Curate, connect, and discover
Mans was fighting for his life on set
aka
no one:
seoham: jaechannie is so cute, have you seen how cute he is—
T/N: the term consistently used throughout is 귀여워 하다 which ive variously translated as “cute” “affection” “fond”. 귀여움 금지령 might be more accurately translated as “being fond of jaechan ban” but it doesn’t have the same ring lol. It’s hard to convey exactly, but as you can see from context, it’s a ban on seoham not on jaechan 😂 귀여워 하다 transliterated is “to find cute”. It is translated by the 3 dictionaries Naver offers as “love; make a pet of; be affectionate to (esp younger person or animal)”. “love, adore, dote on” “ love, pet, fondle, make a pet, hold ((a person)) dear, be attached to, treat ((a person)) with love[affection]”
220210 N-interview part 2
Q: what was something about the acting that you found difficult?
Jaechan: Sangwoo’s way of speaking is very direct and lacks emotion. So I had to practice a lot to show his emotions through his facial expression.
Seoham: you’ve(?) talked a lot about jaeyoung’s coolness/charisma. That’s not really my style so I had to really think about what it meant to be “cool”. Also Jaeyoung’s emotions change throughout the series. He gets to like Sangwoo after initially harassing him, and because this couldn’t be filmed sequentially I had to keep thinking about his changing feelings and it wasn’t easy to act. And also Jaechan is a particularly cute person so it was hard to act like I was bullying him. The director said “look, I know Jaechan is cute but you’ve got to stop treating him so affectionately”
Q: so there was a “cuteness ban” because you had to immerse in your characters?
Jaechan: hyung would hang out with me (& indulge my antics) and then say with a very serious face “you are not cute” and start his acting
Seoham: it’s not like he was necessarily trying to be cute but more like he was trying to make the other person laugh? that kinda thing
220226 spotv interview
Park Seoham says that Park Jaechan is a “person who is cuteness personified”.
“Jaechan himself is really just a cute person. So it makes you want to dote on him. So in scenes where I was meant to be bullying him, it appeared that I was actually being fond of him. Also, while filming, it we ended up jumping around between dynamics a lot for various reasons - from being angry to affectionate to love - so it was hard to act out the wildly changing feelings.”
“Eventually, the director told me, ‘come to a cafe,’ so I went there, and they were like ‘you’re being too fond of Jaechan. stop.’ and implemented the ‘Jaechan cuteness ban’. But Jaechan (didn’t pick up on this issue ‘눈치없이’ and) kept being as cute as always. So I eventually ended up going through this mantra before filming: ‘you are not cute. you are not cute at all’.” (he says 주문을 걸었다 which is so funny lol it’s like trying to make yourself believe something, literally ‘casting a spell on yourself’)
220304 sports chosun interview part 2
Seoham: If Jaechan acted cute on purpose then I don’t think I would’ve found him cute, but when he naturally has aegyo when he’s just sitting there grumpily (뚱하게). That’s what I found so cute. And after the ‘cuteness ban’ I’d look at Jaechan standing in front of me doing aegyo, and even while I was saying “you’re not cute!” I’d find myself starting to smile.
(this interview is rly sweet - it’s where seoham talks about jaechan supporting him & taking him to meet his parents around lunar new year. i might do a full translation later (lmk if one alr exists))
220307 Cine-21 interview
Q: director, please explain the “ban on cuteness” in detail from your perspective
Director: I implemented the ban many times ^^; because the two are so close and seoham is very fond of jaechan/thinks jaechan is very cute, that fondness was in his eyes from the early episodes. so I laid down the ban many times like “stop looking at him with such a soft expression.” “please stop going near him and touching him”
Seoham: But I think it was unfair. When I got the ban I said to jaechan “you really are not cute at all”. And then he did aegyo in front of me like he was saying “not even if I do this?”
Jaechan: when coming back to set after hanging out during the breaks, seoham would tell me very seriously “you are not cute” and that made me want to prove him wrong.
220311 sports w interview part 2
Director: We were rehearsing the scene in episode 6 where they’re having an argument in an alleyway, and the tension just wasn’t there. seoham was already too fond of jaechan so he couldn’t deliver the lines with appropriate bitterness. i ended up telling him to step out for a second and stopped the rehearsal. i told him that i know you’re fond of him, but those emotions just don’t work in this scene. also, the same thing happened when we were filming the second episode, where they’re in the french classroom and jaeyoung is wearing the red clothes, at the peak of his bullying of sangwoo. at this time seoham and jaechan’s friendship was blossoming. seoham needed to show that jaeyoung was enjoying tormenting sangwoo, but the look in his eyes was just too affectionate. i told him to look at sangwoo like he was a cute puppy or a cat *laughs*
220313 star news interview
“The two actors got closer as the episodes progressed. in the early episodes, there are a lot of scenes where jaeyoung is harassing sangwoo, so I had to put a lid on park seoham’s gaze. I remember often saying things like ‘stop doting on jaechan’ ‘stop looking at him so fondly’ ‘please stop looking at him with hearts in your eyes’,” said the director (Kim Sujeong). “But the actors dubbed it a ‘cuteness ban’”, she laughed.
I was fourteen when I first read 50 Shades of Grey, or as Catherine Scott puts it — that book. What I appreciate most about it is not the spank-bank material it gave me, but the world it introduced me to; the hole that took me to my own wonderland. As my kink journey - in theory, mind you - progressed, I discovered aspects of myself I don’t think even therapy would’ve helped me access; the way I needed to be loved, the way I needed to be taken care of, the way I needed to feel small to grow, the way I needed to give myself over to reclaim autonomy.
Kink took me to regression, regression to self-awareness, and self-awareness to a yearning I sometimes cannot contain inside my body because of how large and all-consuming it is, how much space it occupies, and how it swallows me whole, especially on my worse days.
The question “how could non-sexual kink possibly be therapeutic?” has many, many answers; it is the hope I get when I imagine how I would no longer have to be responsible for myself; the relief I feel, knowing that someone wants the best for me, and letting them take over my entire being would help keep me alive; the knowledge that even though I am capable of taking care of myself, it is too much of a burden, too much of a leach sucking my battery, and so I choose to give it away, pass it over.
Someone who would squeeze my thigh, and tap it twice to indicate I need to lower my voice in public spaces, instead of an explicit “reduce your volume”, inadvertently triggering my rejection sensitivity dysphoria; someone who would wrap me up in a blanket and make me tea, cuddling me, crushing my body, until I come back from an episode; someone to make sure I can do the things I want to do, that inhibition due to my executive dysfunction wouldn’t make me a completely useless person; someone whose idea of what is best for me is my idea of what’s best for me; someone who would take care of me, when it hurts too much to take care of myself; someone I trust enough to kneel in front of because I feel shame choking me when I imagine myself submitting to anyone else; someone who chooses to stay; someone I can be a child with without fear of annoyance or judgement; someone I can be awkward with, weird with, loud with; someone whose rationality never hinders or limits their emotionality; someone to give me a healthy alternative to the unsafe pain my coping mechanism provides; someone to provide the sensation of hurt without causing me harm; someone whom I feel safe with even while constrained, blindfolded, all senses switched off; someone to gently squeeze my neck when my thoughts are too loud; someone to take over conversations when I face a sudden bout of energy loss; someone whose energy is dominating, all-encompassing; someone who would be my advocate, my shield, and sword; someone gentle, someone soft, someone who would never let me give up on myself.
Regression ≠ kink, for myself.
-kpm ©