many daters chosing to go there.They always say theres a nice chill there at night…after some unexplained mysterious occurrences in and around town in recent years the sci-fi,mystery,monster movie craze came back with it.

Pages 12-15

Interview with Professor Bomba

He is a scientist and artist from Danbury, Connecticut he has done quite extensive research on forests and has come up through his years of research of a theory of little people living in the forest.

Alleged Dragon sightings in Canada near Kullersen Fissures-Theories and Explantions

The pride of the W.S.P. Fireball XL5 returns to Space City base in South Pacific after interplanetary exploration mission

Genetically engineered tomato with chemically altered ranch salad dressing experiment damadges 6 city blocks!

And more!

Eyes on the sky!

Weather:Fairly frosty with a chance of snow.

Today the Forbinned Theater presents:

-The BLOB

-Forbidened Planet

-Earth vs the flying saucers

-Destination:MOON!

-Mothra vs Goodzilla

Well this is it!

MARCH 27TH!!!ALERT!!!THE GUARDIANS COME TOGETHER TO FIGHT THERE BIGGEST THREAT!!!(MORE DANGEROUS AND POWERFULL THAN PITCH!!!!)

AND THEY WONT BE ALONE!!!!

ON MARCH 27TH!!!

This is the last thing i will publish till the story arc with a prologue on 26th and the story starting on 27th this will be an event you wont want to miss with several ties to the past.(And lets be real he would win any snowman competition by a long-shot!)

It seems as though Jack will be off the naughty list for that.

And I see he likes to watch movies and have some fun while watching them.(And if it werent for him it might not even have been reopened)

Always helping his town directly or indirectly.

Who built the Giant Statue?The same who did the snowflake Formation(Wrong answears only please.)

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this week (#173):

3 by young Chinese prodigy Gu Xiaogang:

🍿 Even though Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains is his first (and only) feature so far, it feels so mature, as if an old master put it out after a long and successful career.

It's an slow epic saga (2.5 long hours) of a large family struggling during four seasons through life's ups and down in this provincial city. It's a metaphor for a classic scroll painting from the 14 century, and apparently only the first chapter in an upcoming trilogy. A tremendous, slow-moving achievement told in magnificent style, and half a dozen transcendental set pieces. 10/10 - Best experience of the week!

I was steeped in that Chinese mentality and culture, that of practicality, resourcefulness, tradition and hope, for nearly a decade, and I miss it. 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes.

🍿 The Sail of Cinema (2020), a beautiful mood piece which can be used as a perfect introduction to his work. Bonus points for use of 'Moonlight Sonata'. 10/10.

🍿 As Spring Comes Along (2024), a short art poem about a couple who hasn't seen each other for a long time.

🍿

Menashe (2017) is one of the few films in Yiddish that I've seen (Not too many of them, eh?). A24 indie production from 2017 about a Hasidic widower, struggling to keep his 10-year-old son with him, within the restrictive ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn.

I dislike all religions equally (Well, some more than others...) but this is an uncritically and authentic beautiful piece of film making. Especially since the 'hero' is an unlikely ordinary man and he's not going to change. 8/10.

🍿

The Red Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry, my first film from Jordan. An enigmatic, nearly wordless story of a young woman who travels to the desolate outskirts of Aqaba in search of Ismail who had disappeared without explanation. 6/10.

🍿

10 more selections from the US National Film Registry, all seen for the first time:

🍿 Newark Athlete is the earliest film in the collection; a 12 second silent short from 1891, produced at The Edison Studio.

[ Also, The "Phonautograms" recordings by Edouard-Leon Stott de Martinville, the earliest known sound recording from 1853!]

🍿 The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight, a 1897 documentary of a championship prizefight boxing match, which took place in Nevada. At over 100 minutes, it was the world's first (and longest) feature film. But only 19 minutes survived today.

🍿 The classic The Great Train Robbery (1903), my first film by Edwin S. Porter, director of over 250 silent films. A "sensationalized Headliner", which included a separate close-up shot of the outlaw leader shooting directly at the camera. My r/todayilearned post: After retiring from the movies, the actor who played the lead robber, (Photo Above) became a milkman. 9/10.

🍿 First viewing of Gone with the wind was not what I expected! I knew it was a bloated confederacy 'Lost Cause' fanfiction and a revisionist myth-making, glorifying slavery and the fantasy of the antebellum South. But I also thought it was the 'greatest love story of all time', and that was harder to get. Scarlett O'Hara grew to become a strong woman with fierce survival skills, but she was so flawed; Vain, selfish, conniving and unscrupulous. Her lover and third husband, Clark Gable, was no hero either. Their tragic on-again off-again love story was a 4 hour long soap opera. The gorgeous cinematography and massive production were breath-taking though. 4/10.

🍿 All the King's Men, a fictionalized and badly-dramatized story about the corruption of power. A veiled story about populist Louisiana governor Huey Long, how he rose from humble ideological beginnings to become a power-hungry despot. 4/10.

My first film by Robert Rossen, who was blacklisted for being a communist sympathizer, but who later "named" 57 of his friends to Joseph McCarthy's HUAC. I need to watch 'The Hustler'!

🍿 "There are plenty of warm rolls in the bakery; stop pressing your nose against the window!"

Pillow Talk, a frothy romantic comedy with Rock Hudson and Doris Day. A charming story about two neighbors who have to share a party-line, a phone technology that is now all but forgotten. Like Ted Gioia, I love Doris Day's jazz singing, so in spite of the out-dated genre politics, I found this light-hearted movie lovely and enjoyable.

🍿 Saul Bass was world-famous for his astounding graphic designs and inventive title sequences. But he also directed a few films, one of which, Why Man Creates, won the 1968 Oscar for Short Documentary. It's a whimsical plaything, with Bass's geometrical genius and good-nature foolery on display. Strong whiff of Terry Gilliam wildness and style. George Lucas was an un-credited second unit cameramen on the film. 🍿 Quasi at the Quackadero, a home-made 'Yellow submarine' inspired psychedelic short, about 2 ducks and a robot at an amusement park. Made by a 'Sesame Street' animator, it's like Max Fleischer on acid. M'eh. [*Female Director*].

🍿 Before Stonewell, an informative 1994 documentary about how gay people existed before the Stonewall riots. Fascinating, even if you knew much of it. Oppression, hatred, uprising. [*Female Director*].

🍿 Scratch and Crow was a symbolic, non-narrative word-less art-short by an indie artist, Helen Hill, who was murdered at 36 in New Orleans. [*Female Director*].

🍿

4 Documentaries:

🍿 City of Gold, my first atmospheric documentary by Canadian Colin Low. A pleasant nostalgic trip back to the small Yukon town of Dawson City, which for one summer in 1895 was the center of the Klondike Gold Rush. Its slow panning style, overlapped with soothing narration, inspired Ken Burns to develop his famous 'Ken Burns Effect'. Winner of the 1957 Cannes Festival, and nominated for an Oscar. 9/10.

🍿 A day in Tokyo was created in 1968 by the Japan National Tourism Organization to promote tourism in the rebuilt city. It captured the time, 23 years after it's destruction, when it was ready to take its place as the primer metropolis of the world. It tells of its history from the Edo period until then, (but it doesn't mention the war).

🍿 "He articulated what the rest of us wanted to say, but couldn't say..."

When Martin Scorsese kicks the bucket, sometime in the near future, his obituaries will lead with 'Taxi Driver' and 'Raging Bull'. But besides his 27 features, his World Cinema Project, acting in commercials, producing, etc, he also directed 17 documentaries, including 5 excellent music docs, all about "our" sounds and times, and "our" heroes.

No direction home: Bob Dylan (2005) is centered on a lengthy interview Scorsese did with the 'bard' about his early years, leading up to his 1966 bike accident. Re-Watch ♻️. Here's my 2003 "Grow-a-brain" Bob Dylan link-blog.

🍿 Related: Joan Baez: I am a noise is her recent biography, embarking on her career-ending tour at 79, while reflecting back to a full life of peaks and traumas. I loved her music deeply all my life (her, as well as her beautiful sister Mimi!), and she always meant so much to me.

And of course, I will always remember the time on June 11, 1984, when I met her walking down the street, and she kissed me on the mouth... [*Female Director*].

🍿

"Would you like to come in for a cup of tea - or perhaps something stronger?..."

Return to Glennascaul (1951) is a spooky Irish ghost story, framed and narrated by Orson Welles, as he picks up a stranded motorist on a dark and (not) stormy night on his way to Dublin...

🍿

Re-watch: Laurel and Hardy classic The Music Box, (1932). These two numbskulls never learn. 9/10. ♻️

🍿

2 by Argentinian Mario Soffici:

🍿 Italian-born Soffici directed some of the highest rated Argentinian films of the classic era.

His Rosaura at 10 O'Clock (1958) is a strange crime drama with a story that changes so much, that it's hard to know what is true and what fiction. It takes place at a boarding house, where a shy painter starts getting perfumed love letters, and the nosy owner who meddles in his affairs. It turn out to be nearly like 'Rashomon', where everybody has their own story. There's one violent scene where a pimp beats up a woman brutally and unexpectedly.

🍿 For many decades, Prisoners of the Land (1939) was considered as the "Greatest Argentinian movie". It's a tragic revenge story about peasants fighting a cruel plantation owner in the jungles of 1915, a drunk doctor and his beautiful daughter. Very John Huston and South American Herzog-like in sweaty, feudal nightmares of whip lashing and booze.

🍿

Another film from Argentina, Viruta, is a high-production home movie made by a woman named Otilia Shifres. Her grandparents emigrated to Buenos Aires from Grodno, a small town in Poland, at the turn of the 20th century. In the film she searches for and constructs a family tree of the relatives that were left behind, going all the way to 1770. It's impressively slick for an amateur feature-length project.

The only reason I came across this personal documentary is because my own father, Eli, (who died in 2016 in Israel at the age of 90) is one of the relatives whom she discovers, and my two sisters even make an appearance in the film (at 56:00) telling her about our side of the family! [*Female Director*].

🍿

"Why don't you study a blank piece of paper for a while, and improve your mind?..."

Ready, willing and able (1937), a second-rate Broadway-style song-and dance musical, trying to emulate the finesse of better talents (like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers). But this un-charismatic movie is the one which introduced the Johnny Mercer song 'Too Marvelous for Words', and it ended with The fantastic Typewriter Dance, an over-the-top Busby Berkeley style number.

🍿

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013), my first film with the cringey wanker character of Alan Partridge. It opens with the Philip Glass Koyaanisqatsi theme, which was nice, but the pompous, misogynistic radio host asshole didn't resonate with me. 3/10.

🍿

Throw-back to the Adora Art project:  

Adora as Bob Dylan and with Suze Rotolo.

Adora with my sister, Dafna.

🍿  

(My complete movie list is here)

[justforbooks]

By the mid-1950s, the singer Harry Belafonte had taken the lead role in an Oscar-nominated film, Carmen Jones; reached No 1 with his album Calypso, which helped find a mainstream audience for that musical style and became the first album ever to sell more than 1m copies; and headlined major venues around the US.

However, Belafonte found himself unable to use the main entrance to the Las Vegas hotels where he regularly performed – nor could he eat, stay or gamble in them. On tour in the south, he faced an evening curfew because of his skin colour. When he starred with Joan Fontaine in the then controversial film about an interracial relationship, Island in the Sun (1957), he was advised not to mention Fontaine in press interviews for fear of suggesting a romance between them. He learned that the power and respect that usually accompany fame and fortune could be largely illusory as far as black entertainers were concerned.

The enduringly handsome Belafonte, who has died aged 96, had great success not just as a honey-voiced singer and a compelling actor, but also as a passionate and erudite campaigner for civil rights.

The seeds of his ambition and his social conscience were sown by his tough childhood. Harold Bellanfanti was born in Harlem, New York, and raised in a cramped apartment. His parents came from the Caribbean. His father, also called Harold, had been born in Martinique and was an itinerant ship’s cook; his mother, Melvine, born in Jamaica, worked as a domestic servant.

When Harry was six, his father left the family.

The boy was sent by his mother to study in Jamaica, where his American accent made him feel like an outsider at school. In Jamaica, he loved visiting the banana markets; many years later, after his international success with The Banana Boat Song (Day-O), he observed: “Not by chance did that song become my signature. I knew of what I was singing.”

After a few years, Belafonte returned to New York, dropped out of high school and entered the navy. It was 1944 and he was 17. Two strokes of good fortune changed his life. First, he met Marguerite Byrd, a young teacher from a black middle-class family, who four years later became his wife. He abandoned the menial jobs he had been doing and, thanks to the GI Bill of Rights, became a student and enrolled at Erwin Piscator’s drama school, where his peers included Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier. With the latter, Belafonte trained at the studio theatre of the pioneering American Negro theatre in Harlem.

Except for some off-Broadway shows, he found little work as an actor and began singing, mainly in jazz clubs, such as the Village Vanguard and the Royal Roost in New York, earning a reasonable living for a couple of years. He also began recording, including some of his own songs. Tiring of the routine, in 1950 he opened a small restaurant, the Sage, in Greenwich Village, entertaining customers with folk songs. This, and his attachment to calypsos (he became known as “the Calypso King”), changed his style, and he was soon performing in more prestigious venues. He had signed a deal with Jubilee Records in 1949, and his records began to sell. Throughout his career, he recorded dozens of albums, including live concerts at Carnegie Hall, New York.

Belafonte won a Tony award in 1954 for his performance in the musical revue John Murray Anderson’s Almanac. By then, his film career was under way. After playing a headteacher in Bright Road (1953), he was cast in Otto Preminger’s 1954 movie version of the Broadway hit Carmen Jones, opposite Dorothy Dandridge. This all-black adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen, in which both his and Dandridge’s voices were dubbed, was a considerable success.

In 1957, Belafonte had top 10 hits in the UK with The Banana Boat Song and the title track from Island in the Sun, before achieving his biggest recording success with Mary’s Boy Child, which spent seven weeks at No 1 in 1957 and was re-released for the following two Christmases.

He began to appear on television, toured successfully in Europe and recorded several programmes for BBC television, working for a fraction of his normal fee because he enjoyed the extended nature of the shows, which gave him time to develop his performance. He became one of the first major artists to tour with a multiracial band and he integrated black performers into orchestras in prestige venues where the musicians had been exclusively white.

Belafonte and Byrd divorced in 1957, and he married Julie Robinson, the first white dancer to work with the Katherine Dunham company. The breakdown of his marriage had led Belafonte to seek psychiatric treatment, and his psychiatrist’s husband, a stockbroker, subsequently became Belafonte’s agent and manager, replacing Jack Rollins, the man responsible for masterminding Belafonte’s early career.

The 1950s was a period of considerable civil rights activism for Belafonte, who cited his friend Martin Luther King as the dominant influence on his life. When they first met, in 1954, they were in their mid-20s. “His courage was really quite remarkable,” Belafonte recalled. He embraced King’s message of nonviolence and lent his support to protest movements. With King, Belafonte was one of those who planned the 1963 march on Washington.

In the following year, he helped to raise and then personally delivered, with the assistance of Poitier, $70,000 in cash to support the work of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Greenwood, Mississippi. Facing hostility from the Ku Klux Klan, the SNCC was striving to register black voters in the region. “In Mississippi’s vicious climate,” Poitier wrote, “the chances of a Klansman taking a potshot at me were actually pretty high.”

A television show, Tonight With Harry Belafonte (1959), brought Belafonte an Emmy, making him the first African American man to win the award. He returned to the screen in The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959); the story of racial conflict within the science-fiction genre worked effectively. In the same year he made a thriller, Odds Against Tomorrow, with a racial subtext behind the animosity between two criminals.

Belafonte won a Grammy for best folk performance in 1960 for a powerful album of chain gang songs, Swing Dat Hammer. In 1965 he won another Grammy for best folk recording for an album he made with Miriam Makeba, the anti-apartheid activist. But another musical collaboration, with Petula Clark on her TV special in 1968, raised Belafonte’s profile further. During their performance of the song On the Path of Glory, Clark held Belafonte’s arm – much to the objection of an executive from the show’s sponsor, who feared that this show of intimacy between a white woman and a black man would enrage southern audiences. Clark refused to cut the performance from the programme, which had a warm reception when it was broadcast.

Returning to acting in 1970, he played a black angel, sent to earth to help Zero Mostel, in The Angel Levine, which he co-produced. He fared better producing Buck and the Preacher (1972), directed by his co-star, Poitier. The pair’s subsequent film, Uptown Saturday Night (1974), proved less successful.

In the mid-1980s, inspired by the success of Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?, Belafonte helped to organise the charity single We Are the World, written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson and recorded by an all-star lineup of musicians including Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon and Diana Ross. The song reached No 1 in the US and the UK and won a Grammy. In 1987 Belafonte replaced Danny Kaye as UNICEF's goodwill ambassador; that year he chaired an International Symposium of Artists and Intellectuals for African Children in Senegal.

Having played himself in the satires The Player (1992) and Prêt-à-Porter (1994), Belafonte made a third film for the director Robert Altman, who cast him as Seldom Seen, a gang boss and club owner, in Kansas City (1996), for which Belafonte received the New York Critics Circle award for best supporting actor. Although he had not taken a leading role in a feature film for nearly 20 years, he was sufficiently tempted by the part of the bigoted Thaddeus Thomas in White Man’s Burden (1995), opposite John Travolta. He also joined the cast of Bobby (2006), Emilio Estevez’s film about Bobby Kennedy, whom Belafonte knew in the 60s.

Belafonte belatedly considered entering full-time politics in the Democratic party, but work, social commitments and family took precedence. Among his ongoing social concerns over the years were the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; a school for emotionally disturbed boys; the prevention of gang violence; and his own Belafonte Foundation of Music and Arts.

He remained a force to be reckoned with, in 2002 likening the then US secretary of state Colin Powell to a slave who “got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master, exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him”. He lent his support to the Occupy movement in 2011, and when asked in a Guardian interview the following year which living person he most despised, he replied: “George W Bush, for his betrayal of America.”

His autobiography, My Song (2011), was followed by a documentary about his life, Sing Your Song. His final film role was a cameo as a veteran activist in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman (2018).

In 2008, following divorce from his second wife, he married Pamela Frank. She survives him, along with the two daughters of his first marriage, and the son and daughter from his second.

Harry Belafonte was one of the most important and influential campaigning black musicians in American history, though for the public at large he was better known for most of his career for the relaxed, middle-of-the-road image that he projected through his calypsos.

His true character was very different, for in the 60s he used his wealth, fame and organisational skills to bolster the civil rights campaign in the US and bring American attention to the apartheid regime in South Africa, playing a crucial role in promoting the careers of the South African musicians Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela.

He was always a smartly dressed figure with a powerful physical presence and a glorious husky growl, but was also a man of considerable bravery. He took part in such major events as the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery – where he made speeches, but had to leave town lying on the floor of a car, along with Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, to escape the Klansmen.

But the suave crooner of calypsos was regarded with suspicion by black power leaders because of his links with the white establishment. Belafonte had his own campaign for bringing change, and was quite happy to talk to white politicians, though in 1986 he turned down a request from governor Mario Cuomo to stand for the Democrats as senator in New York.

His agenda included forging links between black Americans and Africa, and in the 60s he helped to organise a trip to several African countries for SNCC activists, because he felt they needed to know more about the continent. But his most important role in Africa was in the anti-apartheid campaign, and his help for exiled South African musicians.

Belafonte first learned about Makeba after being approached in the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel in London by Trevor Huddleston, the priest (and later bishop) who helped found the anti-apartheid movement. Belafonte helped her to obtain a visa to the US and then guided her to becoming an international celebrity. They often performed and toured together, with Makeba calling him “my big brother”, and it was with Belafonte that she performed in 1962 at President John F Kennedy’s birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden. Belafonte helped Masekela, also an exile in the US, by arranging a scholarship for him.

In 1988 Belafonte released the South African-influenced album Paradise in Gazankulu, which included the political songs Capetown and We Are the Wave, and in the same year he gave a powerful speech at the Nelson Mandela 70th birthday tribute at Wembley Stadium, watched by a television audience of hundreds of millions across the world. In 2003 he was reunited with Makeba, when they recorded an album together.

Throughout his career he always matched his genial persona with political commitment – and sometimes anger. A passionate campaigner for gun control in the US, he chastised fellow black Americans in 2013 for failing to speak up on the issue. The easy-going calypso singer and actor was also a major political force.

🔔 Harry Belafonte (Harold George Bellanfanti), singer, actor and activist, born 1 March 1927; died 25 April 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[ukrfeminism]

A man who murdered his girlfriend and three members of her family in south London has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 46 years. 

Joshua Jacques, 29, killed Samantha Drummonds, 27, her mother Tanysha Ofori-Akuffo, 45, her grandmother Dolet Hill, 64, and Ms Hill's husband, Denton Burke, 68, in Bermondsey in April 2022.

The scene found by police was described as being like "a horror movie". 

There was a cry of "coldblooded murderer" as Jacques was sent down. 

Addressing Jacques in the Old Bailey dock during sentencing, Mr Justice Bryan said the defendant's offending had been contributed to by an increased daily intake of skunk cannabis, and that he was "well aware" of the impact on his mental health.

'Salutary lesson'

The judge told Jacques it was a "horrific catalogue of murders inflicted by you in the most brutal of circumstances on three generations of the same family".

"It is a salutary lesson to all those who peddle the myth that cannabis is not a dangerous drug," Mr Justice Bryan added as Jacques appeared emotionless.

The defendant had murdered his girlfriend and three members of her family at the home in Delaford Road for "no apparent reason", he added.

The judge said the jury had heard Jacques had doubled his consumption of skunk cannabis in the days before the killings. 

'Drug-induced psychosis'

It was likely that Jacques had had a row with his girlfriend Samantha, which had triggered the killings that followed, the judge said.

"You and you alone bear responsibility for any such row, and for what occurred during your drug-induced psychosis," Mr Justice Bryan told him.

He added that Jacques had expressed no remorse prior to the sentencing hearing, during which the defendant had had a statement read out on his behalf in which he apologised and said he was "disgusted" with himself.

The judge paid tribute to the victims' family for their dignified manner during the trial, adding: "No sentence will ever be enough to reflect their loss." 

Following the hearing, Ms Hill's daughter Tracey-Ann Henry told reporters outside the court that Jacques should have been handed a whole life order, meaning he would never be released from prison, but added: "Justice has been served."

Chyloe Daley, Mr Burke's niece, agreed, saying: "We'll accept this for now but there is no bringing them back."

'I've lost four family members who won't come back'

Every morning, Tracey-Ann Henry, the daughter of 64-year-old victim Dolet Hill, awaits a phone call that never comes.

"I spoke to my mum every day," she explains in the run-up to Jacques' sentencing hearing. "Sometimes, four times in the day, even when I'm at work."

Ms Henry said she realised something was wrong when she tried to call her mother as usual and she did not pick up.

Ms Hill had been recovering from cancer and had just completed her final radiotherapy treatment when she was murdered in the home she shared with her husband and fellow victim Denton Burke.

Another of her daughters, Tanysha Ofori-Akuffo, also known as Racquel, sometimes stayed at Ms Hill's home to help care for her. She was also killed by Joshua Jacques that day. 

Granddaughter Samantha Drummonds, Jacques' girlfriend who was another of his victims, had been living there too because her own flat was undergoing renovation.

Concerned that she could not get hold of her mother, Ms Henry rushed to the house but found it cordoned-off by police.

"I said, 'I want to talk to my mum'," she recalls. She said the police officer asked what number she lived at, and then went to check with a colleague. "He said, 'oh, you need to sit in the car with me'."

Growing increasingly worried on her way to the police station, Ms Henry said she had used her phone to check the news headlines, remembering saying: "Four people are dead, that's mum, Racquel, Samantha and Denton."

The shock was so great, Ms Henry can barely recall what happened next, although she does remember police wanting to ask her what she knew about a man called Joshua Jacques.

He had been arrested at the scene by armed officers, who found him naked in an upstairs bathroom, screaming "Allah, take me", "kill me now", and "God please forgive me".

Later, at Lewisham Hospital, Jacques said: "I ain't even in the wrong, I did them for sacrifice," and warned: "I will do something stupid again."

Ms Henry said she had only met Jacques once, a few days earlier. "He was like a normal person," she said. "It's not like he was acting strange or anything."

Family members said it was difficult to listen to the evidence in court. "It felt like he had no remorse," Asheka Jones, the niece of Mr Burke, says. 

"Having mental health issues is one thing, but when you are abusing drugs, it's just horrible. I've lost four family members who won't come back."

Ms Henry said she would remember her mum as a "loving, bubbly person. She loved to cook, you won't come to the house and don't get fed" she added.

Although she had been trying to think of the good memories they had shared, she said she found it difficult to look forward to the future.

"If I go on holiday, most of my holidays are with my mum, so, it's really hard for me."

"Things will never be the same, there will always be that empty hole," Ms Jones agrees. "When I think of them, I think of this warmth they had, the humour. I feel like everyone was filled with such joy that can't be replaced."

[rotm-channel]

Burgess Observer Issue 5

News!

MAIN HEADLINE:

Hathway wins election by a landslide!

Yes,it's true he won the Presidential elections by a landslide because a landslide blocked his opponents road out of his house and caused him to miss most of the last campaigns which were decisive as he had a lead.But without appearing to address several key states he had a decisive defeat and lost by a mere 0,1 percent of voters!Hathway is a relatively unknown candidate and was at a disadvantage to win,then again he was not known for anything bad either….

Pages 1-6

Local News!

GIANT MIRACLE!

Last night somebody(or somebodies)built an intricate 18 foot snowman of Paul Bunyan.As part of the Burgess snowman competition it won first place by a landslide!But no one has come forth as to who have built it,whoever did it must have done quite some work on this Ice giant as it is very detailed and looks life-like and is well…gigantic with the ice being practically melded together as if by magic.Whoever you are we all would like to thank you(and your team)for this not only is it the biggest snowman made in the county,but it also caused a rapid increase in tourist and sight-seekers visiting.

Pages 7-8

Other headlines

Meteor Mystery

Last night Mt.Palomar picked up an asteroid the size of a small town it was heading towards the western seaboard,Scientist reported i could destroy a large part of the western seaboard and while the ICMs were being ready to knock it off course(or destroy it if neccesary)it dispersed under unknown conditions seemingly by itself and NASA is completely puzzled,to add to it somehow it wasn't seen until it was very close to Earth,and it being unknown why it wasnt picked up until then. According to experts its calculated impact point was Arcadia Oaks Ca.

Pages 9-11

Rescue,Repair and Renovate

After years of neglect ,thanks to a public fund and renewed interest the Local Drive-in theater called Forbidden Theater:The Terror from beyond fear!Is reopening,after being built in the late 40s and thriving for a long time till lower attendance due to the opening of the town cinema,it made a comeback thanks to support and new interest for movie nights in the cold night and fresh air and many daters chosing to go there.They always say theres a nice chill there at night…after some unexplained mysterious occurrences in and around town in recent years the sci-fi,mystery,monster movie craze came back with it.

Pages 12-15

Interview with Professor Bomba

He is a scientist and artist from Danbury, Connecticut he has done quite extensive research on forests and has come up through his years of research of a theory of little people living in the forest.

Alleged Dragon sightings in Canada near Kullersen Fissures-Theories and Explantions

The pride of the W.S.P. Fireball XL5 returns to Space City base in South Pacific after interplanetary exploration mission

Genetically engineered tomato with chemically altered ranch salad dressing experiment damadges 6 city blocks!

And more!

Eyes on the sky!

Weather:Fairly frosty with a chance of snow.

Today the Forbinned Theater presents:

-The BLOB

-Forbidened Planet

-Earth vs the flying saucers

-Destination:MOON!

-Mothra vs Goodzilla

Well this is it!

MARCH 27TH!!!ALERT!!!THE GUARDIANS COME TOGETHER TO FIGHT THERE BIGGEST THREAT!!!(MORE DANGEROUS AND POWERFULL THAN PITCH!!!!)

AND THEY WONT BE ALONE!!!!

ON MARCH 27TH!!!

This is the last thing i will publish till the story arc with a prologue on 26th and the story starting on 27th this will be an event you wont want to miss with several ties to the past.(And lets be real he would win any snowman competition by a long-shot!)

It seems as though Jack will be off the naughty list for that.

And I see he likes to watch movies and have some fun while watching them.(And if it werent for him it might not even have been reopened)

Always helping his town directly or indirectly.

Who built the Giant Statue?The same who did the snowflake Formation(Wrong answears only please.)

[rickchung]

The Idea of You (dir. Michael Showalter) x SXSW 2024.

This is easily one of the better, more glossy versions of a "chick lit" or Hallmark Channel-type movie premise with a great cast that can elevate the soapy material. While a stunning Anne Hatheway is hardly the undateable middle-aged single mom divorcée archetype she's playing, her star performance makes the rom-com work as a pleasant watch from a topical modern dating premise about a celebrity May-December relationship.

Premiered at the 2024 South by Southwest Film & TV Festival (Austin, Texas) as part of the Headliners section.

[commajade]

i know it says mother and daughter but some of them could be used as a poster for a movie focused on an intricate homoerotic friendship

wait lemme check again. ohhh ur right. the headline fooled me it's even homophoic to call them familial in these

we could have like. some kind of homoerotic student teacher relationship like a cellist and her protege with a toxic but deeply compelling artistic relationship. the teacher is creating the student in her own image and the intimacy of becoming is terrifying but also an honor, something deeply spiritual and sexually charged. the contrast between elegance and intimacy/dishevelment and the different gazes is doing a lot of storytelling.

this is probably the main movie poster. the title is something like Dollmaker (2024). it's a feminist movie so the main theme is something like how women have to be like dolls and perform in order to be accepted in high places in society. one of the main tensions is that chae sira's character makes yuri's character conform to the level of femininity required to be respected in south korea's classical music world. but neither of them actually fit in, no matter how hard they try. yuri's gaze is lower and facing away from the camera, implying some kind of power dynamic between her and chae sira, whose gaze is bright and direct with a relaxed but bright smile. there's a dark ribbon around her neck and sira's dress is black, connecting her arms with yuri's neck, some kind of power dynamic for sure. sira's partially covered. implying secrets and ways she puts yuri in front of herself when addressing the world.

this is also an excellent movie poster. the possessive arm around the waist. how chae sira's fingers are curled around yuri's. the bare collarbones. yuri's sleeveless less formal dress but matching shoes. the disheveled hair represents the fact that while they are beautiful and elegant and therefore normative, something that shouldn't be happening is happening and it's something they share, a secret. they both address the camera, yuri is more posed and off balance, leaning on sira who has both feet planted. maybe yuri tries to become her teacher in every way possible, supposedly to achieve the same kind of success but actually because she's sexually obsessed with her. but it's actually not the real version of chae sira's character that she's emulating but the carefully manufactured version she's cultivated to show to the world. what yuri is trying to become is not a real person, it's impossible to actually achieve perfection.

their hair looks wet, like they were just doing something that needs explaining before u saw them. chae si ra looks regal and formal in her posture, is looking ahead but not directly at the viewer. she is putting up a front, and the hand curled around yuri is representing that she is trying to protect her. yuri is in what looks like a long shirt over a slip dress, she presented herself to the world in a way that is inappropriate and maybe chae sira even took off her outer layer to give it to yuri. yuri is less formal but her arms are covered and the color matches with sira's dress more than hers. but yuri directly addresses the camera, holding onto sira. there's a boldness in her gaze, she doesn't care that she is being seen as inappropriate. she is hiding behind sira but also bolder than sira.

maybe the plot is that yuri slowly goes crazy trying to become her teacher and pushes herself to practice too much and spirals. meanwhile chae sira has a professional threat and someone is trying to blackmail her and she's hiding this from yuri who thinks it's because she herself did something wrong to make her teacher distrust her, which contributes to the spiraling. at her lowest moment yuri does something that could end her career but chae sira puts her own career at risk to protect her. idk what happens at the end. but the highlights are like very intimate touching in cello instruction scenes, borderline bdsm teaching sessions where sira has a very stern but quiet voice and yuri is like Into It. yuri has a fever dream that they're ballroom dancing together and sira is teaching her while yuri has never danced before and yuri's ballgown falls into shreds as they twirl across the floor. sira becomes slowly less and less physically put together as her stressors weigh on her. her make up starts to be less crisp, her clothes less formal and put together. yuri helps her put pins back in her hair and zips up a dress for her. yuri comes to her house to tend to her when she's sick and it's a very intimate moment but sira pushes her away even more after that happens. yuri black swans herself thinking of the imaginary perfectly feminine star cellist that she could be if she could only absorb her teacher's essence and the fake version of her in her mind tries to kill her. it's revealed that her teacher once had a lesbian affair with another cellist from berlin. but it's the one where she has a secret kid with a male conductor that is what she's being blackmailed for.

[cozyaliensuperstar7]

Gail O'Neill (February 6, 1962 – October 10, 2023) was an American fashion model, born to Jamaican parents. She became a television journalist. As a fashion model, she was considered one of the elite black models in the world. She was on covers of leading fashion magazines and a part of the highly publicized Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. As a journalist, she was a correspondent for a variety of U.S. networks. She was an original correspondent for The Early Show on CBS and also worked for CNN and HGTV.

After graduating from Wesleyan University, she began an international modeling career that included appearances on the covers of Vogue and Mademoiselle, as well as catalogue work for companies such as J. Crew and Nordstrom. She was a spokesperson for Liz Claiborne. She was an A-list fashion model in the 1980s when she frequently appeared on fashion magazines. As a model she was known for refusing to appear in advertisements for cigarettes or for corporate sponsors that did not divest of South African investments. She appeared in the 1992 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. In the 1990s she was an activist for the homeless as part of the Black Girls Coalition with about twenty of the world's elite black supermodels.

O'Neill's journalism career included freelance work for numerous television networks. She was an original correspondent for CBS's The Early Show, which debuted in 1999, where she presented "Box Office Plus", a regular Monday feature. She had a reputation for being more skeptical and less of a cheerleader for the movie industry than her movie news correspondent peers on other networks.

Subsequently, she appeared as a host of CNN's weekly Travel Now series. She also served CNN as a correspondent covering other events.

From 2004 to 2006, she hosted HGTV's Mission Organization, where she matched professional organizers with those in need of organization and remodeling.

The White House has a tradition of inviting volunteers to assist with the holiday decorations. In 2005, they invited 50 volunteers. O'Neill hosted The White House Christmas 2005 for HGTV, and spoke with United States First Lady Laura Bush about the decorations and themes.

In 2008, she was mentioned in retrospectives lamenting the state of the fashion world for black models in magazines like Ebony and Italian Vogue. The July 2008 Vogue Italia carried the headline "A Black Issue" and was dedicated to issues related to a lack of diversity in the fashion modeling industry, especially print ads, runway shows, and fashion editorials. O'Neill was photographed by Steven Meisel in its first photo spread.

O'Neill continued to model actively even after making the transition to journalism, and she modeled for the 2009 Spring/Summer Calvin Klein ckOne fragrance campaign.

O'Neill died on October 10, 2023, at the age of 61. While the specific cause of O’Neill’s death is unknown, ArtsATL reported that she “had courageously fought a serious illness over the past two years.”