#also frankly not sure if this word is a noun

[fortunechaos]

I'm personally not objectum but I believe in their beliefs.

[foone]

Ok so: Old English (450-1150, roughly) had a word "cwen". It meant queen/princess/woman/wife. It is where the word "queen" comes from.

(so yes, all women are queens. Linguistically, they are!)

But I had to dig deeper. Linguistic rambling after the cut.

But this word got brought into Middle English (at least) twice:

1. The first was basically English's "queen" : female monarchs. They also used it for some female nobles and queen consorts, but yeah. What we call queens.

2. The second was a word for a woman of "low birth", a sex worker, or an elderly woman. It was "woman (diminutive)".

But these two words came from the same one. And the way that happened is weird:

See, Old English is an inflected language: you decline nouns for different grammatical uses.

Middle English was slowly turning into the (mostly) analytical language that English is today.

So Middle English has two words which come from different cases of one singular Old English word: cwen.

Middle English took the nominative of cwen and made it into "queen" (mostly. Spelling wasn't as much as a thing, so that's also "quene" , or just "cwen"), giving it the modern meaning: a queen.

Middle English also took a different case (accusative/genitive/dative, or plural nominative/accusative, I'm not sure which) of cwen and made it into "quene". Or, given that spelling still isn't a thing yet, "queen". Or hell: cwene, queene, quen, qween, qweene, queyne, qwenne, qwhene, or kuene.

So we've got two words: queen/quene(female monarch) and queen/quene(female(negative)).

And then those evolved into the English words:

1. Queen (archaicly spelled Quene)

2. Quean (archaicly spelled Quene).

The second has become archaic itself, but it is used in two derived words:

1. cot-quean, which means an effeminate man or one who does "woman's work". This obsolete insult was also used to mean...

2. Cuckquean: a woman with an unfaithful partner, the female version of a cuckold* (or the sexual fetish for same)

So yeah. That fucking spelling of "quean" has been slightly bothering me every time I've seen it used in questionable erotica***, so eventually I had to look it up.

It's the same root word as Queen, but gets spelled differently because it took a very slightly different route through Old/Middle/Modern English.

* the fact that both of these are gendered raises an obvious question: what's the gender neutral/non-binary version? "Cuckold" is named like that from the Old French "-auld" which is just a namish suffix, and the cuckoo** bird. It's basically "Mr. Cuckoo". Unhelpfully the Old English word for "person" was "mann". Middle English? Also "man"! I guess you could use the middle English persoun and make it "cuckpersoun", but frankly I hate that more than "cuckquean".

** I've always felt this naming is backwards. I get that we're referencing the fact that European cuckoos are brood parasites, but the thing is... it's backwards! Cuckoos don't "get cucked", Cuckoos "cuck" other birds. They lay their eggs in other bird's nests for the other birds to raise. Those other birds are the ones getting cucked! DOES ANYONE CARE ABOUT ACCURACY IN LINGUISTIC ZOOLOGY OR IS IT JUST ME?

*** If Tumblr gave me the ability, I'd make these words wiggle up and down in a curvy**** motion, for added goopy grossness.

**** I almost called it "sinusoidal" but I realized that may be a bit much and also I can't spell "sinusoidal"

[genericpuff]

zoo wee mama, the new Hbomberguy video is a RIDE and it's absolutely relevant to everything going on in webcomics. let's talk about it.

I'm sure a lot of you have heard about this video going around already (it's gotten 2+ million views in just a little over 24 hours) but if you haven't, I highly recommend you set aside time to watch it yourself, I was surprised to see how much he had dug up especially regarding Youtubers that I never suspected were plagiarizing. He also says some very on-point stuff about how we view content creators and plagiarizing in this "do it yourself" industry that really resonated with me because it's stuff I've been saying for years in the webcomic sphere.

I won't spoil the video much because I think it's best experienced watching it for yourself (especially because he's putting all the money he earns off this video towards compensating the people who had their work plagiarized by one Youtuber in particular who's especially guilty... I'm not even gonna mince words, it's James Somerton) but this passage in particular just felt so validating to hear from someone who clearly holds themselves to the standards that more Youtubers - and creators in general - should be holding themselves to:

"I think a lot of people are inclined to protect creators they like on the grounds that plagiarism is a very academic-sounding problem, like something that happens in research papers or journalism, not something that you can do in a silly video made for entertainment purposes. Why are we holding Youtubers to standards? That would be like expecting accurate history from someone whose name has 'historian' in it! Because Youtubers often project a sense of being scrappy, do-it-yourself amateurs, it feels almost wrong to expect them to be professional... but a lot of them are professionals, regardless how authentic their persona may be. Youtubers are now among the most recognizable faces on the planet, and have become immensely wealthy doing this. Some are so influential we literally call them influencers. Maybe it's a good idea to have some standards for not stealing. Maybe." - Hbomberguy, "Plagiarism and You(tube)" timestamp: 3:35:32

Obviously this has nothing to directly do with webcomics but I do think it's something that reflects very similar behavior within the webcomic community that's, frankly, worth discussing. Many people justifiably want to make a living off their work, want webcomics as a whole to be taken more seriously in the mainstream next to traditional publishing, and for webcomic creators to be taken more seriously as professionals.

But at the same time, I still see a lot of infantilizing of the people in this industry, done by both their fans and the people within it, the idea that being a professional (noun) isn't mutually inclusive of being professional (adjective). It's how we've gotten creators in the past like Snailords, mongie, and yes, Rachel Smythe, who are often shielded by their fanbase on the basis of, "they're just indie comic creators doing what they love, leave them alone!" when they're very much not that, at least not anymore. At least two of those three creators have TV deals (though whether or not they'll make it to the screen is debatable), and all three of them have or have had Webtoons seemingly wrapped around their finger more so than any other creator (though mongie has argued she left Webtoons over unfair treatment, it really doesn't seem like that to the people who know how much mongie was intentionally pushing the rules of what she was allowed to post on the platform, particularly with her Sam x Charles smut).

They are not 'indie creators' anymore and they are not exempt from criticism just because their younger fanbase mistakenly assumes them to be the same age as them. Rachel, mongie, and Snailords are all in their mid-to-late 30's. They all have merchandising deals and either have TV deals or want to have TV deals. They've all been given priority advertising by Webtoons even at the cost of undercutting all the other creators and series on the platform that need it more. They are not "scrappy" creators, they're contractual professionals now and they all do not act like it. Whether it's reacting poorly to criticism or using their characters as a mouthpiece for their own egos or even just using their comics as a poorly disguised fetish, they're all contractual professionals who do not act professional. And they're not the only webcomic creators who do this.

And again, I've talked about this before on here and in the discussions on reddit concerning LO and other webtoons, so it's incredibly validating and refreshing to see Hbomberguy put those feelings into words (albeit about Youtubers, but let's be real, Webtoons is definitely trying to be the "Youtube of webcomics", as is Tapas and other competing webtoon platforms) because that sentiment rings true for a lot of the webtoon creators who have practically failed upwards and only forgo their advertised "professional status" when they're under fire for their actions and writing. Rachel is an "award winning creator" and "self-proclaimed folklorist" until her comic is criticized for its blatant misrepresentation and disrespect towards an entire culture, then all of a sudden "it's just fanfiction". Mongie is the creator of the bestselling series Let's Play until she's called out for racist depictions of Asians and Hispanic people in her work, then all of a sudden she's "just trying to make a fun comic" that's not meant to be taken that seriously. And of course, their audience of teens and young adults who don't know any better keep forgiving them and vehemently defending them because they wrongfully assume that these creators are scrappy teens just like themselves who just started making webcomics for fun and then achieved fame and glory overnight (which they're not!)

We should be having bigger discussions about what awaits the webcomic and "content creator" industry as a whole in the future and what standards we should be holding creators and their work to. We can't possibly expect these mediums to be taken seriously as a professional industry if we don't set better expectations for the quality of the work that's being created and the creators who are building these platforms for themselves.

"In current discourse, Youtubers simultaneously present as the forefront of a new medium, creative voices that need to be taken seriously as part of the 'next generation of media'... and also 'uwu smol beans little babies who shouldn't be taken seriously when they rip someone off and make tens of thousands of dollars doing it." - Hbomberguy, "Plagiarism and You(tube)" timestamp: 3:36:18

[coldalbion]

Dis/nomers: On misnomers, magic-metaphors, and life in general

So, here's the thing: a lot of societal and cultural metaphors around magic and occultism are in the so-called West, frankly, bad and a product of the imprecision in the English language about "power", which themselves are inherently modelled on industrial-capitalist frameworks thanks to the Industrial Revolution, and steam power. Think about what you mean when you use the word "power" or "intent" and ask yourself whether you are once again running on 19th Century (colonialist ideas: for example see non-Indigenous misconceptions of mana) that boil down to thinking you're a steam engine or some sort of closed system - because that's what the whole popular idea of energy comes from. Why? Because willpower doesn't really exist. Now something seems to be going on, when we do certain things. But are we hoodwinking ourselves - barking up the wrong tree, being led down the garden path -by the porting in pop-metaphor? Sure, it's easier, but is the apparent ease and clarity obscuring insights? Is it preventing us from taking our place as part of a living world; not clockwork and piston but inter-and-intra-relating, inter-and-intra-being in an 'animist' cosmovision? Consider the metaphors you use, and wonder how they're using you. Because they are - we are thinking-with-and-being-with the ongoing worlding of a daimonic (agential) kosmos. And that All is doing the same-with-us. Remember, changing the metaphors we use can change the way we think, and how we are in the world. This is why I mutter about kenning, as found in Old Norse poetry, but also as a method of indirectly approaching experience by folding in the world. Kenning is, in one sense creating a poetic metaphor, a circomlocution that describes a thing without direct nominalisation. A wheelchair user can be a throne-walker; the sea is not just the sea, it is the whale-road and also Aegir's-cauldron, Poseidon's-stable, etc etc.

"It is no coincidence that a kenning is a poetic term of art, a doubling and metaphoric circumlocution of a singular noun or thing – the sea becoming the “whale-road”, a sword seen as the “icicle of red shields”. A singular referent now exceeds itself, drawing the relationality with the whole world of those present. This indirectness, far from detracting from the referent, deepens the knowing. Each portion of the kenning exceeds itself also, thusly thickening the field of the sword or sea, and, in enhancing its relationality, enlivens each further. Further, this means that the poet acknowledges the excess of the referents, comprehending that kenning may build on kenning, and the full, totalistic mapping of a referent is doomed to fail in terms of completion. This goes even beyond the usual aphorism from astronomer Carl Sagan: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” For each element of the apple pie is capable of being defined by the relationality of all presences, in all forms, positions, and configurations in all possible and impossible universes – and each of these in turn relate to each other as they will. This then, is the joy and horror, the wonder and terror of an animate, fluxing kosmos – there is always more." - Goêtic Atavisms, Frater Acher & Craig 'VI' Slee (See link above: also available on Amazon as well as from the publisher if you need that)

Do we want to live in a world circumscribed by misnomers, grandfathered in with extractive and clunky ways of perceiving the world? Or do we want to embrace the dis/abling wyrd strangenesses of the numinous? The liberatory power of the dis/nomer - the radical proposition that there is always more than can be named, can be contained? That we might ken more if we embraced blurry, uncertain periphalisms which spiral endlessly inward and down into pandaemonic, living, breathing labyrinths? If we immersed ourselves in relational eddies, tides and gyres eternally returning-and-coming-forth-again - dis/membered and re-membered anew? To dive into currents and flows - the multiplicitous assemblage of influences which are the very bodyof the oceanic river which Herakleitos warned us that we could never enter in the same place twice? What might we notice is already happening, already ongoing, that we are amidst, then? Might we spot the plurality of Minotaurs engaging in their diasporic fugitivity, nomads in their myriad labyrinths, far older, wiser, and weirder than we thought we knew? Spaces of monstrously numinous sanctuary, far beyond the ken of the Theseus (their supposed slayer) and his identitarian regime of denial, his heroic ever-intact status quo. Pity the ship-builders in their labour; they work do so under the threat of sword - or is it gun and bomb, these days? But while Theseus abandons Ariadne, Dionysos does not! And while Theseus eschews the sea route to perform his labours in order to gain heroic glory and satisfy ambition, his oceanic ancestry has the last laugh - both mortal father Aegeus (thrown into the sea that bears his name) and he (thrown off an island cliff - presumably into the ocean) were reclaimed; seized by the sea and its thundering white horses. What might it be, to be oceanically possesed as that hero's mother was? To have one's soul-sea stirred by the Earthshaker? We can but dream on the matter - while also slyly noting that Athenians kept the Ship of Theseus preserved, as mark of divine heritage in their feted city ruled by the demos. What matters now, in these days when even politicians talk of the so-called "will of the people", is matters of ancestry and history dismissed; lineages of language and its many influences ignored - no entanglements here, vine or otherwise, we assure you! But thankfully, the ship-builders know the way of wood and net and weave. They know how many planks pass through their hands, how many nails struck, how much pitch is brewed. They know there's more. They're craftsfolk after all - assemblages are their business, whatever the material - they know what mattering is. And isn't it interesting that the Temple of Hephaistos in Athens was once mistakenly called the Thesseion - The Temple of Theseus, before the moderns realised their mistake? Watch the words we use, and how they use us. Be seeing you.

[kata4a]

so in addition to vocabulary, I'm also trying to make flashcards for general points my Akkadian textbook makes about the language. here are some specific things the textbook says:

I.

Exceptions to the rule of vowel syncope occur: (a) regularly at the end of a word; (b) regularly before a vowel; […] (f) in some Summerian loanwords.

while it's tempting to have a single flashcard that asks "What are the exceptions to the rule of vowel syncope?", having to remember all six clauses in my answer is pretty cumbersome, and violates the principle that flashcards should be atomic.

instead, my approach has been to create six flashcards of frankly kind of stupid form, "What is Huehnergard's vowel syncope exception (a)?" etc.

of course it might be possible to digest the information a little more thoroughly: "What are the regular exceptions to vowel syncope" and "Before what letters does vowel syncope sometimes not occur" would be pretty reasonable flashcards. but what to do with the last exception? Q: "What types of word does vowel syncope not occur in?" A: "some Sumerian loanwords" is pretty gross

II.

The endings for attributive adjectives are the same as those for nouns, except for the masc. pl.

I have a number of flashcards which ask questions about declension/conjugation, e.g., "What are the masculine genitive plural endings for nouns?"

for some reason I balked at creating a bunch of identical flashcards for adjectives, and instead only made one card, "What are the masc. pl. endings for attributive adjectives?" in retrospect, I don't think that would have been unreasonable

III.

The masc. plural of substantivized adjectives usually retains the adjectival endings -ūtum / -ūtim; occasionally, however, the noun pl. endings also occur, as in nakirum, pl. nakirū when substativized.

The feminine singular of an adjective may be used as an abstract noun, indicating the quality described by the adjective: damqum 'good'; damiqtum 'goodness' Sometimes, the meaning of the substantivized feminine form is more concrete: dannum 'strong'; dannatum 'fortress'

I really have no idea with these "occasionally" statements. I've mostly just been trying to create lots of example words, e.g. a vocabularly cards for "dannatum / fortress," and one asking "What is the plural of the noun nakirum?"

IV.

(a vocabulary entry)

nakarum, nakirum, and nakrum 'hostile; foreign'

related, I don't really know how to deal with byforms. in this case, I just created a flashcard directly asking "What are the byforms for the word for 'hostile'?" but I'm not sure how nicely this generalizes

[ikunagae]

this is also a very random and petty criticism but since twitter is dead i'll complain about it here, the like. very minor translation issues on pinnochiop's works kind of drive me insane sometimes.

i'm talking minor like.

aaaaaaAAAAA it's clearly "ghost's" (possessive) not "ghosts" (plural)!!!!!! even the official youtube upload makes this mistake and it is legitimately elementary level japanese to see.

my major one was actually that someone in the comments of reincarnation apple (photosensitivity warning this song owns but the video is very bright!!!) mentioned "oh wow they even made the translation rhyme!" but... well first of all they did it by using words in entirely the wrong part of speech.

sorry to burst your bubble op but... elate is a verb. not a noun. you'd need to make this elated. frankly my patch notes here if you wanted to keep the rhyme would be more like "looking up a guide to change fate, tricks and tips guaranteed to elate-" which leads into my next point.

because in the end what's the point because they changed the rhyme scheme from the original anyway!!! like folks you can. you can hear the music you know the song doesn't rhyme aabb.

it's a pretty complex rhyme scheme so frankly i wouldn't even try to recreate it in the translation, but if you listen to the rhythm of the song here you'll realize the rhymes here actually almost more like a limerick where it takes some time off but then circles back to the beginning. (natta, wakeataeta, sageta, shimatta, mata and deshita are all rhymed, and this is the same exact -ta ending rhyme scheme for all the other stanzas to represent the fact that the lives are all parallel.)

idk. i put maybe a bit too much thought into this all sometimes. i'm sure there are VERY similar issues with other creator's works but since i like pinnochiop i notice them more.

[yourlocalmissingtexture]

Anyone want some German language trivia of uncertain accuracy and the story of how I (maybe) came to learn the precise meaning of one (1) word? Then you found the right post!

Obligatory disclaimer that I am not fluent in German whatsoever. I discovered this information after rummaging through Google Translate and Wiktionary, so don’t quote me on any of this. I’m 100% sure this is common knowledge to those fluent in German, but I still wanted to ramble about it because it kinda blew my mind. Also I’m going to be talking about a song that may or may not allude to SA or possibly CSA. I don’t linger on it too much but still, read on with caution.

So I love the German heavy metal band Rammstein, have since I discovered them over 10 years ago. I’m not exactly a superfan but they’re one of my all time favorite groups for sure. The first song I heard from them was “Waidmanns Heil,” which roughly translates to “Huntsman’s Salute.”

For context, the song is pretty raunchy (to put it frankly, which is pretty unremarkable for the band), using the metaphor of hunting deer to hunting, uh, partners. I’m not going to elaborate on the intricacies of that, Genius Lyrics has a decent enough English translation if you’re curious. I’m talking about a specific word used in the beginning of the song.

Ich bin in Hitze schon seit Tagen (I have been in heat for days now)

So werd’ ich mir ein Kahlwild jagen (so I will hunt myself a hind)

Genius Lyrics translates Kahlwild (a neuter noun btw!) as “hind,” an older term for a mature female deer that seems to have originally been used primarily when talking about red deer, which are native throughout much of Europe. When I was younger I remember seeing a translation that rendered it as “female game.”

“Okay, it means doe. So what?”

I like etymology, and I know German is known for cramming words together to make a new one, so I wanted to see what the separate components were. I figured the -wild part referred to wild game, so then kahl must mean something on its own, right?

Right! Kahl means bald. So, together it means bald game. Google Translate specifically translates it as bald deer, however. The definition it gives roughly says that it refers to “female or young game [deer] without antlers.”

Kahlwild can refer to does, sure, but it could also be referring to fauns, or at least any deer that isn’t a buck with antlers.

First off, how cool is that? There’s a specific word for “deer without antlers” that isn’t just buck. Languages are so cool.

Secondly, holy shit that could introduce a whole other fucked up level of interpretation to the song. Maybe that wasn’t exactly intended, I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the first time Rammstein has written about either SA or CSA, but still, woah.

This post has been brought to you by Procrastination™️. “Why do The Thing You Should Be Doing when you can comb through Rammstein’s discography and make a playlist instead?”

TL;DR: the German word Kahlwild means “a deer without antlers.” Maybe.

[the-creepy-guy-around-the-corner]

High school teacher but these are how I detect AI writing/ prevent it: One: Make a prompt that requires in class knowledge. Something along the lines of: "Explain how authors demonstrate character development using three examples from the short stories we read in class this week." Now- could the kids just look up what those stories were and edit the prompt? Yes. But it still weeds out a few. Two: Just like on a math test I make the kids show me their work. I break my essays up into paragraphs (I teach ninth grade so many of my students are learning how paragraphs are structured anyways so its good practice) I try not to teach cookie cutter five paragraph essays, but we will discuss in general and start off by writing our intro paragraphs together and even that process often gets broken down sentence by sentence. I wont grade essays until I see and grade the paragraph assignments, and its a big tip off to me that they had AI write the final essay if I cant find any correlation of their ideas from their brainistorming/chunked assignments to their final essays. Again, kids could get around this, but by this point ive weeded out most AI. What's more common is kids just copynig and pasting from these assignments onto their final essays and ignoring the editing phase lol. Three: Trojan horses. Hide a trojan horse in the prompt, search for it in the essay, pretty big give away. Just make sure the trojan horse is something not likely to show up organically in an essay. I usually use words like "banana" or unrelated nouns. This is the most common way I catch AI essays tbh. Four: Integrate AI into the lesson. One thing me and my kids did was use AI to write topic sentences, then we would rank, compare them to topic sentences from articles weve read and so on. For grammar once I had kids correct AI body paragraphs they generated and grade the AI on its use of syntax. It demystifies them, shows that often even if they do use AI and I dont catch it they probably arent going to be getting a great grade since more often then not we find these AI generated pieces to be mid at best. Five: Draftback. It's a google docs extension that lets me view a document being written in real time. Honestly this is the most full proof way, and its funny to watch kids make the typos then go back and erase them. I also catch a lot of plagiarism this way since I can see kids copying and pasting sentences then editing them to try and hide it. Six: I'll be honest, AI writing tends to just be kind of obvious. Most kids that I've caught with AI didn't even bother to change the font size/style so that tends to be a give away. And AI likes to write a lot of nonsense that means nothing and gets very repetitive. Sure a kid could hide this by reading the paper it produced and making corrections before sending it through the AI again, but at that point they are being critical enough of writing that I don't really care and most AI cheaters are frankly not that motivated. Seven: Just talk to the damn kid about their essay. If they can explain their thoughts, ideas, quotes, and so on then yeah they probably wrote it themselves. If a kid can get through al that and STILL I don't catch it, fuck it you get the grade you get. Congrats you made cheating harder than just writing the actual essay itself I hope you enjoyed it. So yes, teachers CAN catch AI, but using AI detectors isn't the way to go. And a good teacher uses these more comprehensive methods not just to catch AI, but it also safeguards kids from being falsely accused. For example I have english language learners that often use googel translate for help, or will copy and paste things that might trigger things like Draftback for example, but then if I can go back and be like "Oh I see they did the worksheets, hmm theres no trojan horses in here, and if I look at their brainstorming I can see their ideas developing from there to this final essay" then it also protects the student from being falsely accused and facing consequence's they dont deserve. Finally, for us teachers, it's important to accept we wont catch them all. You can lead a horse to water but they dont have to drink. We can give all the kids the tools to learn but if they still refuse then that's their choice. It is our duty to try, it is our duty to provide them all the accommodations and opportunities we can, but you cant control every factor of your classroom. And up until recently we actually had virtually no way to know if a kid was just cheating or copying. As my mother used to say: "Back in the 70s if I had an essay about Abe Lincoln I'd just go to the library, find a biography, and copy whole paragraphs. How as the teacher ever going to know they couldn't check against every book in the library." The era of us being 1000% a student wrote their work was an anomaly not the norm. Do I go through these factors every time? No. Usually you can get a pretty good idea when its time to start digging (like for example a kid who refused to do all the pre work for an essay suddenly turns in a ten page paper using the word acquiescence correctly in a sentence. Or if when I'm looking at an essay and draftback says that during the writing process the keyboard only was used for 170 keystrokes on a 1000 word essay. It's important we look for AI cheating in our students work, because AI writing (while its means are unethical thanks to scraping from works with out authors permission) is a tool. It's not going away anytime soon, and if were going to accuse kids of using it we need to have robust methods of detecting it that are HUMAN. Simply using an AI tool (which is what AI checkers are) to detect AI writing is hyprocasy. The most accurate AI checker is old fashioned human investigation.

I hate so much that professors who still can't figure out how to send messages on Zoom think they're capable of spotting AI writing. Professors are just feeding essays into AI detectors with massive fail rates with absolutely zero critical thought about the tools they're using. I moved across state lines. I've spent years of my life trying to get this degree. But at any moment I could be expelled because I got a false positive from a detector that tells you ChatGPT wrote Anna Karenina.

[coffee-in-veins]

Day 12: Candles

an entry for darkest prompts promptober 2022

previous days: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

now available on ao3 too

Candle NOUN - an ignitable wick embedded in wax, or another flammable solid substance such as tallow, that provides light, and in some cases, a fragrance; can also provide heat or a method of keeping time. 

* * *

There was an old saying that a mercenary's worth was measured in his gear and, more importantly, in his bravado. In Hamlet, it rang especially true, considering the lengths the Heiress chose to go for the tools she deemed the most useful in her dilapidated chest of living toy soldiers. The prospect of getting better gear and maybe a more private sleeping quarter with merely four - or hell, even two, for her especially prized champions! - people instead of the cold and messy barracks was an alluring one. Not to mention the rise in payment prolonged survival promised on top of, well, such a trifle as continuous existence. 

Most saw the price for their services in the means most convenient - like gems, coins, and jewellery. After all, gold was the thing that greased palms and built empires with a healthy dose of instigated murder. Fewer took their wages in luxury items which were hard to come by - like spices or silks. Selected few people in Hamlet understood the true worth hidden in a stack of yellowed paper, cracked parchment, or torn scrolls. And despite words of all the jealous underfucked swine-sarders who spread debauched rumours about him in the gossip-starved town, Dismas knew good vellum when he saw one. Never written on one, sure, since his own tiny notebook of the cheapest pulp paper won with honest cheating, but it didn't mean he wouldn't recognize the fancy thing. 

The thing the rogue knew even better, though, was that unless you were using them as kindling, books and scrolls and whatnot were utterly useless in the dark. An issue most prominent in someone with night vision as abysmal as the crusader Dismas ended up stuck with, for example. 

At first, it provided him with cheap entertainment. Riling up the noble bastard by proving that the carnal pleasures were superior to verse reading - by personal example and with a stare in the eyes, for added effect - was a fun way to start yet another round of bickering. Neither of them wanted to back away from another, so they ended up in shouting matches more often than not. Brawls followed on the next day since apparently kicking someone's teeth in was un-knightly if their dick was out. 

The first shift happened after the crusader dragged the barely alive highwayman back from the Ruins and into Sanatorium. Sure, the pitiful condition only happened because Dis was slightly off his rocker and lunged at the monster who might or might not have been almost successful in killing the insufferable holy prick. But it wasn't like the rogue would look his lowlife's luck in the mouth and question it. 

The first thing Dismas saw when he returned to the loathed shared room was the sight of the prick near the window, his boring book in his hands. The sun was setting, but he merely caressed the cover in an oddly stiff gesture. 

Dismas remembered as he barged in, heading to his cot, but paused. The scene felt wrong somehow. Probably because of unfamiliarity.

"Hey."

"For the last time, heathen, my name is..."

"Choke on it, thoroughbred," the ex-brigand paused, unsure why he was even doing this. "Why ain'tcha readin'?"

"I'm reciting verses. It's enough for a true--"

"Cut the bullshite."

They glared at each other for the longest time.

"When would I stop expecting manners from a convict," the knight sighed finally and touched his bandaged head after hesitation. "Too little light. My head has hurt ever since the expedition. It would kill me if I tried."

That answer gave the rogue a pause. It was barely turning to dusk, plenty of time till actual darkness. Frankly, Dis was planning to carve himself a new dice.

Crusader's vicelike grip on the book suddenly became much more understandable. As did his irritation. What was odd, though, was an absence of accusations that it was Dismas' fault. 

"What, not going to insult me, hedge-born?" the knight snapped, clearly looking solace in the familiarity of their fighting. Too bad Dismas was a loathsome man because he didn't take the obvious bait, opting to look at his forced companion thoughtfully instead. 

The thing was, the highwayman might've been hedge-born, but he wasn't a lowlife. Not completely, at the very least. Thus the answer he gave was just as curt and unusual for them: 

"No."

The next evening, there was a bundle of rushlights at the knight's desk. The crusader was suspicious, probably, but the rogue was in the tavern and definitely, absolutely couldn't care less.

The next week, there was a rushlight fixture in addition to a few fresh bundles - Dismas had enough time to observe the time the knight needed to read his imbecilic verses, the quality of the material he could get his hands on to make the lights and make necessary adjustments. 

Next month, when he was too tired of gritting his teeth to dust as he watched his work go wasted, Dismas marched to the crusader's table and instructed Reynauld on how to use the sodded thing so it wouldn't burn in like twenty minutes and how the fuck did he live for so long without this knowledge. It was the first thank you the highwayman had ever heard from the man. 

Later still, Dismas offered a bundle of thin funny smelling candles. Reynauld was suspicious but accepted. When a dishevelled, furious Alhazred barged into the room and finally doused the cold blue flames that spread to the walls by that point, they both got an earful and had to pay for renovations themselves. Still, somehow, they ended up laughing half the night in the charred room.

After some time more, Dismas placed a few pristine, even, finely crafted beeswax candles onto the scribing desk. Wax was an expensive thing, readily available only to the Heiress. Rey wouldn't question for the sake of his sanity and Dis wouldn't tell - for the same reason. But it was funny how easily he accepted the worn-out rogue leaning onto his armoured side during the next expedition. 

Finally, before the Night of the Newborn Flame, as Rey was writing yet another report to the Heiress, Dis gently pushed an intricately carved candle, meticulously decorated in swirls and latticework patterns, and turned to leave the knight to his work. Instead, his hand was caught, and he was pulled into a tight hug and, for once, allowed to hug back. 

The day the crusader lost his night vision was probably a strange thing to mark on the calendar, but as Rey sat to read his stupid verses for the umpteenth time, Dis couldn't quite care. Instead, he quietly watched his dearest, insufferable friend basking in the warm candlelight of his own making and couldn't help but notice how soothing the sight was.

With a silent huff, he rubbed his ripped earlobe. 

Maybe that apprenticeship wasn't useless after all.

----

A bit of explanation:

Vellum is a type of parchment made out of calfskin, and of higher quality. The finest vellum was considered to be that of a stillborn calf.

It was customary for apprentice craftsmen to get one of their ears pierced with an earring that showed off the crest of their craft. However, if they fucked up, the master would rip out the earring and create an obviously placed scar to warn other masters who were looking to hire, that this individual was a fuck up (maybe lazy or stole or something like that) and they should think twice before hiring them.

[maplemarcher]

Reconciliaiton

Words: 4,486

Rating: T

Warnings: Mild violence, blood

Summary:   rec·on·cil·i·a·tion/ noun 1.the restoration of friendly relations.

Notes: So, uh. I really love the roleswap au from @yumoirail​. I hope they like this, if they see it!

     It’s been one week since Ganon’s siege on Vah Ruta ended. Not a drop of rain has fallen in that time, allowing the ground to dry out and the swollen Zora River to slowly return to its natural state, banks once hidden by muddy flood waters revealing themselves once more and its current slowing. The divine beast that had previously instilled unease and dread upon all who looked at it stands proudly above the domain, trunk raised to the heavens and its sights set on Hyrule Castle, waiting for its companions to be brought back to the light and for the hero to venture into the castle’s depths and rid it of the dark force within. Repairs from the unprecedented torrent of rain are well under way. Joy has returned to the hearts of the people of Zora’s Domain as they feel the sun on their scales for the first time in what seems like an eternity.

     There is only one that still carries a considerable weight.

     Sidon spends his days on the perimeter of the domain, gazing out into the world beyond, wondering. His nights are spent either in the town square staring up at his sister’s statue or in his chambers, once more looking out past the borders of the land of his people. After seeing Ruta make its way to the mountaintop (by Mipha’s hand, who else could it possibly have been, only she could control it with such grace), he’d expected  to see Zelda again, despite what she’d said just before making her way inside the massive piece of ancient machinery. He’s desperate to know what had happened, if Mipha’s spirit is truly free, if there is even a tiny fraction of a threat still hanging over his people regarding Vah Ruta, if Zelda is—

     Sidon shakes his head and runs his hands down his face haggardly as he turns away from the railing of the balcony just outside his chambers. He shouldn’t care where Zelda is. He should be beside himself with joy that he’ll never have to see the one who failed his sister, failed all of Hyrule, and cost Mipha her life, ever again. Instead, he’s worried about her. He may even go so far as to say he misses her.

     The water of his sleeping pool is soothing as he steps into it, but it does nothing to clear his mind. Nothing has been able to that as of late—not having one-sided conversations with his sister’s likeness immortalized in luminous stone, not training with his spear until his arms tremble with exhaustion, not the thrilling weightlessness of the apex of an arc out of the water, just before the descent. His thoughts are occupied with golden hair and green eyes full of determination and sadness. The conversation he’d had with Bazz a few days prior plays over in his head.

     Hope. She gave me hope.

     Sidon sighs and walks down the steps into his sleeping pool, laying back and letting the water support him. If he floats in the right spot, he can see the night sky. The way the stars are glittering reminds him of the adornments on the Lightscale Trident. Memories of Mipha that belong to him rather than his father or the elders are few and far between, but he remembers watching her train rather clearly. She’d been unmatched in her spearmanship, her movements smooth and graceful, the trident shining as it arced through the air. Mipha’s prized possession hasn’t seen the sun in as many years as she’s been gone—it sits on a special mount in the armory, slowly gathering dust.

     A splash interrupts the silence as Sidon rises out of the pool and makes for his father’s chambers. King Dorephan is most likely asleep, but that doesn’t occur to him as he walks through the palace halls, water still dripping from his scales and void of any of his adornments. He knocks twice on the king’s chambers before entering, unsurprised to see him rubbing sleep from his eyes as he groggily lifts his head out of the water.

     “Sidon?” Dorephan says. “Is something the matter?”

      “It’s my doing that Zelda hasn’t returned,” Sidon says. “I treated her so harshly—I refused to let her near Vah Ruta, despite what you and Muzu said. Just before she entered it, she told me she wasn’t coming back, and she was gone before I could protest.”

     “My son. Calm yourself.” Dorephan swims to the edge of his massive sleeping pool where Sidon stands. “I am sure that you are not the only reason she has not returned. This place must hold many memories for her that are painful now, and she has other work to do.”

     “Even so, I want to make things right. The things I said to her, Father—I—”

     “My son,” Dorephan says again, softly. He rests one massive hand atop Sidon’s head. It’s an act he hasn’t performed in years, not since Sidon would easily fit in his whole hand. The prince can’t help closing his eyes and letting out a long, shaky breath. “I have not seen you so troubled in a long time.”

     “I feel like a fool,” Sidon confesses. “I spent so long blaming her for Mipha’s death and the state of Hyrule. The prince and other Hylians as well, but Zelda especially. I hated her, Father. The mere sight of her made my blood boil.”

     “As much as it saddens me to hear that, I do understand,” Dorephan says. “We lost so much. You lost so much. The influence of the elders certainly did not help.”

     “I shouldn’t have let their opinions become my own.”

     “You were a child, Sidon. You cannot blame yourself too much.” Sidon sighs once more and nods. “Now, while I do not at all mind you seeking comfort, I cannot imagine that is all you came for.”

     “Indeed,” Sidon agrees, straightening his spine as Dorephan returns his hand to his side. “As I said, I intend to make things right. While I can’t say my feelings toward Zelda are all positive, I can acknowledge that she was undeserving of my harsh words and disdain.”

     “I am glad you realize this,” Dorephan says with a nod. “How is it you intend to make things right?”

     “By giving her the Lightscale Trident,” Sidon answers. “I know you intended to gift it to her upon her return. It’s what Mipha would have wanted, and therefore it’s what I want.”

     “And you intend to deliver it to her?”

     “With your permission, yes. I—I want to see her myself. Whether she accepts them or not, I want to offer her my apologies personally.”

     “You are a noble soul, my son,” Dorephan says with a pleased chuckle. “You have not only my permission, but my insistence. With the threat from Vah Ruta lifted and many of the monsters around the Domain slain by the hero herself, we will be well protected.”

     “Thank you, Father,” Sidon says. “I promise not to be gone for too long.”

     “Take all the time you need.” There’s a twinkle in Dorephan’s eyes that Sidon can’t quite decipher, so he dismisses it for the moment. “She may be difficult to track down with that curious slate at her hip. Prepare for a long journey, and take heart.”

     “I will,” Sidon reassures. “I apologize for barging in at such a late hour.”

     “Not at all,” Dorephan dismisses with a wave of his hand. “You can always come to me.”

     Sidon smiles. “Yes, Father. I know.” He bids the king goodnight and turns to leave, only to be stopped by a call of his name just before the door.

     “I am proud of you, my son,” Dorephan says with a warm, if tired, smile. “I know you shall make a fine king someday.”

     Sidon is struck speechless by this. Rather than answer with his usual eloquence, he simply ducks his head and stammers out a thank you. Dorephan nods and slowly sinks back into his pool, and Sidon takes that as his dismissal. His father is snoring even before the door closes behind him.

     Sidon departs the Domain several days later, carrying the Lightscale Trident as well as his own spear and a silver bow. He also bears a bag packed for him by Kodah and Marot, one of the innkeepers and the owner of the general store, respectively. It contains all manner of supplies, cooking ingredients, and meals made for the road. His final and arguably most valuable gift is a small wooden chest contained in his bag that holds many an elixir crafted by Laflat. They’re different from the one Sidon had (begrudgingly) given Zelda at the start of her journey to the Domain—they actually work for Zora. Laflat had explained what she’d done differently—something about making the base with water from the Domain, or perhaps putting a few of her scales in the mixtures—but Sidon can’t recall exactly what she’d said. If he’s being honest, he’s not sure how much of it he understands. He isn’t unintelligent, but his mind is more catered to battle strategy than magic or science.

     Tracking Zelda down does in fact prove to be a tricky feat. For one thing, nearly everyone he approaches stares up at him with wide eyes and a slack jaw. He supposes that many of the people he encounters haven’t seen a Zora in person before, let alone one of his stature. When he does manage to get people to answer his questions about having seen Zelda, they give him vague answers, unable to remember her face in the sea of travelers they see each day. Sidon nearly gives up after days of unsuccessful searching, but the sight of Ruta in the distance is enough to spur him on.

     He’s lost track of how long he’s been gone when he sees a most unusual sight. From downriver, it had looked to be an enormous insect, but upon closer inspection, the creature stuck on its back and flailing on the bridge above him is a Hylian wearing a frankly enormous backpack in the shape of a beetle. Sidon leaps from the water and onto the rickety wooden bridge, landing just short of the Hylian’s head. He takes hold of the beetle backpack’s horns and pushes, helping the Hylian to stand upright.

     “Oh, thank you!” the Hylian says, dusting himself off.

     “No problem at all, my friend,” Sidon says with a smile. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you find yourself in that position?”

     The Hylian seems unfazed by his height or the fact that he’s a Zora as he cranes his neck to look him in the eye, much to Sidon’s relief. “Someone on horseback came barreling by and knocked me onto my back!” he huffs. “They didn’t even stop to see if I was alright. Imagine if a monster had come by, or if I’d fallen into the river!”

     “Dreadful,” Sidon says with a grimace.

     “Yeah,” the Hylian agrees, sighing. “But, anyway! Thank you so much for helping me! My name is Beedle, by the way. I normally sell the things I carry here, but as payment, I can give you something for free as a thank you!”

     “No need,” Sidon says, raising his hand to stop Beedle from reaching for the straps on his pack. “But if I may ask you a few questions, I’d be quite grateful.”

     “Of course!” Beedle says enthusiastically, drawing another smile from Sidon.

     “Do you travel around Hyrule frequently?”

     “Do I? I’ve been just about everywhere you can go!” Beedle gesticulates grandly, seemingly unfazed by what must be the massive weight on his shoulders. “From Hebra to Faron, I go wherever things can be bought and sold!”

     “Then have you encountered a young woman by the name of Zelda? Golden hair, green eyes, and carrying more weapons than should be strictly possible?”

     “Oh, yes! I see Zelda quite frequently,” Beedle says. “She’s my most loyal customer! I don’t know exactly what it is she gets up to on her adventures, but she’s very kind to me. She even gave me this!” He reaches into a pocket on his backpack and presents Sidon with a bright yellow beetle contained in a glass bottle along with a few leaves. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

     “It is,” Sidon agrees. “Would you mind telling me where you saw her last? And if you happen to know where she’s going?”

     “Only if you tell me why you’re looking for her,” Beedle says as he lovingly puts the beetle back in its little pocket. “My heart may belong to Hyrule, but I still don’t want to see anything bad happen to her.”

     Sidon sighs and scratches at the back of his neck. “Zelda helped me and my people in our time of need. Despite all of this, I was—unkind to her. I wish to mend our relationship as best I can.” Beedle studies his face with a scrutinizing eye for a long moment before nodding.

     “You get good at reading people after meeting as many as I have, and you seem like you’re being sincere,” he says. “The last time I saw her, Zelda said she was headed to Hateno Village. Follow the river south until it leads through the Dueling Peaks, then go east.”

     “Thank you,” Sidon says. “Truly. When you see her next, would you tell her I’m searching for her?”

     “Sure, but you’ll probably see her before I do! That, and I don’t know your name.”

     “Oh! Forgive my rudeness. I am Prince Sidon of the Zora.”

     “A prince? Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever met royalty before!”

     “Perhaps not,” SIdon chuckles. “Thank you again, Beedle. I wish you safe travels.”

     “You too!”

     With that, Sidon gives Beedle a wave and dives back into the water. The gasp of wonder that meets his ears as he twists through the air brings a smile to his face once more. Over the course of his journey, the grip of hatred and anger over his heart regarding Hylians has begun to loosen. He still can’t quite fathom completely forgiving those responsible for what had happened a century before, but he’s able to set aside his negative feelings aside for those such as Beedle, who are simply trying to live their lives in the wake of tragedy. It’s too easy for him to forget the relative brevity of their lifespans compared to his.

     Sidon follows the river south, just as Beedle guided him, keeping an eye out for the Dueling Peaks. The occasional lizalfos or octorock blocks his path, but he makes quick work of them with his spear. They’re nothing compared to the behemoth he’d faced years prior. The next few days pass like this: swimming for long periods, dispatching enemies as they come, and asking passerby for directions to ensure he’s heading in the right direction. Before long, he reaches the stable on the other side of the Dueling Peaks. He inquires about Zelda and is directed again to Hateno. The river grows too small for him to swim in as it passes through a fort surrounded by the decayed remains of guardians, so he’s forced to continue on foot. He finally catches up with her as he emerges from the forest surrounding the fort.

     It’s a rather violent reunion—there’s a massive explosion below the cliffs on the other side of the river followed by the pained screeching of bokoblins and the stench of burning flesh. Sidon catches a glimpse of yellow and a high-pitched chime before a red barrel adorned with a white skull and crossbones hurtles toward the monster camp below the cliffs, exploding on impact. The screeching doubles in volume, and the prince watches as Zelda descends upon the monsters making the noise.

     Even from the river on the outskirts of the camp, Sidon can hear the wet thud of blade meeting flesh and smell the metallic-sulfur of monster blood. Zelda wrenches her sword from the torso of the first bokoblin and dodges a strike from another just before it hits her. She’s behind it before it can retaliate, bringing her blade down upon its head. It catches on the horn atop the creature’s skull, causing the already chipped metal to splinter and break off. Zelda takes this in stride, shoving the now jagged blade in the bokoblin’s neck. It falls with a pig-like squeal, its bat falling out of its grip and into the fire at the center of the camp. One last monster flees for its life, but arrows riddle its back before it can get far. Zelda stands in the center of the destruction, breath coming in pants, purple blood smeared across her face.

     Just as Sidon climbs onto the shore, he spots a stray bokoblin out of the corner of his eye. It’s severely burned and limping, but alive. Its bluish-green skin is colored red as it nocks a fire arrow and aims for a bomb barrel that had escaped the initial detonation, laying on its side behind a pillar. Out of Zelda’s field of vision. No more than ten paces from where she now crouches, wrenching the fang out of the charred remains of a bokoblin.

     There’s no time to think. Sidon charges toward Zelda, grabbing her around the waist and hauling her up with one arm. She (expectedly, really) lets out a shriek of surprise as she’s lifted off the ground. Behind them, the fire arrow whizzes through the air, carrying with it the sound of roaring flames. It explodes upon contact with the bomb barrel at the same moment that Sidon leaps into the air, aiming for the river. White-hot shrapnel makes contact with his scales. The pain barely registers as he and Zelda crash into the water, breaking the surface a moment later. Zelda squirms out of his grip and hauls herself up on the bank opposite the camp, coughing.

     “What in Hylia’s name—” she wheezes.

     “You wouldn’t have noticed in time,” Sidon says through gritted teeth. The source of the tension in his jaw isn’t sourced from any frustration with her, but the feeling of wooden splinters and a few rather sharp rocks embedded in his back. He hisses as he climbs on the bank beside her, collapsing on his stomach.

     “Don’t move,” Zelda says. There’s no trace of harshness in her tone as there had been before, but an edge is still present. Sidon obeys without question. Now that the adrenaline is no longer coursing through his veins, he has no desire to move. “This isn’t going to feel good, but it will help.”

     Sidon grits his teeth as Zelda begins pulling the shrapnel from his back. She works efficiently, only taking a few minutes to finish. Sidon moves to sit up, but she stops him with a single touch. Soft blue light radiates from her hands as she passes over his wounds, bringing with it the soothing coolness of running water and the scent of salt. It feels like—

     “Mipha’s Grace,” Sidon says softly. Zelda merely nods, eyes flitting to the trident strapped to his back. She sits back on her heels when she’s finished, and Sidon takes that as his cue to sit up.

     “That was incredibly stupid,” Zelda says. “But thank you.”

     “No need,” Sidon replies. They stare at each other for a long moment, tense silence stretching between them. Words refuse to come to him no matter how hard he searches.

     After what seems like an eternity, Zelda gets to her feet and motions for Sidon to follow. They go back the way he’d come, into the trees and to a hastily-made encampment standing near a small pond. Zelda sits on a moss-covered log near the fire, turning a spit skewering a few Hyrule bass. Sidon’s mouth waters. It’s been too long since he’s had freshly caught fish—he’s been so focused on his task of finding Zelda that he hasn’t bothered with anything other than the rations packed for him.

     “What are you doing here, Sidon?” Zelda asks finally.

     “I was looking for you,” he answers. “I have been for a little while.”

     “I see,” she says, eyes intense and unreadable. “Why?”

     “A few reasons.”

     Sidon retrieves the Lightscale Trident from his back as he sits on the log next to her. It glitters in the light of the fire, magnificent as ever. Zelda turns her attention from the fish to stare at it. Silence descends upon them once more. Sidon is the one to break it this time.

     “This belonged to Mipha, as I’m sure you remember,” he says. “My father intended to give it to you upon your return to the Domain, both as a reward for freeing Vah Ruta and a hope that Mipha’s spirit would guard you as long as you carried it.”

     “She already does.” Zelda stares at her hands, refusing to look him in the eye.

     “Even so, I’m certain she would want you to have it,” Sidon says. He presses the handle into her hands, and she finally looks up at him. “So please.”

     “If you insist,” she replies. She holds the trident close to her for a moment before gingerly resting it on the ground behind them. “But I must ask—why deliver it to me personally? I thought you made it clear that you never wanted to see me again.”

     “I…”

     Sidon has thought about what he’d say to Zelda when he finally found her ever since he left Zora’s Domain. He’s run through the speech in his head time and time again, so sure that she would be impressed by his eloquence and grant him forgiveness without a second thought. Now, though, the words so carefully crafted in his mind refuse to come to him. It’s entirely too difficult to plan what he’s going to say when she’s looking at him like that, emerald piercing straight into him, straight through him— 

     “Sidon?”

     “I’m sorry,” he blurts, decidedly un-princelike. “I let my pain and anger blind me and I lashed out at you. What happened all those years ago can’t be changed, and staying angry with you isn’t useful to anyone. I nearly stopped you from doing the very thing that set Mipha’s spirit free. I may be undeserving of your forgiveness, but all I can do is ask for it.”

     Zelda stares up at him, eyes wide. Sidon doesn’t waver, though he still feels as if she’s seeing right into his soul. He nearly yelps in surprise when she surges forward and wraps her arms around his neck in an embrace. It’s a nearly perfect recreation of their last interaction before Zelda boarded Ruta, but this time, Sidon returns Zelda’s gesture. All he can hear is the gentle crackling of the fire, the wind blowing over the cliffs, and the croaking of frogs, though he’s sure his pounding heart is loud and clear in Zelda’s ears.

     “I’m going to make this right,” she says. “I won’t fail again. I’ll free the rest of the Champions, just as I did Mipha, and vanquish Ganon once and for all. This I promise you.”

     “I believe in you,” Sidon says, prompting her to tighten her grip. “Know you are always welcome in Zora’s Domain.”

     “Thank you,” Zelda whispers. She releases her grip on him, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Sidon averts his gaze, giving her a moment of privacy.

     The charcoal-like scent of burning food wafts through the air, accompanied by a curse from Zelda and the sound of her scrambling back to the fire. The fish aren’t burned too badly—there’s only a faint black mark on one side. Zelda sighs and removes them from the spit, offering one to Sidon, who gratefully accepts. They’re plain, lacking even a bit of salt, but the flesh is hot and deliciously flaky as well as the only freshly prepared food he’s had in days.

     “I’m normally a better cook than this, I promise,” Zelda says, and Sidon chuckles. She sends him a glare out of the corner of her eye, but there’s no anger behind it. She may even be smiling. The fire hisses and pops as water is poured over it and the ashes scattered.

     “Thank you for the fish, regardless of them being burned.” Sidon laughs when Zelda glares at him again.

     “I was going to offer to take you back to Zora’s Domain, but perhaps I’ll retract my offer,” she sniffs in faux haughtiness as she finishes clearing her encampment.

     “I assure you I don’t need an escort.”

     “Oh, I don’t doubt that. But I can get you there much more quickly than you could ever get there on foot.”

     “And how is that?” Sidon asks, head tilted slightly.

     Zelda doesn’t answer. Instead, she pulls the Sheikah Slate from her hip and pulls up the map, tapping on one of the many blue icons. She extends her hand and looks up at him expectantly. He takes it a bit hesitantly, taking note of the way his hand dwarfs hers. Before he can ask her what it is she’s planning, she taps on the Slate once more and the world dissolves into blue light.

     Sidon stumbles a bit when he and Zelda materialize on the pedestal of the shrine in the Domain. He doesn’t realize how tightly he’s gripping her hand until she visibly winces, and he relinquishes it with mumbled apologies. Were it not for the twinkle of amusement in her eyes, he’d feel a bit more guilty. His scales prickle as he runs his hands up and down his arms as if to check that all of him is there.

     “Well,” he says, “you certainly weren’t kidding.”

     Zelda laughs, and his chest tightens a bit. The ghostly blue of luminous stone combined with the faint glow of the Sheikah Slate’s display playing off her face makes for a captivating picture, made only more so when she looks up at him with a smile. The shrine chamber of the Domain gets very little daylight, but Sidon swears he can feel the sun’s warmth on his scales.

     “I should get back,” Zelda says, snapping him out of his reverie. “I believe I’m on the brink of deciphering one of the puzzles a shrine is locked behind. Something about a statue and dark light.”

     “But you’ll be back?” Sidon nearly bites his tongue, embarrassed by his overly hopeful tone.

     “I’ll return,” Zelda promises. “And Sidon...thank you.”

     Sidon nods, and with one last smile, Zelda dissolves into strings of blue light that ascend through the ceiling of the shrine’s chamber and out of sight. Sidon stares at the spot she was just standing for a moment before making his way to the throne room, eager to inform King Dorephan of his success. He laughs at the startled reaction from the guard outside the shrine chamber as he passes, and the final cloud hanging over the Zora’s Domain finally parts.

[thegrapeandthefig]

Ive got a real academic in reconstructionist hellenic polytheism, but as someone who's spent the past few years studying Christian theology at university, I'm cautious of not reading my own concept of God, theology etc. into a different tradition - something I've been wondering recently, is it correct/proper to say the Greek Gods love us in the same way we would say of the Christian God? Reading some ancient sources it can almost seem as if the Greek Gods are somewhat disinterested in humanity

The involvement/interest of the divine in mortal matters is a debate people worshipping those gods have been having for hundreds of years (cf. Stoicism vs. Epicuranism). This question is very much also present in early Christianity (about that, see Did God Care? Providence, Dualism & Will in Later Greek & Early Christian Philosophy by Dylan M. Burns)

It is, frankly, a question that will not be solved. We are mortals, and no matter how much we try or convince ourselves, we have no way of knowing divine logic with certainty. I can only advise to read both stances, compare with your own experience with the gods and choose your stance.

That being said, the question of divine love (either from the gods or from us to them) is more complex. Even from a stoic point of view, I still would argue that it's not the same concept of "love" found in Christianity. For a late stoic (eg. Marcus Aurelius), the gods are perfect beings that define goodness, and yet this doesn't necessarily mean it equals to love in the Christian meaning of the word.

Which brings us to the word "philos" in a religious context, which Mikalson defines/explains as such:

φιλος, as adjective, ‘dear’. φιλος and φιλια are complex terms about which both the ancients and moderns have written books. They are problematic to translate in their noun, adjectival, and verbal forms. In a religious context an action may be φιλον to the gods or a person may be θεοφιλης. These and their verbal equivalents are often treated as ‘god-loved ’, but we must be sure of the nature of that ‘love’ because it affects so greatly our understanding of a god’s feeling for man and his actions. Φιλοσ, in classical Greek, as a noun is ‘friend’, that is ‘a party to a voluntary bond of affection and goodwill, and normally excludes both close kin and more distant acquaintances whether neighbors or fellow-citizens’. Usually with the genitive, as ‘friend of Philip’. φιλια, as the abstract noun, is ‘friendship’, ‘affection’, or ‘mutual affection’. But φιλοσ as an adjective, ‘dear’, may be applied more broadly, beyond the range of ‘friendship’ to family members, other kinds of acquaintances, and even objects. Usually with the dative, as ‘dear to the gods’. The verbal forms (φιλειν) may reject both the noun (‘to treat as a ‘‘friend’’ ’) and the adjective (‘to consider ‘‘dear’’ ’). Given the limitations of English, I transform some of the verbal expressions (for example, Χ φιλειται υπο των θεων) into a ‘dear’ form, as ‘x is dear to the gods’. ‘Dear’ seems to me best, though certainly not perfectly, to capture the adjectival and verbal uses of φιλος in a religious context without introducing inappropriate connotations of ‘love’.

- Jon D. Mikalson, Greek Popular Religion in Greek Philosophy

Alternatively, still on the interpretation of philos, Buckert says this:

Regularity of custom brings familiarity. A Greek can address a god as his dear god, philos. ‘Dearest Apollo’ cries the master of the house in excitement while looking at the statue which stands in front of his house door. When Hipponax calls on his ‘dear Hermes’ while he is obviously about to commit some theft, this familiarity seems somewhat suspect; and ‘dear Zeus’ may sound even more ironical. For Euripides’ Hippolytos, Artemis is ‘dear mistress’, indeed ‘dearest Artemis’; and yet she abandons him. ‘It would be absurd if someone were to say that he loves Zeus,’ is the blunt judgement of the Aristotelian Ethics. The poets ever since Homer proudly say that a god loves a special city or an individual man. But to be man-loving in general would be beneath the dignity of Zeus; this qualification is left for Prometheus or Hermes, at best. The same god who at times loves can also conceive hate and work destruction. The bond between a man and a god never becomes so close that it could be expressed by a positive pronoun: Greeks do not pray ‘my god!’, as Hittites or Hebrews do. The despairing question: ‘My god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me,’ is countered by the defiant assertion: ‘Father Zeus, no god is more destructive than you.’ It is left for men to endure as long as they are able.

- Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, 1991

This is where the concept of kharis takes its place. Because kharis is something that defines your personal relationship with the divine, it is less about "do the gods love us?" and more about "do I have a good relationship with this deity?"

Sorry if this answer went all over the place, but as you can see this is a packed question to which the answer depends a lot on what you perceive love to be and how you define your own relationship with deities.

[maniculum]

Last update for the night. First, adding to the list of off-by-one spellings that stump Google Docs:

chere ("cheer")

sylver ("silver")

ete ("ate")

Also, I didn't notice this issue when I made the original post, but Google Docs thinks the following words are spelled correctly (below the cut, it's a long list):

som ("some")

poyson ("poison")

sodeynly ("suddenly")

wythoute ("without")

seyde ("said")

knyght ("knight")

wyte ("wit", used here as "to be certain")

trew ("true)

mayster ("master")

nother ("neither")

hote ("hot")

ryght ("right")

bedde ("bed")

souper ("supper")

ayen ("again")

brede ("bread")

whyle ("while")

venyson ("venison")

baken ("baked")

hondred ("hundred")

holde ("hold")

hyghe ("high")

feste ("feast")

wolde ("would")

I'm not positive whether it actually "thinks" these are correct or if it's just randomly "decided" to ignore them -- these weren't given red underlines, but I tried right-clicking a few to ask Google Docs to define them and it came up empty, so it doesn't seem to think they're real words either. (Or the dictionary function is just fully divorced from the spellcheck function.) Sure, maybe it's just overwhelmed by the Middle English block quotes or something and it's decided to pick and choose what to fix, but frankly I'd like my spellcheck to be more consistent than that. It's not even consistent with the same words: ones that I type often in this chapter (e.g., "wyne" and "hym") only get underlined sometimes, and it doesn't always suggest the same corrections. It also seems to ignore anything with an accent mark.

Anyway, last set of screenshots for the night:

As in "Percy Bysshe Shelley", Mary Shelley's disaster of a husband? I mean, I can't really blame Google Docs for not understanding that "fysshe" is "fish", but that's a wild swing and I'm surprised it's in the data.

This is one of those inconsistencies I'm talking about. Sometimes "wyne" is left alone, sometimes it's "wayne", at least once it's correctly been identified as "wine", and this time it's just a different variant on the Middle English spelling. Why, Google Docs?

And here's the other one I mentioned as being inconsistent. Google Docs hasn't gotten this one right once -- it usually ignores it or tries to correct it to "hymn". This time, however, it's decided I'm talking about the brand name. Google knows its brands, you have to give it that. Not that this is a positive -- if anything, I think it's indicative of the intended use case for these programs, and I don't like it.

This one isn't necessarily that out of pocket, but I can't help but notice that "hermytage" is only one letter off from the modern spelling. Why choose "heritage", which is two letters off, as the suggested correction? Are hermitages not in the data?

Unless I've missed something, "spicy" is not a noun, which means "spicys" is not a construction one would expect to see. Especially since, if you were to construct it by analogy with other English words, it would probably be spelled "spicies". Who is out there writing "spicys" enough for Google Docs to think that is a valid suggestion?

Now, you may think this is just straight up not a word. Not so! This is another Middle English variant spelling for the same word. Why is Middle English even in the data? You can't spellcheck Middle English. They hadn't invented standardized spelling yet. That's the whole reason getting spellcheck suggestions on Malory is absurd in the first place.

So, between these examples and the list of words Google Docs doesn't red-underline, I'm going to go ahead and guess some Middle English text got into whatever corpus they trained this damnable machine on. Which, speaking as someone who doesn't know computers but does know Middle English, I don't think is going to be good for the program's function.

I'd also recommend that anyone who knows they are prone to misspellings try to find a spellcheck program that does things the old way, with a built-in dictionary instead of machine learning. Because this is just... it's not going to serve you well.

Google Docs vs. Thomas Malory

I'm working on the Malory chapter of my dissertation, and at one point Google Docs' spellcheck red-underlined a word but failed to provide a suggestion.

I thought it was odd that Google Docs was unable to spot the fact that I'd dropped an R, and then I recalled hearing recently that Google had started using a machine-learning-powered spellcheck that was, frankly, terrible.

Incidentally, clicking "Why am I not seeing a suggestion?" takes you to a section of their Support page that reads as follows:

Words where spelling is not recognized are underlined in red to warn you of a possible misspelling. When you click on the word, you'll see a "Spelling" label. If there is no spelling suggestion available, you can choose to edit the word, add the word to your personal dictionary, or ignore the suggestion.

Note that this does not answer the question, which to me implies that the real answer is "because it's crap". (Quick aside: I'm not one who is generally inclined to trust spellcheck anyway, as I am in my 30s and remember when "blindly taking spellcheck's suggestions" was something one would get mocked for, but I am annoyed that it's actively getting worse.)

So I decided to play with Google Docs a bit and see what it had to say about all the words it was underlining in the Malory quotations. (This may be a bit unfair, since "modernize 15th-century spelling" is not a function spellcheck is meant to have, but I also think that ruining a perfectly adequate spellcheck system with machine learning isn't fair to its users, so they started it.

Some of my favorite results below the cut.

Okay, that's also not a Modern English word. It's still Middle English, just a different variant spelling. Google Docs, you are out of your lane here.

This is not in the OED, and Googling it reveals that it's a surname. Weird guess here, Google Docs. At least capitalize it if you want me to lump Mx. DeVellis in with the fiends.

Buddy (derogatory), I don't think that one's correct either.

I thought this was just nonsense guessing, but apparently there's a company called "Bonwyke" that sells window films. You know, I'm somehow not surprised that the machine knows the names of corporations.

Google Docs failed to even come up with a suggestion for about half the words it underlined, which is fair, but the ones that stumped it include the following off-by-one-letter spellings:

calle ("call")

mayden ("maiden")

nyght ("night")

It's also continuing with this malarkey:

Google Docs, worstie -- you have got to learn what an abbreviation is. This isn't even an uncommon one. Why do they confuse you every time? If you're really using machine learning, surely you should eventually figure out that periods are used for purposes other than ending a sentence.

Anyway, I'm only three pages into writing this chapter, so I may well come back with more of these, but in the meantime allow me to leave you with a spelling suggestion that I just think is funny.

The Strongest Wayne. And Percival did what to him?

[binniesthighs]

two tails | reader x minho |

Two 

Pairing: self insert, female reader x lee minho 

Genre: strangers to lovers, neighbors to lovers, fluff 

Tags:  neighbors au, comfort fic, catowner!minho, catowner!reader, author!reader, bestfriend!seungmin, coworker!hyunjin, florist!jisung, punk!jisung (yeah boiiii), agedup!skz, slow burn, plot-driven, gradual romance, lil bit of angst, strained parental relationship, explicit language, mentions of food, passive body shaming 

Word count: 5.5k (y e e t we love self indulgence) 

Tagging: @lauraneuuh​

Chapters 

P | ONE | TWO | THREE

busybody noun 

:an officious or inquisitive person. 

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

There are a couple things that your mother is known for--or rather, a couple things that she has been deemed. 

Mother, wife, friend, matriarch, socialite, unofficial event planner, gossip, show off, professional nagger, and, to certain people, bitch. 

And yet, somehow your mother was intertwined with some of the most prominent circles within the city, and she knew everything about everyone’s business. Frankly, she often didn’t have anything better to to with her time. ” If she had any job at all, it would be calling you every weekend to give her opinions on your rather “less than auspicious” life choices. 

To her, another one of your “less than auspicious” life choices had to do with the way that you had dressed yourself; however little sense this made. 

Your mother sipped at her tea with dainty fingers, barely cracking with age due to her expensive hand creams. 

“Quickly. Go get changed. We don’t have much more time and you’re dallying. It should fit you, just as long as you haven’t put on any more weight.” Her hawk-like gaze inspected your hips and thighs. “Hmm. I think you’ll be fine.” 

Seungmin, where he sat on the couch with perfect posture tapped his feet up and down with discomfort. 

I hate you for doing this to me, he glared at you with despair, hiding it behind the wide smile he performed for your mother. 

“What? Do you not trust me to be alone with your friend here?” 

Your best friend nervously chuckled out in that little puppy-like way that he would. “What? Ahh no, I’ll be fine, go on Y/n, I should be leaving soon anyway, I was just stopping by.” 

Your mother’s eyes followed you up your staircase, watching for the very moment that you closed your bedroom door. The second you did, her snide voice hissed out loud whispers, undoubtedly drilling Seungmin about the usual questions: are you married, where do you live, what’s your profession, what does your family do etc. 

The little metal zipper of the pencil skirt pinched your fingertips as you attacked it up your body. Once again, your mother had underestimated your clothing size. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes looking at the tags for the designer matching skirt and blazer ensemble. There was nothing in your mother’s life that didn’t denote the status that she “worked so hard for.” 

In a way, you hated that you had done this to Seungmin as well. Initially you had thought that having some kind of male presence over when your mother arrived would deter her stabbing remarks about your singledom, but in fact, it has just made it worse. For once in your life, you just wanted to hold something over her. Now, you’d likely traumatized the best friend that you had. 

You nearly slipped on the carpeted stairs in your nylon stockings on the way down, but held fast the the banister, looking a bit like some kind of sad, business-casual, plastic-looking prom queen. 

Seungmin’s eyes widened seeing you in the toning skirt. Likely you knew that he must’ve been keeping his jokes to himself the very best that he could--you wouldn’t hear the end of it later. 

“Wonderful. Let’s get going.” Your mother set down her teacup with a clink. “I’ve got some cosmetics in the car that you can use as well. We’ll be stopping off at the flower shop before we get to the venue. I’ve ordered an arrangement for the bride-to-be.” 

“I feel like a China doll.” You muttered under your breath, catching a little laugh from your friend. Your eyes met as if to ask him if he was okay, which he rolled his eyes as his answer. 

You put on the only pair of kitten heels that you owned: they were brown, banged up and the pleather was cracking a little at the edges. Of course, your mother let out an exasperated sigh upon seeing them. 

“I’ll bring shoes next time.” 

Seungmin politely opened the door for the both of you and the spring morning’s sun washed your face in it’s warmth. The morning was perfect: the exact kind of day that you would spend in your garden writing or reading on the single-person porch swing you had just installed. Dew still held to the Kelly green blades of grass and your cherry blossom tree bowed a little in the breeze. 

“Well, it was nice meeting and speaking with you Seungmin--” 

“--We’ve met before thou--” 

“--You seem to be a strapping and organized young man. I do hope that you consider what we discussed.” 

Seungmin appeared to flush a little, “I-I’ll think about it.” 

You tugged at your friend’s shirt, pulling him in to whisper, “What the hell did she talk to you about?” 

“Don’t worry about it.” His eyes fluttered around nervously. “She just kept going on about how she wanted me to--”  

“--Oh, Y/n!” 

From your mother’s surprised expression on the other side of the car, to the way that Seungmin stopped dead in his sentence, you knew exactly who that voice belonged to. 

Your body turned around in slow-motion, hoping that this must have been some kind of nightmare, and that you hadn’t woken up that morning yet and were cozily still tucked in bed. 

If it would have been socially acceptable, you would have hidden behind that car until he walked away, but it was too late considering he already knew you were there. 

Your mother let out some kind of ungodly squeal before rushing towards Minho and taking his hand in hers to shake. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you! I take it that you know my daughter? And who might you be, such a handsome man as yourself???” 

You really did contemplate hiding behind that car. 

It was unfair how you had to run him into at a time when he looked like that. Your mother was nearly eating him with her eyes while Minho looked to you in his confusion. 

Of course when your mother had to see him, he was fresh off of his morning run: white cotton sleeveless shirt, running joggers, a thick headband with sweat dripping down his body in rivets from his forehead to the curves of his toned arms. 

Life was just too fucking unfair.  

“Minho!” Internally, you crawled so far into yourself it was like you were barely there. You squeaked out the words coupled with a poorly-timed voice crack, “I didn’t plan on seeing YOu here!” 

“Minho?!” Seungmin echoed your phrase, grabbing onto your arm with force. 

“Uh, hello, nice to meet you I’m Lee Minho. And yes, I do know Y/n, I actually live a couple doors down--” 

“--A neighbor! How wonderful! I know she doesn’t leave the house that much, but I’m so glad that the two of you have met. Do you live your family..? Or...your wife...?” 

He smiled warmly, polite as always, “No Ma’am, I’m not married, I live with my mother.” 

“Your mother? Well, that’s very honorable.” 

You and your best friend locked eyes upon hearing the answer to the question that both of you had been silently wondering. 

With a little eyebrow raised, he gave you a smirk, before braiding his hand through his locks strung with sweat. “I also live with my cats too.” 

“Cats?” Your mother tried her best to hide the distaste in her mouth. “That’s...honorable as well. Taking care of animals is...hm, well, Y/n get in the car, time is ticking!!” 

Your mother’s shrill voice was clipped by the sound of the car door closing behind her. You and your best friend choked in silent laughter together. 

“Are you sure I don’t look ridiculous?” You patted down your itchy grey blazer. 

Seungmin nodded, “Do you want me to tell you the truth? Not your colors. But, you’ll just have to live with it.” 

“I think that you look nice.” Minho’s compliment melted into your skin like honey. “But I agree, the colors don’t work the best. Sorry.” 

“Oh. Thank you...” Your cheeks warmed, “Sorry! God, I’m-this is Seungmin, my-my friend Seungmin, sorry I didn’t introduce you both, my head is just--” 

“--Nice to meet you. Finally.” Seungmin’s expression turned a bit more stoic, a stark contrast to his softer features. 

“Nice to meet you as well.” 

“Okayyyy, well, I’ll just...get going then. See you both...later.” 

Seungmin slammed the door behind you, leaving you with your huffing mother in the car. 

“All of these handsome men around you and you can’t lock down one? I can’t believe you...” She threw her makeup bag on your lap. “I’ll play matchmaker if you want me to, I don’t mind, but you know that I have a lot going on already--” 

“--Haven’t you already started? Don’t pretend like you didn’t tell Seungmin something. Seungmin is my friend, mom.” 

“I just don’t get you. Aren’t you ever a bit sad that you don’t get invited to things like this since you have no female friends...?” 

“Honestly? I don’t really care--” 

“--You should. Thank God that you have me.” 

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

The front windows to the floral shop winked in the morning sun and the gold lettering of the signage glistened with a similar glow. On the display, there were several dozens of different types of flowers all arranged into different glass vases, tied with bows or swaddled in burlap. The arrangements of roses, chrysanthemums, peonies, daises, sunflowers and other wildflowers appeared to be freshly cut, and beaded with water droplets. 

“Here. Take my card. If any of them seem to be brown at all, tell them that you won’t pay until they fix it.” 

You took the little plastic card from her red painted nails. “Will do.” 

There was a little bell hung over the shop door, and it tinkled when you entered like fairy chimes. The entire place seemed a little magical: the kind of place that you would find yourself reiterating in your writings. On the marble tiled floors, flecks of dirt seemed to gather in the grout. 

The golden brass counter stretched on for nearly the whole length of the shop, and held a display case which doubled as a cooler holding smaller things like corsages and boutonnières. 

“Can I help you?” 

The man approached you wiping the dirt off of his hands onto his canvas apron which was stained with smudges of green and brown. Your eyes were immediately drawn to the tattoos adorning his arms in beautiful patterns of black with muted colors of yellow, lavender and pink. They were nearly all floral in design and reminded you of the drawings from a botany book. His shaggy dark hair had a bit of a curl to it that tasseled over his eyes. His smile too was devastatingly charming, decorating it was a black hooped lip ring. 

“Here to pick up an order?” 

“Y-yes, for L/n.” 

“I just finished that one up, lucky for you.” He palmed through the little stack of receipts near the register. “I’ll go get it real quick.” 

It was criminal how fast you found your heart beating after hearing how strikingly soothing his voice had sounded. You also found your head spinning over how familiar he seemed, like someone you had met before, but couldn’t place where. 

He had brought the sizeable arrangement over, and upon seeing it, you knew that your mother must’ve asked them to pull out all the works. Not only were flowers like this a bit of an unusual bridal shower gift, but it was just one more way for her to show off. The moment that the two of you would arrive with that, heads would turn, and that was exactly what she wanted. It was so large, you had to crane a little to see the florist behind it. 

“That’ll be 360.” 

Never had you been more thankful to pay for a gift with someone else’s money. 

When you passed him the card, you noted the little scrapes up and down his hands and forearms, looking a bit like cat scratches.

“It’s the roses.” He chuckled. “This job is a lot more dangerous than you would think.” 

“Oh.” A heat in your cheeks rose along with his observation of you. 

“Beautiful day isn’t it?” He tapped at the register, then nodded to the sunlight streamlining in from the windows. There were little rainbows speckling the store from the prisms hung above the displays. 

“I-it really is.” 

Your eyes wandered to his nametag which looked like he had decorated with hand-drawn stars. Jisung. Once again, he caught your eyes, slyly rolling his tongue over that black hoop. 

“It’s the kind of day that makes me wish I wasn’t cooped up in here and doing something else; going somewhere else. You seen the cherry blossoms yet?” 

“I-I have one in my yard.” 

“Oh really? It’s my favorite time of year because of them.” 

His smile was a bit in the shape of a heart, and the way that his eyes smiled along with it was just as charming as the rest of him. 

Blaze. 

He was Blaze. 

Quite literally, never in your life could you have said that you had felt your heart skip a beat, but, you imagined that there’s a first time for everything. 

He scribbled down something down on the receipt, handing you both the card and the slip. 

“Have a good one, ‘kay?” 

Had it been socially acceptable, you would have slapped yourself square in the face, right then and there, to snap yourself out of your awe. 

“Yo-you as well.” 

It was a miracle you didn’t drop that expensive-ass floral arrangement getting out of there as fast as you did. 

“What took you so long? People will start wondering where we are.” 

Your mother said a couple more chastising remarks, but they faded away once you looked at the crinkled piece of paper on your hand: 

I hope to see you again, Blossom. 

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

“Y/n!!! Oh my god, I am so happy to see you. I’ve been decaying, simply drying out in this office all by myself.” 

You swatted your melodramatic friend by the backside of his head, subsequently ruffling up his perfectly primped long, blond hair. 

“Shut up. You’re surviving just fine without me.” 

Hyunjin lowered his voice into a rather loud whisper, “Everyone here is just so boring.” 

“I don’t know what you’re expecting ‘Jin. It’s a publishing company, all we do is read here. You kind of did it to yourself too. Hell, you edit the children’s books!! You don’t have a thing to complain about.” 

“Are you sure that you can’t take an office here? We could eat lunch together, make coffee together from that broken-ass coffee machine, and bitch about Mr. Yoon together. By the way, what are you doing here anyway besides not seeing me?” 

“Picking up a couple manuscripts. I finished the ones from before.” 

“You’re inhuman. I don’t know how you get through 300+ pages over a weekend.” 

You shrugged, “It’s just what I like to do, that’s all. And, no, I will not be taking an office here, not when I have my classes too.” 

“Aren’t you the perfect symbol of adulthood.” Hyunjin pulled up for you the creaky plastic office chair from the empty desk next to his.

“Tell that to my mother, I think she’d have a different oponion.” 

“Screw your mother--and you can tell her that I said that too.” Your coworker fiddled with his white collar, pulling it from his neck. You knew how much he hated those and would have much rather preferred the silky low-cut ones which had become his trademark. 

“If only it were that easy.” 

“How’s Princess Bomi doing?” 

“My cat or the story?” 

“I was talking about the story, but sure, tell me about your cat too.” 

Hyunjin was a sarcastic little shit, but that was why you loved him. Seungmin tended to be the same sometimes--you surmised that perhaps you made the same type of people gravitate towards you. 

“It’s been pretty well received actually, and I think I’m just about done with the first book, there’s probably only a few chapters left. I just passed 8,000 reads.” 

“Wow, that’s actually...really impressive. I mean it.” 

When he wasn’t being a sarcastic little shit, Hyunjin was actually a genuine friend. He had been supportive of your writing ever since he forced the information out of you a few months ago after seeing a your chaotic notes mixed in with your manuscript ones. Of course, he had laughed at the prospect of you naming your main character after your cat, but he understood otherwise. 

“You’ve been getting good feedback?” 

“Mmhm! They really like Bomi as a character, that, and it seems like Blaze has some fans too...” 

Upon saying the same, the boy from the flower shop sneakily crept back into your head along with that stupidly Blaze-like smile of his--or at least, the smile that you had always pictured Blaze to have. 

Hyunjin snapped his fingers in front of your face. “Earth to Y/n? Where did you go?” 

“Huh? Oh sorry, I think I just got...lost in thought.” 

“I said I think that you should really consider brining it to the company. What if they want to publish it? I think that it’s worth a shot. You said yourself that its successful online. What makes you think that people wouldn’t be interested in the print version?”

“I--Hyunjin, Princess Bomi is kind of a personal thing...” 

“--Why do I even bother!” In his mock disgust, Hyunjin crossed his flabbergast arms against his chest. “I’m only trying to give you a helpful suggestion.” 

Above the two of you, the florescent white lights bore down on you with a harsh luminescence. 

“But--” You shyly picked at the hem of your blouse, “I could use your help with something else.” 

“What?” 

“What do you suggest that I wear...to meet someone’s mom?” 

Hyunjin practically leapt out of his chair and three feet into the air. 

“YOU’RE MEETING SOMEONE’S MOTHER?! I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!!” 

“Get your ass back down in your seat.” You whipped your head around to see your coworkers concerned glances. “Yes, I am.” 

“Thank God that you asked me. This is a serious matter.” 

“I can’t exactly ask Seungmin...so...” 

“Don’t you worry! I know exactly what you can do. So,” His voice turned sing-songy, “~What’s he like~ And how come you didn’t tell me about this sooner??” 

“-Because I knew that you would have this exact same reaction.” 

“I promise I’ll calm down, okay, go:” 

“Well, he’s my neighbor, and I’ve only met him a few weeks ago, and he’s got cats, and he’s really sweet and not to mention hot as well but in like kind of a... cozy, librarian kind of way? Anyway, he wears cardigans--and you know that I’m a sucker for a good cardigan--and I’m convinced that the universe is trying to get me to destroy him but, that’s beside the point--” 

“Slow down slow down! Literally all of the words you said just now don’t make sense together.” 

You wheeled your chair closer to the man across from you, “And then he asked me to meet his cats and his mom or maybe just his cats or his mom, he was kinda unclear about that now that I think about it...” 

“So he’s hot and has cats, hmm, sounds right up your alley.” 

“I-I guess.” 

“Are you sure he’s not, you know, trying to be neighborly?” 

You punched Hyunjin’s arm so hard you jiggled your glasses on your face. “Don’t ruin this for me.” 

“Sorry I brought it up! Ok, ok, I think I know what you should do. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t help you bag this sexy librarian man?” 

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

“I sure as hell hope that you’re not trying to be neighborly.” 

You smoothed down your freshly ironed blouse: a floral pattern with birds, something “light and springy” just as Hyunjin had recommended. The pleats in your trousers were in shape as well. He had suggested too that you tied your hair up, something about it being professional and “dateable.” 

Bomi sauntered up to you while you inspected your outfit in the full-length mirror. Her gorgeous green eyes were squinted after her day-long nap, and she yawned while she brushed up against your leg. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure Bomi?” You bent down to pat her head, which she promptly shied away from. “You think that this looks good? Mother-worthy?” 

Bomi blinked. 

“Thanks for your input Bo.” 

Another yawn. 

Your nightstand held your little jewelry tree, and from it you took a dainty silver necklace that hung just above the neckline of your blouse, as well as the thin tan wristwatch that you wore once in a blue moon. 

The watch face read 5 o’clock exactly.  

“Shit! Shit shit shit shit!.” 

Bomi scrambled out of your way as you flew around the room trying to find a matching pair of socks. You stopped one more in front of the mirror. Your mother’s words always did find a way of seeping back into your skin like poison. Even if you had looked “nice” a nagging voice deep down echoed: “you’ve only ever been less than auspicious. Why don’t you ever change that?” 

“Screw your mother.” Hyunjin had said. 

If it only was that easy. 

Your footsteps clomped down the stairs, and you threw on the same pair of kitten heels. 

“Shit. The gift.” You slapped your forehead, cursing your horrid memory. 

“And don’t forget to bring his mother something. A gift. Something small but thoughtful. Something that she can use. Mothers eat shit up like that.” 

You frantically searched your entire home for something that resembled a gift. After a few moments of searching, you had resolved to go without it--you’d explain that it was in the mail, or misplaced, or anything but the fact that you didn’t have one. You grabbed your humorous amount of keychains on your keys, eyes catching that little box of complimentary chocolates from the bridal shower.  

“Good enough.” 

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

One more time, you checked your reflection in the glass door leading to Minho’s mother’s townhouse. 

“This is fine, you can do this. Don’t screw this up, you’re fine, you’re fine.” 

Minho opened the door, looking as confusingly adorable and downright gorgeous as you had grown to know him as. This time, he had ditched the cardigan for a sky blue sweater that still pooled at his palms. Seeing how casually he had dressed, you instantly felt overdressed, and made a mental reminder to cuss out Hyunjin when you got the chance later. 

“Come in,” He gently ushered you to the spot where you switched on shoes for slippers.

“You-um, look really nice.” Minho pushed up his glasses up his nose bridge, “Really pretty.” 

“Th-thank you, um, you too.” 

He snickered, “No one has called me pretty before.” 

“Shit, Sorry, that was weird, sorry, I’m just kinda...nervous.” 

“No, not at all, I don’t mind. I appreciate the compliment.” 

You stood at the doorway, awkward silence permeating the air. Suddenly, you remembered the chocolates in your hands. 

“Oh, this is for you and your mother, I thought I might as well bring something over...” 

Minho took it from you, and you prayed that he wouldn’t think too much of the packaging that just looked a little too wedding-y. 

“Thank you for this.” He popped the box open excitedly, “What kind are they?” 

It took a couple seconds, but you watched in horror as his expression turned from thrilled to deeply confused. 

“What is it?” You craned your neck over to see.

“Are they...supposed to look like that?” 

Inside of the little plastic compartments, each of the chocolates had melted into blobs pathetically and swirled together making one huge, brown, melted--and then solidified again--chocolate mess. 

“Oh my god.” Your throat felt as tight as a knot in your embarrassment. “They’ve...” 

Minho hurriedly closed the box. “It’s okay! Don’t worry about it.” He tried the best he could to suppress his laughter. “It’s still about the same.” 

“No it’s not.” You whined out the words. “Don’t let your mother can’t see them, oh shit, oh shit.” 

“What happened to them?” 

Your horrid memory suddenly let you remember the fact that those chocolates had stayed in the car after the bridal shower when you had gone to visit your mother’s home. 

“Nothing good, just-hide them--” 

“Minho? Is that Y/n? Is she here?”

“--Hide it, quick!!!” 

Minho shoved the box behind a large houseplant, still hiding his laughter caught in his throat. 

“Ahhh Y/n! It’s so good to meet you at last! I’ve heard so much about you!” 

You greeted Minho’s mother with a bow, throwing the box of chocolates a disdainful glare. She was a gentle looking woman who appeared to be a little older than your own, or,  perhaps the same age. You wouldn’t be surprised if your mother had paid enough to procure the elixir of life; sounds like something she would have done. 

“I’m so happy to meet you as well. Thank you for inviting me in.” 

“Minho!!” His mother nudged his arm, “You didn’t tell me how pretty she was.” 

Your cheeks flushed with heat when you gave another little bow in thanks. “Your home is really lovely too.” 

“Oh, it was all Minho’s idea, I’m just the one that did the cooking. I’m always happy to cook for a neighbor.” 

“Thank you.” 

“I’ve got a couple more things to prepare, Minho, you go show her the cats, I’m sure that she’d like that--I hear that you have a cat too?” 

You nodded. “Are you sure that you don’t need any help?” 

“No no, you both go on, I’ll handle this.” 

By each passing moment, this all started to feel a bit more like a playdate than an official meeting of one’s mother. Here you were, a grown woman, and you had gone over to someone’s house to play with their cats. Maybe you weren’t as much of a grown woman as you thought you were. 

“Over here.” Minho guided you to the living room: it was a modest one with furniture that looked to be very old, with beautiful traditional pictures of landscapes with assorted baby photos hanging on the walls. Everywhere, there was little pieces of evidence of the residence of cats: cat toys, scratching pads, a couple cat carriers and the cat tree nearest the window. At the top tier of the structure, there was a white and orange cat lazing with a foot slung over the side. 

“Doongie?” You carefully approached the furball to pet it’s tiny paw. 

“That one is Soonie, I have two cats that look a bit similar. Doongie is probably somewhere strange. You never know cats. Mine really like hopping on top of the china cabinet; it scares my mother half to death” 

“I can imagine.” 

Soonie remained unbothered, little cat body peacefully sleeping. 

“Over here is Dori, the youngest one.” 

Dori was a bit striped, with a grey body and a white belly. The smaller cat was rolled up into a perfect cinnamon roll on the loveseat. The cat stirred hearing it’s name, and keened into Minho’s touch when he scratched its head. You copied the touch, and Dori granted you the same permission. 

“You cats are so sweet...wanna trade?” 

“I...think that I’m good with the cat’s I’ve got. But that is a tempting offer.” 

Making a rather loud appearance was Doongie, who ambled into the room with a series of loud yowls and meows, looking up to both you and Minho with striking yellow eyes.  

“Doongie!” You crouched down to give the cat scratches under it’s chin, making it purr slightly. “Did you miss me? I hope that you’ve been staying out of trouble.” 

Minho’s gentle brown eyes observed your interactions with his cats, simply letting you play around with them as you wished. Every once and a while, you could catch his eyes following you with a contented little grin on his face.

There was something so domestic and comforting about the whole scene. Inside the townhouse that felt well loved and with the smell of a homecooked meal in the air, there was something so peaceful about it all that was a little foreign to you. 

“Minho! Please come help me with the bowls!” 

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎ 

Crickets chirped along the pathway and into the spring’s chilly nighttime air. Minho had offered to walk you home, even though you were just two houses down. Because of this, it seemed as if the two of you were walking in slow motion, taking one step after the other as slowly and carefully as you could. Absentmindedly, you both wanted just a little more time. 

After spending the night being on your best behavior, you felt as if you could finally breathe. Granted, you had grandly spilled soup all over Minho’s mother, but this seemed to diffuse quickly once she had laughed raucously at the event. She was a sweet woman, with a kind soul, much like Minho. Her lightly wrinkled face shone like the sun and made you feel loved even without knowing her much. 

In many ways, you wondered what it would be like having a mother as such. It was likely however, maybe you just weren’t supposed to know. 

Minho cast his gaze up to the sprinkling of stars spread out over the vast sky: most of them invisible due to the closeness to the city. 

“You know, I’m starting to really like living out here, in the suburbs I mean. Everything in the city was so fast and chaotic, it’s nice to sit back and let things be still for a while.” 

“You don’t miss it?” 

“Not as much as I did. The city...holds a lot of memories for me; some of them I’d rather forget. Being out here feels like a new start.” 

The two of you stopped near the light coming from your porch. In the soft glow of yellow, coupled with the gentle navy blue tint of the night, Minho looked ethereal--perhaps even a little fairy-like. 

You cursed out your writer brain for thinking of your little made up world at a time like this when you had this boy, real, in front of you. 

“I had a nice time with you tonight.” Minho shoved his hands into his pants pockets with a cute little smirk. “I think my cats are a fan of you as well, so, that puts a good word in for you in my book.” 

“Me too. Thank-thank you for inviting me.” 

“Next time, we should do something different, I heard actually that there’s a meteor shower in a couple weeks.” 

“Wait, next time?” 

“Or, we could do something sooner if you’d like.” 

“You want to do something else? With me?” 

“Yes you, who else would I be talking about?” Minho capped his sentence with a little snicker. 

“S-sorry, I just...don’t understand...why would you... I mean, I don’t do too much besides kinda hide in my house with my cat...there isn’t really a lot of things interesting about--” 

Minho squatted down, sweeping something off of the sidewalk. It wasn’t until he had put it in your hair that you had realized he had taken one of the cherry blossoms from your tree to tuck it behind your ear. His head titled slightly as he admired the decoration, fingers lingering by the side of your cheek for a moment. 

“I disagree.” He hushed, barely saying the words louder than a whisper. “Even though you you tent to get yourself into...situations--not that I mind anyway, you are special. Hell, and I haven’t even known you that long. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.” 

Had it been socially acceptable, you would’ve kissed him right then and there. 

If only it were that easy. 

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

Chapter 25 

There Blaze was, standing, simple, cuts on his face and that little scar on his eyebrow twitching. The campfire illuminated his eyes with the flames, creating that brazen fire that he had gotten his name from. 

Bomi knew him well. In fact, she thought she had known him better than most--a fact which she selfishly kept to herself. Blaze was everything she had known for the past year or so, and the time had interwoven their paths in ways that she had never expected. Before her was a person who knew her too, perhaps better than she knew herself. 

Blaze’s callused hand rose to cup her cheek, thumb rubbing over her own battle scars. 

“If you’ll not have me, please know Princess, you are the strongest warrior, bravest leader, and wisest friend that I have had the pleasure of knowing. I’ll stay by your side until I breathe my last breath.” 

With a shaking hand, Bomi took Blaze’s hand resting on her cheek. She memorized the way that his skin felt on hers, making a million silent wishes that she knew would never come true. 

“You and I, we both know that fate would have other plans for us...I’m sorry.” 

Bomi turned from the warmth of the campfire, and the way that his eyes held hers. 

She wished a million wishes, and he was nearly every one one of them. 

[justapoet]

Four-letter noun

TK thinks about how three words can summarize so many things. Then, he thinks how Carlos can summarize these words as well.

Or,

TK writes a letter to Carlos, just because three little words are not wuite enough.

(honestly I just wanted to write a letter and then I made TK write one)

“Carlos,

Honestly, this is something I've never done before, writing letters. As a child, I would think that writing down your feelings and thoughts and then addressing them to someone you care about is just so sweet, and I would wish I could do it someday. Then, I learned that no one did this anymore and that people would think it's boring and silly.

That was probably my first heartbreak.

As the years passed by, I even forgot what I used to think about letters and feelings. Everything I felt would fit in a few words or emojis, so complex sentences or long texts were just unnecessary.

Then I met you, and, of course, you had to prove me wrong.

I've heard already that people use "I love you" to summarize all the things they want to say and all the feelings they feel. Thinking about it, it does make sense. If they make you feel love, then you love them ― duh. But it also makes me wonder what composes love in its totality.

Frankly, the conclusion I got to was you.

Cliché, yeah, I know. And I wish I could verbalize everything that made me get to this ― you ― conclusion, but the thing is that every time I try to tell you, you're right in front of me, and you leave me breathless.

And I simultaneously feel like I can breathe.

All my life, I have been searching for one feeling to take over my chest and bones, making me feel warm and safe and happy. I have been craving for this feeling to make my bad days turn into good ones, that feeling people describe in books and stories, that one feeling that would make me feel whole again.

Now I know I will never find this one feeling. Because, and only because, it doesn't exist.

The truth is that "love" is a word used to summarize a myriad of feelings, so you don't have to list them all every time. "Love" is a word to epitomize smiles and tears and laughs ― "love" is a word to synthesize you.

I found out that loving someone is to be scared and ridiculously safe at the same time. Is when your partner calls me, and I don't know if I'll be heading to the hospital or feeling my heart melt because your phone died and you asked her to tell me that you're thinking about me.

I found out that loving someone is to be happy and pathetically sad at once. Is when you call me in the middle of the night because you can't sleep and just wanted to hear me breathing, so you know I'll be back home.

I also found out that loving someone means that people fight, and, sometimes, you're both going to be wrong or right. It's when Michelle and Paul have to put our heads in the right place, because, after all, the color of the wedding invitations is not as important as the names on them.

After all these years, I found out that "love" is just a simple way to talk about happiness, evolving, mistakes, and the future. Loving someone means that you can feel everything all at once, and it's going to be chaotic. Yet, you're going to choose to go back to that chaos.

I have been alone in chaos before, and ours sounds like music.

I'd be pleased to dance to it forever if you lead me ― I'm a disaster on the dance floor, you know.

After all those years, I also figured why people used to write letters instead of just saying they loved each other ― three words don't seem to be enough to fit so many feelings. It sounds deeply unfair to compact so many sentences in a four-letter noun.

It might be hypocritical of me to say that since I will be compacting all of these words here ― and a bunch of others I'm still trying to fit in sentences ― in a wedding band a week from now. But I'm not truly worried about it ― can hypocrisy be put in "love" as well?

Some people say love is hypothetical, while others swear it's metaphorical ― I thought it was paradoxical, but you make perfect sense, so I got lost in my conclusions. Maybe you should think about stopping to ruin my convictions.

Honestly, this is something I have never done before, writing letters. I see now that it's because this is also something I've never done before ― loving someone with all the feelings inside a four-letter noun.

That is probably my first heartbeat.

The four-letter noun,

Ty(ger).”

*

There were soft, warm kisses on his neck and a wet cheek against his jawline.

He was pretty sure the sun didn't come up yet since his skin wasn't warm from the sunlight sneaking through the curtains, and Carlos usually didn't wake him up when he got back from a shift ― he'd curl himself with TK and make sure his fiancé wouldn't steal all the blankets in the middle of the night by letting the paramedic use him as a body pillow ―, so the delicate kisses, although sweet and welcome, made his body become alert.

It changed, though, when he heard the low rustle of paper and opened his eyes to find the letter he had written the day before over his bedside table. One of Carlos' hands delicately touched his waist, his arm slowly wrapping TK's body, and he could feel more kisses over his neck, arm and face when he turned his head a little in the detective's direction.

"I love you, too," the sweet voice whispered against his ear. TK chuckled, turning his body so he could hug his fiancé comfortably. He felt a kiss being placed on his forehead, sighing before hiding his head on the crook of Carlos' neck and lightly kissing the skin he could reach.

Those were the exact moments he couldn't fit in a four-letter noun.

[robotslenderman]

Someone on Reddit was asking why labels were important and I went into a whole goddamn essay because my Vyvanse is kicking in.

TLDR - Labels are important for communication. Without communication, we are isolated. Sexuality is so fundamental to our experiences as human beings that being able to describe those experiences succinctly can mean the difference between feeling isolated and feeling connected. Also sneering at ace people for microlabels dismisses the asexual experience as so unimportant that we SHOULDN'T be able to describe our exact experience of it, when discussing asexuality often requires these labels because of how varied and complicated the asexual experience is.

I've been waffling on the fence about microlabels but I've decided that no, microlabels aren't overthinking it, for the reasons I discuss below. In the past I've reblogged things saying that microlabels are about isolation instead of connection, that further dividing our sexuality into smaller and smaller boxes creates increasingly exclusive clubs.

I no longer believe that. I believe it does the opposite. I believe that being in touch with your sexuality just as much as you need to helps you connect to others even outside your microlabel, not just within it, because then it makes it clearer to everyone involved what experiences you have in common and makes it easier to set aside the ones you don't.

You don't understand how important labels are until you've struggled without one. It's human nature to use language to describe our experiences, and when we don't have the language to do so it is stressful and isolating. Because language is how we connect to other people, so when we can't use easy language to summarise our experiences, it becomes isolating.

My personal experience - I struggled with my asexuality for years, even before I began to realise that I was asexual. Even once I started letting myself admit it, I didn't feel that the word "asexual" was enough. Sure, I could explain to people "I'm asexual and don't want to have sex, but I love sex in theory and in novels and I love reading about romance and daydreaming about them, but don't want a relationship." That's a very specific type of asexuality that people don't think of when they hear "asexual". People hear "asexual" and think "doesn't like sex."

But people use labels because others don't want to stick around and listen to your dissertation on what your sexuality actually is, they want bite sized information as soon as possible and sometimes YOU want to describe who you are without spending a ton of time explaining it. It's not just because I want to understand myself, it's because I want other people to, too, and labels is how we communicate. It's the fundamentals of how language works. Labels are so important that they consist of two entire grammatical categories - adjectives and nouns.

So when I found out about aegosexuality? I was like "oh thank god, I'm not a broken asexual, I'm this specific TYPE of asexual."

Most people haven't heard of aegosexuality. I used to actually roll my eyes at microlabels like that, thinking it was needlessly self absorbed and pretentious. But now I get it. Now I have the ABILITY to summarise my experiences in one word, and it turns out that having that ability to use language efficiently to describe myself has brought me quite a significant amount of peace. Because when I tell people I'm asexual, they often have a certain idea in their heads of what asexuality is, and I don't fit under most of that. Many asexuals don't, because asexuality is the most complicated sexuality there is.

But god is it fucking exhausting to say "I'm asexual" and then have to hold a fucking Q and A session about how I'm asexual and yes, I really am asexual even though I'm not adhering to someone else's idea of what asexuality is. By knowing I'm aegosexual, I can say, "oh, you're thinking of X type of asexuality, which is when you experience Y. I'm aegosexual, which means that I still get horny and love sex in fiction, but I don't personally want to experience it, unlike X type of sexuality which doesn't like sex at ALL."

And then people get it! They don't get "I'm asexual, but different." That just makes them think I'm not actually asexual, or that I'm an allo in denial who needs therapy to be "fixed". They get "I'm asexual, but this specific type of asexuality that has a name." People respond to names. People respond to labels. They GET labels, even ones they haven't heard of, even ones they roll their eyes at because they think we're over thinking it because they assume that because their sexuality is so fucking simple, everyone else's must be too.

I still tell people I'm asexual because a lot of the time my type of asexuality isn't actually important. Actually, most of the time I tell them I'm queer and leave it vague because queer is a wonderful umbrella word and my sexuality isn't anyone's business. For me, "queer" is often enough because it communicates that my experience isn't a straight one, and that's usually all people need to know.

But having that label just on *hand* that describes my experiences, and having the option to use it to people who do know what it means, and being able to hand it to people who are lost like I used to be lost -

That's powerful. It's important. It *matters*.

It's not like needing a label for yourself because you prefer pineapple on pizza, this is sexuality, this is the kind of thing that makes or breaks your experiences with other human beings. When you're straight your sexuality is so simple and easy that you don't even need to think about it. You're straight. That's easy. And as homosexuality becomes more accepted I'm seeing baby gays start to take that attitude as well because they're gay and as homosexuality becomes less stigmatised, it's allowed to become more simple.

But other sexualities don't have that luxury.

Bisexuality and pansexuality are more complicated because often people experience a split attraction model, or they don't have equal attraction to different genders and they're not fully comfortable describing themselves as bi or pan because again, people hear "bisexual" or "pansexual" and assume that you experience the same amount of attraction to different genders and it's important to be able to communicate to people that no, you don't. The whole point of using a word is so that the other people understand you - if they don't understand the word, they don't understand YOU. So I think bisexuality and pansexuality is also a spectrum in that there's different types of both depending on how your attraction works, and that it would help bi and pan people to have more specific words - using bisexual and pansexual as an umbrella term much like queer and asexual - to allow them to better communicate their experiences.

And asexuality is, I think, the most complicated sexuality of all. It's based not just on who you're attracted to, like other sexualities, but if you're attracted at ALL. No other sexuality has a footnote attached of "but this one likes sex" or "this one doesn't like sex" or "this one is indifferent to sex". Even bisexuality and pansexuality don't. It also has the contradictory feature of involving some level of attraction - demisexuals and grey aces experience attraction! Just only under specific circumstances. The split attraction model is also much more significant; whereas some bisexual people are explicitly homo- or heteroromantic, many asexuals are not aromantic, and many aromantic people are not asexual. This is far more common with us.

It's also the ONLY sexuality where the split attraction communities are actively hostile to each other. Aromantic people have lately been slinging a lot of shit at asexual people because in their need to be told apart from us (I say "us" even though I'm aromantic myself because I'm also asexual), some have gone to the extreme of showing outright hostility to asexual people and show offence for being associated with us at all. When I thought that I was bi, for example, I NEVER saw this kind of shit between homoromantic bis, heteroromantic bis and biromantic bis. Only the asexual and aromantic community has this hostility.

I respect that aros don't want people to mistake them for asexual people and that's important for the same reasons I've been discussing in this entire essay, but here I'm referring to outright hostility aimed AT asexuals because of other people's failures to understand them. "Aromanticism isn't the same as asexuality" is not hostility. Treating asexual people like garbage - or even aroace people because they dare to exist as asexual AND aromantic - is hostility. This hostility is rising.

So asexuality is deeply complicated, and when you have completed concepts, you need simple labels to communicate that. And frankly - allos don't fucking get it. Bi and pan people do to a certain level, but their sexuality, while more complicated than being gay or straight, is still not as complicated as asexuality. That's not a bad thing, having a more complicated sexuality doesn't make us superior, nor is complication the same thing as depth. Other sexualities are not shallow for lacking the same level of complication, nor should they be taken less seriously.

But it does mean each sexuality has nuance to it that you can't understand without being that sexuality, and it's vital not to fall into the same trap straight people do that your experience of sexuality applies to everyone else, of assuming that because your sexuality isn't complicated to you that it must be the same for everyone else or we're overthinking it. And it's important for us to be able to succinctly sum up our sexuality so that we can share our experiences.

People who've never faced that don't understand how important it is to feel connected to people by being able to efficiently describe yourself. To use language is to connect, to use language and labels is to communicate. Without that, it's an isolating experience, simply because people do not fucking want to hear you bring out a PowerPoint presentation to talk about yourself when they just want one word. And when you're talking about something that defines your human experience, that makes your ability to communicate it THE difference between being isolated and disconnected, and feeling human.

Having different levels of labels helps, too. Sure, I'm aegosexual, but even if most people knew what that meant, most of the time it's completely fucking irrelevant. Most of the time all I need to do is say I'm queer - because I'm communicating that my experience isn't a straight one (or a cis one, if you're queer because of your gender). Sometimes I need to say I'm aroace, or just asexual, because that's what the conversation calls for. It's only when discussing asexuality itself that I actually need to say I'm aegosexual - but that's important, too.

Discussion of asexuality is no less important than being able to say I'm ace, or that I'm queer, and a lot of allos think that distinguishing yourself from straight people is important, that distinguishing yourself from non straight people is important, but asexuality itself is so unimportant that we're not allowed to distinguish ourselves among each other. And that's just another form of aphobia. It doesn't mean that we're going "ew, we're not THOSE asexuals" like I've been seeing in the arosexual community lately, it's being able to say "this is my experience of asexuality, so I'm viewing our discussion through THIS lens, whereas you might not."

And it's so fucking typical that allos think that that shouldn't be important to us. I regret ever thinking the same.

At the end of the day, we need language. It describes our experiences, and without being able to describe those experiences, we are isolated. We need language and labels to connect.

[nerdygaymormon]

I’m sorry if this has been asked before, but- can I, as a gay person, go to heaven? I was reading in 1 Corinthians 6:9, which says “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,” and the footnote on ‘abusers of themselves’ states that this means homosexual behavior. It just makes me really sad and scared. Do I have to change to receive the blessing of god? Am I not a whole person worth of his kingdom? I just feel so lost and hurt.

Let’s first look at the scripture in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

All of the terms in Paul’s list, except for the first and last, appear to have been intentionally paired together: 

idolatry was often associated with adultery in the Old Testament 

makakoi and arsenokoitai

thieves and coveters both passionately want what belongs to others 

drunkenness often leads to reviling (slander)

There’s some question over the proper translation of some terms in verse 9. 

The Greek word makakoi means “soft, delicate.” 

Arsenokoitai is a compound noun, joining arsen (“male”) and koite (“bed,” inferring sex). Paul seems to have invented this word.

Since they are paired by Paul, the translators let arsenokoitai determine their word choice for makakoi. Other English translations of the Bible generally use words to indicate male prostitutes or young call boys for makakoi.

Modern scholars have interpreted makakoi and arsenokoitai generally as young (effeminate) male prostitutes and the men who bought their services. The scholars also interpret these words as the passive and active partners in same-sex activity (”bottom” and “top”). It wasn’t respectable for a male Roman citizen to take the women’s role in sex, so they were expected to be the “active” partner. Rather than homosexuality, the footnote could just as easily mention pederasty, pedophilia or prostitution as possible meaning of these words.

Following this list of vices, Paul discusses prostitution at some length (1 Cor 6:12-20), talking about “fornication” and “harlots." Paul has sex outside of marriage on his mind.

Paul is talking about a way of life in which we allow ourselves to be governed by worldly appetites rather than by the Spirit. He’s speaking against prostitutes or random hook-ups, where sex is being pursued for sex’s sake. Yet no one believes he is condemning sex between heterosexual married individuals. We likewise shouldn’t assume he’s forbidding relationships of commitment and love and trust between people of the same gender. That would be an inconsistent way of applying scriptures.

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There’s some new Mormon folk doctrine being created about LGBTQ+ people because we don’t fit into the Plan of Salvation, or at least not the version of The Plan the church has. 

Because the church sees no gay people in The Plan, the church used to say that no one is gay, and leaders give all sorts of reasons that might make someone have these attractions (overbearing mother, absent father, lack of faith, masturbation, and so on). The church also taught that anyone who experiences these attractions can change and become straight. 

Several church leaders even taught that if gay people couldn’t change, that would frustrate God’s plan. Therefore God wouldn’t make it so people couldn’t change while also forbidding them from getting married. 

The church was wrong.

The church now says it doesn’t know why anyone experiences these attractions, but acknowledges people have same-sex attractions. In General Conference several times it’s been said we don’t expect these attractions to change. A few years ago the church ceased conversion therapies which tried to turn queer people straight. 

Yet the church hasn’t addressed the idea that God wouldn’t make people this way and forbid them from getting married. 

To get around this problem, some in the church are now saying that gay people will be changed to become straight after they die, and then they can get married and have all the blessings. 

That’s certainly inventive, but I don’t know any scriptures that would support this idea that someone undergoes a complete metamorphosis of who they are to someone else.

I have serious concerns about the Church saying to stay in church and remain alone and you’ll be blessed. If this is God’s will for us, why don’t we have resources to help us do this? We aren’t given ways to do this in a healthy way. In fact, this sort of path is usually accompanied by many negative impacts to our mental health and quality of life. 

Think about single cishet members of the church. They have leaders assigned to them to be aware of their concerns at the ward and stake level. There’s activities and groups arranged for them so they can meet and socialize and study the gospel together. Their ministering brothers & sisters are asked to be especially sensitive to them, to be available to give them blessings, to make sure they feel welcome to church activities. No such care is given to LGBTQIA members. 

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The best advice I can give you is to trust yourself, listen to your feelings, pray and ask about your path in life, the next steps. 

If the Spirit says it’s okay to date, to pursue a relationship, then you know that this is approved by God, no matter what the church thinks about it. 

When I date a woman, try to hold her hand, it’s just, idk. It’s a chore. Yes, I can like her as a friend, but that’s it. I don’t feel any spark or deep connection. But if I’m on a date with a man, I feel a little giddy. Holding his hand is exciting, a kiss is electric. I feel things I don’t with women, I feel complete, whole, it feels so natural and right. All the love songs suddenly made sense. 

When I envision what an ideal life for me would be, I see me with a husband in a loving home, going to church, and doting on grandkids. Why do I feel such warm feelings when I picture this when the church says God wouldn’t want this for me? This may not become my reality, but there is a part of me that yearns for it.

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Will a gay person go to heaven? I don’t know, I can’t answer that. I don’t know what a post-mortal life looks like. And frankly, no one else does either. If anyone claims they know, ask them what a typical day in heaven is like, what do people do? They can’t answer that.

What I will say is that God loves LGBTQIA+ people. God doesn’t respond to fervent prayers to “fix” us because being gay or trans isn’t “broken.” God intends for us to live our lives as queer people. God also wants us to have joy in our existence, and one way to do that is having a very close, intimate relationship with another person whom we love and who has our back. 

I also don’t think any of us are powerful enough to thwart God’s plan for us. The longer I live, the more I think we don’t have a blueprint to follow, but instead we co-create our path forward in life with God.

Some LGBTQIA+ people feel called to stay in the church, perhaps just for now or perhaps for all their life. Others come back to church after their spouse dies. Great. I’m not saying there’s one path for all gay or queer people. 

In a sense, we have the opportunity to use our agency, our ability to make choices, in a broader sense than other members of the church because they have so many rules and policies and advice given to them. They choose whether to follow the path the church gives to them, we have to imagine what possibilities are open to us.