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mediocre-shark-tales · 1 year ago

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Qsmp x Streamer reader (3)

Summary - You find comfort with Tallulah, she loves hanging out with you when you are on. You also have hung out with Foolish and his silly eggs as well. However recently you have seen some wanted lists drop on the QSMP twitter.

Warnings - None for this part

There is a chance for this to turn into a love trope of some kind but for now there is focus on fluffy platonic-ness

This series will not be 100% lore accurate, but it will be pretty close to it. If certain people don't log on soon, I may change things around until they do actually log on.

Masterlist

I logged onto the qsmp server, for the last few minutes I was just chatting with my viewers. This was my first stream now living in London, merely a short drive away from most of my friends. Tommy and Tubbo had been here yesterday to help me finish moving in. Even Wilbur had stopped by after them, which was perfect timing as I was trying to put my books up on this shelf that I could barely reach. Even though I was trying to be a good host and continue doing the work myself. Wilbur snatched the books from me and put them on the shelf, while telling me that "it's okay, this is just a small way I can contribute to help you move in. Especially since I won't be around for a bit still." That was the few free hours he had before he would need to go off and finish some more work for a billion other things.

Wilbur and I were really close among my friends, we were able to bond over our similar music taste, video editing and many other smaller things. He had been really happy to see that I got into this film school not only because I would be much closer and on his time zone, but also because I was finally somewhere that would help me reach my personal dreams.

Right now my main problem was getting myself acquainted to the new time zone. Wilbur had left behind a few different medical drugs, teas and such that had helped him sleep in the past.

Anyways, as my world loaded I found myself chilling in my pirate ship house. I left the captain quarters and ran into my little hut. Switching to my shark mode and swimming down the long tunnel. Down in the basement, I grabbed a few gifts from my chests. Along with the stuff needed to help the gift receiver keep said gift. Then I checked who was online, a small smile creeping on to my face as I left the basement.

Once I was on land I slowly made my way to the ocean surrounding my island. Being in shark mode on land made me a lot slower than others. Once I was in the ocean I swam back to the main island. Then I switched back to the non shark mode and ran across the island. Sprinting as quickly as I could to the spawn. Here I stopped by the bakery to turn in a few items and getting cookies in return.

I liked to have extra cookies to help out anyone who asked or any eggs that had been accidentally forgotten about. Gotta keep the baby's alive. I then sprinted to the way stone and tp'ed over to tallulahs house.

Once I got there, I knocked on her door. However seconds later I could hear her flute as she began to play her iconic tune. usher playing just above me. Looking up I saw tallulah dancing and playing her flute. In the next second she jumped off her balcony and slowly fell down using her glider.

"Hey Tallulah, I brought you a gift today!" Thanks to my qsmp lore, they had added a few mods that added more ocean and lake animals. This helped to expand my business of collecting underwater necessities. A few days ago Tallulah had told me she really liked a few of the new fishes and the crabs. So I decided to collect her a few along with the necessities needed to make her a couple big fish tanks. She needed more than one cause some of the mobs would eat the other mobs I got for her.

She placed down her sign and asked what it was. "Well remember that time you told me you thought a few of the new fish and crabs were cute?" She nodded. "I got you all the ones you like, so we can build a couple personal fish tanks where ever you would like!" In a reaction of excitement she did the flipping emote and then quickly started to dance as well. I laughed and began to dance with her as well.

I heard talking begin to increase in volume as the person got closer. "Hey y/n! Hi Tallulah!" Yelled foolish as Leo followed behind him. Leo waved at me and I have back. "Hey Leo and Foolish!" "What are you up to today?" Foolish asked. "Well I brought a few fish and crabs for Tallulah so I was going to build her some fish tanks." I heard a gasp from him. "That sounds awesome, would you get me some fish if I asked too?!" I laughed. "Of course I would! Especially for the right price. Your timing is great actually, cause since I'm so new the only thing I ask for as a trade is anything that might be useful for me." I told him. "Like what do you mean by that?" He asked, while Tallulah placed down a sign I continued.

"Well on day one Phil brought me that waystone or the grappler or even the glider. So he definitely has a few jobs he can ask from me in the future if he needs anything." Foolish responded in an understanding. "OOOOOOOOH that makes sense." Tallulah finished typing and I read her signs. "Okay we can build a mini aquarium with your turtles." I said with a smile. "I can help excavate a new room for that if you would like the help." Foolish offered.

"Okay that would be great! Let's go!." We quickly ran over to the turtle heaven and watched Tallulah mine out a hole exactly where she wanted the door to be. "alright Tallulah, foolish and I will carved out the room, we will make it three blocks high. You can mine the floor and replace it with whatever floor style you want." Tallulah nodded and we got to work. Foolish and and had planned out the width and length of the room, easily getting to work on it without disruption. "Hey y/n have you seen the wanted posters on the QSMP twitter page?" I smiled, I had heard about this and was excited since this was my first qsmp event. It would also be the first time I got to drop some real lore.

This lore was not meant to be understood right away, after all this was just the beginning of my part in this story. Everyone's wanted posters were hilarious but still made sense for each person. However mine was the most interesting, seeing as I was the only one without any 'crimes' this of course made sense since I had just gotten here a few days ago. But still this didn't make it interesting, it was the fact that all the words on my wanted poster had been 'tampered with'. Besides my stream name, all the words had been written in code. My picture obviously must have had my Minecraft skin in the orange prison jumpsuit, except it was hard to tell since most of it had been scribbled out in black ink. On top of this black was red ink that wrote one word... mirar.

Of course I had to keep all this lore under wraps until the event finally got started. Fans were already theorizing so I had to keep a watch on everything I said and did. No story was ever successful if you gave away too much too fast right?

"yeah I have seen them." I replied to Foolish. "Obviously we must be going to prison for this next even then right?" I pretended to think for a moment. "Yeah I guess, unless maybe we are now just on the run from the feds for a bit or something like that?" We almost had the whole room excavated now. "Yeah I guess that could also be a possibility." Foolish agreed. I could almost hear the cogs turning as he went quiet again. I knew he may ask about my photo, so behind the scenes where my viewers would have no idea what I was doing. I switched to my other screen and typed out a warning to foolish on discord. It read, 'Do not bring up my wanted poster, don't say anything about it. I was told by the admins I could not spoil anything more than what they had done. So just don't talk about it as a safety precaution.' After clicking send I spoke again, trying to hint for him to look at our chat without actually saying it. Thank god, a few days ago I had come up with a code word and told everyone, if I say this word in any sentence you are to not question it and do what I ask as it is lore related.

I know, why would you ever think to come up with an idea like that? Well my admin friend had been talking to me that day, complaining about how hard it is to keep lore between streamers apart so that even the streamers would get a fun experience learning lore about their friends when the fans would. When I asked him to explain it more in depth, I realized that the main problem was keeping streamers from asking about another streamers lore. Especially in moments like this where it was going to be a small innocent question. Thus I made a code word, sending it out to all the current players that had been getting on the server recently. My code word was shark, I know classic me loving shark stuff. Anyways, if I ever say the word shark in a sentence and it is not related to explaining my shark-mer-mode, then that means they need to not question whatever I am asking them.

"Hey foolish wanna see this cute yet oddly kinda creepy shark baby?"

"uh yeah sure."

"Cool I'll send it on discord."

So I sent him an actually picture of a cute yet oddly kinda crepey shark baby. but right below it I had typed out,

'in case your chat asks to see the photo here is what I was talking about, but I only did this to make sure you didn't ask about the photo like I told you in the previous message.'

Of course he made sure to just talk about the picture, showing his chat when they asked. Of course I hd showed mine too when they asked.

Finally after a few more minutes, not only had we excavated the room, we had also helped tallulah change the walls and ceiling to match the vibe she wanted. Now I could get to work not the two huge tanks that would be on opposite side of the room. I gave foolish the items he need to make one tank while I made the other. My tank would be a hemisphere, but much closer to half an oval than half a circle. Foolish was going to do a tank that was too wide and the length of the wall.

In my tank was all the necessary plants and water for a few blue crabs and lion fish. The other tank would hold some more fun looking tropical fish and a few seahorses. With my tank, I had to add a small feeding system as the crab mod they installed required players to give caught fish to feed crabs and keep them alive. I told tallulah when to do it and how to restock. Also telling her that if she ever needs more and fast, that I would always drop any plans to get her some.

Finally with the room complete, I filled the tanks with water and placed the respective animals in their respective tanks. Then closed them up and admired our work. "This looks sick tallulah!" I heard foolish say. Leo instantly placed a sign and wrote in Spanish. 'Estoy de acuerdo, esto es increíble.' which translates to 'I agree, this is incredible.' Talullah simply replied with a 'thanks for the help'. I placed down a chest next to the crab tank and filled it with a few extra fish restocks, before we left to go on another random adventure together.

To be continued...

#qsmp fitmc #qsmp bbh #qsmp foolish #qsmp tubbo #qsmp #wilbur soot #empanada #x reader #qsmp tallulah #qsmp chayanne #qsmp sunny #tubbo #philza

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lingthusiasm · 1 year ago

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Transcript Episode 83: How kids learn Q’anjob’al and other Mayan languages - Interview with Pedro Mateo Pedro

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm episode ‘How kids learn Q’anjob’al and other Mayan languages - Interview with Pedro Mateo Pedro’. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the episode show notes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch. I’m here with Dr. Pedro Mateo Pedro who’s an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, Canada, a native speaker of Q’anjob’al, and a learner of Kaqchikel. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about kids acquiring Indigenous languages.

But first, some announcements. We love looking up whether two words that look kind of similar are actually historically related, but the history of a word doesn’t have to define how it’s used today. To celebrate how we can grow up to be more than we ever expected, we have new merch that says, “Etymology isn’t Destiny.” Our artist, Lucy Maddox, has made “Etymology isn’t Destiny” into a swoopy, cursive design with a fun little destiny star on the dot of the eye, available in black, white, and my personal favourite, rainbow gradient. This design is available on lots of different colours and styles of shirts. We’ve got hoodies, tank tops, t-shirts in classic fit, relaxed fit, curved fit – plus mugs, notebooks, stickers, water bottles, zipper pouches. You know, if it’s on Redbubble, we might’ve put “Etymology isn’t Destiny” on it.

We also have tons of other lingthusiastic merch available in our merch store at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I have to say, it makes a great gift to give to a linguistics enthusiast in your life or to request as a gift if you are that linguistics enthusiast.

We also wanna give a special shoutout to our aesthetic redesign of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Last year, we reorganised the classic IPA chart to have colours and have little cute circles and not just be boring grey lines of boxes and to even more elegantly represent the principle that the location of the symbols and rows and columns represents the place and degree of constriction in the mouth. I think it looks really cool. It’s also a fun little puzzle to sit there and figure out which of the specific circles around different things stands for what. We’ve now made this aesthetic IPA chart redesign available on lots more merch options, including several different sizes of posters from small ones you can put on a corkboard to large ones you can put up in your hallway. They look really, really good, especially if you have some sort of office-y space that needs to be decorated. Plus, it’s on tote bags and notebooks and t-shirts. If you want everyone you meet to know that you’re a giant linguistics nerd, you can take them to conferences and use them to start nerdy conversations with people.

If you like the idea of linguistics merch but none of ours so far is quite hitting your aesthetic, or if there’s an item that Redbubble sells that you think one of our existing designs would look good on, we’ve added quite a few merch items in response to people’s requests over the years, so we’d love to know where the gaps still are and keep an eye on lingthusiasm.com/merch.

Our most recent bonus episode was a behind-the-scenes interview with Sarah Dopierala, who you may recognise as a name from the end credits, about what it’s like doing transcripts from a linguistics perspective and her life generally as a linguistics grad student. You can go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm to get access to all of the many bonus episodes and to help Lingthusiasm keep running.

[Music]

Gretchen: Hello, Pedro, welcome to the show!

Pedro: Hello. Thank you so much for this invitation. I really appreciate it.

Gretchen: We’re really excited to have you. Let’s start with the question that we ask all of our guests, “How did you get interested in linguistics?”

Pedro: That’s an interesting question. I think there’re two main things. One is that I had the opportunity to attend a boarding school where there were many Mayan languages and, in addition to that, there was a class on grammar of Mayan languages, and I think that’s one of the things that motivated me to be curious about that language. Then after becoming an elementary school teacher, I was also interested about knowing more about how these languages work. For example, how language works in this case – well, in the case of Guatemala, for example, people think – I am assuming that that was in the past, but there’s, I think, some people who still think that Indigenous languages don’t have a grammar from there as well. Is it true that, in fact, there’s no grammar of this language? That’s kind of how I started –

Gretchen: There’s no language with no grammar.

Pedro: That’s true. I like when people say that everybody has a mental grammar. I like that. Which is true for every language as well. It’s how I would say I got interested in linguistics.

Gretchen: And you’re already a speaker of Q’anjob’al, and so going to this boarding school and being exposed to other people speaking other languages.

Pedro: Also, I acquired Q’anjob’al when I was a kid. And then I went to this boarding school. But unfortunately, I didn’t know any of those languages until later when I started living with my wife who is a native speaker of Kaqchikel, and from there I started to learn, but it has been a long process for me.

Gretchen: To learn different ones. So, you were at boarding school, and you’re encountering, “Okay, Mayan languages have grammar – great!” What happened after that?

Pedro: When I graduated from this boarding school, I became an elementary school teacher. I taught, I think, a couple of years. But one thing that I noticed is that there was that need to understand a bit more of the language. I thought, well, this is something that one of my best friends, who is Eladio Mateo Toledo, he said, “Well, let’s find someplace to go.” We went to school in Guatemala City to study sociolinguistics at that time. I’m talking about years ago. But it was a way to find opportunities to learn a little bit more about the languages.

Gretchen: So, you studied sociolinguistics in Guatemala City and thought, “Oh, this is cool. I wanna do more of it”?

Pedro: I finished sociolinguistics, and then I received a fellowship or a scholarship in a different university. It’s Universidad Rafael Landívar. There was this project called “EDUMAYA” where there were scholarships to Mayan speakers or Indigenous speakers in Guatemala. This was an opportunity for me to get an undergrad in linguistics. After that, I think I took two or one year off, but while I missed those years from school, I was working at OKMA – Oxlajuuj Keej Mayab’ Ajtz’iib’ – under the direction of Nora England.

Gretchen: What is this organisation?

Pedro: This organisation works on Mayan languages. It’s a group of Mayan speakers who studied their own language.

Gretchen: That sounds great.

Pedro: It was really great. In that case, I was an elementary school teacher, and then I started to work very hard at OKMA. It was a huge difference teaching kids and then doing analysis on a language. For me it was a big transition, but it was amazing because I had the opportunity to learn many things about how Mayan language work. It was unique.

Gretchen: And the kids that you were teaching when you were teaching in school were Mayan kids as well?

Pedro: Yeah, most of them were Mayan kids, so they spoke Q’anjob’al. Even though there is this idea about bilingual education in these Indigenous communities, I had this opportunity to teach these children in Q’anjob’al. One of the norms of education is you teach these kids, and they have to learn Spanish and something like that. So, what I did is, okay, let’s take as the base the knowledge that they bring from home. They speak the language, they understand the language, so we need to teach them how to write and read. That’s what I did. I was in trouble because the parents didn’t like the idea of teaching the children in Q’anjob’al.

Gretchen: They wanted them to learn Spanish.

Pedro: Exactly. They said, “Why do we need Q’anjob’al? Why do we need to write when we speak the language?” One of the arguments I made is, okay, yeah, but we need something already that will help us to learn to write and read. It took me a while. One way to convince the parents to change their mind was that, in the first meeting when they came in to get their children’s grade, I started the meeting in Spanish. I messaged them in Spanish. It didn’t last for a minute, and they stopped me. They started to complain and say, “Why would you talk to us in Spanish when, in fact, you know that we speak Q’anjob’al?” Different people, they were angry or uncomfortable because of that. After that, I asked them this question, “Have you thought about your children who spend about five or six hours every day here at school?”

Gretchen: “And if I speak to them in Spanish, they’re not gonna understand me either.”

Pedro: Exactly. That was my point. And this “Oh, yeah, yeah.” “Have you thought about that? Do they complain?” “No.” “Okay, because they are kids.”

Gretchen: They don’t know any better, yeah.

Pedro: For me, it’s important for these children to understand what’s going on in school. One way to do this – using the language that they know. I was able, in this case, to talk with the parents, “Okay, we understand what you are after.” I had the opportunity then to teach the children, at least, I mean, at that time – so divide a year in two parts. In the first part, I would teach the kids in writing and reading Q’anjob’al. And then in the next part of the year, we switched to Spanish. But at least that was an opportunity to –

Gretchen: They have sort of a balance of the two and accommodation of the two, and they’re not coming in and suddenly someone’s talking at them in a language they don’t understand at all – “Okay, what’s going on?” Yeah.

Pedro: Those were the things that I really liked when I go back to that experience that I had as an elementary school teacher.

Gretchen: Then you started doing language work with other linguists and speakers.

Pedro: Yeah. Again, when I came to OKMA, I started working with a group of Q’anjob’al speakers on the dialectal variation of Q’anjob’al. I was there, I think, less than three years. Then I left Guatemala because my wife had a scholarship, and we went to the US. That’s how I started learning English, and then started the MA and PhD programme at the University of Kansas.

Gretchen: In linguistics as well?

Pedro: In linguistics, yeah. Then I started to work on how children acquire Mayan languages – of course, not all Mayan languages, but I started to work on Q’anjob’al to document how these children acquire Q’anjob’al.

Gretchen: Sort of informed by this experience as a schoolteacher saying, “Okay, these kids are coming in already speaking this language. What’s going on?”

Pedro: I think the question is, “What do they know?” That’s how I got interested in this. Plus, at that time I had my first son who was, I think, one-year-and-a-half or something. It was like, okay, this is an opportunity for me to learn how to document child language acquisition. So, then I started to work on Q’anjob’al.

Gretchen: I think there are a lot of linguists who get interested in child language acquisition because you have a child, you’re spending all this time taking care of your child, “What are they doing?”

Pedro: For me, it was really interesting because, again, going back to when we moved from Guatemala to the US, the first time I took care of my son, so I made basically a diary of what he was saying almost every day. I have my notes – I dunno – somewhere.

Gretchen: Then you started looking at other children as well.

Pedro: Yeah. For my MA, for example, I looked at, I think, eight or ten children. It was a cross-sectional study. As for my PhD, I worked on a longitudinal study. My main focus at that time was on how these children acquire the verb morphology in the language, in this case, the word that indicates action, for example, what happens, and then the different parts that are necessary in that verb, for example. We talk about when the action happened, and who is participating in the action. Those are the kinds of things that I tried to evaluate in my study. That’s something that, also, I have been working on these days.

Gretchen: I mean, this is the kind of thing that it’s not like, oh, you study it for one degree, and now you know everything. This is the kind of thing that people could study for a whole career.

Pedro: Exactly. That’s an interesting point because what I have learned is that, okay, I’m going to – so my advisor said, “Well, you can start with this.” And I said, “Well, okay.” I started studying acquisition of the verb morphology, I think, more than 10 years ago. And I thought, “Well, I am done.” It’s not true! Because every time I look at the data, and I find other things, and I start asking other questions. There is no end of that – which is a nice thing that you start with something small –

Gretchen: You’re not gonna be out of a job.

Pedro: It’s nice. I think one thing that I really appreciate is the opportunity that I have also in documenting acquisition for Mayan languages. For example, I have documented the acquisition of Chuj, another written Mayan language to Q’anjob’al, for example. By looking into a known language, it helps me to understand what must be going on in Q’anjob’al. And I said, “Wow! I wish I had access to this language before so I could have a better idea of how to explain what was going on.”

Gretchen: You can find some things that are similar between Chuj and Q’anjob’al, and some things that are different, because the languages are grammatically, you know, related. They’re similar.

Pedro: That really helped in terms of analysis, in terms of understanding what’s going on, in terms of explaining a specific phenomenon, for example. It really helps to have that kind of mirror, for example, to see what’s going on.

Gretchen: One thing that I know about when kids are acquiring English is they often make mistakes. They’ll say things like “runned” instead of “ran” or something like that. This tells you “Oh, they’re generalising something about a rule.” Are there some things that come up with mistakes kids make or interesting things that kids do when they’re acquiring –

Pedro: That’s an interesting question. That’s something I was looking at, for example, for Chuj and for Q’anjob’al is that, so in Mayan languages, for example, there is this suffix that is known as the “status suffix” that appears after a verb. The idea of this status of something, like, it’s indicating what information is provided by the verb.

Gretchen: “Style” suffix?

Pedro: “Status.” “Status suffix.” It indicates whether the verb is a transitive verb or an intransitive verb. In this case, when we talk about intransitive verbs, it’s one participant of the verb. Transitive verb – two participants.

Gretchen: So, if you have something like “walk,” it’s gonna be intransitive, and it’s gonna have one status suffix. If you have something like, well, the classic example is “hit,” but I always find that very violent – you know, “hug” or something – that’s gonna be transitive. And it’s gonna have a different suffix.

Pedro: A different – yeah. In English, for example, that’s just one form of the verb. But in Mayan languages, or someplace, you have a specific morphology on the verb to indicate that, well, you are talking about an intransitive verb or a transitive verb.

Gretchen: So, if it’s just “I eat,” it’s gonna have one status suffix. If it’s “I eat an apple,” it’s gonna have a different status suffix to indicate that that’s there. Okay.

Pedro: I think, trying to answer your question, that all of this – I mean, there are all things that happen with this status suffix, but I haven’t seen children, for example, producing errors with these status suffixes. One thing that we have seen as maybe “errors” or children overgeneralising is the production of the status suffixes in a specific position. One thing that we know about status suffixes is that sometimes they appear at the end of a verb, and other times, they don’t. But in other times, they do. Then the question is, “What happened?”

Gretchen: And adults know this?

Pedro: An adult knows. But for a child, there are different variations on these status suffixes that a child has to find as a challenge. One thing that we notice is that these children, for example, produce these suffixes in non-final position – something that is not seen –

Gretchen: The adults only produce it at the end of the verb, at the end of the sentence?

Pedro: Yes and no. If they have what we call a “root verb” – consonant-vowel-consonant is the idea.

Gretchen: Consonant-vowel-consonant is a “root verb,” okay.

Pedro: When you have that verb with that “shape,” let’s say, that suffix doesn’t appear in the non-final position. But if you have something that is, let’s say, derived, then that suffix has to be there.

Gretchen: Okay. If you make the verb into something else by changing the tense or something –

Pedro: By changing the status of that word. You have the word “song,” for example, and then you make the verb “to sing,” then you add a morpheme to it so that this noun “song” becomes an intransitive. Because of that, then it’s a derived intransitive verb.

Gretchen: It’s a derived intransitive, and you need to have the suffix. Do the kids do this?

Pedro: They produce that. One thing that we noticed is that they make that difference between derived and non-derived intransitive verbs. Again, it’s like they are acquiring that, but that’s what we see as something problematic for them in acquiring those status suffixes.

Gretchen: They have some difficulties still.

Pedro: That’s, I would say, where we see them making those mistakes or having trouble with acquiring the suffixes.

Gretchen: Is there something that you’ve noticed that’s interesting about how kids are acquiring the languages you’ve worked on?

Pedro: In addition to looking at the verb morphology, I also studied how children acquire the nominal classifier – numeral classifier – in Q’anjob’al. In this case, some Mayan languages have a nominal classifier or a numeral classifier. In this language, for example, everything has to be classified. If you refer to a woman, for example, you’re going to use the classifier “ix,” and then “naq,” for example, for men. Then if you have other things like –

Gretchen: You know, a hat or something.

Pedro: Then it would be “chʼen,” for example.

Gretchen: That’s for objects in general, or are there several different kinds of objects?

Pedro: Well, for animals, for people, for objects, and things like that.

Gretchen: So, if you have a dog or something?

Pedro: That’s going to be different. That’s going to be “no’.” I was interacting with this child. He was a boy. Well, first, he was interacting with his grandmother. These classifiers were there. He was like “ix” or “naq” or “chem” or “ch’en” or “no’” – everything that was –

Gretchen: Everything that you would expect for all the different kinds of things that you can refer to.

Pedro: And then someone came to visit grandma. So, grandma left the conversation, so that left just the boy and myself. This is what happened. All of those classifiers were gone. There’s just one that stayed, which is “ix.”

Gretchen: So, he’s using “ix” for everything.

Pedro: “Ix” for everything. But this is not something that he’s just making up. It’s something that we can see in the other grammar.

Gretchen: Okay. Do other children do this as well?

Pedro: Other children do, but mainly boys – not girls.

Gretchen: Interesting.

Pedro: The thing is that this “ix” that replaces all nominal classifiers occurs mainly among men. People have argued that it’s mostly in informal contexts.

Gretchen: Right. So, because his grandma is gone, and you two are men together – well, he’s like, 3 years old.

Pedro: Exactly. It’s kind of like, “Okay, yeah, let’s use the ‘ix,’” replacing the others.

Gretchen: He’s sensitive to the sociolinguistic context of “Oh, women aren’t here anymore, so I’m gonna do this thing” –

Pedro: “With this guy.”

Gretchen: “With this guy.” Even at this young age.

Pedro: Exactly. He was about 2-and-a-half or 3 years old. This boy is able to distinguish both contexts. His grandma has come back in the conversation, and then those classifiers came back.

Gretchen: Wow. He’s really paying attention to this dynamic situation of whether his grandma is here or not changing how he talks.

Pedro: When to use all the classifiers and when to use just one classifier. For me, again, that’s a way to illustrate that these children, they’re exposed to the language, and they are exposed to this system of the nominal classifier, but in addition to that information, the social aspect of that nominal –

Gretchen: And the cultural context where if you just had kids who are trying to learn language in a classroom while maybe the teacher is a woman, and you don’t have all the different types of social situations.

Pedro: One of the things that’s important to emphasise, then, when we do language documentation is making sure that that interaction with that child doesn’t happen only with grandma, for example, but happens with the different gender – I mean, in this case, female/male, and also –

Gretchen: Ages.

Pedro: And there’s ages and the kids themselves.

Gretchen: Because maybe the kids are talking differently with each other than they’re talking with their grandparents or their aunts and uncles or the older generation. The researcher doesn’t necessarily know in advance which things the kids are gonna be paying attention to because maybe the kids don’t learn how to talk like the men until they’re older. You don’t know what age they learn that until you’re studying it.

Pedro: Exactly. I would say the take home message in this part of the conversation is documenting everything, basically, because you never know, I mean, what you will learn. I mean, you never know what will come with this child’s interaction.

Gretchen: I think sometimes when we’re analysing how kids talk, at least a lot of the studies that I see on big languages like English, they bring the kid and maybe one parent, the mom or something, into a lab and they have them talk in this controlled but also very artificial environment. You don’t have the environments of, “Well, somebody comes to the door, so grandma has to go answer the door” that lets you have this situation where you can illuminate this effect. Sometimes, if you do too much control, you don’t actually see the natural things that happen.

Pedro: That’s the difference that we see, I mean, in this case between doing an experimental study and a naturalistic setting, for example. I think when you do certain things in that natural setting, then you have the opportunity to see the language being used in different contexts, for example. In this case that we are discussing for the “ix,” I think it’s a unique illustration of the importance of documenting the language as a whole.

Gretchen: In the whole community, cultural context. I mean, of course, then you also have the thing of like, “Oh, if there’s some birds in the background or something.”

Pedro: Again, that’s the advantage and disadvantage of doing this kind of work. I think it’s good to do both, especially when we talk about Indigenous languages. You mentioned something important, “Okay, what do we know, for example, about language acquisition?” I think most of that information comes from the well-known languages. What happens to these less studied languages or languages that haven’t been studied at all, for example – how to bring those languages into discussing what we learn about language acquisition?

Gretchen: And there’s two reasons why that’s really important. One is because, for speakers of those languages, if they want to try to support using them in schools or using them in daily life or trying to revitalise a language that’s become less common in daily life, having the knowledge of “How do kids talk in this language? What are their first words like? How do adults normally talk to children in a bit of a different style?”

Pedro: I think we can say that it’s not just about the grammatical aspect of the language that these kids are acquiring, but at the same time, how they are acquiring that language, for example. I think one thing that it would be good to connect with language revitalisation is, like, let’s learn the language thinking like we are kids. Because a kid, for example, wouldn’t think about “Oh, is this the way to say it?” “Should I put this here?”

Gretchen: “Should I put this suffix on this verb?”

Pedro: Exactly.

Gretchen: Kids don’t know what a suffix is.

Pedro: And it takes time for them to get to the production of the adult level. For instance, also the sound system that these children produce. Q’anjob’al, for example, has retroflex sounds like /ʈʂʰ/ or /ʈʂʼ/, for example, /ʂ/. And these kids do not produce them like –

Gretchen: They can’t produce them immediately.

Pedro: No, no, no. It takes time for them. I will say three-years-and-a-half or four. It takes that time to produce this retroflex. I think when we are in the context of revitalisation, those learners of a language will go through similar patterns of acquisition.

Gretchen: If you’re trying to re-learn Q’anjob’al as an adult and being stressed that you can’t produce the retroflex and say, “Look, it takes the kids four years. If it takes you four years, that’s really normal. You can keep practicing this and get better at it. If you can’t do it on the first day, then you still have hope.”

Pedro: That’s the importance of doing this kind of project and documenting how children acquire this kind of language. Then this information can be useful for other purposes.

Gretchen: Q’anjob’al also has the ejectives, which I’m not doing a very good job of pronouncing, but you’ve been saying it in the name of the language itself that “Q’anjob’al.”

Pedro: /qʼanxobʼal/, yes.

Gretchen: Do kids learn those really early, or are they a bit harder?

Pedro: It takes time for them as well. That’s another interesting question because what we have noticed is that these children, when they try to produce these ejectives, they would follow two strategies. One – either they produce the plain consonant.

Gretchen: So /kanxobal/ instead of /qʼanxobal/?

Pedro: Exactly. Or they would just produce the glottal stop.

Gretchen: Oh, okay, so /ʔnxobal/?

Pedro: Or something like /ʔanxobal/, but I’m just making this up. It will be something like this – either they use a plain or this glottal stop. It’s a process.

Gretchen: Extracting the two possible features that you would need to put together eventually.

Pedro: This has been reported for the acquisition of sounds in K’iche’ and Chuj, and I also see it in Q’anjob’al.

Gretchen: These are all Mayan languages that have –

Pedro: Mayan languages that have ejectives as well. Maybe someone will say, “This is our dialectal variation,” or “It’s just the kids,” I mean, because of individual differences, but no, it’s across –

Gretchen: It’s across a bunch of them. That gets us to the other reason why it’s really important to document kids acquiring lots of different languages – Indigenous languages – is that, when we’re trying to think, “What do we think about how kids learn language in general?” if we base those theories entirely on a few big languages that have other relatively similar typological features in some cases – English and Spanish are typologically related, and so if you’re coming up with a theory just based on English and Spanish, well, you know, that’s not very generalisable.

Pedro: That’s true. I think that’s one of the other things that we wanted to mention here, like how to include other languages to understand human language and also how these children acquire languages – human languages in the world, you mentioned, that sometimes haven’t been explored at all. It would be good to document those languages and have a better idea of what these kids do. But the other thing that I’m going to add here is that, yeah, we want to have a better idea of how these children acquire language, but at the same time, how this information can be used, again, for language revitalisation or for language maintenance or things that the community’s interested in. One thing that I noticed, for example, about this in Q’anjob’al is that these children, their first words have a basic shape which is consonant-vowel-consonant. This is really common in the whole Mayan languages, but these are the specific things that these children produce. If that’s the case, then is this information possible to use when we consider creating teaching materials for these children? It would be a good thing to have this because it’s going to be much easier if these children can read these words with this shape, for example.

Gretchen: Right. If you know what words they’re acquiring early, then you can say, “Oh, well, we’ll put those words in maybe the first books that we’re trying to have them learn because you don’t wanna try to have them read a book with words that they don’t understand, they’re not using already. You can use this small shape – because Mayan languages have, you know, quite a bit of prefixes and suffixes and things on the words but, of course, you have to start somewhere, and that’s just with – the roots are generally consonant-vowel-consonant, so they just produce the root first, and then they start adding things onto it.

Pedro: Exactly. They are good at identifying those roots in the input or in the adult grammar in this case, yeah. Also, I had the opportunity to collaborate with other people about trying to understand how these pieces are put in the verb. What we have noticed is that there’s the root, and then children are good at producing suffixes.

Gretchen: Ah. But not prefixes?

Pedro: Not prefixes, but for a reason.

Gretchen: What’s that?

Pedro: Stress.

Gretchen: Oh.

Pedro: Stress is also with these suffixes. You have the root and then the suffix.

Gretchen: And that’s the part they do first, and then they do the prefixes much later.

Pedro: Yeah, later.

Gretchen: Interesting.

Pedro: That’s the other thing that we have.

Gretchen: So, you work at the University of Toronto now.

Pedro: Yes.

Gretchen: What sorts of projects are you working on there?

Pedro: Well, my position is about language documentation and language revitalisation. One of the projects that I am currently working on is about the revitalisation of Itza’, another Mayan language spoken in Guatemala, in the northern part of Guatemala, in Petén. It’s a language that has been considered an endangered language because it has less than 40 speakers.

Gretchen: Wow. Less than 40.

Pedro: And most of them are elders. I think this week I was asked about how old is the youngest, and I said, “Well, 70-something.” Children are not acquiring that language anymore. But the goal in this project is how to teach the language and how to bring the language back. That’s one of the projects that I am doing – how to do that. One thing that we are doing with the community is two main things, 1.) is developing a workshop on teaching them how to teach the language.

Gretchen: Right. Because just because you can speak a language doesn’t mean you know how to teach it.

Pedro: That’s one of the things that we did. What would be the best method? We’re using a method that has been used in other contexts, so let’s try to use this for the revitalisation of Itza’, in this case, not for all Mayan languages, but for Itza’ because of the condition of it.

Gretchen: Because Q’anjob’al still has lots of speakers.

Pedro: Lots of speakers, yeah, so it’s different from Itza’. So, that’s one thing. The other thing we are doing – and for me this is really important because we are developing pedagogical material that we are using for the same purpose, but the unique thing for this grammar is that we have students at the University of Toronto who are involved in creating information about the grammar. In this case, these students are doing research about the subject of Itza’, but because they are preparing this material for non-linguists, for example, it’s an opportunity for them, okay, they have to understand the structure of the language but then how to share that information with people who are not linguists.

Gretchen: Who wanna become speakers and don’t have background in grammar or any of these theoretical concepts, but they just need to know how to talk to people.

Pedro: For me, these students have this opportunity to learn to speak the language and then also the opportunity how to share that information with these people, but in addition to that, having the opportunity to work with Indigenous communities and also doing language revitalisation.

Gretchen: And trying to accomplish the community’s goals rather than, okay, I have this research agenda, I’m just gonna show up, extract some information, and then go off and get a degree and have a career without benefitting the community.

Pedro: I think that’s something that I tried to tell the students. Okay, it’s good that you are learning this. You’re doing your research. But at the same time, this is the impact that you are making with your work. Maybe you cannot see it now, but later, you will realise, “Oh, this is what” – it takes time to understand what you are doing. Again, I consider this as an opportunity for the students to be involved in this situation. The other part is, in addition to the workshop on teaching methods, we are also working with community members about the different lessons that we are putting into this grammar. How can we do this? Or how do we do this? Or how do we say this? Basic expressions.

Gretchen: So, if you wanna have a lesson about foods, you wanna make sure you’re using the foods that are in the local area that they wanna be able to talk about not some sort of food that nobody’s actually eating in this place.

Pedro: Exactly. But again, just by doing that, it’s a long process. It has been a long process. We have been working on this grammar, I think, more than a year, and we are not even done. But still, that is helping us to understand how to work with the community, but at the same time, how to work with the elders who have the knowledge of the language, for example. I was telling some of the colleagues a while ago saying that, okay, I was asked whether this pedagogical grammar will be going on under review. I said, “Well, it’s going under review at the moment with the elders.”

Gretchen: Right. It’s not necessarily going under peer review by academics, you’re having the true experts, which is the elders, look at it and say, “What do we think? Do we think this is a reasonable reflection of our language?” How is it like for you as a speaker of a different Mayan language to go into a different community? Do you think this makes it complicated for you or interesting?

Pedro: It’s really interesting for me because I always consider this as an opportunity to work with another group of Mayan speakers but also an opportunity to help them because, I mean, as Mayan speakers or as Indigenous speakers, for example, we go through the same situation. For me, it’s really important to consider that. But I also feel like I have built this good relationship with them and to work in this project. But one thing that I would like to mention is that even though I am a Mayan speaker, even though I am from Guatemala, one thing that I have tried to emphasise is like, showing respect for them. Again, they are different cultures. I mean, we’re Mayan, but our way of living is not the same. I think I try to respect that, like, yes, I am from there, but that doesn’t mean I have impulse things.

Gretchen: It doesn’t mean you know everything already.

Pedro: No, no, no, no. I always say this – I am also learning with them. I am helping. We are developing this project. But we are learning together. That’s the approach I take when working on these kinds of projects.

Gretchen: And you’re also coming in with the backing of a big Canadian research institution and this sort of stuff which puts you in a different situation.

Pedro: I think it’s a lot of responsibility. I think one thing that I am learning is that, yes, we have to do language revitalisation, but I think there’s another component that we have to consider that’s about the research aspect of that. One thing that I noticed about what I am doing is working in the infrastructure of the project, building that relationship, working with elders, working with the different activists in the language, for example. I think that’s the first step. Now, we are doing this, but as for research, you asked me, I don’t have much to say, but again, I think building that infrastructure, it takes time. But if I try to think a little bit more, I would say, well, we have some results of this project. I could mention two. One of them is that we have trained some speakers of the language about the teaching method. They are using this method to teach the language. We are about to finish up this pedagogical grammar for the language. I think those can be considered as “results.”

Gretchen: That’s balancing the way that you have to talk to funding agencies and universities and these bodies that care about results that you can report in a list somewhere while also saying, “Okay, but we actually care about the results that the community members care about, which is having more people able to speak the language,” which is not actually what the research institutions are trying to fund. So, there’s lots of different people who have different priorities that you’re trying to balance between.

Pedro: But for me, that’s an opportunity of how to communicate those ideas and how to make that balance. Sure, research will come. Research will grow.

Gretchen: But the relationship –

Pedro: But the question, “Is it easy to start?” It will take a little bit of time. I think one of the things I would like to mention here, a “keyword,” I would say, is to be patient. Sometimes, we want to see really fast.

Gretchen: Results really fast, yeah.

Pedro: It takes time, yeah. That’s one thing that I see. I also see that this project will grow, and I think there will be more students who will be more interested in working in the project. That’s my hope.

Gretchen: I hope so, too. If people wanna know more information about Q’anjob’al or Chuj or any of the other research that’s being done on Mayan languages, is there somewhere where they should start for more information?

Pedro: I think if you are interested to know more about, in this case, the work that I do, I would recommend exploring my personal website. You can go to linguistics, the University of Toronto, and then you will find my personal website.

Gretchen: We’ll link to that from the description as well so people can follow that for more information.

Pedro: Thank you.

Gretchen: If you could leave people knowing one thing about linguistics, what would that be?

Pedro: That’s a good question. I would like to say the following – when you do linguistics, it’s good to start with something small. It’s good that you start with that something small and then start asking questions that maybe you don’t have answer to that question, but you will find answers to that question. I hope I can connect that or relate that to what I mentioned in the discussion that we had today. Remember, I said that I started studying the verb in Q’anjob’al – and I am not done exploring that. Start with something small. But the other thing is that, yes, as a linguist, for example, or as a researcher, you have your own agenda, but try to reflect a little bit about, also, the community’s agenda and the community’s needs. I think that’s important to have that in mind and also important for you to build a relationship with that community that you are working with.

[Music]

Gretchen: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can follow @lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. You can get redesigned IPA posters, “Not Judging Your Grammar, Just Analysing It” stickers, t-shirts that say, “Etymology isn’t Destiny,” and other Lingthusiasm merch at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I can be found as @GretchenAMcC on Twitter, my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com, and my book about internet language is called Because Internet. Lauren tweets and blogs as Superlinguo. Our guest, Pedro Mateo Pedro, can be found at pedromateopedro.ca. Lingthusiasm is able to keep existing thanks to the support of our patrons. If you wanna get an extra Lingthusiasm episode to listen to every month, our entire archive of bonus episodes to listen to right now, or if you just wanna help keep the show running ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Patrons can also get access to our Discord chatroom to talk with other linguistics fans and be the first to find out about new merch and other announcements. Recent bonus topics include an interview about what it's like to transcribe all of the Lingthusiasm episodes as a linguist, using linguistics in the workplace beyond academia, and a very special Lingthusiasmr bonus episode where we read The Harvard Sentences to you [ASMR voice] in a calm, soothing voice. [Normal voice] Can’t afford to pledge? That’s okay, too. We also really appreciate it if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone in your life who’s curious about language. Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our Senior Producer is Claire Gawne, our Editorial Producer is Sarah Dopierala, our Production Assistant is Martha Tsutsui-Billins, and our Editorial Assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.

Pedro: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

#language #linguistics #lingthusiasm #episode 83 #transcripts #podcasts #child language acquisition #language revitalization #mayan languages

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snaillock · 2 years ago

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i’m sorry but my mind has been rotted with steamer! rin, hiori, and nagi ideas recently

like imagine them collaborating and steaming shit like dbd with each other all the time

i can imagine hiori having the prettiest most aesthetically pleasing layout out of the three but when he gets mad and opens his mouth, oh baby does he get vileeeee. it’s hilarious to watch him switch from sweetly talking to his chat then cursing out some teammate he randomly matched all within a span of one minute.

i feel like rin would have the most generic layout from a free template he got off of google images. he’s pretty much what you would expect from an emotionally repressed 16 year old male streamer: the most vile yet weirdly childish insults you’ll ever hear in a span of five minutes while borderline violating tos and his fans constantly defending him because “he’s just a minor who doesn’t know better🥺” (oh he knows honey he knows…)

nagi wouldn’t even gaf. if we’re lucky he would maybe just maybe have his webcam in the left hand corner with absolutely nothing else (moistcritical ass layout) even then his face would just be his classic neutral :x all the damn time no matter what happens

on their own, i feel like hiori and nagi would just stick to typical fps games (with hiori leaning towards the gorier ones ofc. i mean he gotta release his parental frustrations somehow). meanwhile rin would honestly stream any type of horror from triple a games to a free indie rpgmaker game he found on some random kinda sketchy looking website. he would gain such a loyal niche audience from that

hiori would hire a really good editor to edit and upload his streams to his youtube channel. he would most likely gain a whole separate youtube audience from that. prob has some youtube exclusive stuff as well.

nagi would just upload the whole damn archived stream to youtube, that is if he actually remembered to save the vods and not permanently lose the stream. he doesn’t even care that the uploading takes forever he still can’t be bothered with cutting down the video. (thank god twitch has a feature for viewers to cut out their clips from a stream cause lord knows nagi wouldn’t have done it)

rin would actually edit the clips all by hand, mainly bc he could only trust himself to edit them the way he wants. he can only spend a little time editing tho since he has a pretty busy schedule irl

i can imagine hiori being the most popular one out of the three with how much effort he would put into stuff like self promotion, connecting with his audience, plus him just having an overall nice and likable personality, etc. (also the sight of him and his cute face raging would be pretty fucking funny for his audience to watch)

rin would be the second most popular since he does put plenty of work into making his content at least decent since this is something he does in his free time. plus his channel name would be on twitter trending every now and then because of some iffy ass take he said on stream

nagi would be the least watched out of all of them since despite being pretty damn good at games, he would be pretty boring to watch tbh. he wouldn’t put much time into the self promoting part of it either. that is until he meets reo. when reo finds out about his little streamer side gig, he would totally have him put more effort into it, even if it’s small things like actually announcing stream times since that’s all nagi is willing to do. he kinda becomes nagis de facto manager. before then he just piggybacked on rin’s and hioris clout whenever the trio collabs together

an: ok so i’m gonna stop this post here since i have so many more ideas i want to vomit out but i don’t want this post to be too long so part two coming out shortly.

#★ snail.writes ★#i love these hc vomit posts i should do them more often #don’t mind me just projecting my secret dream of becoming a streamer onto these characters #blue lock #hiori yo #nagi seishiro #rin itoshi #blue lock headcanons #blue lock hcs #wrote this while watching nothing surprisingly

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anyablackwood · 7 months ago

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WIP Questionnaire Tag

Thanks for the tag, @mysticstarlightduck! I'll use Traveling Bards for this, as is the current trend for me.

1. What’s the first part of your WIP that you created?

The outline? That's usually how I start. If you mean of the actual story, then chapter 1. If you mean the concept itself, the characters.

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Best I can find is Passerine by The Oh Hellos (the artists who made Solider, Poet, King). I'd love to find a more comedic/energetic song, though.

3. What are your favorite characters that you made? Why?

Within this story? The MCs, lol. Especially Felix, my beloved son! I'm not gonna lie, the sisters are inspired by some IRL people that I love very much. But even without that, they're just so fun! This is my first "simple"/comedy story, so there's less of a focus on prose or "depth" and more on me just dicking around with these guys, so I'm really having a blast with them. Their characters are the most unhinged I've written so far, though I hope to change that soon.

Felix isn't inspired by an IRL person, but he's kind of shameless wish-fulfillment. Traveling Bards initially began as a parody of a very specific genre of anime, so he's essentially what I wish would happen/what I love to see for characters with his archetype.

For the favorites of all time? Can't choose, honestly. Love all of them!

4. What other pieces of media do you think your fanbase would share?

Memes. Or, I'd hope so. If it ever got adapted, I'd love a compilation video or funny edits. Regardless? Endless shitposts, sprinkled with random and unwarranted brainrot thesis-long thinkpieces on elements of my characters and world-building that I never even considered when writing it that ultimately change the way even I view my characters. I'd love a good Tumblr essay from someone being Totally Normal about one of my funky little guys.

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

Actually writing it! Lmao. For the 3 people that have seen my writing logs, you'd know I had to recently overhaul the entire initial arc as well as the 3 chapters I already wrote! Though I guess plot points would also be part of that struggle.

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

All kinds! Anything from normal animals to classic fantasy ones to ones I personally made up! My favorite out of all of them are the dragons. Because dragons are fucking awesome. My second favorite are the ones I made myself.

One of the first ones I introduce is the "crystal frog" which is this really cute frog that's quite literally translucent- kind of like the glass frog, but even more translucent! And light refracts off of it like a crystal!

7. How do your characters travel/get around?

Carriage/horse most often at first, then eventually via ship, then flying (with magic or on a magic creature). So. Basically anything but a plane or car.

8. What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

Actually writing it! I'm currently only a few chapters in on my first rough draft. My goal is to create the entire rough draft with as few edits as possible and then to go back and revise the whole thing, since that'll be easier for me than trying to make each chapter "perfect" before I move on.

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) You think will draw your audience in?

I guess for those that are more familiar with this genre, it'll be that. Isekais/reincarnation/transmigration/portal fantasy/whatever you want to call it. It's also got found family and friendship (kinda spoiler-y, but there's a sibling adoption involved!). Lots of "be gay, do crime" instances too.

It's also primarily an adventure-comedy, with a kinda parody-angle to it. They're intentionally gunning for these classic Hero Adventure experiences, in a bucket-list kind of way. Also, they're bards (for lack of a more accurate and snappy term) in a fantasy setting. So if you like a heavy emphasis on a sibling bond and ridiculous people getting into ridiculous situations of their own making, I'm hoping this will be appealing!

10. What are your hopes for your WIP?

That it gets finished, LMAO. My goal is to complete the rough draft by the end of summer, so that I can spend fall and winter revising, rewriting, editing, etc. I eventually hope (like most writers) to one day publish it. But let's not get ahead of ourselves! I can't get there if I don't even finish it.

Not sure who to tag, so I'll come back to it later.

#writeblr #tag game #wip questionnaire #traveling bards #to be tagged #wip tag game

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stepswowdsen · 6 months ago

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【Magi】 JuAli x Unfriendly Hater by Meddmia: Rambles 🖤❤️💛

HI GUESS WHO FOUND THE PERFECT JUALI SONG 🖤❤️💛

IT FITS THEM PERFECTLY RIGHT DOWN TO THE LYRICS VIBES AND EXPRESSIONS RAHHHHH

OVER THE MOON ABOUT THIS

I HAVE AMAZING SONG PICKS

Unfriendly Hater (ft. Hatsune Miku & KAFU)

Ok so I was like "Think Sen you can find more JuAli core songs"

I FOUND THE PERFECT SONG

Unfriendly Hater by Meddmia (ft. Hatsune Miku & KAFU)

youtube

I'll show the original MV here.

Unfriendly Hater Fan-cover by abboii (ft. Kagamine Len & Fukase)

youtube

My favourite fan-cover! I think this one fits them perfectly

Unfriendly Hater English Translation by KEL! (With Edits by Violet)

Sen's Ships x Vocaloid & J-Pop Songs

I'll be adding this to my song list for LimGuda, IdaTatsu, XanLena, JuAli, and KuroEne~

My previous Tumblr post:

I made a post about my song picks for my fave ships recently here!

Lyrics

Intro Rambles

I found the cute lighthearted rivalry/competitive song I wanted~~ I also like how there's hints of warmth and companionship throughout the MV that fits them well too

MY BELOVED JUALI WAHHHHHH

Y'ALL I JUST REMEMBERED THE PERFECT JUALI SONG

HOW DID I FORGET ABOUT UNFRIENDLY HATER

PERFECT JUALI CORE SONG

Omfg I want to do a JuAli fan-MV with Unfriendly Hater one day. SO BADLY.

OH MY GOD HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE TO WATCH THE MV IF YOU’RE CURIOUS... LIKE YOU WOULD BE SHOCKED HOW WELL IT FITS.

IT'S PERFECT FOR THEM ACTUALLY RAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Might do a few crossover doodles soon for now

If I was making an MV with them, I wouldn't put it in a modern AU though, I would put it in canon-verse.

This time I'll tag this cuz I do ramble about JuAli and my ideas for them under the cut.

My rambles will be under the cut!

...

GOD THE CHARACTERS' EXPRESSIONS IN THE MV MATCH THEIR EXPRESSION RANGES TOO, HELLO???

This is basically how their canon interactions go! /lh

Even the black haired character's expressions in the MV matches Judar's expression range. Also the pink haired character matches Alibaba's expression range too

Ofc modern AUs are still fun to do on the side but I prefer working with canon-verse AU settings.

Omfg modern AU Judar would totally be a delinquent kid tho

...

I also love Dyalexa's Unfriendly Hater fan-MV with Ruikasa (ProSeka). I'm Polysho 🥰💞 I ship all members of WxS (Wonderlands x Showtime) with each other. Really strong lining style and super fluid MVs. Dyalexa's fan MVs are so well made.

youtube

I was going through my playlist. I love this fan-cover of Unfriendly Hater (ft. Kagamine Len & Fukase) by abboii. Their voices sound so good together. Len and Fukase duets rule. The Yellow and Red themed Vocaloids work well for them

I prefer the fan-covers over the original. The OG is good too, but I think Fukase and Len's voices are much stronger here and have more grit, and fits the tone of the song more. Love the tuning and mixing in this. Great job to abboii

...

F: Oh my god I’m crying why do the MV charas lowkey kinda look like them as well 😭Just change the hair and colours a bit lmao

Me: Right with the black haired spikes and the pink haired charas’ softer round hairstyle???

IT HONESTLY HELPED SOLIDIFY THE JUALI MV THAT I IMAGINED IN MY HEAD BECAUSE OF THAT TOO

Yeah like the black haired chracter fits Judar’s carefree and smug arrogant uncaring personality. And Alibaba totally fits as the more patient character who gets fed up with his antics and chides him for it

...

A: Wooma art 🤤

Me: WOOMA's art style is so expressive omfg

WOOMA is really good at drawing sharp eyes and expressions. Love the way WOOMA draws eyes and teeth. They're so striking and feral looking

JuAli x Unfriendly Hater: Rambles

In terms of how I’d depict this with JuAli

Since I’m not depicting it in a modern AU, I would make the scene with the black haired delinquent running in the hall way instead a scene where Judar flies around on his staff and then, when he lands and gets off his staff, he just carelessly steps on the flowers in the Kou Empire’s gardens (in the same place where Kougyoku and Alibaba would spend time together making flower crowns and tend to the flowers), and Alibaba chides him for stepping on Kougyoku’s flowers

And Judar just sticks his tongue out at him.

Judar: BLEHHH~ (>:P)

Also so interesting as well cuz in the fan-cover, OP makes Fukase (red) sing the black-haired delinquent’s parts, and makes Len (yellow) sing the pink-haired “diligent, earnest” yakuza’s parts

Alibaba is very patient but increasingly gets fed up with Judar’s selfish stuck up personality

Judar lets out an exasperated sigh at Alibaba for chiding/scolding him

Judar: This guy is so persistent, it’s annoying!

In the 1st chorus where the two characters both try to get a leg up on each other, I would depict Judar teasing/poking fun at Alibaba for their height difference and pulling on his ahoge (hair cowlick), like pulling on weeds.

Like I would draw it very similar to the Magi omake where Judar rests his head on Alibaba’s hair while pulling on his hair spike (cowlick). SO CUTE…

Pre-2nd chorus, Alibaba fusses over Judar’s clothes (perhaps Judar’s hanfu is loosely tied so it’s slipping off his shoulders/skin and Alibaba gets flustered. And maybe also the ties around the wrap around skirt are loosely done as well)

Alibaba: Can’t you fix your clothes so that you don’t go walking around like that???

Judar: You didn't have any problems with it before~ Is a certain someone actually getting embarrassed at showing a bit of skin? PFFT—

Alibaba: Shut it!!!

Also I would still draw them in my HC designs where Judar wears traditional Chinese clothing and Alibaba has tan skin and wears traditional Arabic clothing

THIS IS SO WHDHSHSDHSH

JUDAR BEING SO CLOSE AND RESTING HIS FACE ON ALIBABA’S HAIR WHILE PULLING ON HIS HAIR SPIKE IS SO CUTE LMAO. HE HAS NO SENSE OF PERSONAL SPACE WHATSOEVER… WHAT ARE YOU SO CLOSE FOR?

After the 2nd chorus, in the segment where it shows the two characters being childhood friends, I think I would depict a scene of their first meeting, then transition to their meeting on the Dark Continent with Judar and haniwa (clay doll) Alibaba.

Magi: Ch. 45

Magi: Ch. 266

And then pre-3rd chorus, the black haired delinquent character calls the other one "Your highness" sarcastically which honestly fits so well with the two of them.

Pre-3rd chorus, I imagined a scene where Alibaba is so occupied with chasing after Judar that he also accidentally steps on Kougyoku’s flowers, and Judar laughs at him and teases him for breaking his own “rules” and doing the exact same thing that he was scolding him for.

Also I just realized that pre-1st chorus, the pink haired character goes like, "Wait wait, hold on, listen to me! I’m telling you to stop flouting discipline!"

And then pre-3rd chorus, the black haired character repeats the same line, "Wait wait, hold on, listen to me! Have you blown your top or something?"

Repeating the same line -> Remembers his words from before and uses it teasingly

Judar laughing and snickering at Alibaba teasingly is so cute...

And Alibaba chases after Judar in good fun. Teehee 🥰💞

This song is so cute cuz despite the bickering it still shows the characters having a sense of warmth and companionship, with them smiling as they argue, which I think fits them well...

Magi: Volume 20 - JuAli Omake

For context:

Me: HAVE Y'ALL SEEN THIS LIKE WDHSHDSH

(Not my photos)

I'd have to go look at the JP scans later for the full image

WAIT THIS VOL. 20 JUALI OMAKE IS SO CUTE WAHHHH

C: Dysfunctional husbands

Me: MY JUALI CRUMBS

Also Sinbad at the end lmfao 😭

I always headcanoned that Judar would play with Alibaba's hair spike tbh... I imagined he'd have fun twirling it but him pulling on it totally makes sense for him too

C: And now. It is canon.

Ahh I see!

Me: Also Judar this mf has no idea of the concept of personal space

This guy has no idea what personal space is

HE'S SO CLOSE FOR NO REASON SKKSKSKK

HE’S LITERALLY LYING HIS HEAD ON HIS HAIR

C: HE IS A CAT

Hakuryu literally giving handling instructions of Judar

C: HHHH

R: Yunan 😭

Me: GHHGHGH YUNAN'S DIALOGUE CRYING

Me: Judar using Alibaba as a shield crying lmaoooo

And him pulling on his hair spike like pulling on weeds 😭

And him probably lifting it higher intentionally. THIS GUY

Judar going like “I have to get the idiot?” KSKSKSKSK

C: HHHH

C: All of this valid

The entire crew seems to get along great and have such fun interactions tbh lol

Me: Also yeah! They're all very fun and endearing and cute

Me: Actually, in the JP version, it seems more like he's saying that getting the “idiot king” (バカ殿, baka tono) would've been good, referring to Sinbad.

(Fixed up the TL, first one is more liberal and second is more literal)

Judar: It would've been better if I got the idiot king—

Judar: Getting the idiot king would’ve been good—

ジュダル：ばかとのがいいーーっ

(Judaru: Baka tono ga ii——)

C: OMG YEAH. DYSFUNCTIONAL HUSBANDS...

Me: Judar pulling on Alibaba's hair spike is just like pulling weeds out of the grass :)

Threateningly (/lh) but most likely playfully!

C: LMAO

Me: LMFAO YEAH JUDAR IS A CAT.

Hakuryuu literally giving Alibaba instructions on how to handle Judar 😭

C: Cat care sheet

Me: JuAli crumbs... Judar what are you so close for!

C: He just latches onto him

Me:

Judar: (—> Not sorry in the slightest)

C: YEAH LOL

Me: LMAOOO YEAH. Cat cot up in your personal space with no sense of the idea of personal space

(Magi: Ch. 266)

Me: I remember I was scrolling the JuAli tag on Twt and I saw a JP fan who talked about how they liked that "JuAli are so incompatible (in terms of their personalities) that they're drawn to each other."

Though, I feel like that's more HoroRen (SK) than JuAli. Cuz I think they're very compatible with each other. Rather than that, I see it more like… That they’re prone to clash, but their personalities mesh very well together.

As Lumen said, I love this panel sm cuz it’s always AliHaku, and Aladdin and Judar, who are put against each other in terms of the narrative, but Ch. 266’s panel shows that JuAli and Aladdin and Hakuryuu are the true opposites in terms of their personalities and motives/goals/ideals.

And I agree! That’s what's what causes them (JuAli) to clash sm, but also draws them to each other (re: Judar's inner curiosity towards Alibaba on the Dark Continent)

I also really love this panel cuz it shows that Judar recognizes that Alibaba has qualities that draw others to him, but just can't seem to understand why. Jaqui said that shows an inner curiosity and desire to know more. Which I agree with.

Me: Sinbad at the end help 😭😂

R: I'm Sinbad

Me: Also I'm confused af because Lumen said there are volume omakes at the end but I haven't seen them at all for the fan-TL on MD (MangaDex)

C: Valid!!

C: Cursed! Could be the MangaDex ones are scanned from the magazine releases of invidual chapters?

Me: I think MD has the EN fan-TL (magazine release) while Bato has the official TL by Viz (volume versions) that includes the omakes

Yeah I think the omakes are additional supplement papers (which are usually released with volumes)

C: CURSED

Me: I think people on Tunglr compiled them though, so most of them are fan-translated. So they're at least easy to find, but HHH.

I forgot who translated this one though… I swear I saved it off Tumblr?

Iirc @/youdontknowthings and @/arashidono fan-translated most Magi omakes. But I'll have to check again and read them all after

C: Aaaa I seee

...

Me: Ok so I just tried looking for the Magi: Vol. 20 - Nininbaori Tournament Omake and it's not in Vol. 20's extras??? Like I just checked right now.

So it must've come as an exclusive paper with Shounen Sunday Shop's Vol. 20 release in physical stores in Japan

DAWGGG WHY WASN'T IT INCLUDED IN THE VOLUME VERSION??? NOW I HAVE TO HUNT FOR IT MYSELF SO THAT I CAN GET MY HANDS ON IT

Ok let's see what I can do about this... I want that JuAli in HD and not in super low quality, so I just searched secondhand stores reselling it and bought it rn.

I'm waiting for it to get confirmed so it can get sent to me. Hope I can get my hands on it 🙏

I really want to get it so that I can scan it in HD. If it's JuAli related I MUST have my hands on it.

I've already collected a bunch of JuAli's old doujinshi from EA/JP creators back then.

#magi #magi: the labyrinth of magic #judar #alibaba #alibaba saluja #judar x alibaba #juali #aliju #alibaba x judar #judaali #judali #judar magi #judal magi #judal #sen's rambles #vocaloid parody #vocaloid crossover

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grimgrinninggoth · 2 months ago

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I LOVE DOING THESE SORTS OF THINGS OH MY GOLLY :3

Here r my answers :>

•Vincent Vaude was my first LDD but I did get Lamenta in the same week as him. I got them about a year and a half ago.

•I found out about them from scrolling on eBay. I was trying to collect BeGoth dolls at the time but I came accross a living dead doll and thought that they were so much cuter as well as cheaper.

•I have two favorites because i genuinely can’t choose. Ernest Lee rotten is my favorite boy and Morgana is my favorite girl. I display them together on my special spider shelf.

• My dream doll was Morgana for a long time, but now that I have her it’s probably Gregory from series 14. He was released around when I was born and we have the same name.

• the lost. She was sealed in box and was like 120 I’m p sure.

• Larmés de Sang. She was 10 dollars and in rlly great condition

•probably Angus Littlrot. He’s so cute. I actually got him because I ship him with another doll that I have, but he’s very adorable on his own.

•I hate Tina pink actually. Her design is so plain and I just don’t like it at all. Something just looks really off about her face too. And mine’s hair falls out every time I move her, so I prefer to not touch her.

• I do own quite a few rare ones. Morgana, the lost, and greed have rlly shot up in price. They were my most expensive dolls.

•ooooohhhhhh I actually have quite a few ships for the LDDs. A few of them are

Hook x Unwilling donor

Morgana x Ernest Lee Rotten

Sadie x Sin

Gluttony x Lust

The Lost x Angus Littlrot

Rose x Violet

Evangeline x Vincent Vaude

And prob a lot more these r just the ones I remember lols

• I personally display them out of box because if I’m gonna have them, then I need to pick them up and play with them.

• honest, I don’t really care about wether or not the doll comes with the box. However, if they don’t have all of their accessories then it’s a dealbreaker.

• all of my dolls are in really good condition. I usually only buy them if they’re in decent shape.

•I currently own 10. 7 girls, 3 boys.

• I think the ‘presents’ dolls are really hit or miss for me. I just really think that they need to start making the series again, and not just putting out these.

• I have quite a few that id wanna see.

Phantom/Erik and Christine Daee

Candyman

Dr. Franknfurter

A set of hitchhiking ghosts

Jekyll and Hyde

Emily and Victor

• I think they look kind of weird. I’m not really a fan of the big heads and glass eyes. Also might be a bit of a hot take but they’re lowkey overpriced too.

• I’d really like to see Morgana and Greed get resurrections. I think they should start making those again.

• I don’t like Dee K. I think that she looks like this emoji 🤓☝️. I don’t like that ugly little scarecrow whose name i forgot either.

•No. But I really want to. Every time I go to the thrift I have my eyes peeled for them.

•Angus, Wolfgang, Evangeline, Ernest, and Vincent are my underrated babies who I love so much. I think that they deserve more attention, cus I barely see people talk about them. I also think maggot is really really overrated. Like she’s cute I guess, but no damn way I’m paying 300 dollars for her.

•I’m excellent at remembering names. Especially of the ones that I have.

•yes! I do make lore for them. When I do I usually try to expand their already existing lore, and connect it with other dolls.

• yes, I do take pics of them.

•my sister really likes them, and so do most of my friends. My mom says that they’re ’creepily adorable’. I do have a friend that is scared if them though.

•I brought Angus and The Lost on vacation with me once and I took them out in the airport.

•about a year and a half

•they are the main dolls i collect. I do have a few funko pops and a monster high. I collect mostly living dead dolls and haunted mansion memorabilia.

•just a few days ago. Morgana is the most recent edition to my collection.

•no not really. I just get the ones I like.

• if I had the power to change anything about LDDs, it’d have to be the existence of the doll Dahlia. She’s based off the infamous Black Dahlia case, I I think that it’s just really fucked up and not ok how an actual real life human who was murdered got turned into a Knick Knack.

•yes I am alternative, goth to be specific

I’m bored so here’s a list of questions for Living Dead Dolls collectors bc there’s not too much LDD content on here 🥲 (you don’t have to answer all of these!! Just answer whatever you want!)

————————————————————————

•First Living Dead Doll?

•How did you first learn of LDDS?

•Favorite LDD you own?

•Your dream LDD?

•Which LDD did you pay the most for?

•Which LDD did you pay the least for?

•Is there a doll you ended up liking a lot more than you initially thought you would?

•Is there a LDD you regret getting?

•Do you own a rare LDD or one that has shot up in price?

•Do you pair up any dolls in your mind? (Shipping or otherwise)

•Do you display them in box or out of box?

•If you buy them second hand do they have to come with the box, death certificate, and accessories? Or are you fine with just the doll?

•Own any in bad condition? Have any that came second hand that you had to fix up?

•How many LDDs do you own?

•Opinion on the ‘Presents’ dolls?

•Do you have any characters you’d like to see as a LDD one day?

•Opinion on the new LDDS that can bend their arms and legs?

•Which doll(s) would you like to see get a resurrection?

•Least favorite LDD you’ve seen?

•Have you seen LDDs for sale irl?

•Is there a doll that is generally unpopular that you love? Is there a popular doll you don’t get the hype for?

•Are you good at remembering their names without looking at the chipboards/etc?

•Do you make up lore for them? Or do you not think of that kinda stuff/are fine with their poems being their only ‘lore’?

•Do you take pictures of them?

•What do the people around you irl think of them?

•Have you ever taken one or more with you in public?

•How long have you been in the fandom?

•What other dolls do you collect along with them?

•When did you last buy a LDD?

•Do you notice any common themes in the LDDS you collect? (For example maybe you collect mostly the boy dolls or ones that are more on the goth side)

•Is there anything you’d change about LDDS if you could? Is there anything you wish the people behind LDDS would do differently?

•Do you urself dress alternatively? (Asking this because LDDs tend to attract the goth crowd 🦇)

#living dead dolls #TGIS WAS SO MUH FUN :D #doll collector

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tokkiheart · 2 years ago

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My Comfort Drama List

I think I just really enjoy making lists right now lol

Anyway, I’m currently in pain thanks to period cramps, so I decided now is the time to make and share a list of my personal go-to comfort K-dramas. You’ll notice some intersectionality between it and my previous list of favorite shows that I like to return to.

Shopping King Louie (aka Shopaholic Louis)

Coming in as a surprise to no one (literally no one because no one follows me right now lol) is this super cute fluffy rom-com drama. This drama is just absolutely hilarious and because the closest things to “villains/bad guys/antagonists” in this show are so inept/bad, it’s really makes the show’s tenser moments kind of low-stakes, but in a good way. I never found myself really worried for long.

Louis and Bok-shil just have the cutest most wholesome relationship, Louis is such an adorably loyal and protective puppy of a guy and Bok-shil is honestly a saint for taking care of his amnesiac self even though it was extremely difficult and trying for her. This show is a trope-fest filled with some of my favorite tropes, it’s also hilarious and never fails to bring a smile to my face.

Overall, just a great drama to watch! I will never stop recommending this show to anyone who will listen to me lol

W: Two Worlds Apart (aka just “W”)

Another show that will come as a surprise to no one. This is a comfort show for me, I don’t know if it is for anyone else.

I find that I run to this drama a lot, I don’t know why. I love the premise of this show and it’s pretty “whumpy” (I may be using that term incorrectly, one of my best friends just recently introduced me to it), I love how whenever Oh Yeon Joo thinks (or knows) that Kang Cheol is hurt or about to be killed, she runs to save him. I love re-watching the whole show, but sometimes I just want to re-watch my favorite episodes just for the cute romantic fluff moments between them.

As someone who happens to be a fan of Lee Jong-suk, this drama also gives me great eye candy. I dunno what it is about that all-denim outfit (among other outfits), but boy does it do things to my heart lol Between it and his winks, nose scrunches and smile, I’m sold every time lol

Sometimes, a comfort show for me is also just a show where I get to look at the eye candy and that’s okay.

My Roommate Is A Gumiho

This K-Drama is one that I consider a comfort drama because I like to watch it on days like today. To be clear, it’s not the only reason that I watch it, it’s just one of the reasons. It’s the only K-Drama that I’ve encountered so far that has a scene where the female lead is on her period and the male lead takes care of her. What can I say? I’m weak for that.

In general though, this show has some nice hurt-comfort scenes that just make me soft which are built-in just due to the female lead having the male lead’s fox bead/marble. This show is also quite hilarious and enjoyable to watch. I enjoy turning my brain off and just enjoying the hilariously fun ride of this drama.

My Strange Hero

Honestly, I first decided to watch this because I saw scenes from it in a multi-K-Drama edit set to the song “Adore You” by Harry Styles that I came across on YouTube. I definitely don’t regret it!

The romance in this is really cute and sweet, there’s some great fluff! This show also has some wonderful comedy mixed in amidst the fluff, heartwarming moments, trying parts, etc.

As someone who is going to school to become a teacher, I found this drama to have a wholesome teacher-class dynamic. I’m trash for the trope of a kind, caring teacher who works really hard to help a struggling class or student do better (my love for the anime Assassination Classroom is additional proof of this). Additionally, I love the plot of taking down/dismantling/fixing a corrupt school and faculty.

Why is this on my comfort list? Well, sometimes I like being reminded of why I want to be a teacher and watching something heartwarming and inspiring like this helps to remind me when I’m not actively working with children lol

Romance Is A Bonus Book

Lee Jong-suk is back on this list with another drama, partially for eye candy reasons, but mainly because I adore this cozy drama lol I could potentially ctrl+v what I said in one of my other lists, but I’m very specifically going to talk about why it’s on this list.

This show has some of my favorite tropes for a comfort drama and it also talks about books the process behind them being made. As someone who loves reading and who used to turn to books as a way to escape many things (including my ADHD) as a child, I found this drama also having to do with books brings a sense of nostalgia and comfort to me.

Aside from that, I adore the relationship between the main lead (Eun-ho and Dan-i). I loved how kind and supportive Eun-ho was and how he just cheered on Dan-i, worried about her and wanted to help her. I found the show to be quite wholesome despite it being quite different from my usual go-to dramas.

As I have said before, this drama leaves me with a very specific vibe that’s akin to cozying up with a good book while wrapped in a blanket with a warm drink set to the side. It’s just…a warm and cute drama with plenty of romantic fluff ❤️

Extra-Ordinary You

This K-Drama is a another drama that I really enjoy watching when I'm feeling a bit low. This is the drama that introduced me to Rowoon and, by extension, SF9. This drama is cute, funny and the premise is really interesting. I don’t watch too many school dramas, but I’d definitely watch more if they were like this show!

I love the author slander in this show, I will never stop loving how the self-aware characters talk about how the author is a bad author and I find myself roped in all the time. I find myself also wanting to make jabs at the author too, especially since the author gives off “never actually went to high school” vibes lol

Anyway, I just adore the leads Ha-ru and Dan-oh. They’re super cute and I just love the romantic fluff between them.

I think the only drawback of this drama is how much I hate Dan-oh’s pre-determined-by-author romantic interest, he’s a verbally abusive piece of trash.

Anyway, Rowoon as Ha-ru does a great job of being just a cute boy and making my heart flutter along with Dan-oh’s.

Doom At Your Service

Try as I might, this drama is just forever going to pop up on my lists even though I fully admit that the 1/2 of this drama that deals with the female lead’s best friend’s love triangle is completely skip-able.

Like W and Romance Is A Bonus Book, this drama is also partially guilty of being on this list for eye candy purposes because Seo In-guk is another of my biases. Again, I’m going to keep my stance that sometimes a comfort drama is a comfort drama because of the eye candy.

I adore this drama and consider it a comfort drama. The leads did such a good job with what they were given and really any scene is made better by them being there in my opinion. I’m really just trash for hurt-comfort where just a “simple touch” can help the person in pain. I didn’t know hand holding could make me so soft. ❤️

Splash Splash Love

This drama is really good for a quick lil pick-me-up. It’s only about 2 hours long and well worth the time spent to watch! Admittedly, one reason that this drama is on my list is because it also happens to have another one of my biases, Ahn Hyo-seop, in it.

You hate math like me? Great! You’ll find a kindred spirit in the female lead of this drama. She gets transported back in time to the Joseon era after jumping into a puddle on a rainy day. While there, she has to pretend to be a eunuch mathematician in order to survive.

This drama is cute, funny, and has romantic fluff for any fluff lover!

Some Honorable Mentions:

Basically, K-Dramas that would probably be comfort shows but I haven’t re-watched them quite as many times as the ones on this list (yet).

Business Proposal

While You Were Sleeping

Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo

Extraordinary Attorney Woo

#eye candy is good for the soul #sometimes you just need to look at your biases #kdramas #kdrama #my comfort shows #w two worlds #shopping king louie #shopaholic louis #romance is a bonus book #extra-ordinary you #extraordinary you #my roommate is a gumiho #my strange hero #doom at your service #splash splash love

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sixstepsaway · 3 years ago

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okay but mary and izzy parallels? i have a hunch about how they're supposed to -- well, be parallels. but no one's talking about it. thoughts? - ripple

hi ripple!! hope you're doing well!

There has been discussion of Mary/Izzy parallels but I haven't found a lot of meta about it. If you'd like to really be agonized, check out this gifset. Izzy and Ed with Mary's quotes over them. Mm. Pain.

But, as for my own thoughts on this:

Izzy and Mary are deeply paralleled throughout the show, both narratively (similar journeys) and contextually (the way the show is edited).

The first time this is really shown, as far as I can tell, is in 1x04. Stede is dreaming of Mary, remembering his highly failed marriage. He's dreaming of when he showed her the model ship of the Revenge, how passionate he was about it, how much he loved the idea of going away to sea. Mary's response is... not great, as she doesn't like the ocean and doesn't hate their lives, at least not as much as Stede does.

She doesn't get it.

The show immediately swaps to Ed rummaging through the Revenge while Izzy trails around after him trying to get him to focus on their lives. Ed produces the model ship and gushes about how cute it is.

Izzy doesn't get it.

The model ship is purposefully used to draw the two scenes together, to show Stede and Ed in their respective relationships (Stede with his rapidly failing and then abandoned marriage, Ed with his rapidly degenerating and soon to be abandoned work marriage (see: Izzy leaving in 1x06 and Ed leaving in 1x09)).

It's a fascinating parallel that I especially enjoy because Ed and Izzy aren't, in canon right now at least, in a sexual or romantic relationship, nor do we think right now they've ever been (I doubt they've ever been, truly. I don't think that's in their past at all), so the framing of Stede's marriage (lacking love and affection) against Izzy and Ed's platonic* relationship (full of love and affection but it's diminishing faster and faster every day) is gorgeous, because it shows that relationships aren't always the standard Person A + Person B in love and married and then they fell out of it and it was Bad because of that.

(*Yes, David Jenkins says Izzy is in love with Ed, and we all agree with him, but for the sake of the framing, the fact they're not doing anything with those feelings makes the relationship itself platonic)

I find in a lot of media, relationships are shown only as participating in the relationship escalator and no other relationships "count", and queer relationships are pushed into that same relationship escalator because enforcing heteronormativity even on queer relationships is essential (blah blah purity culture blah blah making being queer palatable to corporations blah blah sanitizing the queer movement blah blah)

(I remember when Chicago Fire did a storyline where Severide lost his best friend (who I'm pretty sure he was in love with, but she was a lesbian, and i digress) to an accident that took her life and he was absolutely destroyed by it. He ran off for a weekend in Vegas, where he met a woman who had recently lost her husband suddenly. They got drunk, got married, and he brought her home as his new wife and everyone flipped out because it seemed so stupid and she was surely not good and was playing him for a fool or something.

But in the end, they were married for a few months, never in love, but their brief relationship helped them both heal and they ended up going their separate ways. And I loved that, because not all break-ups or divorces have to be "failures", and not all relationships have to march up the endless escalator.)

It's nice to see a relationship posed in a way that isn't just the escalator and isn't just "oh yeah we dated once" or whatever. This is beside the point though lmao.

The contextual framing continues when Ed returns to the Revenge as well. Stede goes back to Mary, Ed goes back to Izzy. They go back to the familiar, the safe, and they're not greeted the way they'd like.

Mary makes sure Stede knows he's unwelcome now, though it's not because he's changed (although he has: drinking, attacking Doug etc) so much as that he left a gap and she filled it with someone else (someone better, in fact, for her, someone who can give her what she wants and needs and love her) in his absence (as she should).

Izzy meanwhile welcomes Ed back with open arms, but can't cope with his changes. Ed is softer, more vulnerable and open, and maybe if that had been how he was when they first met, that might have been okay. Izzy might have wormed his way into that vulnerability and made a nest there, a safe place for himself and a bit of armor for Ed, but as it stands right now he can't do that, because he doesn't know how and nor does Ed, and so instead he wants Ed to go back to how things were in the past.

But you can never go home again, can you?

That's sort of the base message of 1x10 imo: you can never go home again. Stede can't pursue his life of piracy and expect his family to welcome him home with open arms, and Ed can't soften up and abandon his life of piracy and expect Izzy to just adapt overnight and accept that new version of him.

(And it's unreasonable of either of them to expect those things from the other person. Izzy didn't sign up for a life with soft-n-squishy Ed, and Mary didn't sign up to be the woman waiting at port for her wayward husband to come home whenever he chooses.)

Narratively, Mary and Izzy are mirrored throughout the first season, primarily with Izzy and Mary being fully committed to the lives they've signed up for. Mary may be unhappy, but she tells Stede as much: she doesn't hate their lives, not enough to yeet them into the abyss, but they're the only lives they're going to get and this is their lot, so shouldn't they make the best of it?

Izzy might be struggling too, but he clings to Ed like a lifeline at all times, refusing to budge even when Ed's mental state gets so rickety he puts everyone around him in danger.

The difference is that when Stede leaves Mary, she flourishes. She finds someone better for her, she takes up painting, she loves her children without hesitation, she makes friends and extends her social circle. When Izzy is forced to leave Ed, he stagnates and his entire focus is on getting Ed back and keeping that promise he made, even if Ed doesn't want it kept anymore.

Mary and Izzy are on the same path, but Mary is miles ahead of him. Since I don't think we'll get Steddyhands or Blackhands in canon, I hope Izzy gets to reach the end of the path like Mary did, with someone who loves and deserves him, and a social circle that supports him.

Then, you have the main issue with Ed and Stede: lack of real communication, and massive failure whenever they try.

Stede tried when he told Mary he wanted to run away to sea, but she shot him down (fairly so, in my eyes), and so he never tried again.

Ed tries when he tells Izzy how bored he is, but Izzy is focused on the fact Ed's boredom is going to get them killed (fairly so, again), so Ed doesn't talk to him about how he's feeling about Stede in relation to that boredom.

Both of them talk around what they're actually feeling and considering doing, neither of them really talk about the problem and try to find a solution they just wildly yank the other person around like a dog with a toy, because they've always been there, so won't they continue to always be there?

I read Stede as having had a certain level of reliance on Mary. I believe they could be really good friends now their marriage is over, though I don't think they were before lmao. But the way wives were expected to act and be treated in 1717 implies she was likely doing most of the household work, raising the children etc. We don't ever see any servants I don't think, even in the background of the current day scenes in 1x10, and that makes me think Mary does most of it.

Which explains a lot about why Stede is a fucking mess when he first breaks free of that life and it reframes how he is as honestly how well he adapts and changes to fit in his new life! Assuming we go by Ed's, "these last few weeks" and assume the show to be about 10 weeks because of the season length (which I hate, thanks), he managed to stop being a complete mess in about five weeks and that's damn impressive. Kudos and cookies to Stede Bonnet.

I read Stede as autistic with some social deficits, which is why he's so... blunt, I suppose? It's also why he takes everyone around him at face value (if they say something is a way, he believes them, no matter whether they might be lying). I can imagine that during his marriage, Mary - who I do not read as autistic - was the one gingerly keeping him from being scammed or robbed or overtly lied to by people around him, and now he doesn't have her so he just has to learn for himself! And he does really well actually at that.

See also: him believing Pete about his prior time serving under Blackbeard. I too believe Pete, but let's not act like his stories don't sound like utter fabrications. Stede just... believing him, that Blackbeard has a head made of smoke and his eyes glow and that Pete served under him and was dubbed Black Pete for serving so well.

(Also, I know there's a running fandom joke about Pete calling himself Black Pete considering he's pasty white, but you've all realized it's a direct reference to Blackbeard right? He's saying Ed gave him the moniker of Black to echo his own!)

Meanwhile, as we've said before, Izzy has been shackled with being Ed's SSRIs, adderall and bullet journal for god knows how long, frankly, and without him Ed... does struggle. We don't see a lot of it because he has the Revenge crew filling the blanks and his fixation on Stede is also keeping him from sinking back into depression, but it's definitely there. He's supposedly acting as a co-captain in 1x07, but they run out of oranges. Calico Jack shows up and he just attaches to him like a barnacle and doesn't track that maybe he's being insensitive. It takes Lucius giving him a stern talking to twice for him to figure his shit out, and that's without any real dire consequences going on around him.

He also jumps right to running away to China which is objectively not a great plan for him or Stede, and Izzy absolutely would have said, "The fuck? You don't even speak Mandarin, Edward." to it.

He does okay without Izzy, likely because he's had more practice, but he definitely misses something that he's been reliant on Izzy for: a steadying hand and someone who spots the details he misses (like not knowing Mandarin and it being a leap year).

But whereas Mary gets loose of those shackles, Izzy desperately tries to get back into them because he doesn't know how to function without Edward and, frankly, Edward doesn't know how to function without Izzy either, not now his dopamine fix has run away.

When Mary tries to kill Stede when he comes back and ruins her life, Stede and Mary instead come up with a plan together to fix things, to set both of them free. They communicate, which allows them to work together, in a rather perfect harmony actually, and understand each other's needs and learn to care for one another outside of the shackles.

When Izzy tries to 'kill' this new version of Edward that's ruining his life (literally trying to un-pirate them all), Ed strikes out in return. Instead of working together, they break apart and fracture, two forces with differing needs that can't find a middle ground because the communication has broken down.

Like I say: Izzy and Mary are on the same road, but Mary is far further down than Izzy is.

The parallels truly kill me but they also give me some hope for the future when it comes to Izzy.

Currently Mary is 'best case scenario' and Izzy is 'oh my god what the fuck WORST CASE WORST CASE??? PUT THE SCISSORS DOWN EDWARD' but hey, maybe we can get there!

#ripple anon #ask #honestly i feel like i'm missing a lot of parallels #i need to rewatch again #izzy hands #mary allamby bonnet #stede bonnet #izzy hands meta #stede bonnet meta #mary allamby bonnet meta #edward teach #edward teach meta #ofmd #ofmd meta #our flag means death

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eunnieboo · 4 years ago

Text

XP-PEN Artist 12 Pro Review!

hello! XP-PEN was kind enough to send me their Artist 12 Pro: LINE FRIENDS Edition for an honest review. i currently use a Wacom Cintiq 13HD, but i’m always interested in affordable alternatives, so i wanted to check it out!

in this review, i will be comparing the Artist 12 Pro to the tablet that i have - keep in mind it is an older version of the Cintiq 13HD, so i’m not sure what they’ve changed recently. but because Wacom is pretty consistent in terms of tablet quality, i believe this is a fair comparison.

so right out of the box, there’s a lot of fun, cute accessories that come with this particular collab. part of this tablet’s selling point is its portability, and i can definitely see why! it feels very light and slim (note: this is a display tablet, like the Cintiq 13HD, so it must be connected to a computer). i was also pleasantly surprised to see all the different adapters it came with!

the pen comes with eight additional nib replacements - my Cintiq originally came with five. i personally have a very light touch, so i’ve never had to replace my nibs before, but i think having extra is helpful for those who have a heavy hand. the portable stand also has one level compared to the Cintiq’s three, but i found the angle just fine.

this might be a personal preference, but i really appreciate how the cable plugs into the Artist 12 Pro. it’s something i wish i could change about my Cintiq - one wrong nudge will send my tablet screen flickering to black before booting up again.

i also love the 3-in-1 cable that the Artist Pro has, because it cuts down on the multiple cords i have running under my desk.

this tablet comes with eight buttons and a scroll wheel on the side. some people prefer using their keyboard, but i like using express keys because i don’t have to move my hand from the tablet at all. so this was a point in its favor for me! these are my shortcuts, for those who are curious:

the driver set-up and installation also went smoothly. i first tested the tablet on a MacBook Air before switching over to a desktop PC, so i got to experience the set-up on both MacOS and Windows. in my opinion, it's easier on a Windows device. it feels a lot more straightforward. while i was also able to successfully install the tablet driver on MacOS, it required a little more tinkering and some additional steps. i wouldn’t consider this enough to dissuade Mac users, i just personally enjoyed my experience on the PC more!

(full disclosure: i had some screen troubles when the tablet was connected to my MacBook, but this was because i had to hook it up via an adapter of my own. i didn’t want to pay $70 for the official Apple product so i got a cheaper one, which ended up being a clown move LOL :’) once i removed the adapter and connected the tablet to a PC, i no longer had any of these problems. just something to look out for if you’re considering using any usb-c adapters!)

now for the most important part: drawing on the tablet! first off, the laminated screen feels very nice. i personally dislike drawing on slippery glass screens (this is part of the reason why i struggle to draw on iPads without a textured screen protector), so the matte, non-glare finish is really satisfying. the active draw space is slightly smaller than my Cintiq (10.09″ x 5.67″ vs 11.75″ x 6.75″), but i personally like small to medium screens so that didn’t bother me.

i do believe the Cintiq 13HD is more precise when it comes to pen sensitivity and responsiveness - however, i feel like the Artist 12 Pro holds its own very well. i’ve been using my Cintiq for years, so i’m very used to how it feels. despite working on an unfamiliar tablet, i was able to sketch, ink, and color quite comfortably on the Artist Pro. while i noticed slight differences in pen precision, it simply resulted in me redoing some lines now and then, and that ended up being my only complaint. the colors looked just as vivid as they did on my Cintiq, and i was able to adjust the pressure settings in order to compensate for my light pen strokes.

in terms of cost effectiveness, my Cintiq 13HD was $700, while the Artist 12 Pro is $300. although the Cintiq moderately outperforms the Artist Pro in pen sensitivity, whether or not that warrants its price tag is up for debate. ultimately, it’s up to the individual to decide what’s more important to them: performance or value. you could go for a tablet that’s affordable, but has some room for improvement, or a tablet that performs slightly better, but is considerably more pricey.

though the Cintiq is twice as expensive, i wouldn’t consider it twice as good. but again, it really comes down to what’s most important for your workflow, and what guarantees you get your money’s worth. i’ve found that huge ranges of pen sensitivity or pen tilt are totally unnecessary for my art, but for some, that may be a deal breaker. personally, i was able to use both tablets well, and neither impeded my ability to draw.

my final verdict: if you are a hobbyist, looking to upgrade to a screen tablet, or trying to get into digital art, the Artist 12 Pro is definitely an option to consider! i think it’s a really solid display tablet, especially for its price point. though i can only speak for myself, my experience with the Artist Pro has been a positive one! XP-PEN seems to be a strong competitor for Wacom and its products, and i’m very eager to see how they grow from here.

⭐️ XP-PEN Official Website ⭐️ 🌱 Artist 12 Pro LINE FRIENDS Edition 🌱

#xp-pen #line friends #tablet review

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thetaekookcloset · 2 years ago

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The thing with Jennie and Taehyung is that the latest pics may not be real but the Jeju Island ordeal seems to be likely.

- Even before that car pic was release, there were some people mentioning sightings of them together . Then the flight attendant episode. So, it’s possible there are two different things happening. Tae and Jennie may be dating and were together in Jeju Island.

- Someone decided to blow up the rumor by editing pics.

I agree that Taekook as love story is way more enticing and beautiful as all love stories that involve ‘forbidden’ and ‘us against the world’ kind of relationship. People feel good thinking they are supporting a star crossed love story and I think the appeal of Taekook has a lot to do with this.

On the other side, although Tae and Jennie are obviously cute and seems to fit the story that most people expect ‘Popular Prince meets Popular Princess’ , it is really the most predictable, cliche kind of romance that happens in this business. I don’t even understand how people talk about this rumor as ‘dating scandal’ as there is nothing scandalous about a hetero, single, equally rich and popular pair dating. If he was a bad boy, maybe it would be something more exciting but this is really the most ‘Ken and Barbie’ kind of matching that people could expect.

That being said, that is exactly what could be happening. I understand the disappointment and sense of loss people may have after believing they were supporting something for 9 years that turns out to be something else ( a very beautiful friendship). I think there is also some hurt pride, especially because other shippers will certainly use the opportunity to glee over Taekook proven wrong …. But a reminder that this would be all that it is… a wrong opinion of the kind of relationship they had.

Taehyung still will be happy, Jungkook still be happy. Maybe it would be even better to finally find out Taekook as romance doesn’t exist because it means then that there were never suffering the pain that involves a secret relationship. If Taekook was real, it means 9 years of pretending, hiding, watching other ships be pushed to hide, constant fear of being found out, maybe lies to family and friends …. If Taekook as romance was never a thing, there is some kind of relief that comes with it. Relief that they didn’t really had to go through all this.

I wish Taekook fandom prepare themselves for the real possibility that Tae and Jennie were a thing and maybe this perspective would help. Being in a gay relationship in SK for 9 years means a lot of pain for them. If Taekook romance was never there, then we must rejoice that it means that at least these obstacles also never existed for them as well.

Most important: even if not romance, Taehyung and Jungkook have one of the most beautiful and close bonds in BTS.

I do agree with a lot of what you’re saying and I think it’s a good perspective to share. I also think the Jeju Island stuff was likely separate from the photo drama we’ve gotten recently, though to be honest I still don’t think it’s likely that Tae and Jennie were there together.

It didn’t sound like the timeline made sense for them to be there at the same time, why would they be flying on a budget airline, and I think the car photo was probably genuinely just different people who happened to look a bit like them, because honestly I don’t think either person in the car looks exactly like Tae or Jennie.

Plus, from what I understand, that photo came out because someone saw the two people in the car, took a couple photos, and then sent them to a big kpop fan account on Instagram, which shared the photo and then deleted it pretty quickly because people really thought it was Tae and Jennie but there was no proof. I think someone just saw a couple people who they thought looked like Tae and Jennie and the photo got shared around a lot, but for me, I have doubts that it was actually them.

Beyond all of that though, I agree that there’s always the chance that Tae or JK could be dating anyone else, or no one. Whether they’re in a romantic relationship with each other or not, they still have this same beautiful bond that we’ve all picked up on and enjoy. If it turns out that we’re wrong about the nature of that bond, like you said, in the end it’s just an incorrect interpretation, a wrong opinion, and it’s not the end of the world.

Taehyung and Jungkook will still go on living whatever lives they have lived all along, and they’ll go on having the same beautiful relationship that we’ve seen. I’ve actually been thinking about making a post about why I wouldn’t be bothered to find out that they’re “just” friends, to talk about a lot of these same things, because even if there’s no romance to their relationship, there’s still so much adoration and sweetness, which is lovely to see in a friendship.

Finally, while it’s true that I would never wish suffering or pain on anyone, especially because of who they fall in love with or feel attracted to, and I would be glad to know that Taehyung and Jungkook didn’t go through that sort of pain, I also can’t bring myself to say that it would be a relief to know that they were never together for that reason, because that would make me feel like I’m saying the pain of being queer isn’t worth the beauty of it, and that’s not something I can do.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, anon! I think you’ve got a good way of thinking about this and I’m glad to have your perspective here for people to read.

#ask #taekook #kookv

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bestiesenpai · 4 years ago

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youtuber Sukuna

I beg you to read the shitposts I made about this, they are delicious. You don’t have to of course but...if you loved me you would :) s/n = screen name, and I hope you chuckle at Sukunas screen name

Content warning: uhmhm lowkey incel shit(mean internet comments and whatnot)

part two --- part 3

Name: Sukuna. Age: 25. Height: 6 foot 5 inches. Occupation: toxic Youtuber, fitness trainer and hot guy.

Sukuna wasn’t exactly known for being kind. He wasn’t nice to others, rarely having anything good to say about anyone, and he’d made a successful Youtube career out of it. First starting as a fitness trainer at his gym, through encouragement from his clients and the notion of a quick cash grab, he started Youtube.

He didn’t care about it and that reflected in the quality of his videos and editing. He didn’t have consistent uploads, just filming and posting videos whenever he wanted, analytics be fucked. But somehow, that worked out for him, and he quickly found himself with over two million subscribers just frothing at the mouth for his next video.

And those subscribers were some of the worst people. Sukuna didn’t care about fostering a safe space online for others, not in the slightest. His comment sections were atrocious, both on his Youtube and his Instagram. It was full of toxic men one-upping each other constantly and dragging on each other for not being able to work out as much as Sukuna did.

Sukuna was a large part of why his fanbase were so toxic. He himself often made bad comments about others, whether fellow creators or people that happened to appear in the backgrounds of his videos, and on more than one occasion he’d been ‘cancelled’. None of that mattered though, all he cared about was shitting on other people and making money.

Sometimes he played video games and posted it, but not too often. Sukuna often stated he wasn’t so much of a fucking lonely loser that he’d play video games all the time, and so the gaming videos he did post were few and far between. He played angry shooter games and GTA, mindless button clicking he could get lost in for a few hours for a video.

Laying in bed one night after uploading his most recent video, one where he rages at 12 year olds on GTA online, Sukuna was just scrolling through his phone mindlessly. After he uploads video game content, like clockwork, he gets recommendations for gaming channels. He only watches a few of them, mostly leaving mean comments saying what losers they are, but one catches his eye.

He’s never been recommended this kind of video before. The thumbnail is light and bright with some pink aesthetic lights in the back. But the most enticing thing is the person in the middle, cute pink cat ear headphones on and a bright smile.

“Let’s see…” Sukuna mumbles to himself, mindlessly clicking the video. He hasn’t even read the title, he only clicked it because they were cute, and here he is nearly blinded by the bright setup they have.

“Hi everyone, it’s (Y/N) here and I’m really excited today! We’re going to be playing this new game I found!” Sukuna is immediately enraptured by the sound of your voice, watching how your face changes as you talk. His eyes drift off to the decor behind you, cute plushies and healthy plants, and some twinkling fairy lights. There’s books as well, and your chair is one of those ergonomic gamer chairs he has as well but in pink.

Sukuna watches the video dumbly, totally in the dark about whatever you’re doing, but loving it all the same. All he knows is that he likes the sound of your voice, and when you laugh and smile at a funny part in the game, it makes a light flush come to his cheeks.

It only takes one video for Sukuna to spiral into more of your content. He watches a video on your gaming setup, and he’s surprised that so much technology can come in pink. He watches a video on how you edit, a few of you cooking in your kitchen, and even a few vlog videos.

He quickly subscribes to your channel, and when you plug your social media, he immediately goes there. Pulling up your Instagram, he stares at your profile picture and almost audibly coos at you for being cute.

Your profile is just as cute as your videos are and Sukuna barely remembers to follow you before he’s going through your whole feed, liking every picture he sees. Sometimes he leaves comments, only one word though, ‘cute’. He’s never liked something so outright cute before, it wasn’t who he was and it definitely didn’t fit with his brand.

Falling asleep after following you on every platform, Sukuna wakes up thinking about you as well. And he also wakes up to hundreds of comments from all his accounts, bombarding him with questions and screenshots from last night.

‘SUKUNA WHY WOULD YOU LIKE THIS SHIT?!’

‘OMG Sukuna liked (Y/N)s posts!!’

‘Sukuna is so gross and toxic, you better stay away from (Y/N)!’

‘SUKUNA YOU GAY NOW’

‘EW why the fuck do you like this bitch?’

There were hundreds of comments that he waded through. Most were from his fans, expressing disgust at how many photos of yours he’d liked and wondering why he, Sukuna, most heterosexual alpha male on the planet, would like a pretty in pink Youtuber who had bubbly intros and whined when their animal crossing villagers wanted to move away.

Other comments were from your fans, some in awe that he would like you considering how much he said he hated overly cute things. Other fans expressed concern, worried what this might mean for their favorite Youtuber. Did Sukuna want to cause problems, potentially hurting you? He did have a reputation of bullying others, so this wasn’t far fetched.

Checking your Instagram, you didn’t make any comment about it. There wasn’t any update or anything, but on his end he was being tagged in endless Twitter threads with screenshots of him liking your posts and commenting under them.

“For fucks sake.” He grunted, clenching his phone in his hands. The amount of notifications he was getting were starting to upset him and he nearly threw his phone to get them to stop.

Ignoring his phone for the rest of the day, Sukuna went to the gym like he always did and trained with his clients. Some of them brought it up to him, asking him if he had a mind break last night and forgot what he was doing. Sending them harsh glares, Sukuna refused to talk about it.

“Oh my fucking god.” Sukuna nearly wailed when he got home, finally checking his phone. His name and yours had begun trending, and the hashtag #protect(Y/N) was also. Muttering angrily under his breath, Sukuna turned on Instagram live.

“Okay what the fuck!” He shouted, seeing the live become instantly flooded with people all screaming about you and him. “You’re all fucking annoying, you know that?” Glaring harshly at the camera, he read some of the comments that went by.

‘WHY’D YOU LIKE (Y/N)S POSTS FROM 2017’

‘Are you two secretly dating??’

‘COLLAB!’

“Who gives a shit why I liked their stuff, you’re a fucking weirdo for keeping track of me. And we aren’t secretly dating, dipshits.” Rolling his eyes, Sukuna scoffed as more comments came in begging for a collaboration. “And think about it you morons, why would we collab? Our shit is too fucking different, what would we even film about?”

Sukuna stayed on Instagram live for nearly an hour answering questions asking about you. Every time he had to answer that you weren’t secretly dating, he got a little more annoyed. Not at the comments themselves but at the fact that it was true; you didn’t even know he existed.

Ending the live in a huff, Sukuna didn’t feel any better than before, and it was made even worse by the fact that everything he said was being relayed to Twitter, and you were tagged in every tweet.

“These idiots!” Staring at his phone, Sukuna couldn’t believe what he was seeing. On your Instagram stories, you’d posted a q&a for your followers, and nearly all of the comments were about Sukuna.

“Hi everyone! No, me and Sukuna aren’t dating!” You said, laughing a little to ease how uncomfortable you were. “To be honest, I’ve never even heard of him before! As you know, my content is very...different from his, so our circles don’t exactly intersect. But I’m always happy to have new followers and potential friends!”

“Fuck me.” Sukuna groaned, cringing at how uncomfortable you looked having to address the sudden onslaught of questions. For once he wished he’d actually given a shit about his online presence, so that maybe one day your circles could intersect. He knew he scared you, he scared a lot of people, and this was just proof.

“Uh, Sukuna if you see this, hi it’s nice to meet you!” You said in the next slide, puffing out your cheeks and waving cutely at the camera. It made Sukuna blush, and he hated it. “Thank you for following me and liking my content! I was very surprised that you found me!”

“Of course I did, idiot, you’re fucking cute.” He muttered under his breath.

“I know a lot of people are asking for us to do a video together and I know our content is really different, so don’t feel pressured to respond or anything, but the offer is open! If you’d like, we can collab on something.”

“On what?” He asked like you were there.

“I cook sometimes, and I know you cook too! Maybe we can make a cooking video? You can teach me how to make healthy food or something!” Sukuna could tell a fake laugh when he heard one, and you definitely had one right now. “Anyways, thank you! Bye Sukuna!” But hearing you say his name cutely like that made him not care.

He nearly responded right away, accepting the collab offer now that you’d spoken about it, but he didn’t want to seem desperate. He watched through the rest of your Instagram stories, going back and replaying the parts where you talked about him over and over and his heart clenched every time when you said his name.

In the dead of night, Sukuna DM’s you after watching your latest video and leaving the simple comment ‘check your DM’s’.

“Fuck, what should I say?” He’s suddenly stumped as he looks at the keyboard. Typing and retyping a message, in the end all he can say is hi. He doesn’t expect a reply, ever, but when he gets a vibration on his phone two seconds later he jumps to read it.

(S/N): hi Sukuna! :)

(cursedgod): hey

Real fucking smart, repeating what he just said.

(S/N): is there something you wanted to talk to me about?

(S/N): I hope you haven’t been annoyed at all the notifications you’ve been getting!

(cursedgod): No it’s okay

(cursedgod): we can collab if you want

Good Sukuna, good. Play it cool, don’t let them know that your fingers are actually trembling because you’re nervous.

(S/N): do you want to?? I don’t want to pressure you! I know we’re pretty different haha

(cursedgod): yeah, let's do it. Cooking?

(S/N): sure!

Looking around his home, he was suddenly assaulted with the fact that he didn’t have any furniture. He barely had a proper bedroom, just a mattress on a bare frame and a dresser. His lounge room was the same with his computer setup in one corner and then nothing else. There was only a couch, a mounted TV and a fold out table and chairs for his dining room.

(cursedgod): I know a studio kitchen we can use, I’ll send you the address

Thank god he’d done promo work for a brand in a studio one day, otherwise he’d be fucked.

(S/N): awesome! I’m free next Saturday!

And just like that, it was a date. Well, a meeting. Sukuna knew it wasn’t a date, but his heart still thumped like it was one. Confirming the time, he ended the conversation with a curt goodbye and obsessed about it throughout the night.

When the day to meet you came, Sukuna nearly ran late trying to pick out his clothes. He’d never cared about looking good or presenting himself well in front of others, whatever version of him he turned up in was what they got. But for you, he wanted to try a little harder.

Waiting outside the studio space, Sukuna rubbed his hands together nervously. You’d messaged a day or two ago offering to put the video on your channel since it probably wouldn’t fit his aesthetic, so he didn’t have to bring his shitty camera equipment.

“S-sukuna?” Snapping his head up, Sukunas mouth fell open looking at your curious face a few feet away, an Uber driving off behind you. You were even cuter in person, just his fucking luck. How was he expected to act like a normal person when his recent obsession was here looking better than he could have imagined.

“Hi.” What comes out is a grunt, not the smooth word he’d hoped. He can see you eyeing him up, taking in all the thick and corded muscles of his body. It made his chest puff out a little, he worked hard for this physique and to have you so openly looking at him made him happy.

“It’s nice to meet you!” Sticking your hand out, you smiled politely at him.

“Same.” Shaking your hand with a firm grip, Sukuna could feel the difference in your palms. Yours was soft and nicely moisturized and he had callouses everywhere and a few cuts and scrapes.

Opening the door for you, Sukuna led you to the studio space he’d rented out. It was a clean and modern kitchen, not unlike his own, but it had appliances and looked actually lived in. Helping you set up a few camera angles, Sukuna felt a pang of nerves hit him in the stomach.

“Sukuna, can we take a picture together?” You asked before starting, and Sukunas brow furrowed deeply. Why would you want to take a picture with him? His expression must have scared you, because you quickly backtracked. “F-for promo for this video, on Instagram and stuff!”

“Sure.” God, did he feel bad or what. He shouldn’t have made that face at you, now you wouldn’t look him in the eye. Crouching down to get the right angle for you, Sukuna watched you pick a cute animal filter.

“Just do what I do.” Throwing up a peace sign, you cutely tilted your head from side to side and smiled. Sukuna tried to do the same but he looked awkward, and most of all he was blushing pretty bad.

You snapped a multitude of pictures, some at different angles and some with different filters, and in all of them Sukuna was blushing at least a little. He managed to smile more as it went on, even laughing at one of the filters.

“Thanks! I’m going to post these really quick and then we can get started!” Giving him a brief smile, you turned back to your phone and set about editing some of the pictures. Looking over your shoulder, Sukuna could see that he looked like a blushing high schooler meeting their idol for the first time and not a grown man.

Once the photos were posted and you tagged him in everything, it was time to start. Setting up your marks on the floor, you took a generous drink of water and cleared your throat.

“Are you ready for the intro? I’ll start it and introduce you, okay?” You’d actually prepared a script for yourself, and showed Sukuna as well.

“Okay.” Stepping in front of the camera, Sukuna bristled at feeling you so close to him. Your arm brushed his casually as you were fixing your shirt, and Sukuna was glad he’d worn his most expensive cologne for this.

“Hi everyone, welcome to today's video! As you know, I’m (Y/N), and today we have a special guest today!” Throwing your arms in the air, you motioned to Sukuna.

“Hi.” He nodded, barely cracking a smile. He could feel you looking at him like you wanted to say something, but he didn’t look.

“So, many people have been asking for us to do a collaboration and it’s finally here!” Clapping your hands lightly, you rocked on your heels and nudged his shoulder with yours. “Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?”

“Uh-” The playful nudge you’d given him was enough to make Sukuna short circuit. “I-I-” He suddenly couldn’t remember how to speak. “Rice?”

“Let’s try that again.” You laughed. “Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?” This time, you didn’t nudge him with your shoulder.

“We’re gonna…” the words were on the tip of his tongue, they wanted to come out and be spoken but he couldn’t do it.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Nodding reassuringly, you took a deep breath in and out, and Sukuna shakily copied. “One more try?” When he looked at you, Sukuna expected to see a hint of annoyance in your face, but there was none. You were just smiling softly at him, waiting for his answer.

“Yeah. I’ll uh, I’ll get it next time.” Stepping away from the camera, Sukuna took a drink of water and cleared his throat. Cracking the bones in his neck, he took a deep breath and came back. “Let’s do it.” No more fucking embarrassments.

“Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?” You asked for the third time, slightly swaying your body side to side this time.

“We’re gonna make katsudon today.” Finally, the words he wanted to say came out.

“That’s right! As you can see, Sukuna is really fit!” You immediately hopped in, giving his arm a brief squeeze. “And he knows how to make a ton of healthy meals!”

“Mhmm.”

“So I asked if he could help teach me, and all of you at home, how to make it!” Smiling at the camera, you waited a few seconds before relaxing and turning it off. “Did you like that? We can refilm it if you want.”

“No, it’s okay.” Running a hand through his hair, he pointed to the bag of rice he’d brought. “Let’s get started on this shit.”

Taking fifteen minutes to film the two of you filling up the rice cooker, when it was over, you set about getting aesthetic shots of the other ingredients. Sukuna tried to seem casual off to the side on his phone, but he was really watching you.

Getting started on chopping the ingredients, Sukuna somehow managed to say the things he was supposed to without stuttering too badly. He was amazed that you could make the things he was doing sound so interesting, your narration as you held the camera and tried to do things yourself was impressive to the man that barely knew anything about cameras.

“Sukuna, I need help cutting the meat.” You whined, tapping the meat on the cutting board with a knife. “I don’t remember how you showed me.”

“Here.” Without thinking, Sukuan grabbed your hand with the knife in it and moved it for you. “You just have to move your wrist more, it’s not that hard.” Doing it a few times, when Sukuna felt your chest expand with air against his, that’s when he realized how close the two of you were. “S-sorry.” Immediately jumping back, he stared at the floor.

“Thanks!” Giving him a smile, you kept at it.

“I’ll fry the meat.” Stepping in as soon as you were done, Sukuna already had the hot oil ready. He was eager to cook and do something with his hands instead of - what he felt like - was awkwardly watching you off to the side.

“Okay!” Grabbing the camera, you focused on the pan. “You’re really good at this, Sukuna!”

“T-thanks.” Staring directly at the pan, Sukuna didn’t look away. Even with the hot oil popping up from the pan a few times and burning his fingers, he didn’t flinch at all.

“Ow!” But you did. Your hand had gotten too close, and when Sukuna flipped the meat, some of the oil had gotten on your hand.

“Shit.” Abandoning the pan, Sukuna was ready to drag you over to the sink for some cool water.

“I-it’s okay, it was only a little.” Shaking your stinging hand, you point to the food. “But I think the meat might burn.”

“Shit!”

Narrowly avoiding disaster with the meat, when it came time to cook the eggs, you made a joke about how you liked your eggs in the morning and Sukuna burnt them almost immediately. While not an overtly sexual comment, the implications of the words still affected him.

Somehow, he managed to make the dish come together and while his plated dish didn’t come out the best, yours looked at least halfway decent with overcooked meat and burnt eggs. The only things not messed up were the rice and vegetables, and even then Sukuna was surprised.

“We did it everyone, we made katsudon!” Holding up the bowls, you smiled big and nudged Sukunas shoulder again. “You saw we had a few mishaps along the way, but that’s okay, that’s what made it fun.”

“Yeah, it was fun.” Sukuna chuckled. Despite him being more nervous than he’d ever thought possible, he had fun cooking alongside you.

“Sukuna, will you try mine? I made it super pretty and everything.” Holding your dish up to him, Sukuna wasn’t expecting you to do that. Now he felt bad that his looked so ugly and like a teenaged boy made it; he almost said no.

Eating yours though, somehow it tasted better than he was expecting. It must have been how you prepared it, and the fact that you cared so much about the presentation. Eating it in silence, he let you eat in peace as well for a few minutes and compliment the food to the camera.

“Alright, that’s the end of the video!” Putting your bowl down, you turned to Sukuna. “I had so much fun today, thanks for filming this with me.” Now was his chance to make everything better. Putting his bowl down and bolstering himself with confidence, Sukuna threw his arm over your shoulder and pulled you close to him.

“Thank you (Y/N), I really did enjoy today. I hope we can film again soon!” He squeezed your shoulder and smiled really big at not only you but the camera as well. He knew he was blushing, he knew that even the tip of his nose was a nice rosy shade, but he didn’t care. If people teased him for it, then so be it. But he wanted you to know how he truly felt.

“R-really? You want to?” You asked, looking up at Sukuna from your place smooshed against his body.

“Really.”

“Aww, well you heard it here first everyone! Sukuna wants to shoot another video with me!” Clapping your hands a few times, you waved at the camera. “Okay, bye everyone!”

“Bye.” Sukuna waved too, waiting a few seconds before letting you go and turning off the camera.

“Sukuna, did you really mean it? You want to film another video with me?” You were in utter disbelief. All this time, he’d just seemed very standoffish, if not a little awkward around you. You were happy to film this video with him, he had way more followers than you and it would help boost both your channels, and to hear him say that just made it even better.

“Yeah, I was serious.” Sukuna spoke around stuffing his mouth with the food he still had left. He was more hungry than he thought, the nerves doing a good job of twisting his stomach during the video. Now that it’s over, he can finally relax.

“That makes me really happy.” Eating the rest of your food as well, you leant against the counter. “This is gonna sound kind of mean, but I was really scared to film with you today. I thought you were going to be really mean.”

“Shit, you did?” He grimaced, letting out a sigh. “Sorry I had you worried.” He could already imagine the comments you would get from his fans.

“It’s okay! You’re actually way nicer in person, I was surprised!”

“That’s good.”

“And you’re really buff, you have muscles in places I didn’t even know were possible!” You laughed bashfully at that comment, and avoided looking at him when he stared at you in shock. “I couldn’t help but notice…”

Were you checking him out? Had you been checking him out this whole time and he didn’t even realize? He had seen you eyeing him up when you first met, but were you looking at him like that at other times as well? Now he’d really have to watch your video to see if it was true.

“Thanks, it’s my job.” Could he have said that any lamer? “My job outside of all this, I mean. I’m a trainer at this fancy gym downtown.”

“Oh, I’ve seen some of your videos at your gym! I know which one you’re talking about.”

“You do? You’ve seen my videos?” If he wasn’t surprised before, he was now.

“Yeah, you know I had to do a little research beforehand.” You nodded, beginning to clean up the dishes around you. “And I know you’ve already watched almost all of my videos, so it only seemed fair.”

Did you have to bring that up? Now Sukuna was embarrassed again.

“Y-yeah, I did.” Clearing his throat, Sukuna helped gather the dishes. He took up washing them, another task he could do to get his mind off you. As you took down the camera equipment, he nearly broke several dishes and utensils from scrubbing too hard.

“I’ll call you an Uber.” He said when all was said and done and you were back at the front of the building.

“You don’t have to, it’s okay.”

“No, I want to.” Quickly calling you a ride, Sukuna fiddled with his phone a little more. “Uh, could I- could I-” His voice kept leaving him, and he had to cough a few times. “Can I get your number? I really liked your camera shit and I want to improve mine.” Okay, it wasn’t a total lie. He did like your setup and wanted to make his just as good, but he really wanted your number to potentially talk to you more about things outside of Youtube.

“Sure! Go ahead and type it in.” You were quick to give him your phone, a cute pink phone case on the back of it. Typing it in, he can’t help but notice the little devil emoji you add by his name. He wants to ask, but your ride is already pulling up.

“Bye!” Setting all your camera gear inside the car, you turn and wave goodbye.

“See ya.” Just as you’re about to close the car door, Sukuna gets a burst of confidence. “Text me when you get home, okay?”

“Okay!” And off you go. Sukuna watches the car drive off until he can’t see it anymore. He takes his time getting to his own place, eagerly awaiting your message with every step. But even when you do message him, all he can do is send a thumbs up back and nothing else.

It’s about two and a half days after that that you text him again, letting him know you’re done editing and that you’re going to post the video soon. It wasn’t a very long video to begin with, so the editing was simple enough. Sukuna replied with what appeared to be a lackluster ‘can’t wait’, but on the inside he was shaking. He’d already screenshot all the pictures the two of you took together and added them to a folder.

“Here we go.” As soon as the video went live, Sukuna watched it. He was mortified as soon as it started at the blush so evident on his cheeks, and how it stayed throughout the whole thing. He groaned at the part where he helped you cut up the meat, he almost wishes you’d cut it out. Every little detail that made him embarrassed was there, every little nuance of his actions you’d managed to capture and make it cute.

(Y/N): How do you like it??

You texted him after twenty minutes, eager to hear his thoughts.

(Sukuna): it’s good, good editing and stuff

(Y/N): yay! I’m going to read comments in a few hours, you should too! I bet people will be really shocked!

(Sukuna): yeah no doubt

Oh, he was definitely going to read the comments. Whereas you were going to wait for a fair few to come in before commenting, Sukuna frequently refreshed the page and read the new ones as they came in. You were right, a lot of people were surprised, but he also saw a lot of his fans as well.

‘Ew Sukuna really cooked for that bitch? They can’t do it themselves?’

‘Yeah, why do they have to rely on him? Useless as fuck lol’

‘Sukuna only did this to get laid, (Y/N) looks like an easy fuck’

All of those comments, and many more, made his blood boil. Usually, he wouldn’t care at all about the comments, letting them fester in his comment section and spiral out of control. But for you, it was different.

‘Fuck off and die you pieces of shit. Leave (Y/N) alone or say it to my fucking face’

Sukuna sent that message, along with a variety of other threats, to all the people that insulted you. He didn’t care that this wasn’t his channel and that you would deal with it in whatever way you wanted to. He needed to defend you against the unwanted audience he’d brought you.

Luckily, after seeing Sukunas messages, all of his fans backed off. They knew how serious he was about his threats and there were many rumors that he actually did go and beat people up who said things he didn’t like. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of his torment.

With Sukunas name attached to the video and his heavy presence in the comment section, the video easily went viral. It was easily the most viewed video on your channel, getting on the trending pages of several different platforms.

(Sukuna): hey

It’s nearly a week after the first video that Sukuna messages you, and the hype is still going strong, and your follower count grows greatly from it.

(Y/N): hi! What’s up?

(Sukuna): do you want to film a video for my channel now? We can play a game, I have a few

(Y/N): sure that sounds fun!

Oh how wrong you were. The game Sukuna chose was a scary game, a shooter game with scary zombies and a lot of possible jumpscares. He doesn’t tell you either, so on the night of filming - he insisted on it being nighttime to get the full scary effect - you were caught off guard.

“I don’t know about this.” You whined once you saw the title. The two of you were video calling alongside playing the game together, and Sukuna’s eyes flicked to your figure on the screen.

“It’ll be okay, I’ll carry you, don’t worry.” He had started filming as soon as he’d set up the game, and you were filming yourself as well for him.

“You promise it won’t be too scary?”

“If it’s too scary just close your eyes and I’ll protect you.” Smiling softly at you, he started up the game. The beginning was fine, just a quick introduction to the game, but as soon as things started to get moving, you were scared.

“Sukuna a zombie is eating me!” You screamed, frantically pushing buttons in an attempt to get it off.

“It’s okay!” He quickly got rid of it, and made sure to stay close to your character as the story progressed.

“(Y/N) stay by me, there’s about to be a whole lot of them.”

“Close your eyes there’s about to be a jump scare here.”

“Don’t worry about getting that item, I’ll grab it for you!”

Sukuna nearly forgot he was being filmed, saying sweet things to you to help encourage you and make sure you weren’t overwhelmed. There were many parts where you screamed in fright and Sukuna was there to coo at you and tell you it was okay. He made sure that your character never died, making sure to keep you close until the end of the game.

“Sukuna, that was so hard!” Squishing your cheeks in your hands, you looked at him through your phone.

“It was fun though, wasn’t it? I had fun with you.” Completely abandoning the game, he stared down at his phone with a soft smile on his face.

“Yeah, when there weren’t so many zombies.” You stuck your tongue out at him, and it made him laugh. Leaning his head into his hand, Sukuna grinned when you yawned.

“Aw, are you tired? Better go to sleep soon.” His voice dropped to a lower volume, like you were right next to him.

“I will.” You yawned again and it made Sukuna yawn as well.

“Get off the phone and go to bed, you’re making me tired too.”

“Fine.” Whining out the word, you waved sleepily. “Goodnight Sukuna, I’ll send you the video files in the morning, okay?”

“Night.” Waving back, Sukuna waited until you hung up to turn his stuff off as well.

In the morning, Sukuna was ready to edit. What usually took him a week to edit out of laziness, he took only a day to edit this video with you together. Rewatching the footage, he nearly gagged at seeing how soft his face got when he looked at you, and most of those parts were left in because he couldn’t stand to watch them and fix them.

(Sukuna): videos up

The next day, he messaged you. Once again Sukuna patrolled the comments, swiftly deleting any that said even a hint of a bad thing about you. There was less this time, what with Sukuna adding a warning at the beginning of the video threatening anyone that talked down at you.

This video, like the first, went viral. But for a much different reason. Since Sukuna was emotionally unable to deal with how sappy he was and edit those parts out, everyone got to see how soft he was for you. If the comments weren’t mean, they were screaming about how you and Sukuna must be dating now, because why else would he look at you and talk to you like that?

And much to Sukuna’s dismay, there were also fancam edits of you two together. Any clippable moment of him being sweet on you in the videos you’d made together along with the photos you’d posted on Instagram were edited together and posted on Twitter. You both were tagged in every single one, making sure Sukuna saw all the videos of you and him together. He saved all of them too, delighting in the way you looked with him with all those pretty filters.

By the end of the day, people were trying to put a ship name together for the two of you and he’s seen you repost a few fancams with cute messages of thanks as well. Seeing you receptive to the fans screaming about the two of you made him happy, even if he was still too nervous to text you about anything outside of Youtube.

As more comments came in, people on Twitter were begging him to do a vlog with you. You had quite a few on your channel, going to cafes or filming what your day or week was like. Sukuna had watched them all and was jealous of every single person that appeared alongside you.

(Y/N): hey I’m doing a live on Instagram if you want to join me! I know people really like us together lol it’ll be great for views

(Sukuna): sure

Did you want him to join now? He’d just gotten out of the shower and thrown on a pair of sweats, he wasn’t exactly decent. But he didn’t want to waste time getting ready only for you to end the live.

“Hi Sukuna!” You smiled and waved when he appeared on the screen.

“Hey.” He waved back, not caring about the angle he was holding the camera in. He saw hearts begin to fill up the screen and comments started to fly by, almost all in caps about the fact he was shirtless talking to you.

“Guys, don’t be weird! Who cares that Sukuna is shirtless?” You tried to stop them, but it was clear you were flustered as well. You weren’t looking at him, peeking at him through the screen a few times.

“God you’re all thirsty as fuck.” Sukuna finally looked at himself on the screen. He was shirtless and in bed, hair slightly damp and tousled on his pillow. Reading a few comments, he shot up. “Of course I’m wearing pants, you nasty fuck!” Storming out of bed, he stood in front of the only mirror in his house that wasn’t in the bathroom and turned the camera around. “See, look!”

“Oh.” Gasping softly, you were glad Sukuna didn’t notice you screenshot the live. Clad in only gray sweatpants, Sukuna’s freshly cleaned skin gleamed in the light of his bedroom and every single muscle and edge of his body was on display.

“There, told you I wasn’t fucking naked.” Rolling his eyes, he flopped back down on the bed. None of the comments had gotten any better, all of them talking about how hot he was and how you were so lucky to know him in real life.

“L-let's talk about something else.” You stammered, not showing your face on camera for a few minutes. Sukuna laughed at the comments teasing you for being embarrassed, agreeing with some of them under his breath.

“So, what the fuck are you all doing here?” Sukuna posed the question at the chat, but at you as well.

“Well before you came everyone was talking about you...and you know how everyone has been begging for us to vlog?” You started off slowly, peeking an eye at his face.

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to call you to ask how you felt about that?” How he felt? Why did you want to know?

“You couldn’t have texted me that?” That wasn’t necessarily what he wanted to say, but it made you chuckle, so it was okay.

“No! I wanted to ask so everyone could know!”

“I don’t mind it.” If you wanted to vlog with him, he would do it in a heartbeat.

“So…” Worrying your lip, you looked off camera for a few seconds before looking directly at Sukuna. “Would you like to be in a vlog with me, at a cafe? It’s outside the city, kind of far, but we can rent a car or-”

“Yes.” Sukuna interrupted, nodding his head quickly. “I’ll come. We don’t have to rent a car, I’ll drive.”

“Really?” The comments were just as shocked as you were. Sukuna never filmed anywhere but his home and the gym, this would be a monumental occasion.

“Did you want me to say no?”

“No!” You screamed immediately, nearly dropping your phone. “I just- I wasn’t expecting you to say yes!”

“Well I did.” Sukuna bit his lip, running a hand through his hair and flexing his arm. “So I guess it’s a date, huh?” His normal asshole confidence was back now that you were appearing through a screen and not right next to him. A surprised sound came from the back of your throat, and you nearly dropped the phone again.

“Y-yeah! A date!” It felt good to have you flustered for once and not Sukuna. Laughing heartily at you, Sukuna smirked at the comments.

“Was that all you wanted to ask me or was there something more?”

“No, that was it!”

“Alright.” Licking his lip and letting his tongue hang out of his mouth a little, Sukuna watched you bite your lip as well. “Well I’m gonna go, I got stuff to do, but I’ll text you later (Y/N).” Dropping his voice as he said goodbye, Sukuna left the livestream.

“Holy fuck.” As soon as his phone was off, Sukuna let out a breath he’d been holding in. His heart was pounding hard despite how confident he was in his actions. Flirting was nothing new to him, but with you it felt different and like he’d never done it before in his life.

He watched the rest of your livestream while he finished getting ready for bed, laughing at the comments still teasing you about getting flustered with him. The notifications for Twitter were going off as well, and he knew for sure that there were new fancams for him to check out later.

(Y/N): Sukuna!! You’re so embarrassing!

Texting him after your stream, your cheeks were still burning at the memory.

(Sukuna): hey, you said it would be good for views and it was

(Y/N): I know…

(Y/N): did you really mean it, about coming with me?

(Sukuna): of course. If I didn’t want to I would have said no

(Y/N): that’s good lol!

There was a lull in conversation, and Sukuna nearly fell asleep waiting for you to either text him again or for him to figure out what to say next.

(Y/N): so, a date huh? Are you going to bring me flowers?

Now he was awake. He didn’t expect you to bring that up again, and his eyes flew open. Sukuna’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, mind going blank on what to say.

(Y/N): lol just kidding! I know you only said that for the stream! I’ll text you later about the details, I’m about to knock out

(Y/N): goodnight :)

Well shit. Now he definitely wanted it to be a date.

#jujutsu kaisen #ryomen sukuna #sukuna x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jujutsu kaisen scenarios

1K notes · View notes

cazzyvintage · 4 years ago

Text

Every day, it feels like I've lost them again

Synopsis: Sam shouts at Zemo for the things he has done. Though Zemo doesn’t show it the words hurt him deeply. Later on the reader finds Zemo and talks to him about his past.

Word Count: 1.8k

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Bit of angst, Sad Zemo, mentions to his family’s death and his attempted suicide

Author note: I had plans for another Zemo one shot but then I watched a sad Zemo edit which made me cry and here we are

Cross posted on my Ao3 account under the same name

MASTER LIST

The streets seemed silent as you sadly walked home. The only sound was your footsteps dragging along the floor. The silence between all of you was piercing. Today had been an enormous failure, and you all were feeling it weighing down on you. Pushing down your hopes for things to improve. Zemo had somehow found out where the flag smashers would be, from a trusted source, he said, so you all went charging off to talk to them. It was a trap. Zemo didn’t know it was a trap either, though Sam still believed otherwise. You all had barely got out of there safely. It had been close, too close for your liking.

“There’s always tomorrow,” Zemo says, hating the stone cold silence coming from everyone.

“But there’s not,” Sam spits back angrily, “That was the one proper chance we could've had to talk to Kali, and we failed”

“You shouldn’t be so pessimistic,” Zemo argues back, rolling his eyes.

“Pessimistic. Are you for serious, pessimistic,” Sam says shaking his head at Zemo, “You hear this guy I’m the pessimistic one”

“Leave it Sam” Bucky mutters trying to push him along, but Sam refuses.

Sam steps towards Zemo, standing just a few centimeters away from his face, his eyes glaring daggers at him. Zemo stops walking, clenching his jaw and tilting his head to stare back at Sam, not breaking eye contact.

Both you and Bucky glance at each other, not really sure if you should stop this or let it happen.

“You could have led us to our deaths today, Zemo, which I am sure was your intention. You make it clear that you wouldn’t hesitate to see any of us off to our funerals. All because you got butt hurt about the avengers preventing Ultron from destroying the earth at the cost of your country.”

The breath leaves your mouth as the words slip out of Sam’s mouth. Your lips, slightly ajar, turn to look at Sam. He’s breathing heavily, glaring at Zemo. Zemo’s lips curled down into an angry frown and his eyebrows furrowed. You could see his fists curl up, something Bucky must have noticed as well, and he put a hand on Sam’s shoulder to pull him away from Zemo.

“Sam this isn’t the time”

Sam finally gives in and pulls back, but Zemo steps forward, grabbing onto his jacket. Bucky reaches for his gun, but Zemo waves his hand at him, motioning him not to.

“You don’t know the first thing about me, Sam.” is all he says, letting go of Sam’s jacket roughly and storming off.

It would be hours later till you saw him again. During that time your mind was often thinking back to Zemo. When you really thought about it, you realised you knew nothing about him. Heck, until recently you didn’t know he was a Baron. All you had been told was that he was a Sokovian who wanted to split the avengers up because of what they did to his country. Being a Baron, you supposed that made it more personal for him. Still, it felt like something was missing. Something didn’t add up.

You laid in one of the many guest rooms tossing and turning while all these thoughts flooded your mind. Eventually you gave up on the idea of ever getting sleep tonight and got up. If you weren’t sleeping, you might as well get some midnight snacks. Heading into the main room, you notice the door leading to the back was open, letting a chilly breeze float in.

Heading over to check it out, your eyes lie upon Zemo sitting on top of a fallen over tree trunk in the back patio, looking up at the night sky. His coat was wrapped around him to keep him warm, and his face was expressionless as he looked up to the night sky that was scattered with the stars. He hadn’t noticed you staring at him, his mind was far from where his body was.

After a few moments of just staring at him, you broke the silence, “Zemo?”

His head instantly snapped to you, surprised to have been caught unaware.

“Oh, hello y/n, can’t sleep?”

You shake your head, taking his question as an invitation to go over and sit next to him, “No, to many thoughts in my mind to go to sleep”

“Ah, a common problem for an insomniac”

“I assume you have similar reasons, since you are out hear”

He looks away from you, smiling weakly at the floor, “Yes something like that, sleep comes rarely to me”

Your eyes flutter down to the ground, not really sure what to say, “I’m sorry to hear that” you whisper

You both sit there in silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t an awkward silence like what you were used to. No. It was a comfortable silence. You were both thankful just to have someone beside you at that moment. You shudder slightly as the wind picks up, making the hairs on your arm stand up. Zemo notices and slowly shrugs off his coat, placing it around you. You smile politely up at him in thanks.

“May I ask what your thoughts were?” Zemo asks gently, glancing back over to you

“You probably think it was about our failure, right?” you say and Zemo nods his head slightly

“They weren’t, actually. I didn’t suspect us to accomplish anything. It seemed to good to be true. No, I was thinking about what happened after. Between you and Sam”

Zemo’s face instantly shifted, his mouth pulling into a frown and his eyebrows furrowing, “Ah” is all he says

“What Sam said was way out of line. I can’t understand the pain you must feel about losing Sokovia”

Zemo hums to let you know he heard but doesn’t say anymore, his gaze just returns to the sky.

You didn’t want to push him too far. Over this time you had gotten to know him and almost considered him a friend, but you couldn’t help but be curious. You wanted to know more about him.

“But there’s more isn’t there. Something we don’t know,” you say gently

You can see him swallow and his fingers dig into his palms as he tenses at your question.

After a moment he finally responds, “Yes, you’re right. I... I had a family who died that day. My father, wife and child. I told them to go out of the city to the countryside. That was where my father lived, you see. I had to stay behind as I was a part of this Sokovian kill squad. Even as royalty, I still had duties. I had faith in the avengers. They would sort everything out. But they didn’t. When the battle was one they just returned home, leaving us with the hard task of finding all the dead. I assumed my family would be safe, yet it took me two days after to find their bodies.”

Your body gets overwhelmed with coldness as you hear his story. The memories of the battle flooded your mind and you could feel a bitterness creep into your mouth. You could have stayed behind to help. Why didn’t you? Your eyes water slightly as you sympathise with him and feel the guilt lie on your soul.

“Oh god Zemo, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have asked,” you are quick to respond

“No...it’s okay. If I didn’t want to tell you, I wouldn’t have said anything”

You look up to the night sky and reflect over his words. All the pain that Zemo must feel, holding onto, and you did not know. None of you did. You were sure if Sam knew he wouldn’t have said the things he did. You knew what Zemo did was wrong, but damn you couldn’t help but empathise with him.

“If you want…” you start, hoping what you were choosing to ask wouldn’t be going too far, “would you like to tell me about them?”

Zemo finally looks away from the sky, his eyes looking to the ground. He swallows again, slightly sniffing before speaking.

“My Son, Carl, he was four when he... when he died. He always did this cute thing where if he didn’t like the food on his plate he would pretend he was gifting the food to you to show his love for you”

You chuckle slightly thinking about it, “That does sounds cute”

“He was the most precious thing in existence. He always wanted a sibling like his friends had. He loved the idea of being an older brother. Every morning when the mail arrived, he asked if he had a brother or sister delivered to him. Me and my wife… we were planning on having more kids. We knew he would've made the best big brother. We hoped for a girl, you know, to even things out”

“What was she like?”

“She was so beautiful. Like the goddess Venus. Many men tried to win her affection, but she settled for me. I had never felt like a luckier man. She was so kind, so generous, so loving. My perfect angel”

The tears that had been threatening to fall from Zemo’s eyes broke the dam and fell down his cheeks.

“If I could, I would give up everything I have, everything I own just to hold them in my arms again”

A sob breaks out of him and he holds his hand up to his mouth as his eyes crinkle up as more tears fall. He tries to wipe them away, but he can’t stop crying. You put your arm around him and pull him into a hug which he gladly accepts. He wraps his arms around you and buries his head into your shoulder as he sobs.

“I miss them so much”

You say nothing, just rub your hand on his back reassuringly. He takes a few minutes before he speaks again.

“I tried to end my life after I completed my revenge. So I didn’t have to live another day without them. But I failed. I spent the next seven years without them. And everyday it feels like I’ve lost them again,”

“What do you plan to do… after we have finished here?”

You can feel Zemo’s body tenses in your arms as you ask that question, “I think you know, y/n”

You pull back from him to look into his blood-shot eyes. “Zemo, I know this is so very hard for you, but please don’t. I know with your wit and cunning you can think of a way to escape all of this safely. I will not pretend to know your wife, but if she is anything like what you have told me about, I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to either. She would want you to find some happiness in life,”

Zemo finally moves away from you, standing up off the tree log and taking one last look at the sky before then looking back at you. He’d stopped crying by now but the tear stained cheek and dark under eyes were evidence of what had just occurred. The side of his lip tried to twitch up into a slight smile but it faltered,

“Thank you, y/n”

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