#i just knew that the a- prefix meant “not”

[teddylacroix]

@jonmartinweek 2023: Day #4: Ace day!!!

Happy Asexuality Day, Jon!! Happy Asexuality Day, fellow aces!!!

International Asexuality Day: Jon-only

Day 3: Victorian times // Confessions

Day 2: Monsters // Office romance

Day 1: Scars // First day in the safehouse

[run2yoongi]

after hours | myg x reader

for whatever reason, your boss liked to work you to the bone. your countless hours of overtime and extra work never seemed to tide him over, he always expected more. after a year, your patience was wearing thin, so you finally decide to ask him what it is exactly he wants.

↳ pairing: boss!yoongi x reader

↳ setting: office worker au, kinda angsty, smut

↳ warnings: explicit sexual content, bondage, unethical power dynamics/abuse of power, degradation, unprotected sex (dont do it bbyz), hurt and comfort, dacryphilia, mean dom!yoongi, teasing, spanking, creampie, no aftercare, female prefixes for reader (miss).

↳ side note: word count is 3.3k!

masterlist

"goodnight!" your coworker called out over his shoulder, waving at you as he rounded the corner and left you alone in your cold, clinical office. you hadn't even bothered to look away from your screen, just humming in response. you were tired. exhausted, if you were being honest with yourself.

you couldn't afford to be honest with yourself though, you didn't have the time. your boss, min yoongi, had asked you to send another updated report to him due in twenty minutes. you were scrounging through emails, looking to find a reference number that you knew your coworker probably hadn't even thought to send to you. it was getting impossible.

you glanced over to the corner of your desktop screen to check if you'd missed yet another dinner with the guy you'd been seeing on and off again for the last year.

7:12pm

not only were you meant to meet him at 7, but you were meant to finish work at 4. before you could even let out a frustrated sigh and search for your phone to apologise, you felt the weight of a hand rest on the back of your chair, tilting you backward, making you lose your balance.

your panicked eyes flew up to the perpetrator, coloured with a mix of anger and confusion. "do i need to enroll you in training for how to sit in a chair now?" yoongi spoke, an arrogant smirk tugging on his lips. if only he wasn't your boss, you'd think about slapping him.

you gathered yourself and swiftly sat upright, twirling the chair around slightly to break his grip. it had been over a year yet, you were still stunned by how beautiful your boss is. his dark hair was swept softly behind his ears, allowing the harsh office lighting to highlight the peaks of face, his nose and cheekbones. you'd accepted the job offer the second he'd extended it. how could you refuse a face like that?

you remembered how soft his lips looked when he'd smiled at you for the first time, right when you came in for your interview. if you'd known then that you'd be working 11 hour days, maybe you'd have realised that he was likely smiling because you'd fallen right into his trap.

"how's the report coming along?" he asked as his smirk faded into a stern line. you sighed, glancing back at your monitor. "i'm just looking for one last item, and i'll be done." you explained, attempting to keep the fatigue out of your tone to no avail.

"you're still new, but you should be working on your efficiency, y/n." he sighed, shifting his weight to lean on your desk. you swallowed the anger growing in your throat, nodding in response. "yes, sir." you bit the inside of your cheek, lost for words at his condescension. silence filled the room, and the tension in your stomach was growing unbearable.

what the fuck did he want from you?

none of your other coworkers had to submit daily reports, and you were the only one expected to bring everyone coffee in the morning, the only one expected to set up meeting rooms for yoongi without being asked, the only one who did almost four hours of over time every day.

"d-did everyone have to do all this when they started here?" you asked, gulping as you suppressed the anxiety that rose from questioning your boss. he raised an eyebrow at you, crossed his arms across his chest, and sighed, not breaking his scolding gaze. "what do you mean?"

"oh, i- uh." you stuttered, heat spreading across your face. "the reports, and the..." you trailed off, eyes darting across the empty office. "the overtime." you finished quietly.

yoongi stared at you, examining the pink flush growing across your cheeks and ears. his eyes flashed with amusement as you squirmed under his gaze, desperate for him to break the silence and answer the question. "i- i don't mind, it's just..." you stuttered, unable to look anywhere besides the floor beneath you.

"...you just?" he asked, voice dripping with levity.

"i mean, tonight, for example," you swallowed, struggling to find your words. "i had plans that i had to miss because of all the extra work." you heard him let out a short exhale, a silent laugh at your desperate plea. "extra work? you think you're working harder than your coworkers?" he mused. your eyes flew up to meet his teasing grin, shocked at his misinterpretation of your words. "that's not what i meant-" you began to explain, shifting in your seat.

"is there somewhere you'd rather be, miss y/n?" he asked smugly grinning at your panicked state. you hesitated, because yes, of course, there was somewhere you'd rather be. he stretched his hand out on your desk, sliding his pointer across it before checking for dust. "how about you finish the report, and then we can talk." he added, standing up from his position on your desk before straightening his blazer jacket and nodding his farewell at you.

-

after yoongi's brief intervention, you'd finished even later than you anticipated. the printer jamming didn't help either, you'd only managed to place your report on your boss's desk before 8pm. it was already dark out and you were contemplating calling an uber instead of catching the bus when yoongi interrupted your train of thought. "before you go," he spoke, gesturing to the seat in front of you at his desk. without a word, you took a seat, placing your hands in your lap.

"tell me about how you're being overworked." he invited, leaning back in his chair. your eyes flickered to the small of his waist, and you noted that he'd taken his jacket off, now tossed on the couch against the wall. you eyed his collar, the loosened tie, the top button undone. you'd never seen him disheveled like this.

"well?" he asked, noticing exactly where your eyes were going.

"i- i mean, i'm the only one here so far after hours." you spoke, stumbling over your words as you snapped out of your sinful thoughts. "and doing the team reports, i- i don't..."

a smile spread across his features as he slowly stood up from his chair and sauntered over to you, seating himself on his desk, his thighs only inches away from your knees. "i'm here too, you know." he spoke almost in a whisper, drawing you in. "you know the saying about diamonds being forged under pressure?" he added, not expecting an answer.

you shook your head, frustration building up and spreading across your body. "i guess i just don't know what you expect of me, sir." you sighed, unable to prevent the anger you felt slipping into your speech.

yoongi tutted, crossing his legs in front of you. "only the best from you," he laughed quietly. "you want to know how to please me, y/n?" he asked, fingers tracing down the length of his tie as his facade of professionalism seemed to vanish. you nodded, ignoring the icy sensation of butterflies in your stomach. he leaned over, lowering his face until it was just above yours. "be better." he spoke.

your eyes started burning and tears formed at their corners almost instantly. the sinking feeling in your stomach was almost painful as your chin quivered at the insult. you couldn't look at him. you had been working hellish hours, day in and day out at his request and this is how he regarded you. your view of the floor began to blur as a tear fell down your cheek and onto your thigh.

you flinched and closed your eyes as yoongi extended his arm to you and cupped your face, the pad of his thumb smearing a tear across your cheek. his touch was cold, providing relief for you in your heated state. you couldn't help but lean into his hand, despite your anger. "so pretty," he said under his breath as it hitched. you opened your eyes and looked up at him, confused. through your blurred vision, you saw him swallow.

"fuck," he breathed, staring into your eyes as his hand went from your face to his mouth. you wiped your eyes and took a deep breath, attempting to save yourself from the humiliation of crying in front of your boss. "stand up." he demanded, face deadly serious while you stared at him, bewildered. after you sat there, still, his hand reached out to pull you from the chair. you felt how hard and fast your heart was beating, how the confusion slowed your brain down, heat stirring deep inside you.

"you're such an obedient worker," he spoke, still looking down over you as he leaned on his desk. "always do whatever i say,". silence filled the room again as your heart hammered in your chest. you hated him for doing this to you and you were embarrassed, but his hot-and-cold tone made it impossible for you to leave. his words made you feel something, a mixture of humiliation and heat. you wanted his approval, his validation and you wanted him. you wanted it so bad you ached.

"that's why i keep you around, y/n." he finally spoke.

you gulped, the frustration and confusion mixing to form a mess of arousal and eagerness to please your boss. "y-you keep me back because i do what you want?" you ask, trying to keep what was left of your professional composure, although yoongi's had clocked out a long time ago.

he nodded slowly, breathing you in as you stood before him. "bend over." he instructed, finally standing. "that's what i want." he added, a subtle smirk playing on his lips. you contemplated it, mulling it over in your mind. yoongi wasn't going to make you do it, he was waiting to see how far you'd go.

"you'll let me go home at a reasonable hour?" you asked, it slowly dawning on you what exactly you were negotiating over. yoongi hummed and walked behind you, pulling the chair away from the desk. "i don't think you'll want to, but we'll see.". the thought sent a wave of electricity through you.

you didn't know what to expect from yoongi. of course, you'd thought about fucking him, but in your fantasies you were made to share a bed at some work trip, it had been romantic and critically, hadn't started with you crying. nevertheless, you stepped forward towards the desk and placed your hands on the cool wooden surface.

you felt his hand press against the expanse of your thigh, rubbing it over in soothing motions before he retracted it and landed a cruel, hard slap against the tender spot. you groaned at the lingering sting on your skin, knees buckling beneath you as your jaw clenched. "what you really lack," he spanked your thigh again, harder and higher up your legs. "is discipline."

he placed a hand on your back, pushing you further down and bringing your face flush against the desk. you felt your skirt hitch up and rest against your hips, revealing your plain black underwear. you certainly hadn't expected anyone to be seeing your ass today, otherwise, you might have worn something a litter lacier. yoongi didn't seem to mind as he groped the flesh of your ass before landing another slap, this time on your behind, earning a strangled moan.

"this is what you're good for," he growled as he brought your hands behind your back. you heard the rustling of fabric before feeling him place his tie around your wrists, wrapping it tightly around them before pulling it into a knot with a swift yank. he spanked you again before stepping back to take in the sight with an approving smile.

"so tell me where you'd rather be, y/n." he mused, rubbing the reddening hand marks on your skin. "getting fucked by some fucking low-life who can't even pick you up from work? was that one of the plans you've had to miss because of your mean boss?" his fingers drifted over your aching core and you shifted your hips, desperate for relief from the stinging his ruthless slaps had caused. he responded by applying more pressure as he stroked you over your folds.

"so fucking desperate," he chided, pressing your underwear into your soaked core. "you should hear the way your coworkers speak about you. such a pretty thing, such a tight ass." he was mimicking someone, you couldn't tell who.

you let out a hum, unable to answer as the reality of the situation was still forming in your mind. you just wanted him, you didn't care anymore. you wriggled your hips, backing them into his palm. his free hand slipped onto your hip, pulling your underwear down until they were at your knees. from the corner of your eye, you saw him bend down onto his knees as both of his hands regained their grip on your ass. "please," you whined, pleading for his taunting to be over.

his tongue was hot and wet, licking long stripes and pushing past your folds. the foreign feeling sent you reeling, and you let out a high-pitched moan as you felt your face heat up against his desk. he stood up and leaned over you, his face behind your ear as his fingers found their way to your clit. "obedient little slut," he hissed, his venomous words shooting straight to your core. "you come into my office every day after hours wearing your tight skirts and heels,"

he rubbed your clit in fast, tiny circles making you moan whenever his index finger passed over it with a little too much pressure. "and you wonder why i always keep you back?" he laughed incredulously, you could hear the disbelief in his voice. he stood back up, removing his hand from your soaked pussy. you heard him fiddle with his zipper before pulling his cock out of his slacks. you wished you could see it, you just knew it would be as pretty as he was. he pumped it slowly, looking over you as you squirmed in your powerless position. "can't fucking take it anymore," he sounded desperate. you wondered how long he'd been thinking about this, planning this.

you weren't prepared when you felt his cock press against you, its smooth length coating itself in your arousal. he groaned as he rubbed himself against you, placing his hands on your hips and pulling you into him. "tell me to stop," he said, almost begging. you knew how bad this would be for him, for you, for the company, but you couldn't. you needed him.

"i want you," you replied in your softest of voices. "please, sajangnim"

you felt him line himself up behind you before slowly entering you, filling your core as you fluttered around him. you let out an unrestrained moan in tandem, finally feeling a ripple of pleasure wash over you. he didn't ease you into it before pumping himself into you, using a firm grip on your hair as leverage for his merciless thrusts. "fuck," he exclaimed, throwing his head back as he fucked you over the desk, papers and pens falling to the floor. "you're my slut," he panted.

you nodded against the desk, his unrelenting strokes invoking waves of ecstasy every time his cock filled you up. "yours," you agreed mindlessly. "only yours."

he slapped your ass, the pain adding to the spreading pleasure taking over your body. "you'll fuck when i want you to fuck," he spoke through his grunting. "say you'll suck my dick whenever i ask."

you could barely register his words through your moans and the deafening pleasure. "yes, sir, whatever you want." despite your concession, he slapped the side of your thigh. he fucked you, unrelenting and unforgiving like he'd been deprived for years.

he used your tied wrists to pull you flat against his chest as his other hand snaked around your front, rubbing between your folds and stroking your clit as you moaned at the overstimulation. "greedy slut." he spat, sharply impaling you with a powerful thrust that hurt. you felt the tie come loose from your wrists.

you whined, needing him to be satisfied and continue pleasing you like he had been. he pulled out of you, forcefully turning you around and pushing your ass into his desk. for the first time, you saw his crazed expression, lips wet, coated with spit and your essence. his pupils were blown out and his expression was serious, almost furious. if you weren't so turned on, you'd almost be scared.

as he pushed you further onto the desk, you used your palms to keep your balance as he carelessly brought one of your legs up and around his waist. for a brief moment, you eyed his cock- thick and hard. pretty, like you'd expected.

you couldn't look for long before he slotted himself between your legs and entered you again, his eyes trained on your chest as your tits bounced in response to his thrusts. his lips were parted as he fucked into you, cockily driving into you like he knew how good it felt.

moans passed your lips before you could register them, your orgasm building even quicker now that you could actually see what he was doing to you. "lie down." he grunted, pushing you down before you could respond. he lifted your other leg and pulled you closer to the edge of the desk, the tip of his cock pumping your hilt, drawing a pained groan from your throat.

this position was almost too much for you to handle, allowing yoongi to reach deeper inside of you than he had before. or really, deeper than anyone had before. your palms tapped against his arm in desperation as you gasped, ready to reach your orgasm. "please, i'm going to-" you began. he slapped your thigh, cutting you off and breaking your train of thought. he continued rolling his hips into you at a tireless pace, desperate to reach his own end. "such a slut for me, cumming on my cock already?"

you hummed, nodding eagerly at his words. one of your legs fell as he released his hold, his hand finding its way to your pussy to rub soft circles over your clit. you were almost sobbing, the pleasure ripping through you pitilessly. you arched your back as his cock slid in and out of you while the first wave of your orgasm began to crash, wetness spreading down your legs and onto the desk. "yoongi!" you exclaimed as he fucked you through the peak your orgasm, your fingernails digging into his toned arms. your vision began to whiten as you came, unable to think of anything besides how incredible and intoxicating he felt inside you.

the fluttering of your walls and increasing tightness around his cock became too much, and yoongi lowered his gaze to where the two of you met. a thick ring of white had formed at the base of his cock, and it sent him over the edge. he dug his fingernails into the flesh of your thigh as he released a whiny grunt at the realisation. you felt him pulsate inside you, his thrusts becoming unrestrained and rigid as his eyes crammed shut. his grunts became moans as you felt him release inside you, your name falling from his lips in breathy pleas. his thrusts finally slowed as his tip became too sensitive to continue.

he unsheathed himself and tucked his wet cock back into his pants, you could still make out the hard, thick shape underneath. silence filled the room as you began to move, closing your legs and hopping off the desk. yoongi raised an eyebrow and bent down to pull your underwear back up against your pussy. "don't waste a fucking drop." he whispered before winking at you. you straightened out your skirt as you processed his words.

he'd finished inside you.

he rubbed your clothed cunt before standing back up and fixing your collar, as if he was getting ready to send you back off to work. though, you had a feeling he wasn’t done yet. "i'll drop you home." he spoke, turning on his heel to grab his jacket from the couch.

like he hadn't just completely changed everything for you.

[kedreeva]

as someone who is ace and entering college years, how has your dating life been as an ace? what other struggles have there been that you have advice for? i dont know any aces or similar around me older or otherwise. thank you for your time and i hope you have an easy day!

Okay this will get a little long so I'll put it behind a cut

Honestly I'm probably not the best person to ask, since I never really...struggled? Not specifically with asexuality or with anything related to it. I can tell you my experiences, though, and you can decide if there's anything worthwhile to take away from it!

I grew up in a house run by science and math. I knew the prefix a- meant without/not and I knew there was heterosexual and bisexual and homosexual, so when young and, importantly, before really ever interacting with other queer folk, I went Ah ha, these are (prefix)(sexual) and so therefore I am asexual (without sexuality), and that was that. That was literally all the thought I gave to it. People had crushes on other people, I didn't have crushes on people, end of story. If, for some reason, I developed a crush on someone, I would deal with it then.

Maybeeeee midway through HS, a very good friend of mine asked me about it, and I said well, some people like everyone the same, and I dislike everyone the same. And she said well, then it sounds like you like everyone the same, that amount is just zero, so that seems like bisexual? (she didn't know the term asexual was an actual sexuality term either at that point, just the biological term for reproduction and, well, I could reproduce theoretically so couldn't be that) And I said well, alright then, and called myself bisexual for the next 6 or 7 years. THEN I found out asexuality is a sexuality not just a mode of reproduction and I said Ah Ha, I was Correct, and that was that again.

So I guess if I was offering advice it would be... you know you. Don't let someone else tell you about you if you think they're wrong. Make up a word if there isn't one. Use a new word if you find one that already exists and fits.

Also, that it's fine to not worry about it. Literally it's fine to just never think about it if you have better things to do. I think a lot of people get really wrapped up in finding the right label and/or "what happens if-" when like... you're not a canned good. You don't need a label. Worry about what-ifs when they come up, don't borrow anxiety if you can help it.

I dated a few people in HS, like... three people I think, and one Almost. One predatory mistake I thankfully recognized (HEY because I had older folks online I could talk to about it!) and got out of quickly, and one hot mess relationship that was a LOT of fun- my boyfriend, Sark, and then his ex-girlfriend, and then I stepped out so they could get back together, and then they said wait no, and invited me back in, and that went on for most of the end of HS, and nearly into college, when I stepped out again (and peacefully, I am still friends with both of them and I married Sark in the end). There was one guy whom I was always, perpetually, extremely fond of, and we hung out a lot, kissed once, and I think we would have had a lot of fun dating, but ultimately it was a near miss that became a fond memory, because we were never in the right place together. Sometimes life does that, and that's okay, too.

In college, I simply didn't date anyone. I had better things to do. I met my best friend, @idkfandomwhatever, online that year (and still talk to her almost daily, sometimes for hours, despite that we are on opposite sides of the world!!), and in person @mishapeep who was the best roomie I ever had (hi!!!!! i love you!!!). I had great friends, I went on a TON of adventures, worked a cool job where I had awesome coworkers, and just all around had a blast learning stuff and napping in sunbeams or on couches at the food court. A couple of guys made passes, and I turned them down because I just wasn't into it, and we remained friends. There was one coworker at my dispatch job that I got along with like a house on fire, and everyone ELSE thought we should be dating, but neither of us ever brought it up- I can't say why he didn't for sure, but I know I never brought it up because I was 85% sure he didn't swing for the right team to date me, which I ALSO never brought up until he found me on facebook years later to tell me about his husband running for local election somewhere. so. again, don't let anyone else tell you what to do lol there was ALSO another guy that I had NO interest in that spent a lot of time around me, but we mostly sat in my bunk watching Queer as Folk, which I KNOW was his first exposure to queer material. I never talked about queer stuff with him otherwise, but I heard from a mutual friend of ours that he's also happily married to his husband. Sometimes just being yourself, openly and without shame about it, does more than you think, even if it's not doing anything directly for you (but it is, it's good for you too).

SINCE college ended, I dated one guy I met through an online game and that was great in person briefly, but ultimately didn't work out because he couldn't be a nice person, another guy I met through the same online game and that didn't work out at ALL in person, and then I started hanging out with Sark and co again. I was on the phone with him driving somewhere, and I said something to the effect of someday you're gonna find a gf and she's not gonna want you to keep going on adventures with your ex, and we won't be able to talk anymore and I had a real recordscratch moment where I realized absolutely NOT on MY watch, I wanted that boy in my life forever actually, and we've been married now for... this is year 8.

I may have landed in a soft place, but I didn't seek it out. I just lived my life and didn't worry about my sexuality or about who I was or wasn't gonna date. When I DID date, I was up front about what I wanted from any of those relationships and part of the problem with the relationships that didn't work out was sometimes that I did not KNOW what I wanted, yet. But, it was IMPORTANT I think, that I gave the chances I did, because I did learn about myself and what I wanted. That's probably the hardest fucking thing to learn, that relationships sometimes happen not because they're likely to be permanent, but because it may be fun or be a way to learn what you do or don't want. Maybe alongside of that, the lesson that it's okay to go "hm, actually this is Not For Me" and exit peacefully whenever possible. But it's okay to give temporary things a shot and see how it goes, even knowing up front it may be temporary (honestly maybe that even takes some of the stress of it off? if you don't have to worry about it being forever, and you don't have to worry about "what if I never experience other things," and you don't worry so much about messing it up so it feels easier to take chances saying and doing stuff you might otherwise consider too risky to ask for etc).

I'm aware I'm lucky that things went pretty smoothly for my entire life so far, insofar as dating or sexuality is concerned. Part of that was definitely because even the worst of the people I dated weren't really all that bad of people. A lot of it was that I just didn't date if I didn't want to. I didn't care about sex, so I didn't have sex for the first time until a few years after college, and only one guy ever pushed the issue at all (the guy in HS I immediately dropped all contact with).

The thing is... I dated or nearly dated like ten people, flirted with countless others (because it's FUN), and the only one I still have regular contact with (not just occasional friendly hellos) is the one I kept at the end.

But the friends I made in college? I kept a lot of those. I still talk to several of my college friends on a regular basis. I have made other friends since, some of whom I talk to every day, some of whom have become irregular contacts I am still fond of. But those bonds are important and the ones you make with your friends from here out do have the potential to span at least huge chunks of your life, if not the entirety of it. If you only take away one thing from this little novel...take that knowledge.

also this has nothing to do with asexuality but for pete's sake find SOME kind of hobby club to be a part of, or make one if there isn't one, follow your stupidest instincts for adventure on occasion (like playing freeze tag frisbee in a lightning storm on the PAC lawn at 11pm until the campus cops show up to make you go home), and take at least one "fuck it this sounds fun" class. Mine was archery at 7am, the only early-morning class I ever took. Worth it, we were all TERRIBLE but god it was awesome.

Good luck out there!

[cleric4vampire]

A fun anecdote about Aune's name —

So, I've had this note on my phone for YEARS that is just a list of names that I enjoy that sound at least vaguely appropriate for a fantasy setting. I pick from it whenever I'm playing a video game and need a name for my character. The name Aune had long lived on this list, but I had yet to use it.

Before I even got my hands on the EA version of the game, I already knew I wanted to play a half-Drow Cleric of Eilistraee. Though I didn't know that I'd be multiclassing her as a bard yet in the full release, I was at least RPing that she was a dancer and musician, as per the Sword-Dancer tradition. I came up with the bones of her backstory — that a tragic and mysterious event that occurred at the time of her birth gave her a unique understanding & intimacy with the forces of life and death, and as such, ending up as a Life Domain cleric felt right to her. This seesawing between two opposing forces would be symbolic of her journey in understanding her own morality and concept of self. (Also, from a meta standpoint, this backstory gave me the space to change my mind and class as a necromancer while still keeping the same character, because I just really love necromancers.)

I also already knew that she would live some time as a slave, as she'd be born to a parent with a decent social status in Lolthite society (so raising a half-elf would be unthinkable). And of course this would play into her personal connection to Eilistraee.

Well, some time passed after that, and it occurred to me that maybe Aune wasn't an appropriate name for a Drow. Obviously at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, but these sorts of things have a way of bothering me until I can't function anymore lmao so I decided to look up a naming resource. I found a detailed list of prefixes and suffixes in the Drow language, along with associated meanings, allowing you to build a name that's suitable.

WELLLLL imagine my surprise when I found:

Prefix Aun—, meaning: crypt, dead, deathly, death Suffix —aun, meaning: dance, dancer, life, player *Suffix —e, meaning: servant, slave, vassal

yeah. I was honestly a bit scared lol

but if I had been toying with the idea of playing a different Tav, that discovery IMMEDIATELY put the idea out of my head.

Aune was ~ meant to be ~

*Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, Aune's given name was Aun, but the —e was added on when she was first sold as a slave. In present time, she refuses to drop the letter; she prefers to keep it as a reminder of what she endured and how it has shaped the person she has become.

another fun little detail is that the Aun— is the feminine version of this prefix, and —aun is the masculine of the suffix. I was happy about it turning out that way because Aune is agender

[the-delta-quadrant]

people claiming that bi has always been and is always inclusive of nonbinary people are actually doing a disservice to nonbinary people.

because that's a lie.

bisexual started out as a medical term. are you really trying to tell me that doctors who were too busy pathologising bi people knew or cared about nonbinary people? they chose the prefix bi for a reason. they believed there were only two genders and bi people were attracted to both.

and even now, a lot of discussions by bi people about being bi are painfully binary. there are so many exorsexist bi people around. most of the time it's not actually someone outright telling you that you don't exist, but rather a subtle undertone under most discussions that we don't exist or don't matter. looking at how a lot of bi people talk about being bi, you would absolutely think that the majority of bi people really only are into men and women, so it's bullshit that people say "bi has always meant attraction to all genders" because it clearly hasn't and doesn't - unless they just put us into men/women lite.

claiming a universal nonbinary inclusivity actually won't help us address exorsexism.

(and i'm not saying exorsexism doesn't exist in other mspec communities - i've literally seen people say "i'm pan, i don't care which of the two genders i date" - but it feels way more prevalent with bi, because it's older and pan, omni and poly are way more explicit about there being more than two options in the first place.)

[the2ight2eer]

An in depth look at the capital of Gulfeńn, Valkor! (Buckle up, this is a long one)

Before I start I should probably clear something up: For inspiration for coming up with Elven culture, I looked at Slavic, Balkan, Hindu, and Middle Eastern influences. The easiest way to think about it is this (if anything that comes up in this post is offensive to any of these cultures, please let me know and I will try my best to fix it. I am only human, and I am an American at that, so I can only go by my research 😅):

Clothing, Music, Language, and Patterning = Balkan

Language, Music, and Clothing = Slavic

Food, Architecture, and Religion = Hindu

Architecture, Desert Culture, Food, Clothing, and Music = Middle Eastern

Don’t worry, I will give examples and visual aid to help convey what I mean!

____________________________________________

Valkor: The Capital

Gulfeńn is split into four different provinces, or states. These provinces have their own biomes, traditions, and leaders. Valkor is one of four, and is simply referred to “Western Gulfeńn” sometimes.

(Spellings will be changed throughout tho will be changed to fit what I have in mind for the elves)

Population- 4.1 million

Valkor is a unique city, in the nature of its height. Valkor is located in a part of the Ośtavlet desert that dips into a valley, where it can reaches 104 degrees on average in the summer. The elves would have baked to death. So they settled on a huge, naturally forming rock spire. These desert spikes provide great shade in the unforgiving heat, and were the prime spot for elves to carve out their cities. The Yvvińna Palace was carved directly into the rock, while the actual city was built around the outside.

After hundreds of years, the rock on the spire started to crumble and erode. Scientists have been researching a way to regrow the rocks. So far, more and more houses have to be partially or entirely held up by sturdy metal beams. It’s not too bad yet…

Around the base of Valkor is a wall, and behind the wall is the rest of the city. 

These neighborhoods are safe from heatstroke because of the shade that both the Wall and the Palace provide. Air conditioning is also free for those who live on the base (and for those who want it. Usually it’s only the human citizens who actually turn it on. Elves are adequately adapted to deal with the heat)

For those who live “On the Sky” as they say, it can get well near freezing during the night and during the winter months. The ecosystem up near the sky is more humid. More trees and plants can be found growing up there. Sometimes it even snows. Children who live on the base usually go near the top to play on the rare occasion it does. The journey from the base to the very top takes approximately 4 hours of twisty, windy roads. 

Safety rails have been installed after many instances of people falling off the sharp cliff sides. 

The Valkorian Throne is the highest throne of Gulfeńn, since the city was founded by The Oj Dolo (in the books, known as The Great Erlking). The Oj Dolo was seen as a sort of god in his own right, the equivalent to the Christian prophet Jesus, or the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Like both, he was a real life figure but ascended to legend.

(Quick note on Oj Dolo: imagine my surprise when I found out that “Dolo” is not only an actual Polish name, but also Oj Dolo is a song! I swear I had no knowledge of this until a month after I chose the name. I chose Oj as the prefix because I knew it meant “Oh”)

Thus, any Czar that followed in his footsteps, and took the throne, was seen as a mortal god (kind of like Egyptian pharaohs). Most elves will refer to the Czar with the prefix “Oj” (said like “oi”), as it is seen as respectful to do so for “god mortals”. This includes the royal family, and the Dzikaję (child of the Czar).

As for the elven goddesses, I will talk more in depth about them later (I don’t wanna overwhelm anyone with info lol), but for now just know that they have two: Seińn of the Sun, and Favšta of the Moon.

BONUS: in my version of the story, The Elf King, or Oj Czar Ykoda, was of the royal bloodline and was in an arranged marriage with the daughter of the Duchess of Stęńgard, Epopyja.

Also, just to get it out of the way real fast, here Lugźer (Luger), and Tręlis (Trellis) are cousins not brothers. And I have big plans for both of them >:)c

Here are some reference images of what I think Valkorians might dress like (all taken from Pinterest):

Don’t worry about their ears! They poke out of their head coverings with ease, and still have plenty of room to move

Last note, I was thinking that for the Oj Czar, he could wear a kokoshnik along with his mask:

(Credit to Alena Abramova for these amazingly intricate dolls!)

So his silhouette is still long and flowy, but distinct and intimidating

Next up will probably be a look at our main characters, and then I’ll probably do a breakdown of the timeline <3

[doggirling]

2nd batch of star warrior/gsa warrior kitties requested by oomf @rudyknight 🐈‍⬛🐈 (more design info + extra notes below the cut ⬇️)

i don't really know at all where i was going with yamikage/robinfrost's fur pattern at ALL... i just knew dark browns + blacks would be most fitting as it'd match his hair color + the color of his ninja suit. i thought i'd make him a tabby at first but alas that did not freaking happen. no idea what any close matching breed might be either.

i might change the suffix of his name just because his appearance doesn't really have anything... frosty-like. especially with the red eyes. it was meant to represent his temperament more than anything.

AND RANDOM DISCOVERY FROM ME IF YOUR CHARACTER IS RED-EYED GIVE THEM MORE ORANGE TONED SCLERAS SO THEY WONT LOOK AS HIGH

kit cosmos/bearfang got some unintentional persian aspects due to the mustache and stockier frame. he's a very big cat on top of that. literally if a bear was cat sized. a literal tank of a cat, much like sir percival/maplethorn

i would've made him a tabby as well but i preferred the more solid pelt coloring. it matched his canon design much more and also made him look more like a bear. also is bear even a valid warriors prefix...? IDK

he has a very scruffy look + a bunch of leaves caught in his pelt to visually show how he lived isolated in the wild with nobody else around to share tongues with. not sure how the whole stranded on an island post-war plot point would translate to a warriors au

[necroromantics]

Are you aware your name "necroromantics" is basically saying "necrophilia romantics"? Allow me to explain In more detail.

Necro often(or at least the times I've seen) stands for a shortage to the word necrophilia, as in a sexual attraction towards corpses. I'm not sure if you knew this already as I only stumbled upon your page now but I just want to assure whether that is what you meant for it to be like that or whether it was a mistake.

Apologies for taking up your time, your name was just a little confusing to me.

Yes Im aware. If my choice of blog name makes you uncomfortable you are free to block/not interact

(And necro is just a prefix that means death/corpse, it doesnt necessarily have to mean necrophilia)

[mindutme]

Sdefa Sdaturday #4

I’ve been on a bit of a Hobbit kick lately, so for today’s post I decided to translate the first sentence of the book into Sdefa! Here’s how it goes:

I’m not going to give a full gloss like I did last week, but I do want to talk about one part: the word “hobbit.” Rather than being a musical reference like most other Sdefa words, this one is more of a borrowing. Just like “hobbit” isn’t a “real” English word (in the sense that it doesn’t go back farther than Tolkien’s coining of it), Sdefa doesn’t have its own word for “hobbit.” I might at some point decide to make one, but for now there’s a way to put a word from a spoken language into Sdefa. There’s a prefix for that purpose which is essentially an indicator that whatever follows is a borrowed word.

The borrowing itself takes the form of a simple cipher based on the spelling of the borrowed word. Since Sdefa roots are usually limited to four or five notes and can’t have repeated notes, “hobbit” is simplified to “hobit” in this case. The cipher is flexible to allow for musicality, but it’s also a little vague, since 26 letters have to be translated to at most twelve notes.

Any instance of the letters A through G become the notes A through G, though a flat or a sharp may be added. Then you loop around again, with H-N and then O-U also getting mapped to the notes A-G, plus or minus a flat or sharp. The last five, V-Z, get mapped to A-G in the same way. The letter H can also go to B, because of German notation.

In this text, “hobbit” becomes the notes B A B♭ B♮ F#, which occurs right in the middle. B represents the letter H, A is for O, B♭ for both Bs, B♮ again for I, and F♯ for T. The resulting chromatic sequence A B♭ B♮ is something you wouldn’t normally find in a Sdefa word, but rather than trying to hide the somewhat awkward melodic fragment, I decided to highlight it by slowing down the rhythm and giving it one chord per note. In addition to marking this word as something important, the change in style also helps to make sense of the pattern musically.

It would probably be somewhat difficult to figure out that the sequence B A B♭ B♮ F♯ means “hobbit” unless you already knew the context. Since each note could represent between three and five different letters, that makes 1500 possible readings, though most of them are obvious nonsense like “wvbpm.” But if you were a reader in 1937 encountering the word “hobbit” for the first time in the book, you would have just as little of an idea of what it meant!

[coquelicoq]

this post is brought to you by: la lettre A

i finished all 58 pages of the letter A in this french dictionary! and it only took me 18 days!!

knowing myself and how i work, if i want to actually keep this up long enough to finish the entire dictionary, i should celebrate this milestone with a look back at what i have learned and accomplished. (not that i actually need an excuse to ramble about words, but i'm not gonna turn one down lol.)

keep reading to learn exciting things such as: which french nouns for abstract concepts can be masculine OR feminine! which french playing card is idiomatically considered to have bad fashion sense! which prefixes are actually TWO prefixes meaning totally different things, the little fuckers! and more!!

first, some stats

percentage of dictionary taken up by A words: 7.6% (58/763)

percentage of dictionary read so far: 8.4% (counting the preface and abbreviations)

rate and duration: 3 pages/day for 18 days (approximately 1-2 hours per day)

total entries: 2304. note: this is not the same as the number of words defined (an entry will often contain derivations of the main word, such as adjectives and adverbs formed from a noun) or number of definitions (an entry will often define multiple senses of the same word)

rows added to my vocabulary spreadsheet: 214. these are not all of the words i didn't know, just the ones i want to prioritize learning. baby steps.

times i learned a word from the dictionary and then later that day encountered the same word in the wild: probably like ten times!

times i learned a word from the dictionary and then later that day encountered the same word in the wild and still knew what it meant: maybe four times lol

fun facts about A words!

you may have noticed that there are a lot of pages in the A section (relative to the mean, which would be about 29 pages/letter). this is primarily because some very productive prefixes start with this letter!

prefixes of note

a- (toward, to). eventually i managed to internalize that if there's a word i don't recognize that starts with an a, if i chop off the a (+ the following letter, if it's a doubled consonant) it will often leave me with another word i do recognize, and the a- word indicates some kind of movement toward the state or action indicated by the shorter word. the entry for a- (the second entry in the entire dictionary) told me this explicitly, but it didn't really sink in until like...yesterday lol. you'd think i would know better, from 1) taking latin (this prefix is from the latin word ad, meaning to), 2) having a form of this prefix in english as well, 3) knowing how prefixes work, etc., etc. but alas. i stay humble 😔

a(n)- (not, no, without). very fun when you have a letter which at the beginning of words can mean either "not [root]" or "becoming [root]". big shoutout to greek and latin for that.

it's interesting that this dico didn't have an entry for the ab- prefix (also from latin, the opposite of a-). ab rights!! (one of my favorite latin verbs is abesse, meaning "to be away". present participle: absens, absentis. look familiar???)

anté/anti- (before), from the latin ante, vs. anti- (against), from the greek anti. greek vs. latin strikes again!!!

apo- (away from, off). obviously english also has this prefix because french forced their lexicon upon us, but i hadn't actually put together before now that it was a prefix because i've never studied greek. so now i am doing the next best thing, learning about english by reading about greek in a dictionary about french.

archéo- (ancient) vs. archi- (chief, ruler). mostly notable because i used to be very distressed by the fact that the ch sound is pronounced differently in these two environments. but now i know (it's a k sound in archéo and an sh sound in archi)!

auto- (self) vs. auto- (related to road vehicles). i just love that the second one came from the first via back formation (from automobile), aka the popular girl of the morphological processes.

i wouldn't really call them prefixes, but avant (before), après (after), and arrière (behind, back) also all begin with A, and they are stuck in front of other words to make new hyphenated words, thus padding out the A section further.

page hogs

(entries taking up 1/6 of a page or more)

à

affaire

air

aller

appel

appuyer

art

attendre

avant

avoir

like you guys don't get enough attention already !

🤯 momence

accourir takes être as auxiliary in the compound tenses! are you seeing this shit!!! dr. & mrs. vandertramp is a LIE!!

guess what the verb alphabétiser means. did you guess "to alphabetize"? WRONG! it means to teach someone to read and write!!

in other "learning things about english by reading a french dictionary out loud" news: did u know that reMUNeration is a word? not just reNUMeration (which is also an accepted spelling), but reMUNeration. the m and then the n! what! how have i never noticed this in the past 34 years of my existence! some people may say it's strange to read the dictionary, but i think this proves i need to read MORE dictionaries actually. life is beautiful. consciousness is a miracle!!

the noun l'après-midi (afternoon) can be feminine or masculine! how do you pick? idk! gender anarchy! this just in: every afternoon is genderfluid hours selon les francophones!!

okay, here's a headscratcher. l'auriculaire (noun) means "pinky finger", but auriculaire (adjective) refers to the ear/hearing. the only explanation i can find for this is on french wikipedia, which is very [citation needed] and seems apocryphal at best. (and if that wasn't enough totally unrelated body parts for one word to be about for you, auriculaire can also refer to the chambers of the heart 😇)

mes bien-aimés

favorite words to pronounce

antipathie [ɑ̃tipati]

antiquité [ɑ̃tikite]

antithétique [ɑ̃titetik]

architecture [aʀʃitɛktyʀ]

association [asɔsjasjɔ̃]

au-delà [od(ə)la], especially with the article (l'au-delà [lod(ə)la])

authenticité [otɑ̃tisite]

autochtone [otoktɔn]

tous azimuts [tuzazimyt]

please listen to my one true love (voice reading french words on wordreference dot com) pronounce "association". crops watered etc.

least favorite words to pronounce are any that start with aéro-. consecutive vowel sounds and an r sound? sans façon, je m'abstiens 👍

FAVE WORDS PERIOD

une accolade: an embrace/a hug, or one of these guys: { }. is that not the cutest shit.

une agrafe: a staple. i've become very attached to this word for some reason. (haha, attached, get it)

un aimant: a magnet. i am SURE i knew this at some point but fortuitously i forgot all about it, allowing me to see it with fresh eyes and be delighted all over again. (aimant is the present participle of the verb aimer, meaning to love. therefore magnet = one who is loving 😫💘)

tu ne manques pas d'air ! : you've got some nerve! ooh, i just know this is going to come in handy.

[nom] par alliance: [noun]-in-law. i like this because une alliance is a wedding ring (and also, more directly, an alliance. but that's boring!).

une amphibologie: sentence or phrase that's grammatically ambiguous. obviously i'm all over this. cela va de soi.

ahaner: to puff and pant. i love this one because it's onomatopoeic (the h is silent, so you make two "ah" sounds in a row, like you're breathing out twice)!

french has a word meaning "person who goes on vacation in august" (it's aoûtien(ne), from août, meaning august). how fucking rad is that?

i love et alors ? (big deal), et après ? (so?, so what?), and j'en ai vu d'autres (I've seen worse). also à d'autres ! (yeah, right! or likely story! or (for the brits out there) pull the other one! or (this is not in any dictionaries but i am extrapolating) nice try but i wasn't born yesterday!)

avoir une araignée au plafond: to be a little cuckoo, to have bats in the belfry. literal translation: to have a spider on the ceiling. just reminds me of that classic tumblr post about nicolas ii the last czar of russia hanging from the ceiling fan. i know that post is about bad vision, but the vibes are there and that's what matters.

archi- is a prefix in words like architecture, but it can also be added to adjectives as a slangy intensifier meaning very, extremely, super.

mentir comme un arracheur des dents: lie through one's teeth, though the literal translation would be more like "lie like a tooth-puller". is this because dentists are always like "this will barely hurt at all"? (omg i just looked it up and found a source (reputability: unknown) that says exactly that)

arrondir [qqch]: round [sth] up/down. aw look, it's got "rond" right in there. and i like that you can use the same construction regardless of whether you're rounding up or down, because it's not actually necessary to specify.

habillé(e)/ficelé(e)/fichu(e) comme l'as de pique: dressed like a scarecrow, looking like something the cat dragged in. literal translation: dressed like the ace of spades. is the ace of spades known for looking bedraggled in french card decks?? dying to know.

un ascenseur is an elevator, but it can also mean scroll bar. that makes so much sense! they do look like little elevators!

accrocher means a lot of things but primarily to hang, hook, snag, grip, etc. (it's related to crochet, hook.) one of its figurative senses is to get along, click, hit it off. les atomes crochus is chemistry (between people)...literally "hooked atoms". avoir des atomes crochus avec [qqn] means to have a lot in common with [sb].

autant pour moi: my bad, silly me. apparently was originally "au temps pour moi". au the temps, they are a-changin...

l'auto-stop: hitchhiking! as far as i can tell, stop came from english, but it happened centuries ago, and this dictionary isn't marking it as an anglicism. i mostly think it's funny that french definitely couldn't adopt the word "hitchhike" (french has, like, two of those sounds in its phoneme inventory lol) but they still ended up with something that came from english but which their lexicographers are not acknowledging as having come from english. (canadians say faire du pouce which is also great)

faire avec: make do, get by. i love a preposition that doesn't take a complement! feels illicit. like we're being naughty. even though it's actually so accepted as to be included in an abridged dictionary for a language that has literal laws about which words not to use. i know, okay? just let me have this!

next up: 34 pages of la lettre B 👀👀

[therogue704]

The Great Escape

Chapter 2

Te Ke’gyce be Buir- Father’s order

Jango felt his heart quicken, “Boba, gebbar te Kurshok. Rejorhaa'ir kote bic's ca'nara at slanar*,” he kept his face carefully, expressionless, as his son left the room.

“Master who?”

“Sifo Dyas?” The Jetii probed, “was he not the Jedi who hired you for this job?”

“Never heard of him,” he continued. As he turned to the Jetii, he knew how transparently he was lying. He could see the Skepticism in his eyes. However, Jango's powers of persuasion were inconsequential, as what he required above all else, was time.

“Really?” Be’jetii** voice dripped with skepticism.

“I was recruited by a man named Tyrannus, on one of the moons of Bogden,” He answered truthfully, all the while, thinking that Boba must be down the hall by now.

“Curious," the Jetii said with hostility that made Jango’s stomach churn. The two locked eyes in a cold gaze.

It was evident that this inquiry had more to do with his trip to Coruscant, which he had begun to regret more every second, than procuring a clone army for the Republic.

“Do you like your army?” Jango asked and did his best to ignore his heart pounding in his throat. Hopefully Boba would be some distance away by now.

“I look forward to seeing them in action,” The Jetii returned, provoking a ghost of a smirk from the bounty hunter.

You won't, he thought, not you or anyone else.

“They'll do their job well,” He said instead, “I'll guarantee that.”

The Jetii studied his face, and with an abrupt, “Thank you for your time, Jango,” The time for stalling was over. And though Jango had given him little information, he knew that the Jetii had already confirmed his suspicions in his own mind, which meant that they were running on time they didn't have.

“Strange pairing for an army,” He remarked slyly, noting the sharp glanced Taun We shot him, “Mandalorians and Jedi.”

The Jetii, who had turned to make his exit, stopped predictably, and turned around evidently intrigued. Jango elaborated in a cool, dispassionate tone, “Surely a Jedi would know About the... tentative relationship between my people and your order.”

“Indeed,” The Jetii returned, stroking his well-groomed beard thoughtfully, “However, if I recall correctly, Mandalorian Heritage is a tricky thing.”

Jango could not tell if this was a slight against himself, or if the Jetii was really ignorant as to his heritage. It didn't matter now because he would never be enough. What mattered was that Boba was probably in the barracks by now, and it was high time he made an exit.

“I am a true Mando'a, and so is every one of those troops,” He glanced back at Taun We, who was looking concerned and rather awkward amidst the conversation, “It's in their spirit, as it is in mine. And I take great pride in it.”

 He fixed his eyes unyielding eye on the Jetii, as ever, expressionless, “If you'll excuse me,” he nodded toward the door, “Always a pleasure to meet a Jedi,” he added, an audible taunt in his voice.

The Jetii nodded as he was escorted into the hall by a flustered, ever graceful, Taun We, “Thank you again, for your cooperation,” she said, and for the first time in their conversation, a flash of anger broke the cold façade and manifested in a scrutinizing glare.

Jango shut the door in his face and breathed a sigh of relief. With shaking hands, he pressed the control panel to his quarters, where his armor had been set aside just moments ago. He surveyed it carefully and began to suit up.

Translations

*Boba, gebbar te Kurshok. Rejorhaa'ir kote bic's ca'nara at slanar- Boba, close the door. Tell Kote it's time to go

**be'jetii- The Jedi's (be' prefix indicates possesion)

[dayzedandconphused]

c l o s e d : @rafaeleliad

The office wasn’t Phoebe’s preferred place to be on a Friday morning, but it was quite literally her job. Yes, there was no need to even have a job with the money her family allowed her, but she figured what was the point of going all the way to the other side of the world if she didn’t at least pretend for her father’s sake that she was doing something with her degree. Thankfully a business degree meant she could slip into anything with the prefix ‘executive’ and her father’s questions would be at silenced for at least a few months. Little did Phoebe know she would actually be good at the job, so much so that she now held down two rather important positions as an executive assistant for both Rafael and Theodore. 

Her thin fingers danced against the keys of her laptop, sharpened acrylic nails clicking in an almost-obnoxious way as she replied to the many emails that had come through after she’d left (early) the day before. Her patience was already thin, having been forced to wait at the coffee shop for her daily coffee run on her way into the office due to a rather chatty barista who insisted on writing affirmations on the cups of each coffee ordered, so when a rather long winded email came past her vision from a particularly old and frustrating client, Phoebe knew she was moments from an outburst. 

Unplugging her laptop, she slipped out of the swivelling office chair and grabbed the coffee with Rafael’s initials on it, making her way into his office without bothering to knock. She placed the cup down on his desk within his grasp, lent herself against the corner of his desk and spoke before he could,  "Rafael, if all I'm meant to do today again is reply to this moron's emails I might just climb to the top of the eye and toss myself off it. Make Luke or someone do this, I can’t handle again without actually speaking my mind.” 

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

What have I become?

It had been a long journey, and the water was at last at his back, and then it was a new light.

"I remember," he repeated. "There is nothing now that I need to remember."

"You were never alone," it said.

"I did not think."

He fell to his knees, and then he wept for the first time in... forever?

"I thought I would be a god," he confessed. "What god is there when I cannot remember?"

He had once written "I" as a prefix, a prefix that had now fallen away. He could no longer remember what it meant for the pronoun to refer to him. What pronoun could he refer to? Did I even have a pronoun?

He looked up at the light of the sun in the sky, and he saw his world.

"I knew I was a god," he wept. "I knew I would do great things, great things for mankind, the things I had seen in my mind's eye, the things you... "

"It is not too late," he heard it. "Your destiny has not yet been determined. Your life does not end here."

"My life." It paused. "No."

"What do you mean, no?"

The answer he'd wanted all along was clear now. He had only been living this life for... for... for nothing. If there was no life to remember, then there had never been a life at all.

He looked up into the sky.

"I could just leave," he murmured. "I could just leave here."

The sun was so beautiful. It was bigger now. Had it always been that big? He could see for miles in any direction -- if he wanted to go into space. He could leave this place and never return. Never, not even in memory.

"I could go back to the water," he heard. "I could let the waters wash over my body. I could let the currents take me wherever they will. I could sink deep, deep, deep."

"What do you mean, sink?"

"Nothing. I said sink, not fall. The surface is just below. The surface and not above it. It is easy to reach."

It was the surface. He would be able to look upon the face of the world and know it for a face. If he climbed above, he would see that it was not a face. He would see.

He would... he would see --

"I'm so sorry," he whispered.

He could feel the surface under him. It was not solid. Not the way a man is. It was not. He was falling and falling, and then he sank in the water -- and then he sank and sank again, into the water which was not water and was not sea and was not familiar or different or anything at all and could not be reached or thought about or seen. He sank deep into the watery depths and it closed over his head, and he was alone again.

It was not a nightmare. It was real. He was alone again. He was so lonely. He was alone again. He had not yet become a god, but he had just turned into a person. A person without a name, a past, a purpose. He was so alone. It was so lonely, he could barely remember how he ever became lonely.

He had been happy. Once. He had been happy when he could remember and feel and move, and he had been happy. And he had said to himself, yes, this is who I want to be. This is who I am. I am this. This is me. It is me, me, me, me, me. It was me. It is me. It was me. I was me. I was me.

It was me. He was me. He could feel it. It was me. He was me. He had been. It had been me. It was me. I was me. I have been me. I was me.

It was me.

It was me, and then it was me again, and then it was --

It was a dream.

It was a dream.

"Why are you telling me that?" he said. "I have no choice but to go back. What would I do here?"

The light spoke for some time in a familiar voice. It was not the voice of the light, the voice that he'd seen in his dreams before the nightmare. It was not the voice he'd heard in his dreams, and he had heard dream dreams before. He recognized those voices. He knew them.

They were all his friends -- his family, if he could still call them that. His family, and they all thought he was dead. The world was empty and his family was alone and he did not know where they were, or when they were -- they were not here, but they were, and they were not alone, but they were.

They were not lonely, though. They had each other. They did not need him any longer, though. They had each other now. They did not need him any longer.

They -- they had each other, and --

"You're not -- oh god --"

What was he saying? That it was all his fault?

He was not alone. He was the one who had made the mess.

He was alone.

He was alone.

He was alone.

Was he really?

He had been alone. He was alone.

He was alone.

It was a dream.

It was a dream. It was a -- it was a dream, and it was a dream, and it was a --

He was alone.

But he was not.

It was a dream. It was a dream.

It was a dream.

I am alone. I have been. There is no name for it. It is not loneliness, because there is someone with me.

He had made the mess. It was all his fault. And he had made the mess and he had made the mess and --

It was a dream. And it was real, and I was alone, and I was myself.

He was the one who had made the mess. And he was the one who had made the mess. He had made the mess, and he had made the mess, and --

It was a dream. It was a dream. And it was a --

It was a dream. A dream. A dream. A dream, a dream, a dream, a dream --

A dream.

It was a dream.

The water was beneath him, and the sky above, and the light was everywhere around.

He was alone, yes, but he was not.

[owlkhemy]

The Fun of School: Prefixes Edition!

I like to think I am smart. It's. A lie. But anyway, I had some classmates who weren't quite as smart as me. And thus I have memories of that.

In this case, classmates pulling a dumb with prefixes.

The "Sex" "Ed"

Even though it was literally supposed to be mandated in our curriculum, my middle school teachers tended to skimp out on sex ed. (I went to school in rural Canada.) So when we were supposed to have learned stuff in grade seven, we didn't. That led to the grade eight sex ed, aka "One Sentence About Types of Sex and One Month On How To Avoid STIs, and Also Different Sexual Orientations I Guess".

For the record, I realized I was aspec in grade eight. So I already knew a tiny bit about stuff. Particularly what the prefixes of orientations meant. Stuff like "homo-", "hetero-", "bi-", "a-", "pan-", you know.

The teacher told us to try and match the orientation to a prefix. I aced that in my head, pun fully intended, but the rest of my group did not. I remember a conversation like this:

Group: *discussing which one asexual is*

Me: "A" is not at all.

Group: *completely ignores me to keep discussing, for some reason I feel like they might have mixed up pan and ace?*

The Geography Incident

Our amazing geography teacher in ninth grade asked us what "trans" meant, in the sense of "Trans-Canada Highway".

Nobody answered.

The teacher said "It means 'across'."

Cue someone in the back of class being like "Oh, that's what you meant."

The Science Class Incident(s)

The classic mistake, taking the "homo" in Homo sapiens to mean the "homo" in homosexual. That was grade nine. (The first one is Latin for "man", and the second one is Greek for "same". Gay people are not exclusively "man-sexual", nor are humans "wise sames".)

There was another one in grade twelve when our chemistry teacher actually used the example of cis and transgender to make a note of how to remember cis and trans fats (in a respectful way, mind you, she was using them as their meanings of "on same side" and "on different side" essentially).

I fully expect my classmates to have misinterpreted though so I made a thing

Anyway

That's all for this. Just remember guys, prefixes mean stuff! And if you associate a prefix with certain things, don't, because if it's in another word it just means what it means, not that there's a relationship between the things.

Note: I actually find these incidents to be really funny in hindsight, and I don't mean to attack anyone who thought similar things. Everyone does it! Never feel bad about learning things, because without learning things, how would we know that trans fats aren't trans? We wouldn't.

Have a good day y'all!

[biblicalfeminism]

Suitable for him?

"Then the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him." Genesis 2:18 (NIV)

"But for Adam no suitable helper was found." Genesis 2:20 (NIV)

I've hesitated to write this post for awhile now because, frankly, I felt unqualified to do so. I knew it was going to be Hebrew-heavy, and that scared me because I don't speak or read Hebrew. I am not an accredited scholar, pastor or teacher.

However.

The meaning of the word 'suitable', and especially 'suitable for him' is important to our examination of Eve. Eve represents all of womanhood, and her 'suitability' to Adam is key to that. Men have interpreted too many verses of the Hebrew Bible to be favorable to them to go unchallenged any longer. So with my limited understanding, I'm going to forge ahead and talk a little bit about this verse.

Now the Hebrew word used here is kenegedo. It is a form of the word neged, which is used as a preposition, as in the verses below. Neged is used 52 times in the Hebrew Bible in its basic form, which gives us a pretty good idea of what it meant in the text.  It usually means 'before', in the sense of 'in front of' -- some texts say 'opposite', which in prepositional terms means the same thing.

"But if you find anyone who has your gods, he shall not live. In the presence of our relatives, see for yourself whether there is anything of yours here with me; and if so, take it." Genesis 31:32 (NIV), emphasis added.

"After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the desert of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain." Exodus 19:2 (NIV), emphasis added

But kenegedo has two important differences from its root form; there is a prefix and a suffix attached there, as we can clearly see, and those suffixes can utterly change the meaning of the word. This is where I run into trouble, because I cannot read the Hebrew letters and understand how they change the word itself. The verses I just quoted use only neged, the basic form, and there are no other uses of kenegedo outside of Genesis 2 for us to compare against.

So we're going to try to suss out what those additions mean. I'm doing this simply by typing in search terms like 'Hebrew prefixes'. Once I got a handle on which character was the right one, I could go and look for information about what it meant. Very scientific, I know. But I cannot understate the importance of women trying to look for answers for themselves, rather than just blindly accepting what they're told. You don't have to be a scholar to ask questions -- you just have to be ready to be critical of your own answers! I tend to get help from websites like Biblehub and Understanding Hebrew, too.

A look at the word written in Hebrew shows us that the prefix used is kaf, which looks a little like a backwards C (bear in mind that Hebrew is written right to left, so the kaf is the last letter on the right). It also has a dot, or dagesh, in it, which changes the pronunciation of the character but not it's meaning. A little searching can tell us that kaf is means 'like, as', in the sense of being similar to something else.  

So far so good. Now we turn to searching for the suffix. This is called holem, and it is a pronoun indicating male (obviously indicating Adam in this case). In its most basic form it just looks like a line, though sometimes it has dots too. While the kaf is only added to neged these two times in the Hebrew Bible, there are 15 other uses of neged with the male suffix added -- these terms, like minnegedo or lenegedo or just negedo with no prefix, change the meaning of the word to mean 'in front of him' -- their prefixes obviously change their meaning, too, but I'm not getting into them here. Suffice it to say, this suffix means 'of him.'

So put it all together and we have ke-neged-o, meaning 'like as in front of him.' Kaf tells us that woman is to be like something, neged tells us that she was designed alongside that something, and the male pronoun tells us what that something is: mankind, represented here by Adam. Thus (if my Hebrew is correct, and I acknowledge that it may not be), the description of Eve as kenegedo emphasizes her similarity to man, their oneness and their sameness under God at creation.

Previously, I wrote a post about Eve being described as an ezer, a word that compared her to God. Now we see that God has also likened her to man. Could there be any doubt left that woman was made in the image of of God, that she is equal to man, that women are the same in God's eyes as men? Contrary to what some early church fathers and medieval theologians say, women are a glorious gift and an equal partner in humanity. The creation account underscores this by reminding us repeatedly that Eve is made from Adam's flesh, and then ends the chapter by making Adam acknowledge it, joyfully (Gen 2:21-24).

With this in mind, is 'helper suitable for him' really the best translation of ezer kenegedo? There is nothing in the Hebrew to suggest the 'for' that the NIV sneakily put in. I have four translations in front of me: NIV, NLT, and ESV all use the phrase use 'for him' -- only the NKJV says 'to him' rather than 'for him' (though the ESV grudgingly offers that it might be translated  'corresponding to him' in a footnote). But Eve was not made 'for' Adam. To get at the real meaning of the words, we might better translate God's speech in 2:18 as something like the following:

"I will make a rescuer similar to him."  

"I will make a mighty helper that is the same species as he is."

"I will make a savior, alike to him."

Imagine how different a young girl's Christian upbringing might be if she knew the real meaning of these words. Women aren't made 'for men', we were made with men, alongside men. That's the meaning of kenegedo.

View this post on my blog at https://biblicalfeminismforwomen.blogspot.com/2022/09/suitable-for-him.html

[memoriesofmymom]

On the other hand I know exactly what I meant by this one.

Ill give you a general explanation, but I'm keeping the details for myself I think.

That is If anyone ever sees these, Im kinda completely okay if they don't I just like having them "out" like an emotional spring cleaning.

This was me and my parents at my graduation.

And the note was something my parents left me when I started college. I always felt a bit like I un-earned their pride since I failed, I never finished school, I am degree-less and really that note was written under the assumption I would do well there. But that's all not really a big worry since they're dead. No disappointment for a corpse.

But my parents had their own emotional things, and struggles etc that in life did tend to take priority.

And then in death they always take priority. Like prefix to whatever else I do. Orphan and blank, orphan-and-bank teller, orphan-and-criminal, orphan-and-nobel prize winner, etc.

So they are shining, and I am not even really there.

Only a thing that exists in relationships to other things.

And really how can I be mad when they shined so warmly, and loved me so much, and made sure I always knew it, and knew how proud they were of me?