#how do i get myself into these things

[storkmuffin]

The Magic of Yungi (?!?!)

Essay I didn't mean to write

Comparing Mingi and Yunho's Korean Speech Patterns.

@fayet you said: I'd love to hear more about Yunho, because as a non-korean speaking person his language always sounds very proper to me, and they use him for MCs duties a lot (which he does beautifully, but again - a lot of what they actually say gets lost in translation), so I always thought he might have been trained to speak some sort of standard korean. And on the other hand I'd love to hear more about Mingi, because just from listening (again as a non-korean speaker) to him I find his way of speaking somehow odd? I can't put my finger on it, but there's something in the way he speaks that confuses me, especially compared to Yunho. But aren't they roughly from the same area and have known each other for a long time? It confuses me., and I'd love to have someone explain!

Is it just me, or does it happen to anyone else that when you sit and carefully listen to someone without the ability to interrupt them, you fall in love with them a little bit? Anyone? OK maybe it's just me. (This request made me listen to Yunho very closely for the first time in one of his Lives and goddamn it I can not be crushing out on this many people at the same time, I am a grown up).

But in any case!

I am not a linguist, Korean language expert, vocal coach or any of that, but I found that you were actually spot on about how oddly both of them speak in their different performance personae!

Yunho has a TV MC persona and a "real self" persona he does on his Lives. I don't know if it's audible to a non-native speaker but Yunho's TV MC Persona sounds like the older brother to the Real Self Persona - related, similiar, shares the same parents and nearly the same inflections but with very different orientations. Mingi has the Fix-On Rapper persona and the persona I'm going to call The Unfixed, and these don't seem related in any way because everything about how he speaks abruptly changes.

Yunho first, since he's the one that most interests you.

One of the things that is very prominent about Yunho to me is (ironically) his quiet competence in so many different areas. For instance, he's beautiful, like all of them are, but his beauty is quiet. He's not as kewpie-doll pretty as HongJoong, his bone structure isn't as insistent as Wooyoung's, he doesn't give off the ooh-a-dark-vampire-does-he-wanna-fuck-me-or-kill-me aura that Mingi and Seongwha can put out, and so on. He's a terrific dancer, but he doesn't have San's surreal present build or way of moving like he's going to rip out of his clothes. He is actually a backbone vocalist of this group, but Wooyoung takes a lot of the kill parts, and Jongho just bulldozes over everyone else, in addition to which he blends a little too well with Seonghwa and Yeosang to my ears. This isn't meant to disparage him in any way - it's not necessarily the flashiest performer that's the most poweful. He seems, in his activities in this group, reserved. He's taken, in a slightly different direction than Seonghwa, the role of being a mostly stabilizing, pacifying character, in contrast to the others who actively 'act out.' (I would include the leader HongJoong as one of the ferals).

By the same token, Yunho's way of acting out the very standard, very strict 'Korean TV Emcee' way of speaking is also quietly competent. He's so good at it, in fact, that it sounds almost natural, like he might talk this way all the time. The thing is, the Korean TV host way of speaking is very strictly regimented. There's both a pronunciation element and a vocalization element to 'talking like the host' for broadcasts.

Vocalization first: Just from the opening sequence for this, you can hear both Yunho and Jongho "singing" their words, very consciously. Nobody in Korean normal speech puts this much tonal variation in their sentences.

호빵 윤호 is how Yunho introduces himself, and he's basically, for all intents and purpses, singing. 호 and 빵 are the same note with the same time-value, and 윤 is a different note from 호 and 빵, and then he puts a fade out to the final 호 syllable of his name, lowering it a bit as he 'fades it out'. He also counts before he starts speaking, to cue Jongho. Jongho does the same thing, calling himself 찐빵 종호. Jongho being a singer manages to sing the syllables 찐 and 빵 to match what Yunho does with 호 and 빵 but he can't sustain his breath or his conviction long enough to do the same fade out on saying his actual name. He just stops singing and says 종호입니다 instead of singing it.

They put the actual line that Yunho is reading in green front at the 0:47 mark, and if you listen along to each syllable, you can probably hear that he's still singing, and it's musical because there's also a deliberately calculated between 생명이 움트는 계절 봄을 and 앞두고. He's controlling his breath to ensure evenness of vocal delivery, as well as to avoid being monotone. This is necessary because the song that Korean MCs have to sing is a friendly one, and men need to stay in this tenor range, without vocal fry, overly deep or booming bass notes, with an energized (but not frenetic) bounce to sound engaged.

And now the pronunciation element: My pet theory is that Korean is spoken with the lips and the front of the palate, just behind the teeth, whereas English is located further inside the mouth. If you don't consciously seek to push the frontal part of your speaking apparatus into action, you can end up with what Koreans will feel is slurred (어눌한) pronunciation. Yunho has very precise, clean Korean pronunciation because he's never not engaging this frontal apparatus. (I am increasingly sure linguists and vocal coaches are going to have professional terms for this sort of thing that I am just making up as I go).

Furthermore, I think Yunho is a really fast thinker. He's able to edit out and suppress the usual mouth sounds humans make in casual speech - sighs, giggling, smacking, ums, ahs, err's (or in Korean, 어, 아, 그니까, 저, 음) - which then lets the thing he needs to say come through like a smooth string of pearls. You have to be really smart to do this, and I have no problem praising this specific type of intelligence, because I have it too.

However! When he's not deliberately 'playing at being MC' both his vocalization as well as pronunciation change a bit, because he obviously doesn't sing anymore, and he engages the back of his throat more. He scrapes at his throat, engages in vocal fry, and allows himself a few 음s, a few giggles and sighs, and lets himself make these human sounds as he decides what he wants to say. He smacks his lips a lot when he's not being MC, so that's a natural habit he's consciously suppressing during his MC roles.

When he's talking to Atiny in a Live, he will also use more natural speech choices of saying things like 그렇다구 as opposed to 그렇다고. The difference between ㅜ and ㅗ is that things like 그랬구~ 했구~ 좋구~ 보구~ sound friendly and informal and warm, but 그랬고, 했고, 좋고, 보고 are grammatically correct and precise, and sound more professional. When you extend out the vowel in ~구, it sounds friendly, whereas if you extend out the vowel in ~고 it sounds corrective, like you're ramping up to a diatribe. Nevertheless, Yunho never slurs his words. He never swallows or chews his sounds, and like I said, he sings less when he's just chatting, but he is also never monotone.

The deliberate and sustained practice he must have done (possibly with formal training) to talk in this MC-newscaster way has in all likelihood permanently braced in his pronunciation such that it will always retain the clarity that you are able to hear even inf you're not a native speaker of Korean.

Moving on to Mingi!

Mingi has a line in the song that he speaks in Arriba right before the 'Fix On' that brings on his uh, Fixed On persona. Sorry for how huge this screen cap is but I am not used to making recordings with my phone.

Anyway, Mingi's line is this:

�� 애들아 진짜 재밌었어 나 가 볼테니깐 재밌게 놀아아 돼, 알겠지?

But the way he pronounces it, as 'himself' perhaps or at least, the Unfixed, sounds close to a speech impediment. This is definitely 어눌한 (slurred) pronunciation.

Assuming everybody who reads this can at least sound out Korean, this is how Mingi sounds to me:

야 에에드와 지짜 재미써써 나 가 보테이깡 재미께 노아야대에 아게찌?

He's just swallowing and dribbling away syllables all over the place. I honestly thought he must've been raised abroad, and turned into one of those Korean boys I see a lot (and for some reason it's usually boys?) who can pronounce neither language properly, whose grammer is always a bit off in both languages. What a shock that he was Korean born and raised!

BUT THEN, the Fix On! apparently is the thing that fully engages that frontal palate, soft palate, I don't know what the words are - the front of the mouth mechanisms I was talking about, because his pronunciation when he's rapping is diction out of this world. It actually veers over to the other extreme - it's too sharp.

When he's talking on Lives though, Mingi engages his mouth apparatus in a way that is significantly different from Yunho. They're both speaking Seoul Standard Korean - Maybe I just can't hear whatever native dialect their parents may have given them (especially Yunho, assuming his parents speak in the Joella dialect) but it sounds very Seoul to me. Mingi speaks from deep in his throat. So his sounds are coming from deeper in his mouth than Yunho. His ㅋ and ㄱ and ㅌ sounds are almost at where the R sounds come from in German and French. 특히 for example, which he says here, sounds 'spat out' from inside his throat, because he puts such an emphasis on the ㄱ sound in 특, that the ㅎ of 히 remains trapped back there, so it comes out 틐키 rather than 특 from just behind the teeth and 히 as a separate exhalation of air. That's why he sounds so different from Yunho. I think if asked, older people would say Yunho speaks accurately and would slightly disparage Mingi by saying he just 툭툭 뱉어 (spits his consonants). But that spit-out-consonants effect comes from barely moving Mingi his lips and making most of his sounds from the back of his throat. If you look at the tension that Yunho retains in his cheeks as his speaks, you can see how hang-dog Mingi is, because he's relying on his throat, rather than his facial muscles, to say Korean words.

This is a slightly childish, or maybe child-like way of speaking. It's definitely unpolished. And that's a very uh, heart-affecting way for someone who looks like Mingi, who looks like he has all the plans, all the urges, will stop at nothing, and is also a goddamn Calvin Klein underwear model, to speak! It makes everything he says sound SO solemn and sincere, like a little kid explaining his homework to you because he truly believes his answers on the little piece of paper really, truly matter. It makes him unexpectedly very cute.

By the way, at 12:16 of Yunho's live above, he advises showering with goggles if the Atiny listening get scared that they might have a ghost in the shower with them. Did anyone who isn't Korean understand that at all? I can explain if necessary, but this essay is now too long. I will just say - It was so fucking deadpan but he is absolutely just as weird as Mingi and JUST AS SOLEMN about how funny he is. No wonder they're best friends! And it really sealed my fate. Wooyoung is Seonghwa is Mingi is San is now Yunho to me. What is going on!??!?

[inkskinned]

i hate to say it because i'm neurodivergent and a chronic-pain-haver but like... sometimes stuff is going to be hard and that's okay.

it's okay if you don't understand something the first few times it's explained to you. it's okay if you have to google every word in a sentence. it's okay if you need to spend a few hours learning the context behind a complicated situation. it's okay if you need to read something, think about it, and then come back to re-read it.

i get it. giving up is easier, and we are all broken down and also broke as hell. nobody has the time, nobody has the fucking energy. that is how they win, though. that is why you feel this way. it is so much easier, and that is why you must resist the impetus to shut down. fight through the desire you've been taught to "tl;dr".

embrace when a book is confusing for you. accept not all media will be transparent and glittery and in the genre you love. question why you need everything to be lily-white and soft. i get it. i also sometimes choose the escapism, the fantasy-romance. there's no shame in that. but every day i still try to make myself think about something, to actually process and challenge myself. it is hard, often, because of my neurodivergence. but i fight that urge, because i think it's fucking important.

especially right now. the more they convince you not to think, the easier it will be to feed you misinformation. the more we accept a message without criticism, the more power they will have over that message. the more you choose convenience, the more they will make propaganda convenient to you.

[ethosiab]

beating artblocks ass with a more steampunk-y tango

[soyochii]

Quick doodles before I evaporate.

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID in ALT] I've made posts before about Talia/Dick co-parenting Damian moments (will never happen but let me dream) and this came to me in a vision. Took me ages to finish for some reason 😭 and then even longer to post

[vaguely-concerned]

the strength it must have taken for illario to not immediately go full 'lmao since when have you even had a kiss hello lucanis' sibling violence mode during the café talk. inspirational. rook and lucanis really were doing all that right in front of his salad huh

[linipik]

Hunk with Samoan-style tattoos, they feel very at home in him ☀️

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Another year has passed, and with it the opportunity to reflect back on all that has happened. While my growth was not as dramatic as last year, I can still see lots of positive change.

I'll never have enough ways to say thank you for all the love and support you have given me this year. On to 2025!

(2023 summary here!)

[aulerean]

gem's angler fish? pretty cool.

[puppppppppy]

littlest furth shop

@laikascomet

[xxplastic-cubexx]

you open my Super Important Documents and its just pictures of charles xavier

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[tyttetardis]

Finally managed to record a bit of David at curtain call 😍

Brilliant seeing this incredible production once again - and getting to see what's different and what isn't 🥹🥰

(Please don't repost ☺️)

[naturecalls111]

WIP!!! Stealing glances amidst victory celebrations in Suna….

[stiffyck]

I WISH ARO HEADCANONS WERE MORE POPULAR IN FANDOMS

[sunnymainecoonx]

I know damn well I misunderstood the assignment but we roll, I'll understand it some day

It's killer and dust btw. If you couldn't tell. Which you probably couldn't.. forgor to say but shhh 🤫 Killers having a convo with himself..

..I kinda wanna change my url but idk to what