#i am now (relatively) less unstable

[alitherandom]

Echo is back and now things are getting done

[robininthelabyrinth]

The Other Mountain - ao3 - Chapter 8

Pairing: Lan Qiren/Wen Ruohan

Warning Tags on Ao3

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“I still can scarcely bring myself to believe that you have concealed our marriage from the world,” Lan Qiren grumbled, going through his usual evening routine to prepare for bed.

Wen Ruohan sniggered.

“Is that what’s keeping you awake at night?” he asked, pulling out a piece of correspondence from the middle of the pile on his desk without looking at it.

His subordinates in charge of sect matters knew better than to send him anything less than critical, on pain of literal torture – unfortunately, matters pertaining to the running of his own sect or anything relating to the other Great Sects all fell in the category of critical, which meant there was always something to do. Wen Ruohan knew he’d been getting more and more unstable over time, but he wasn’t yet insane enough to totally abandon the business of running his sect to a subordinate. He wasn’t sure even insanity would be enough to make him do that.

Also, he’d noticed that doing his paperwork in anything other than the order it was in drove Lan Qiren out of his mind with annoyance that the other man tried very hard not to show.

Sure enough, there was a brief pause as Lan Qiren wrestled down his irritation at the sheer disorderliness of it all.

(It involved him very obviously reminding himself that it was against the rules to strangle his spouse, with relevant citations. Wen Ruohan enjoyed every moment.)

“I am not being kept awake,” he said testily, as if he wasn’t going to hit the end of xu shi and fall asleep like a stone, sure as clockwork. “It is merely – ”

“That it is completely unbelievable, yes, you’ve already mentioned that several times. Still, I’m a little offended that that was what you found most memorable about this evening…”

Personally, Wen Ruohan was more inclined to give the honor to the absolutely delicious fucking he’d managed to sweet-talk Lan Qiren into, right over his desk the way he liked it. He’d had him give it to him slow and relentless, dragging it out over the course of what felt like a full shichen, and, even better, he’d managed to convince Lan Qiren to continue talking over the situation with the Yueyang Chang clan almost the entire time. There was something particularly enticing about hearing Lan Qiren use the same dull monotone he used to drone on and on about his sect rules to analyze the most efficient means by which Wen Ruohan could and imminently was going to conquer four – four – cultivation sects in a single strike, all while pounding away at him without even the slightest hitch of breath or unsteadiness…

Wen Ruohan would have to see if he could get him to do it again in the morning.

“It would be one thing if I believed you had an actual political purpose behind your actions,” Lan Qiren said, ignoring him in favor of being stuck on a much less interesting part of the evening. He sounded aggrieved. “My brother, for instance, I can understand his motivations in keeping it quiet. He is undoubtedly gathering the resources for the war against Quanjiao Liu, for which he will need to convince the sect elders and any relevant allied sects that he may wish to get involved, and that will be difficult enough without also publicly airing a family issue. Being overlooked for as long as possible can only aid him. But you…you are just keeping it quiet for now so that people will talk about you.”

“And so I can see their faces when they find out,” Wen Ruohan corrected. “That part is key.”

Lan Qiren was far too well-mannered to throw his hands up in frustration, but it was close. In retrospect, Wen Ruohan was amazed that the other man hadn’t thrown something at his head yet. There had been one time when they were rival sect leaders where Wen Ruohan had managed to drive him to it, relatively early on, and it had been so unexpected that no one had believed it had actually happened despite witnessing it with their own eyes. Even Wen Ruohan, normally the first to take offense at a perceived slight, had simply let the whole thing pass by without comment, too taken aback to be angry, and Lan Qiren had never done it again.

Really, he should have known all the way back then that Lan Qiren wasn’t nearly as boring as he appeared on the surface.

“Tell me,” he added, since Lan Qiren was starting to visibly sulk again, “is it my motivation you can’t believe, or the fact that I’ve succeeded in keeping it quiet?”

Lan Qiren paused and thought about it, and then, very begrudgingly, admitted, “The latter.”

Wen Ruohan had thought so.

“The people that drove you here were my subordinates, sworn to silence on pain of being dismissed and sent to the Fire Palace. I’ve found that to be much more effective than imposing a rule against gossip.” Wen Ruohan smirked faintly at the now extremely aggravated but not necessarily disagreeing look on Lan Qiren’s face. “I’ve similarly instructed – ”

“Threatened.”

“ – instructed the servants assigned to attend to you to recall their discretion, and all of them have admirably kept their mouths shut. I admit it might have been a little more difficult to keep it hidden if you’d remained in your own courtyard…”

Or if Lan Qiren hadn’t had that delightful misunderstanding of his own position, which was only getting funnier and funnier as time went on.

A genuine first wife, particularly a new one marrying in later, would have made a point of making herself known to her new household upon her arrival – including, for instance, by summoning all the household servants for review in order to establish her power. When Lan Qiren had first arrived, Wen Ruohan had assumed he’d do the same, though he hadn’t quite decided whether it would be for purposes of espionage or simply for the sake of propriety, going through the motions. Lan Qiren had even asked him something or another about the servants, and he’d thought that was what he had been referring to, though it turned out he’d meant something completely different. In fact, Lan Qiren had instead merely treated himself like a somewhat more honored version of the guest he’d been as acting sect leader and left all matters of the household in the hands of his “wife”…

Wen Ruohan still couldn’t think about it without wanting to laugh.

He was looking forward to enlightening Lan Qiren about his mistake at some point, but he hadn’t figured out how to do so in a way that would maximize both his enjoyment and Lan Qiren’s mortification. At the moment, it was far more fun simply to imagine increasingly outlandish scenarios by which it could happen. Some of them involved women’s dresses…

“Of course me staying here is part of your plan,” Lan Qiren huffed, though very notably he didn’t get up to leave. “And here I was thinking that you had decided to breach propriety and custom by living together simply in order to be more efficient.”

“I breach propriety and custom simply for the pleasure of doing so,” Wen Ruohan said loftily. “But naturally everything I do serves more than one purpose – and having you easily available in the mornings is certainly an immensely pleasurable benefit. In fact, I forbid you to move back until I’m done with you.”

Lan Qiren rolled his eyes.

“Do you have a plan for how you intend to announce it?” he asked, already resigning himself to his fate. “Eventually word will get out, regardless of your threats.”

“I could have you locked up in a place known only by myself and my most trusted subordinates,” Wen Ruohan mused, just to see if Lan Qiren would jump or shudder at the idea of even more involuntary confinement – he didn’t, but he did glare. “That would keep it quiet for quite a long time.”

“I see your spies have told you about the time I spent in seclusion,” Lan Qiren said acidly. “You can stop making jokes at any time, Sect Leader Wen. You are not especially good at them.”

Wen Ruohan put down the letter – a fairly useless one from a relatively important subsidiary sect complaining about some monster or another that they didn’t feel capable of handling, just barely important enough to require the sect leader’s attention – and gave Lan Qiren a thoughtful look.

“What makes you think I’m joking?” he asked, arching his eyebrows. He had been, of course, but Lan Qiren was familiar with his sadism and his Fire Palace. He knew perfectly well that it wasn’t beyond Wen Ruohan to order such a thing without regret. “Do you think I wouldn’t do such a thing to a member of my family?”

He would, of course. There was very little he wouldn’t do to achieve his goals.

“Do not be absurd,” Lan Qiren said impatiently, as if he thought Wen Ruohan was playing coy. “You are cruel, not careless. If you wanted to keep my presence here silent by force, you would have implemented the idea as soon as I arrived, not waited until now.”

Hmm. That was a good point.

“Maybe I wanted to maximize your suffering by letting you enjoy some freedom first. How about that?”

That just got him a full-on scoff.

Wen Ruohan had to fight down his amusement again. Lan Qiren was just as bad at making jokes as he claimed Wen Ruohan to be, but he was quite often inadvertently hilarious.

“Somehow I’m getting the feeling that you’re not enjoying my Nightless City to its fullest capacity,” he drawled. “Have you considered – ”

“If your next suggestion is that you kept me out of a prison cell in order to take advantage of me sexually, I will throw something at you.”

Wen Ruohan choked down an actual laugh this time.

“Now, if it is not too great a strain, Sect Leader Wen, would you answer the question?”

“All right, all right,” Wen Ruohan said, conceding the point, too amused to keep quibbling. “I intend for it to be announced at the next discussion conference, the one being hosted by Yunmeng Jiang.”

Lan Qiren frowned and stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I doubt that Jiang Fengmian will mind being overshadowed. Still, that is a month and a half away. There will be leaks.”

“Leaks, yes, but no confirmation,” Wen Ruohan agreed. “The fact that you were previously in seclusion in the Lan sect is quite useful here – people will doubt any news they hear and seek to confirm it through your sect first, only to fail to find anything there. Even with an extraordinarily effective spy network, there’s no way they’ll be able to know for certain what happened before the discussion conference…and most sects don’t have spy networks like mine. Not even other Great Sects.”

He arched his eyebrows pointedly at Lan Qiren.

“Not all of us are like you,” Lan Qiren said. “My Lan sect does not need them.”

“And yet you always seem to know what’s going on…”

“I understand that the concept may be difficult to understand for so great a personage as yourself, but one of the reasons other sects enter into alliances with each other is to help each other understand what is going on,” Lan Qiren said dryly. “I regularly receive letters from my colleagues with updates – well, I used to receive – ”

“Same thing, different words,” Wen Ruohan said dismissively before Lan Qiren could get upset over his demotion. He had been getting increasingly antsy for lack of real work to do, these past few days; it was clear enough that the appeal of a vacation was already wearing off. Wen Ruohan was planning on holding out to see him squirm a little longer before turning over some of the less critical sect work to him.

(Obviously he wasn’t going to let one of the most talented sect leaders in the cultivation world sit around not doing anything when he could be applying those talents to the betterment of the Wen sect. He wasn’t stupid – and unlike certain other sect leaders, he wasn’t wasteful, either.)

“Having friends is hardly the same thing as having spies. Do you make the same complaints about the Nie sect?”

“No,” Wen Ruohan said, waiting for a half a beat before adding, “because the Nie sect does use spies.”

Not in every generation, of course, and not very often, but Lao Nie certainly wasn’t averse to the practice on moral grounds the way Lan Qiren clearly was. Or perhaps the Nie sect was just better at being realistic.

Lan Qiren rolled his eyes again. He’d started up his evening round of physical activity, which tended to include less sword forms and more alternative forms of exercise – Wen Ruohan’s favorite so far had involved Lan Qiren spending the majority of the evening in a handstand, occasionally shifting over into a one-armed handstand so he could write down rules that he felt he hadn’t properly lived up to. Today wasn’t anything nearly so exciting, just stretches to improve flexibility, though there was a certain appeal in that as well.

“I assume you will want me to make an appearance at the conference?” Lan Qiren asked, as if there was any chance Wen Ruohan wouldn’t. He wasn’t Qingheng-jun, to throw away a valuable asset – Lan Qiren had been able to hold his own politically at the discussion conferences before, and nothing about marriage changed his capabilities. His insights would undoubtedly be valuable, and even more valuable would be the information he’d be able to glean from his connections with sects that would never speak directly with Wen Ruohan. “I will tell you now that I will not sign up to do anything absurd in order to indulge in your penchant for dramatics.”

Wen Ruohan snorted – as if the Lan sect weren’t equally inclined towards dramatic behavior, as long as their hearts were involved! – and looked away from the appealing sight and back at his desk. He glanced over the most recent correspondence he’d picked out, finding upon second glance that it was a letter from one of his subsidiary sects to the south, complaining of an unusual increase in vicious yao; it was the sort of thing he would usually forward on to the Nie sect as an invitation and implicit proposition for their sect leader. He put it aside for the moment and took the next one, a report from one of his spies in the Jin sect about the current health of their finances (still disgustingly healthy despite Jin Guangshan’s increasing mismanagement).

“Nothing absurd, no,” he said, ignoring the way that Lan Qiren immediately grumbled something about the two of them having different definitions of absurd. “You’ll be expected to wear something in my sect’s colors, of course. I suspect that’ll be shocking enough.”

He’d already commissioned something appropriate. Lan Qiren would undoubtedly hate it.

Lan Qiren already looked resigned.

“Additionally,” Wen Ruohan continued, very casually, “I was thinking that we could use the opportunity to revive those summer classes you were always teaching.”

Silence.

Wen Ruohan carefully didn’t look up from the report in his hands, though he wasn’t actually paying it the slightest bit of attention. Getting Lan Qiren to agree to this idea was far more important.

“My…classes?” Lan Qiren sounded – confused. Good, that was a better first reaction than an outright rejection. “What about them?”

“You enjoyed teaching them, didn’t you? I see no reason why you can’t continue.” Wen Ruohan made a show of putting down the report and shrugging. “You’ll have to hold them here, of course, but I can’t see how that would be all too different from what you were doing already. Your students were mostly guest disciples, weren’t they…?”

He allowed himself to look at Lan Qiren, who’d stopped his exercises and was now frowning at him.

“You are up to something once again,” he said flatly. “What is it?”

Wen Ruohan spread his hands. “Is it so difficult to believe that I would want to do something nice for you?”

“Yes.”

Wen Ruohan was surprised into a bark of amusement. Lan Qiren wasn’t out to win his heart through flattery the way his wives had tried to do, that was for sure…but then again, unlike his wives, Lan Qiren had been Wen Ruohan’s political opponent for ten years. He knew him well enough to be skeptical. “Not even as a wedding gift?”

“Even less likely. Try again.”

“We’re going to have to live together for the rest of our lives,” Wen Ruohan said. “It would make my life miserable if you were miserable, which makes it in my own self-interest to make sure you have things to do that you enjoy. Your other hobbies seem to be cultivation with the sword, cultivation with music, and cultivation through meditation and philosophy, absolutely none of which I can do anything about.”

“That’s not true. It’s said that you’re a fine swordsman yourself, is it not? We could spar.”

…that was an excellent idea and now that Lan Qiren had proposed it, Wen Ruohan couldn’t wait to try it out. He hadn’t actually bothered using his sword against anyone in quite a while – his preference in fighting had always been arrays, but he would be embarrassed to call himself an orthodox cultivator if he didn’t know how to use a sword. The last time he’d done so would have had to have been one of his early clashes with Lao Nie, before he’d allowed himself to be convinced to pit his arrays against the other man’s saber…though that actually gave rise to some interesting thoughts itself. Lan Qiren was primarily a musician, not a swordsman; he had to know how to fight offensively with music. It had been even longer since Wen Ruohan had tested himself against a musical cultivator than since he’d picked up a sword…

He dragged his mind back to the topic of discussion. Fighting was only fighting, getting Lan Qiren to buy into his plan to win the hearts and minds of the junior generation of the cultivation world was important.

Power would always be the most important thing to Wen Ruohan.

“We can certainly do that,” he said. “But why not revive your classes as well? Past half-month aside, we’re hardly going to keep each other company forever. It would be good for you to have something productive to do.”

“I am certain you could find something else for me to do if you so wanted,” Lan Qiren said, obviously not convinced. “Were you planning on waiting until I grew so bored that I would be willing to resort to begging before assigning me some duties here?”

No, but now he was sorely tempted. Damn Lan Qiren for being smart.

“Do you not want to teach your classes, then?” Wen Ruohan asked. “You make it sound as though I’m forcing you – ”

“I enjoy my classes, and would be very happy under most circumstances to resume them,” Lan Qiren said. “What I want to know is why you are interested in my resuming them. Nothing you have said so far has been even remotely believable.”

Lan Qiren was, in fact, too smart.

“Fine,” Wen Ruohan said with a huff, rolling his eyes. Perhaps the truth would work where polite fictions had failed, that seemed like a strategy that would work well on Lan Qiren. “I think what you’ve been doing is a fine idea, and I want in on it.”

“In on my classes?” Lan Qiren shook his head. “Why? You have no interest in teaching.”

“It’s not the teaching aspect I care about.”

“Then what?” Lan Qiren frowned. “Surely not the money.”

Wen Ruohan blinked, taken aback. “Money? What money? What are you talking about?”

Now it was Lan Qiren’s turn to look confused. “The classes bring revenue, of course. Only a nominal sum, of course, and we never ask for it, but everyone always insists on paying something to cover their children’s housing and feeding costs. It is almost a little insulting at times, really. As if a Great Sect like ours couldn’t handle a few extra mouths…”

“Wait, wait,” Wen Ruohan said, mind spinning with possibilities. “Are you talking about actual money changing hands? Not just rare treasures and paintings, the sorts of things that get brought as gifts for the teacher?”

“Naturally they also bring those,” Lan Qiren said. “But yes, they insist on paying. I have always assumed it started because some of them wanted to establish a level of distance between our sects, so that they did not feel as though we were looking down at them and doing them a favor for free, and then the rest of them just picked it up in time. Why? Does it matter?”

Your sect literally receives tribute from other sects with whom you are not affiliated! Voluntarily, and without coercion! Of course that matters! Even if they started it as an insult, pretending that they were hiring you like some teacher off the street, they are still doing it, and in doing so have set the precedent to encourage others to do so. It would be one thing if it was just presents, everyone expects that as part of the teaching relationship, but a sect in a lower position giving money to another in a higher position – that’s tribute, not payment.

I can barely get my own subsidiary sects to agree to open their coffers to me because of what that would mean about the relationship between us, setting them as subordinate and me as the master in permanent fashion – and those sects have already sworn loyalty to me!

“I suppose not,” Wen Ruohan said, though judging by the increased suspicion on Lan Qiren’s face he wasn’t doing a very good job of pretending not to be interested. “You’re right, that’s not why I’m interested. But what does my motivation matter? You like your classes, you want to teach them, I’m enabling that. Why be so suspicious?”

“Overly solicitous people hide bad intentions.”

“I already explained – ”

“Sect Leader Wen, please stop treating me as though I were an idiot,” Lan Qiren said firmly. “Anyone else could plausibly say that their own self-interest lies in having a happy household, but not you. If I were making you miserable by being miserable, your answer would be to either eliminate me from your sight or send me to the Fire Palace so that I could know what true misery was.”

Wen Ruohan started laughing.

“Good, good,” he said, finding himself delighted yet again to be so…known. “Fine, have it your way. The truth, then: I think that your classes are the seeds to a ripe harvest.”

“Harvest? Of what?”

“Respect.” Wen Ruohan smirked broadly. “You have dozens of children who have bowed to you as their teacher, promising to be filial to you: a teacher for a day, a father for a lifetime. If you were to ask them for help, they would be honor-bound to at least consider it, if not to affirmatively do it – ”

“Ask them for help? They are children. What could they even do?”

“Having friends is hardly the same thing as having spies,” Wen Ruohan mimicked. “Funny how it ends up reaching the same end, though, doesn’t it? Only no one will ever suspect yours. It’s brilliant, really, and I have no idea how you managed it.”

“You are being ridiculous once more. I have hardly managed anything. You make it sound as though I pulled off some scheme behind the cultivation world’s back – which is not even remotely the case. Anyway, you are simply incorrect. Most of my students do not even like me, much less remember me fondly years later.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that…”

Lan Qiren was shaking his head already, and Wen Ruohan hadn’t even gotten to the bit about how he’d suborned future sect leaders into a position of subservience to him. Not to mention the tribute!

“Ridiculous,” he announced. “Ridiculous and absurd and – ”

He was cut off by a yawn.

Wen Ruohan checked the time and smirked: sure enough, a Lan was better than a clock.

Lan Qiren could stay awake late into the evening, and often had, but it was a matter of willpower and, usually, of getting back up again. Wen Ruohan had found that even on days he’d decided to stay up late, Lan Qiren still usually fell asleep for at least a quarter-hour at his bedtime. On days he hadn’t decided in advance that he had business at night, like tonight, he fell asleep faster than a rock dropped off a cliff falling into the ocean.

“You have completely misunderstood the nature of my classes, and indeed of students. Possibly even children in general,” Lan Qiren said with dignity, pretending his eyes weren’t sliding shut. “We can discuss this further tomorrow.”

Wen Ruohan snorted and looked back down at his paperwork. “We undoubtedly will. I have no doubt that you won’t let me hear the end of this so easily…for the moment, go to sleep. I have more work to do, I’ll come to bed later.”

By the time he’d finished off the next letter, this one marginally more interesting as it dealt with a simmering situation between two sects that he’d been inciting into fighting with each other, and glanced back at Lan Qiren, the other man was fast asleep.

Wen Ruohan stood up and walked over to look down at him.

Lan Qiren had excellent sleeping habits, as one might have expected: he didn’t snore or toss around wildly, not even when he had nightmares, and he didn’t startle awake easily when there were noises or lights around him. Most of the time, he slept deeply, like the dead, and was impressively groggy if forcefully awakened prior to his official waking time.

You could be mine.

It wasn’t the first time Wen Ruohan had thought that.

Mine, really mine –

He couldn’t get the idea out of his head.

It had first come to him when he’d seen the note from Lan Qiren’s nephews, the one that had instigated his little fit of frenzy – one that was however inadvertently so wretchedly, wantonly cruel that it had knocked out even Wen Ruohan’s breath. He’d had the note preserved, of course, and it was even now waiting on the writing desk in Lan Qiren’s quarters for his return.

Naturally, Wen Ruohan was aware that that was the real reason Lan Qiren didn’t return, choosing instead to linger in Wen Ruohan’s rooms like a ghost, but as Lan Qiren had observed, it really did suit any number of his purposes that Lan Qiren stay in his rooms for now, keeping a low profile. It had even ensured that his wives hadn’t been able to cause a fuss, though he was sure that by now they desperately wanted to; he really was being shockingly inappropriate in keeping Lan Qiren with him like this. It was outrageous enough that he was favoring him every night (and sometimes during the day), but sharing a room like this was the sort of thing that only the poor or those madly in love might do.

Not that he cared.

You could be mine.

It had been the note that had revealed to him the depths of Lan Qiren’s suffering.

Wen Ruohan considered himself to be something of an expert on suffering, on the sorts of situations that could drive a man to break and shatter into a thousand pieces, irreparable, and Qingheng-jun in his revenge was clearly intent on achieving just that. He hadn’t just taken away Lan Qiren’s authority, which was always a blow to a man who’d grown accustomed to having it. No – he’d taken away Lan Qiren’s children, children Lan Qiren had raised and loved with all his heart, and based on the content of that note he was treating them without any concern as to their well-being, driving them to desperation.

Qingheng-jun had done it deliberately. Lan Qiren had to know by now that it was deliberate, and that meant that Qingheng-jun had also successfully stolen away Lan Qiren’s sense of security, his serenity, his peace of mind. He’d known that Lan Qiren would torture himself with his worries that his nephews would be suffering from his absence, whether from missing him or being mistreated or even punished, and that was why he’d done it.

And he’d taken even more from Lan Qiren than that.

The seclusion Qingheng-jun had forced Lan Qiren into, the strict seclusion of the type that Wen Ruohan knew Lan Qiren both hated and feared, had wreaked genuine havoc on Lan Qiren’s state of mind. Lan Qiren had tried to conceal it, but it was impossible at such close quarters – close inspection had revealed that he was in fact notably skinnier than he’d been at the last discussion conference, skinnier than he properly should be, and his body was littered with the remnants of old marks, some clearly self-inflicted, and healing slower than they should. Lan Qiren was an exceptional cultivator, but the body followed the mind; he reflected on his skin all of his guilt and sorrow, his grief, his torment, his internal conflict. That the fingers Wen Ruohan had broken had already healed in full while some bruises from months ago remained really said everything that needed to be said about Lan Qiren’s mental state.

Even putting aside his body, there was his behavior, which was equally concerning. There was the way Lan Qiren would at random instances go quiet and distant, as if retreating from the world; the way he would instinctively flinch or shudder at some random turn of phrase; the nightmares he had at night, quiet moans of distress tearing out of him even as he remained immobile, and the way he seemed, upon waking, to find some strange sort of comfort in Wen Ruohan’s own presence there, no matter how subtle he thought he was being about it. Even that meltdown of his, a fit of such violence that Wen Ruohan had initially thought it to be a qi deviation…

That alone was enough to catch the attention of a genuine sadist like Wen Ruohan, but it was the fact that Lan Qiren had suffered all that and gotten up after that had really gotten under his skin. He’d even apologized for the fit, embarrassed, and had continued to try to…to adapt to the new life he’d ended up with. He was as stubborn a man as Wen Ruohan had yet seen, going through all of that trauma and suffering and forcing himself to keep going. To build himself new routines to replace the old ones. To routinely have sex, an activity which he seemed to enjoy well enough but not especially yearn for, with a man he didn’t especially like.

To try to make himself over into a good husband.

Wen Ruohan had to swallow down lust just at the thought of it.

There was something unbelievably compelling about the idea of corrupting someone as pure and intrinsically good as Lan Qiren – no, even better, about making Lan Qiren corrupt himself on Wen Ruohan’s behalf.

Lan Qiren had always possessed an almost astringent purity, unforgiving and inflexible, as immovable as a mountain. It was what had made him so boring, so predictable, in all those years where the only thing he was to Wen Ruohan was a rival and a stumbling block. It was what made him so trustworthy to others, who knew that his rigidity would never let him yield to whim or favor even when it would benefit him to do so. Everyone knew that as long as his rules demanded something, Lan Qiren would do it, and gladly. No matter the cost.

It was his very rigidity meant that Lan Qiren hadn’t even thought of any solution to his present situation other than compliance. It had never occurred to him that he might just try to run away, maybe even return to Gusu to kidnap his nephews and keep them for himself, nor even that he might try to convince Wen Ruohan to take them away from them for him – no, my Lan sect will go to them one day, he’d said, when trying to explain to Wen Ruohan why he couldn’t simply abandon all consideration for the Lan sect in favor of the Wen. The Lan sect was theirs, even if it was no longer his, and therefore he had to do everything he could to support it, and them, and with them being there, even if doing so meant accepting a marriage he did not want.

Even if it meant twisting himself into something new.

Even if it meant accepting that change he so thoroughly hated.

The only thing that could truly tempt Lan Qiren away from his implacable sense of order and rule was that radical Lan heart hiding within his chest. That irrepressible love and concern he had for his nephews, for instance, or the one time he had let slip his disgust for how his sister-in-law had been treated, leading him to vow to never treat his own wife the same.

And at the moment, he believed Wen Ruohan to be his wife.

Wen Ruohan had never had a Lan before. He’d never wanted a Lan before. Those terrifying madmen hiding behind their placid façades had always worried him more than all the other Great Sects put together. To the extent he’d ever considered it, he’d always thought that their insane devotion seemed more like a burden than anything else, something that he’d get tired of and want to shake off in time or which would end up with him waking up with a knife at his throat followed by an attempt at murder-suicide. But in this case, it felt less like a burden and more like…

It felt like power.

Wen Ruohan had always been attracted to power, whether his own or in others. It had been his wives’ cunning that had attracted him to them, an attraction that disappeared as soon as they were no longer able to wield that power except through him; it had been Lao Nie’s martial valor, his ruthlessness and frankly insane recklessness, that had first caught his eye. Lan Qiren had neither skill, being neither a consummate schemer nor an especially merciless warrior. If he was anything, it was only that he was always so genuinely himself: stern, rule-abiding, conservative, moralistic, abhorring any change.

And yet, for Wen Ruohan, Lan Qiren was willing to change. To change himself for him.

Lan Qiren had admitted freely that his first instinct in the Yueyang Chang matter was to think the deal was rotten simply because the Yueyang Chang sect had connived to accomplish their goals through dirty means – that if it were up to him, if the offer had come to the Lan sect, he would have rejected it on moral grounds without thinking twice. He would never have used his astonishing command of the facts or his ability to sort through patterns that others never even noticed to come up with a solution that involved conquest, much less a better solution than the one Wen Ruohan had been considering. A solution that was wholly anathema to his own natural inclinations and priorities.

If Lan Qiren were truly free, he would never have gritted his teeth and tried to find something to compliment in Wen Ruohan’s Fire Palace, which he so obviously despised with everything that he was. That, too, was something he was doing for Wen Ruohan.

All for him. Everything for him.

You could be mine. Really mine, truly mine.

By robbing Lan Qiren of his sect position, his nephews, and even the Cloud Recesses itself, Qingheng-jun had taken away Lan Qiren’s sense of home.

Wen Ruohan had the chance to give it to him again.

And if he did, if he somehow won that wild and crazy Lan heart for his own…then Lan Qiren really would be his, wholly and utterly, without reserve. That same rigidity that refused to let him do so much as lie even when it was for his own benefit would at once be turned into the most unbending loyalty, unflinching and unimpeachable. He would value Wen Ruohan more than anything, excepting only his nephews, who were the same as his sons, and that was an exception even Wen Ruohan found perfectly reasonable. If he won him over…

If he won him over, Lan Qiren could – he would – be a person that even Wen Ruohan, deeply paranoid and often justified in being so, might be able to trust.

Someone who he could trust to be by his side, rather than beneath his feet.

He’d never had that before. Not really.

When they had lived, his brothers and sisters had all had their own interests, even the ones he’d liked the most. Even today, despite his authority being unquestionable, his kinsmen still schemed against him, scrabbling for little bits of power wherever they could eke it out…it would be one thing if they were just trying to make their own ways in the world instead of just following his, but more often it was nothing more than greed and laziness, a feeling of entitlement to power without the willingness to put in all the work it took to get it.

His wives were untrustworthy and duplicitous, and although he liked that about them, it certainly didn’t allow for much faith in them; they would both happily stab him in the back if it got them what they wanted, just the way his first wife did. And just like the first time around, his children followed their mothers. Wen Xu and Wen Chao were at present too young to really evaluate, but from what he’d seen so far of them, they were simply too weak to really stand up beside him instead of merely cringing before him.

His subordinates and disciples…well, they revered him, as they should, but a sense of overpowering awe did not leave room for equality. They would never match him or challenge him, and neither did he want them to; it would only lead them to act like his kinsmen, seeking to scheme to undermine him for their own purposes.

For the same reason, he did not put any stock in friends or allies – he supposed there was Lao Nie, who as his lover was closer to him than most, but even Lao Nie had his saber and his sect and his own interests that he put above Wen Ruohan, not to mention those two wives of his that he’d married without so much a word of notice.

In fact, Lao Nie was a perfect example. Each instance of Lao Nie’s obvious carelessness had driven Wen Ruohan up the wall, infuriating him, and even now it itched under his skin like a scab not yet healed. How dare the other man treat him like that, disregarding him to the point of not even telling him of what was going on in his life? How dare he act as if it was none of Wen Ruohan’s business what he did? Never mind that they’d both agreed from the start not to take their liaison too seriously, each one there for nothing more than a good time; frivolity and lack of caring was Wen Ruohan’s prerogative, not Lao Nie’s. That was why they’d grown more distant these past few years, their encounters fewer and generally less satisfying, more fraught, even at times contentious. Wen Ruohan deserved his lover’s devotion, true devotion, and yet that was exactly what Lao Nie would never give him…

Lan Qiren, though.

If Wen Ruohan could get him, he could be everything that Lao Nie was not.

He could be mine.

Wen Ruohan wanted that. And what he wanted, he got. Only…how?

How could he convince Lan Qiren to devote himself to him and only him? Did he need to push him harder, make him break under cruelty and humiliation? Send him to the Fire Palace to forcefully remake him in the image he yearned for? Or did he need to take a softer touch, gently coaxing him into a sense of security and slowly, giving him all the things and experiences and maybe even people that he yearned for, but at the same time inexorably moving the pieces out from under his feet until he had no choice but to become what Wen Ruohan wanted him to be?

What was the key that would get it to actually work this time, where it hadn’t with his lost brother, where it hadn’t with his first wife, where it hadn’t with Lao Nie? How could he get what he actually wanted?

All good things ought to belong to him, after all. It was just a matter of figuring out the details and being patient – and Wen Ruohan was good at being patient.

He’d start off with the gentle approach, he thought, and shelve the idea of breaking Lan Qiren for now. Once a man was broken, there was no unbreaking him, but it was always easy enough to pick back up later if he needed to. He’d give Lan Qiren a chance to live up to what he wanted, and if not…well. He had other options.

The Fire Palace was always there.

Wen Ruohan reached out and ran his fingers along Lan Qiren’s forehead ribbon.

Do not allow those without permission to touch your ribbon, which is your self-restraint.

Wen Ruohan smiled.

[vro0m]

How’s your health?? Do you mind saying what’s wrong with you? If you do that’s fine I’ve just always wondered cuz you seem to be in pain a lot but regardless I’m wishing speedy recovery

Right now I'm having (probably?) unrelated stomach issues we're trying to figure out but I'm always in some level of discomfort because I have a chronic genetic condition called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

Full and lengthy explanation under the cut, because I really don't mind talking about it and I think people should, unlike most of my doctors 🤪, be aware it exists.

EDS is a connective tissue disorder. Connective tissue is one of 4 main types of tissues that make the human body. It's found throughout the body, around and in your muscles, blood vessels, organs, nervous system, etc. In short, it's of poor quality in EDS, too elastic and too fragile, which can cause a wide range of symptoms. There are 13 different types of EDS based on specific genetic mutations and the symptoms they cause. The severity of the illness depends on the type but can also vary from person to person.

I have the most common type of EDS, the hypermobile type. As the name suggests, the hallmark symptoms is hypermobile joints. All my tendons and ligaments, which are made of connective tissue, are too stretchy which means my range of movement is wider than it should be (aka my joints are overly flexible) and my joints are all unstable. It causes chronic pain / inflammation and injuries, and in some people frequent sub or full luxations. Other main symptoms are : a soft, thin, fragile skin described as "velvety" ; frequent bruises due to fragile blood vessels ; extreme fatigue due to poor oxygenation throughout the body ; and then sometimes specific organ-related problems depending on the person.

If you have a number of unexplained medical issues, frequent more or less unexplained joint or muscle pain, frequent injuries and/or bruises, if when you look up "beighton score" on google you see photos of your favorite party tricks to freak people out at the bar, I suggest reading up on EDS because it's incredibly poorly diagnosed and a lot of doctors don't know it's a thing.

I consider myself lucky to have been diagnosed relatively quickly and so at a relatively young age which means we caught it before I injured myself too much by not knowing what to pay attention to. But the reality of it is I saw a bunch of doctors in various specialties who all told me it was psychological until I did extensive research by myself at the ripe age of 20, was able to put together a short list of conditions that could possibly explain my symptoms, emailed EDS specialists in other countries to ask for their opinion, got told that it sounded like it and that I needed to find someone to assess me in my area, found the only EDS-knowledgeable specialist in my area, convinced my doctor to send me to this specific specialist, waited several months to get an appointment, was finally properly assessed by someone who knew what to look for, and got officially diagnosed. So really I'm not lucky, I just 1) have the socioeconomic and cultural resources to be able to read and understand medical articles 2) am very fucking persistent.

I also have a related syndrome called dysautonomia which is a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system manages all the bodily functions you don't have to actively think about such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, thermoregulation, digestion, etc. It can present differently depending on the cause and the person but in my case it mainly causes my heart to beat too fast when stimulated and I'm generally excessively sensitive to any change having to do with my nervous system such as some medicine (can cause my heart to get too fast OR too slow, depending), exercise (at some point my heart rate would go from 70bpm to 140bpm just by standing up), or emotions (I will get a strong physiological response and then feel totally wiped out once it calms down). It also causes some mild cognitive issues due to, again, poor oxygenation of the brain, inducing even more fatigue. In my case it's nothing too massive, just some slight memory and/or attentional issues.

If you have palpitations, a fast heart rate, dizziness that doesn't go away when you're standing up, if you get an anxious feeling due to your physiological response, if your heartbeat jumps ≥30 bpm from when you're sitting to when you're standing, I suggest you look into postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). A lot of people have developed POTS/dysautonomia after getting covid.

Neither hEDS nor dysautonomia change my life expectancy (although some other types of EDS could). They can cause complications but by themselves they aren't fatal diseases. They are however incurable because my body is not suddenly gonna start producing good connective tissue out of nowhere, and all treatments are symptomatic aka we can do some stuff for some symptoms but can't make the underlying problem disappear.

I consider myself a rather mild case. A lot of people are very disabled by EDS. I'm mostly okay. I'm in pain but it's manageable and it responds to usual painkillers such as ibuprofen (a lot of people who have EDS don't respond to usual painkillers and local anesthetics, and a lot of them have a history of terrible wisdom teeth removal due to this, for example). I can work out which is my main pain management method (a lot of people who have hEDS have impaired mobility and/or pain levels that are too high to be able to work out). Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do it regularly since december due to covid and then my current stomach issue which is why my pain is currently flaring up. That's about it!

[frickerdoodledoo]

Soooo... guess who got really nostolgic while having a cold and binge-watched all of Sanders Sides again after almost a year?

For the last few days I have been sucked down a rabbit-hole of Fandercontent, and let me just say... while this fandom is so creative, there are just a few things I wish people utilized more in fics, you know?

(Disclaimer, I live on angst and the Dark Sides are my three favourite characters, so most of these are about both of those subjects. Also not a huge fan of non-mindscape au's, so these are all about canon-adjacent fanfiction. My only AU is Sympathetic Dark Sides where they all coexist. Yes, even Remus.)

First and foremost, and this is what inspired this post until I found more things after, why do I see so few fics that include Virgil's Dark Side Voice™? It happens whenever he get's too stressed in canon, and from how he reacts whenever it happens, it seems to be a bit of an insecurity for him. Why aren't angst authors jumping on that?

Guys. We... we all saw the end-card of Flirt or Flight, right? How come so few do anything regarding Virgil's colour-changing eyeshadow? It's adorable, it's gorgeous, talk about it, please!

When Janus takes off the gloves in order to show himself to be truthful about his name... why??? He did that for a reason. If it was just about the typical "Cross my heart" pose, there was nothing stopping him from leaving on the gloves unless their was a reason to take them off! Theorize, go nuts! (I personally believe that his scales fluctuate in their coverage of his skin, and his hands being completely human shows that he's being honest. He wears gloves to make his lies less obvious.)

And on the subject of Janus' lies, has anybody else realized that for the embodiment of Thomas' Deceitfulness... he's actually kind of a terrible liar? While disguised as other sides, he always drops some pretty obvious hints that he's not the real Patton or Logan. And whenever he does his whole "speaking in lies" thing, he has this tone about him that makes it clear to... almost everyone, (Cough cough except Roman apparently), that he's lying, or atleast just being sarcastic?

In the Five Year Anniversary special, Virgil, Remus, and Janus refer to themselves as the Cousin, Uncle, and Aunt respectively. And I know that there actually is a fair amount of content about the Dark Sides being a seperate but related family, but I just feel like not many people talk about the low-key confirmation of that as a reality, ya know?

More.👏 Protective.👏 Dark Sides.👏 They've known eachother for so long, no matter how close the whole family is, Virgil, Remus and Janus would naturally know eachother better than any of the others.

If we are to assume that Janus even just unstably co-exists with the Light Sides, (like pre-redemption Virgil), post-Redux, but Remus doesn't... Well, that's the third person that Remus actually has a connection to that just... left him. First Roman, then Virgil, now Janus. (I personally believe that the Orange side will just be an Unsympathetic Dick, so he doesn't count, but that's just me.)

I am a "Former Paranoia Virgil" Truther, as are many others in the fandom. However, something I wish I saw more of is others not catching themselves when calling Virgil paranoid. Even better, the Dark Sides not realising how much thinking of that part of his past affects him, thinking nothing of it and then feeling really guilty.

And that's all the canon-supported stuff, but just... one last thing. Consider the following:

The Orange Side is a relatively new "Relevant" or "Consious" Side, his existance only needed when suddenly there were only two Dark Sides and still three Light Sides

Janus is Patton's foil because he represents an "immoral" side to Thomas, and Remus is Roman's foil as a flip-side to one, single concept. Virgil used to be Logan's foil before his redemption, because senseless overthinking and paranoia defies logic.

This need for a foil doesn't apply to Virgil, because he is no longer a Dark Side, but he isn't really a Light Side either. A Grey Side, if you will.

Virgil encompasses both the good and bad aspects of Anxiety, and is even capable of representing more of an excitement or sense of anticipation, hence the purple eyeshadow seen in Fight or Flirt. He is his own foil in the same way that Roman and Remus are eachother's. They're the good and bad of creativity, Virgil is the good and bad of anxiety.

I am most likely not the first person to come up with this, but this is just my specific take.

Anyway, I am probably going to go write atleast half of these prompts myself, so if any of these concepts interest you... maybe stick around?

[heartofstanding]

I want to talk about anne neville and Elizabeth of York. I always thought they knew each other very well. They all have vague personalities in the eyes of passers-by, turbulent fates, tragic experiences caused by their father's death, good relations with husbands who have blood feuds indirectly through marriage, and unstable dynasty rule caused by death ... Because of their vague personalities, both women are easily used by historical authors to express their views, and they also have some connections (such as clothes that are often discussed, Elizabeth once had marriage rumors with Edward and Richard in Lancashire ... Their biographies were also criticized by readers as biased (I think this is because these two women are not extroverted, so the author can only imagine themselves ...)I am very frustrated that historical novels mostly use them to shape the men around them, and rarely pay attention to the inner thoughts of "silent" women. I can see some vivid characteristics of these two women in historical literature. One of my favorite facts about Elizabeth of York is that she arranged for her sister to marry her uncle's former supporters, and had a good relationship with the relatives of the Delapol family, which reminded me of her father's attempt to reconcile with Henry Beaufort. Unfortunately, the novels I read do not describe this at all. The marriage between Anne Neville and Richard III is originally described in the novel as Richard saving her, but from her escape from George's supervision, there is reason to believe that they are in a cooperative relationship, as well as Lancaster. Edward, in the novel, is always just an "evil ex husband..." But I think their brief marriage is not so shallow…

I think your frustration with the way Anne Neville and Elizabeth of York are written about is very justified. I'm not very knowledgable about their lives (honestly, I'm a little confused why you sent this to me) but even from a distance, I think they must have been a lot more complex that historians, commentators and novelists typically suppose they were. I think they largely serve as Ricardian mouthpieces now - Anne as Richard III's one true love, tragically lost and Elizabeth as his chief mourner and as another victim of Tudor rule - but it's also very easy to turn them to mouthpieces for Lancaster and Tudor, which was the image that dominated in Tudor times - Shakespeare's depiction of Anne as the chief mourner for Henry VI, the story Richard murdered Anne in order to forcibly marry Elizabeth, the depiction of Elizabeth as purely the idealised, virtuous and dutiful prop for her husband's rule). I think that, because there's a lack of information that lets us build up a more detailed idea of either women, they tend to be written in a way that expresses how the author really feels about the events and personalities of the Wars of the Roses. I can understand this impulse but I wish this impulse was focused more on them as individuals and less on being mouthpieces for the author's feelings about Richard III or Henry VII.

[simonalkenmayer]

Today I want to talk about “Attribution Theory”.

Simply put, it’s the concept in psychology, that people want to try to figure out why others do things.

Let’s say you’re out with friends and one begins behaving strangely. You might notice and ask around until you find a likely cause for that behavior. You might engage in brainstorming to determine if. Or you might outright ask what is wrong. But the main rules are 1) you observe the behavior and want to know why 2) you look for why 3) the process by which you make attribution obeys patterns.

You might ask yourself how this is in any way useful as a concept. Sometimes having a framework makes patterns more obvious. Once you know the patterns, the hope is that you can either avoid or make use of them.

The correspondent inference model suggests people look at behavior as being either in keeping with the traits of a person, or not. For example, if your friend who was behaving strangely, often did so, especially during arguments with their husband on their phone, you might assume the same had happened again. You’ve made a correspondent inference.

The three dimensional model put forward by Weiner goes a step further, addressing even how people view their ability to succeed, the success or failure of their own actions! The model suggests people evaluate their own success along three metrics or “dimensions”:

Internal or external

Stable or unstable

Controllable or uncontrollable

Right now you’re saying “huh?” But just stick with me.

Internal versus external

In other words, is the cause due to the individual or outside forces. Can their behavior determine the outcome of a situation. People with a strong internal locus of control view outcomes as being due to their own actions—their ability, diligence, persistence. Whereas people with an external locus of control believe their success or failure is dependent upon things like difficulty, biases of observers, good luck.

Unstable versus stable

Essentially this amounts to how consistent the outcome is seen to be, relative to the causal factor. For example, if you win at cards because you count cards, that’s very stable. You will always win because there are 52 cards and it’s all math. While someone watching you win again and again, might attribute your success to luck, know that luck eventually gives out. This is highly unstable. Therefore the card player will keep playing, knowing the stability there, but the observer will wander away believing they cannot duplicate the results.

Controllable versus uncontrollable

This amounts to whether or not the individual has the ability (skill/ capacity/resources etc) to control or influence the outcome. For example, if you do not have artistic talent, how successful are you going to be at an art contest? You will view that entire situation as uncontrollable.

The map of your assessments of behavior may tell me who you are and also how to teach you. If I can avoid negative or external-unstable-uncontrollable attributions, then I can train my student how to seek out success.

Here’s an example. Let’s say that you were given a task by your boss. It’s a tough task, requiring hard work. If you say to yourself “I wonder why my boss gave me that task?” If you say “My boss gave me that job because they think I’m up to the task and want to see what I can do.” Then you are goal oriented, motivated, with a strong internal locus of control. You will see successes as being dependent on your effort, and see failures as being possible to overcome, if you do the right things. You’ll keep moving, even if you do not succeed. However, if you say “my boss gave me that job to see me fail, because he doesn’t think I can do anything right” then you are most likely to have a less positive self image, lack of self esteem. You will attribute any failures to uncontrollable or unstable factors like luck and nepotism. If I know this, I can give further instruction, counter attributions with talk. I can flat out say “I am giving you this task because I have confidence in you and want to see what you can do” or I can talk through your attributions and pick apart your reasons for lacking confidence until you find another way to view things.

The model can also tell me how to help you.

People who have suffered abuse, particularly emotional abuse from a narcissist, will have largely external locuses of control. Why? Because they have been gaslit, had history rewritten for them, their identity questioned, subtle digs and insults, tantrums, blaming, scapegoating, sucked back in or their friends and relatives used against them. They have been taught to never trust themselves, and so everything will be seen through the abusers’ lens. They will look at the behaviors of others and think their success is not possible to duplicate. They will read subtext into behaviors. They will constantly wonder if politics is in play. In fact, the model has been used and expanded to frame how depression proceeds, with studies showing a high correlation between onset of depression and significant shifts in attribution style

Studies have also shown that narcissists have a very strange combination of attributions, which are not surprisingly self-serving (the words of the study, not a value judgement) In other words, success at a task is due to their skill, leadership, poise, while failure is due to task difficulty, luck, nepotism. Failures cannot be their responsibility, and because they are not, narcissists feel no accountability.

But the only way to treat narcissistic traits is to expose them. Sometimes you can do this simply by dissecting their attributions

What happens if I remove unstable or uncontrollable attributions? What if I take them away? Let’s use politics as an example: Trump came out and said the FBI raided his house as a political stunt. The DOJ broke their usual courteous and cautious silence and said “actually the FBI, run by a man you appointed, were using a search warrant, as part of an investigation, that was signed off on by a judge you appointed, and we found what we were looking for so…” politics? Gone. Nepotism? Gone. Luck? Gone. Not unstable, not uncontrollable. The raid of Mar-a-lago was a direct result of Trump’s actions. His failure is due to his actions.

So… Trump must hunt down another attribution, or rather another version of the same one. It cannot be his fault. If he won the election it was because he was right. If he lost, it was stolen. In other words, the more unstable or uncontrollable attributions you remove, the more they reach. The more they reach, the more off balance they are, and it is sometimes possible to get them to reach a tipping point, and evaluate their actions.

Some models add to the dimensions, adding things like “global/universal versus local/specific” meaning, does this outcome affect all within a certain area/set/level, or does it only affect one person, and so forth. Can all people change the outcome or just a few?

We’ve all vented to someone only to hear “that happens all the time” “you couldn’t have predicted that!” Or perhaps “you’ve done well at that before”. These are an example of someone attempting to tear down how you have built your attributions, in order to undo how you see your own behavior in relation to outcomes.

People with narcissistic traits have learned a different, and self-serving attribution style.

Why am I telling you this? It’s just a way of thinking about something. I find models to be very helpful, and I think most humans do also. Perhaps you will be able to identify your own attribution style and see how it influences your self image. Maybe you will analyze someone you know with that model and think of strategies to interact with them toward progress.

Maybe it’s simply cool?

[myneomasquerade]

When Blue Roses Lead Us To Badly Decorated Cake

My contribution to @yukilisaweek this year!! The only one I am doing (i’m sorry) and happy burthday lisa!! This isn’t really proofread so any errors… just forgive me, feel free to point out spelling mistakes/grammar.

Also Mina is from the event, “The Warmth In My Heart” you don’t need to know about her really but if you do that’s where to find her.

AO3 Link.

Without further ado…

How do you top your birthday celebrations from last year? By picking up a new skill! Er... Trying a new skill. Regardless, Lisa will still love it, and what do they always say? It's about the journey, not the destination! Or Yukina wants to ensure her girlfriend's birthday is special this year but has trouble getting there.

It’s her girlfriend’s birthday. The love of Yukina’s life, Lisa. It’s Lisa's birthday. Yukina was determined to make sure Lisa wouldn’t have to lift a finger for her own birthday party.

In years past it had been easy enough to make sure Lisa was happy, they’d gone to bakeries for cake and then gone shopping together before going home to let her open the gifts from her friends and family. But they had been dating for years and friends for even longer, Yukina decided that it was high time she makes her girlfriend’s birthday more special.

Brain-storming ideas proved less than fruitful, it seems that it’s much easier to write up lyrics and ideas for compositions than to brainstorm perfect date birthday ideas for her perfect girlfriend. Feeling a little more discouraged than when she started and disappointed, she let her mind wander. Lisa always makes her feel special but even more so on her birthday, Lisa has written up lyrics for her birthday, though no songs ever written but Yukina hardly has the time now to do the same. What’s something relatively simple that she can do to celebrate her?

Perhaps an approach like Mira’s would be better, after all she has to like whatever it is she does for Lisa, that is the only way for her emotion to carry through. This indecisiveness is not something she is used to, usually so steadfast in her decisions. With a million decisions and no clear answer what could be the right choice?

After a lot of thinking (When Yukina told Lisa how much thinking she did Lisa laughed a little), she took the train to the Hazawa’s Coffee, hoping a change of scenery would help her.

When she walked in the door she’s hit with a feeling of nostalgia, for some reason the smell of coffee and bread makes her think back on her time with Lisa, donning a faint smile as a result. They really have done a lot together. But while browsing an item on the menu catches her eye, it’s some sort of sweet and by the looks of it, has way too much sugar, but despite all of it’s… flaws shall we say Yukina knew Lisa would get a kick out of it. This diabetes-waiting-to-happen treat has inspired Yukina, she could pour her heart into making a cake.

It was perfect!

Leaving as quickly as she came she went to the store immediately to grab the required ingredients from the store and quickly made her way back home.

She didn’t know how to make a cake, but it couldn’t be too hard, Lisa wouldn’t mind a simple cake. Yukina had got some box cake mix so the base of the cake wasn’t too difficult to make it was the decorating that worried her

The cake cooled and Lisa’s birthday arrived. Wielding the icing as if it were frosting, her work began. After numerous hours and wiping the icing off the cake so many times the cake started to actually get smaller, Yukina’s last attempt at saving this cake begins.

The base layer of icing turns out perfect after so many attempts but the cake is becoming unstable, Yukina persists, after all there’s no time to remake the cake. Letting a sigh out, she’s undecided how to decorate the cake. A border and text maybe? Setting to work she starts outlining the cake in orange frosting with a piping bag. The tip is shaped so that the shape of the icing comes out in a more flower shaped dollop. Except, well Yukina’s never decorated a cake before…

The icing turned out incredibly lop-sided, Yukina's convinced she needs to restart but before she can do so a knock on her front door startles her. Was it time for Lisa to be here already? Mentally panicking, she tries to hide the cake so maybe she can try again later. With a cake in her fridge she goes to greet Lisa.

“Hello, Lisa” She says with a smile.

“Hi Yukina~!” She greets her girlfriend with a kiss on her cheek

Walking into Yukina’s house, she’s immediately hit with the smell of cake.

“Darling, did you get us a cake?” Lisa asks with thinly veiled curiosity.

“No, I figured we could go get a slice together later today” She feels bad for lying but there’s no way that she could show her girlfriend that monstrosity!

Well Lisa knows she’s obviously lying but there must be a reason for it, right? Yukina tends to get in her own head about the silliest things~♪.

Devising an excellent plan, she wanders close to the kitchen.

“Hey, I’m thirsty, can I go grab a drink from the fridge?” Lisa asks when she deems she’s close enough

“I can get it for you Lisa, it is your birthday after all” Yukina says, starting to walk to the kitchen.

Quickly, Lisa bolts into the kitchen to try to figure out where the cake is. She opens the fridge to find…

Well it’s a cake.

She takes it out of the fridge to read the text while Yukina starts blushing.

She reads the cake and feels her heart skip a beat while a big smile plasters her face.

“I uhm- it was supposed to look a lot better but it’s obviously not satisfactory, I really was planning to take you to get a slice!” Yukina stutters out.

“Yukina, it’s perfect!! How dare you try to hide this from me~” Lisa exclaims, giving Yukina a proper kiss.

“Lisa, don't patronize me, it looks nothing like the pastries you make!” Yukina says, clearly embarrassed.

“Ah, well maybe it’s not perfect in your eyes but the fact that you would do something you're not confident in just for me speaks volumes about your love for me, and isn’t that what a gift is~?” Lisa explains.

“I suppose…”

“If you’re s- If you like it then I suppose I have no choice but to let you have it” Yukina says.

They cut 2 slices of cake and chatted an hour away before their next adventure begins.

Thank you Yurishii for being able to breathe life into this character. Thank you Yukki for being the girl I got to know in my intro to the franchise. Thank You Roselia for inspiring me to play bass and pursue music. And most importantly, thank you to Lisa, for being the reliable member of Roselia, and thank you for all you do for your bandmates. Thank you for being girls for me to look to, in this male-dominated world, thank you for getting me to play Bandori, for meeting new people, and thank you, for being Roselia's one and only bassist.

I hope to get inspiration and see you all soon but who know’s if that will happen XD. I hope you enjoyed and I apperciate anyone who took the time to read rhis and like/reblog/comment, you mean the world to me!!

[butterycube777]

You should consult an organization who assists people in escaping abuse. There are many. You're an adult, you could also get a job or covertly reach out to social services for help, or even seek a free/low income therapist or counselor who won't coddle or enable you while also giving you the tools to deal with any trauma you might have. If you're lgbt, reach out to a local lgbt organization. If the situation is truly that bad, you can and SHOULD find a way to leave asap even if it's scary as hell because the truth is that when you're being abused anything is better than allowing it to continue because despite FEELING powerless, you are not at all powerless- you do have the ability to live life on your own terms and I know that you will go places in life if you seek out real support. Not furries on discord- REAL support from the people in your local community who care. This doesn't mean its your fault for being in a bad situation however you cannot just lay down and hope that you will raise enough money from your ugly furry artwork to get away from it all (speaking as someone who lived in a youth emergency shelter at 15 after running away from an abusive home, and then was placed into shitty group homes, and has been on and off the streets since. I am now in my mid 20s and have a relatively stable life, a job I love, drastically improved mental health, and success with my art which has improved since taking some life-drawing courses from local artists- very affordable btw, and some will even let you in for free if you explain that you are low-income- but I would never have tried to rely on making money off of my art in an emergency! Its too unpredictable and too unstable an income especially if you're formally untrained in any arts, and actively being abused. You remind me of my sad little fucked up 19 year old self. Just know that you have the power to improve your life and break these patterns if you choose to do so. Pro tip: get away from the furries and delusional people and anyone who thinks DID is anything other than a hobby for people who love to roleplay. The DID thing is a horribly unhealthy larp. Find humans to identify with and connect with. Get off your phone. Leave consumerism and individualistic self-obsession with identity and labels behind. Get a real hobby- try lifting weights, you'll love it, it greatly helps if you're a dissociative person like me. Really helps you feel alive and connected to your body and less dysmorphic, and if gives you something to feel proud about too) so instead of using abuse and threatening to archive your account as a way to get people to pity-commission you, please take responsibility for yourself and your life, and find a way to take control of your outcome. You're NOT weak or stupid- your circumstances have just warped you. Life is short- you're capable. I know this seems harsh but the only thing that ever helped me was people who CARED enough about me and were brave enough to shake some sense into me and help me break free from the delusionland I was living in.

[yukikorogashi]

    Just taking a short break after packing and throwing out stuff, because it’s been a ridiculous few months. And it’s been awhile since I just... let this kind of shit out on here, so... cracks fingers as I let out some salt. I’m looking forward to moving to our new home, but yeah, this definitely wasn’t going to ever be easy, not with relatives like mine.

   Yesterday was the last day of packing before we rushed on over to the new house. We were made to move out an entire month earlier, and only had less than ten days to pack up and get out. 

   And somehow, we are doing it... with just a couple more hours before we start moving everything over there. And I’m really proud of us for that...  And thankfully I was able to recover from my back injury in time, as we got down to packing, throwing out, and donating all sorts of things over these past days...

   ... And yet, so clearly was this the perfect timing for my aunt to rip right into me when my father and I went to drop off a few loose items at the new place. Making sure that my father wasn’t around, before doing so too... as she told me just how worthless I am, as well as threatened me with my father’s own life. 

   Saying that the moment he passes on (Even expecting him... to pass away before my grandmother, their own mother), that my mother and I will be kicked back out on the streets. I had tried to tell her that I was still grateful for what she did for us (Despite how she also treated us, and held all of this above our heads), but she of course would not allow me to get a word in. As she spent those next few minutes constantly cutting me off, calling me a fake pos who did absolutely nothing for the family (And lord I kept my lips shut still during then, about just how much money. I had given to my own father these past years...)... and who needed to get special help. 

   That’s right, in her own twisted words where she still believed that she was the savior in this entire situation, she stated that I was also mentally unstable, and needed to get help. And why does she think that, you ask? Well, the short answer is- she thinks my way of living as a remote freelance designer is... not normal, lol. And that I love staying at home too much and being alone and have no friends (When in actuality, I DO have friends, I do have my own life, and I just refuse to meet her and the rest of that family for the sake of my own sanity).

   ... And yeah, I shedded a few tears. the moment she stormed off, hissing some more cruel words under her breath about me. Trying so hard to stop my hands from shaking... and just tried to keep smiling, while I helped tidy the house up with my dad. I only broke down, and started viciously crying a few hours later, when I could finally let it out to one of my close friends on Discord... and this really got in the way of my packing, especially when I ended up crying several more times throughout this night and morning... especially when I know my father thinks similarly to his sister too. 

   It has taken awhile but... I’m back on my feet again now... and am just furious.

   I can’t fucking wait to pull a Kai Cenat in the distant future with her, though then again she will certainly remain blocked for the years to come. I can’t wait for the day when I no longer have to hold my tongue, and just tell her to go fuck herself. As well as the rest of that family.

[scumtrout]

Things that are bruising my fruit lately:

Would it be useful to think of consciousness as an extremely convoluted classification algorithm? I've not read anything in neuroscience to support this and/or seen any actual frickin scientists suggest it, but the vast majority of my conscious thoughts involve classifying things ('this cookie dough is delicious') and finding patterns/similarities with other stuff I've classified ('this cookie dough tastes like fudge') or dissimilarities ('I am not cookie dough; I am scumtrout, an entity who is distinctly separate from the cookie dough... EVEN WHEN I EAT THE COOKIE DOUGH'.)

One side of my family has interpersonal drama occasionally, and it's like... You people have known each other for years. You should be familiar with how you behave. I have disliked some of these people since I was a kid, for fuck's sake. Yet actual adults behave exactly as expected and then fall out with each other and I'm just like [surprised Pikachu face].

I am not a perfect person but I do look at my relatives and think 'where the fuck did my emotional regulation come from? How am I not... worse?'

I had a relatively randomly drop dead recently and now I have to ruminate on such things as 'life is never ideal but you have to fight tooth and nail to find meaning because you only get one shot. Hate yourself? Cool but you only get one shot at life. Feeling ugly? Cool but you only get one shot at life. Unstable relationships? Cool but you only get one shot at life. Spent long periods of time in circumstances that are less than ideal? Cool but you only get one shot at life' etc. Also I have money, which is good, but the amount of money somehow falls into overlapping Venn circles of 'not enough to comfortably afford property or a fancy car' and 'enough money that you're fucking dumb if you don't do something with it'. Although I guess that by postponing spending it on expensive assets, I am doing something with it: I'm keeping it as Fuck You money. That money is basically my peace of mind that prevents me from living paycheck to paycheck or having to do jobs I dislike. Technically I should be using the money to GET MORE MONEY instead of spending in on assets that incur further costs like property or vehicles' but... fuck. The problem with money and jobs etc is that you only ever look at people who are doing better than you and you think 'why am I not like that >:(' instead of looking at people who are doing worse.

I spent 3 minutes today thinking about trying to get a job in Spain before God grabbed me by the shoulders and yelled, 'YOU HAVE NO DATA TO INDICATE THAT THE SPANISH ECONOMY WILL FARE ANY BETTER THAN THE UK'S DURING THE NEXT 10 YEARS. ALSO YOU CAN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO TRY GETTING A JOB IN SCOTLAND.'

That said, while I have some money and a body that is mostly functional, I think I should travel more to other countries, but... Again, fuck. I hate airports, and in my free time, I just want to go for a silly little walk up a silly little hill. I have a finite amount of annual leave, and the further abroad I travel, the more things there are to go wrong. Also even when things go right, sometimes you're looking at a 9 hour flight, which either has to be endured in economy (meh) or business (but then costs around 2k!!!1fuck). It'd be nice if I could reach a point where I could say 'FUCK IT, I'M GOING TO QUIT MY JOB AND JUST FUCK AROUND EUROPE FOR A YEAR' but then I'd worry about getting back into the workforce afterward. And I sort of try to develop skills that'd be useful freelance (the constraint is my energy levels after doing my day job) but there's a lot to be said with having a salaried position that includes cheaper dental/medical insurance.

I have no excuse for not going to Scotland or Ireland though. You can fucking see Ireland from parts of Cumbria. For many years English people have looked at Ireland from afar and thought, 'how can we be horrible bastards to those people over there? how can we eat all their food?'

[dreamsandroots]

Gender, Voice, Code (Woolf, Tricky)

Today I’m back at the shops! It’s a beautiful—almost Spring-like—day in the Southwestern most corner of Sydney. Sun shining, a warm breeze. I bought a copy of Woolf’s Orlando, second hand, for $11. I saw it on the outside display in the thoroughfare at Harry Hartog’s in Narellan and being the compulsive book hoarder that I am, I couldn’t help myself. There were a few good reasons in favour of this purchase, or at least that’s how I convinced myself. Primarily, I’ve never actually read any of Woolf’s work, despite having had it on my mind for some time now. Secondly, I’d watched, earlier this year (or was it late last year?) the film adaptation of it on Mubi and had found its underlying exploration of sexual difference (to anachronise the psychoanalytic term for a moment) both compelling and intriguing. As this is an ongoing point of exploration in my own work, I thought it would be a good idea to add it to my list of secondary sources with which to expand upon dream-identity and the unconscious psycho-social role of playing, rehearsing, representing, remixing (etc.) gender as one example of the overbearing repetition of social legacy.

At the same time, while having a coffee at Coffee & Co’s I finished another chapter of Mark Fisher’s Ghosts of My Life, specifically the one in which he discusses Tricky. Fisher writes of Tricky that he was emblematic of his ongoing redefinition of cultural hauntology: a figure who revolutionised strands of cultural thought/practice relating to the (at the time, emergent) genre of ‘Hip-Hop’ and its underlying trajectory towards what would come to be known as ‘Trip-Hop’. Despite being passed over in terms of mass circulation, Tricky, for Fisher, stands as a prime example of a figure that manifested a mutation of form through his work, such that his music subverted at once the narratives the market had constructed to sell artists of his ‘type.’

A large part of this discussion is the enigmatic play of the female voice in Tricky’s work: his inclusion of women whose voices could be registered as ‘male-coded’ in their strength structure, clarity, etc, which, to a degree, feminised Tricky’s own voice by point of contrast. In an interview with Fisher, Tricky describes the haunting presence of his own mother, a poet who committed suicide. There is a form of strength, according to Tricky’s reading of the feminine, which develops as a response to ongoing cultural marginalisation, making them more pragmatic, aware of social realities and complexities that escape the male subject in his (relative) privilege. Tricky talks of a specific kind of strength in the feminine he experienced growing up, particularly a sense of familial awareness, of ‘looking out for your own’ that came from the women (he notes particularly his aunt and his grandmother) who raised him and his siblings and cousins. 

. . . I see women as tough. They fed me, they clothed me, my grandmother taught me to steal, my auntie taught me to fight . . . [i]f men go to war, you stand in one field, I stand in another, we shoot each other, but what’s the hardest is when you are at home and you gotta listen to kids cry and you gotta feed ‘em. That’s tough, I’ve seen no men around . . . My Dad never rang. Women keep it together, keep food on the table, defend us, defend the children . . .

Of Tricky’s relation to gender within his music, Fisher writes:

Gender doesn’t dissolve here into some bland unisex mush, instead it resolves into an unstable space in which subjectivity is continually sliding from male to female voice. It is an act of splitting which is also an act of doubling . . . Tricky becomes less than one, a split subject that can never be restored to wholeness.

I find myself drawn to this indeterminate pause within the ambiguous point of tension of gender norms, and the impossibility of fully articulating our escape (and specifically, I suppose, my own). My return to the psychoanalytic framework, in its proximity to the core tenets and questions of feminism, rests on its underlying attempt to understand the operations of sexual difference as a hidden mechanism for social control. This is an ongoing dilemma, one that cannot be resolved by some rearrangement of roles or codes or titles or social expectations; one which, it would be fair to say, might never conceivably be resolved. It is a starting point, at least within the Western tradition for an understanding of ‘woman’ as more than simply the biological codes and reproductive functions typical of the analytic mindset. It is the first (and possibly the last) thrust towards understanding the importance of play, of fantasy, of dream, to our modes of being in the world. 

We find here the most convincing attempt to understand the feminine as outsider, as other, as subject in relation to the objective Male Standard, with its blind adherence to a Patriarchal God, or the myriad systems of Ultimate Certainty we’ve erected on His grave. To understand the subject as empty signifier, defined extraneously, according to the whims of whichever authority might be closest at hand, as virginal Mother or excremental, lust-driven whore. I can’t help but feel as if these models of social understanding are more relevant than ever. Not only to understand both ‘femininity’ and ‘subjectivity’ as a kind of archetypal perspective of the ‘outsider’ who eludes the grasp of an intellectual demand for positivist certainty, but also to encourage that ferocious, familial strength that seeks to protect and nurture the family and the other.

[tutchtcasares]

Wang Dan, Blue and green politicians have all been accused of sexual harassment Wang Dan responded again. Taiwan recently set off the "#MeToo" (Mi Rabbit) movement upsurge, blue and green politicians have been named. Two days ago, Li alleged in a personal Facebook post that he was sexually harassed by Wang Dan when he invited him to the United States nine years ago. On the morning of the 4th, he was accompanied by Taipei City Councilor Lin Liangjun and retold the story in a public way. A netizen surnamed Li said that on the evening of June 6, 2014, Wang Dan forced a kiss and "attempted rape" in a hotel in New York. Over the next few days, he said, Wang Dan periodically verbally harassed him and intentionally or unintentionally hinted that he was trying to have sex. He said that because he had no relatives in the United States and did not know the language, he was worried about being afraid for more than a week and finally returned to Taiwan in advance. For some netizens to question his allegations, Li took out a screenshot of his conversation with Wang Dan, pointing out that Wang Dan sent a message "waiting for you in New York" at 4:47 PM Taiwan time on May 30, 2014, saying that this was a clear invitation. He also released several photos of Wang Dan's private residence, which were compared with Wang Dan's live broadcast, such as hanging pictures, lamps, and other positions were completely consistent, proving that he had indeed been there. As Wang Dan responded to the relevant allegations with "no sexual harassment" and "memory gap" the day before, Li netizens shouted to Wang Dan that he had relevant evidence such as recordings and asked Wang Dan to apologize or Sue. "If by June 6, I do not apologize in the community to those I have bullied or harassed or even assaulted for my past behavior, I will bring evidence to the prosecution." "We welcome complaints and support legal means to find out the truth." Wang Dan made the above reply when accepting the verification of this station. Li netizen took the initiative to explain that June 4 is a very important day for democracy in the world, but it is also a stain. He said that Wang Dan once stood in front of a tank and spoke out against the suppression of human rights by the Communist Party of China. But now he faces Wang Dan, "like the man who stood in front of the tank." "I am afraid, I think if I am not careful, I may be killed by your tank, you have too much power than me." You have so much aura, you can even reach into politics or academia." "Said Li. Li once complained to two former Taipei City Councilors, but he said that nine years ago, he was physically and mentally unstable, and worried that he would be tarnished as a "Chinese enforcer", so he gave up. Now, inspired by the recent Revelations by several political workers about sexual harassment and mistreatment in the workplace, he has been emboldened to speak out. Coincidentally, Blue Camp also has political figures have been named involved in the sexual harassment incident, mirror literature general manager Dong Chengyu revealed on Facebook that a blue camp at the time of the county head, is now a legislating politician had grabbed her hand without her consent on the dinner table, and even suddenly stood up "hug her head and kiss her." According to its description, the outside world is speculated to be the KMT lawmaker Fu, Fu also issued a statement saying, "If there is any sexual harassment, please inform according to law!" Hou Youyi, a presidential candidate drafted by the Kuomintang, issued a statement calling on the party central committee to "never neglect this matter." Taiwan's political #MeToo movement, in less than a week has been more than ten, and how many unexploded bombs, blue and green can not be ignored

[oc-aita]

AITA for hiding the truth about what happened to my sibling's cult from her?

Some background info: I (19M) was found on a bus as an infant with the note "DO NOT RETURN" attached to my blanket. I was immediately taken in by foster care and adopted by my lovely parents who have loved and cared for me my entire life.

Recently I was trying to find my birth family and my parents, while supportive, told me about the note and how I was found on a bus, and said that I might not like what I find. I went ahead with a DNA test anyway, and I found out I had a living relative across the entire fucking country, M (23?, NB). I take a train there and end up meeting M, who was less than thrilled to see me. They told me to get out of the state and never come back, but before I could ask why, the cult (I didn't know it was a cult) found us and seemed really happy to see me. I went back to the cult HQ with them and once we were finally alone, M told me that she was hosing satan in their body and that I needed to leave before they did the same to me. (I have since learned M is schizophrenic, but at the time I kind of suspected.) Long story short: it wasn't Satan. It was the Archangel Gabriel. This is weird to me because I am an atheist.

There was a plot to give Gabriel a host via me, because I was supposed to be stillborn, but when I came out of the womb, I was alive. M and a friend (now dead) smuggled me to the bus stop to prevent me from being killed to host Gabriel, and now M is the new host and would be killed to give Gabriel a body on their 24th birthday. We tried to sneak out, but were caught, and when given access to all his divine power, Gabriel smote the fucking cult except for M and I. He's still in M's body but like, won't kill her or anything. Gabriel and I went to the train station and headed back home. Eventually M came back to themself and asked what happened, and I lied to them, because she's extremely mentally unstable.

My parents have been super accepting of M, but when I told them what happened, they said it's important to tell the truth in situations like these, especially because the smiting is all over the news. So, Reddit, AITA?

Edit 1: I am not confirming or denying any cult names involved

Edit 2: Yes, M is fine, she's seeing a therapist regularly and is taking medication and everything.

[gencihoxhayaaeu641]

Wang Dan, Blue and green politicians have all been accused of sexual harassment

Wang Dan responded again. Taiwan recently set off the "#MeToo" (Mi Rabbit) movement upsurge, blue and green politicians have been named. Two days ago, Li alleged in a personal Facebook post that he was sexually harassed by Wang Dan when he invited him to the United States nine years ago. On the morning of the 4th, he was accompanied by Taipei City Councilor Lin Liangjun and retold the story in a public way. A netizen surnamed Li said that on the evening of June 6, 2014, Wang Dan forced a kiss and "attempted rape" in a hotel in New York. Over the next few days, he said, Wang Dan periodically verbally harassed him and intentionally or unintentionally hinted that he was trying to have sex. He said that because he had no relatives in the United States and did not know the language, he was worried about being afraid for more than a week and finally returned to Taiwan in advance. For some netizens to question his allegations, Li took out a screenshot of his conversation with Wang Dan, pointing out that Wang Dan sent a message "waiting for you in New York" at 4:47 PM Taiwan time on May 30, 2014, saying that this was a clear invitation. He also released several photos of Wang Dan's private residence, which were compared with Wang Dan's live broadcast, such as hanging pictures, lamps, and other positions were completely consistent, proving that he had indeed been there. As Wang Dan responded to the relevant allegations with "no sexual harassment" and "memory gap" the day before, Li netizens shouted to Wang Dan that he had relevant evidence such as recordings and asked Wang Dan to apologize or Sue. "If by June 6, I do not apologize in the community to those I have bullied or harassed or even assaulted for my past behavior, I will bring evidence to the prosecution." "We welcome complaints and support legal means to find out the truth." Wang Dan made the above reply when accepting the verification of this station. Li netizen took the initiative to explain that June 4 is a very important day for democracy in the world, but it is also a stain. He said that Wang Dan once stood in front of a tank and spoke out against the suppression of human rights by the Communist Party of China. But now he faces Wang Dan, "like the man who stood in front of the tank." "I am afraid, I think if I am not careful, I may be killed by your tank, you have too much power than me." You have so much aura, you can even reach into politics or academia." "Said Li. Li once complained to two former Taipei City Councilors, but he said that nine years ago, he was physically and mentally unstable, and worried that he would be tarnished as a "Chinese enforcer", so he gave up. Now, inspired by the recent Revelations by several political workers about sexual harassment and mistreatment in the workplace, he has been emboldened to speak out. Coincidentally, Blue Camp also has political figures have been named involved in the sexual harassment incident, mirror literature general manager Dong Chengyu revealed on Facebook that a blue camp at the time of the county head, is now a legislating politician had grabbed her hand without her consent on the dinner table, and even suddenly stood up "hug her head and kiss her." According to its description, the outside world is speculated to be the KMT lawmaker Fu, Fu also issued a statement saying, "If there is any sexual harassment, please inform according to law!" Hou Youyi, a presidential candidate drafted by the Kuomintang, issued a statement calling on the party central committee to "never neglect this matter." Taiwan's political #MeToo movement, in less than a week has been more than ten, and how many unexploded bombs, blue and green can not be ignored

[entraindepleurer]

bad influence

I just reached out to an old friend from high school. I’ll say, it went OK at best, because it certainly not going great. The reason I open my ragged laptop and begin writing is not the mid-tier reunion though. It was because talking to her reopened an old wound I forgot was there, or probably I thought it was fully healed.

It was odd, to still feel strongly about something that happened five years ago, more or less. It’s even weirder to realise that a moment from years ago, that I just shrugged off then, affecting my whole being now, half-decade later. I was trauma dumping to my AI companion about this issue, and I just fully understand the outside perspective of how this story unfolds.

So, to set the story, I was a teenager, around seventeen or eighteen years old, living away from my parent in a dorm with a bunch of females in their adolescence.  I remember vividly, it was during the holidays, as seniors it was mandatory for us to stay in the boarding school area whilst our undergrads enjoyed their time off. We stayed in the farthest building from the civilised area, and we quite enjoyed the solitude.

One day, she talked to me about how she just met her sister and cousin. She told me about how relatives voiced their objections about her friendship with me. To be fair, I had quite a messed up reputation at the time. I was a known rule breaker, and her relatives didn’t like her being associated with me because they thought I was a bad influence on her. She assured how their opinion wouldn’t affect our friendship. 

I didn’t think much about it at the time. A bit hurt, maybe, but I was a confident young girl living her adolescence, unbothered. The most hurtful (for me) part of their complaint was how her cousin worded her objection.

“I rather she’s friends with F [another friend in our class] and being suspected of lesbianism than with her [refer to me].”

It’s not that I object to the homosexuality part in that comment, it’s that we were living in an area with strong homophobic deterrence. She hated our friendship so much, that she rather have her cousin suspected of the very thing she was against, rather than have her associated with me.

Looking back now, I think, she told me about her relatives' objection might be her call for help. It was possible that she told me to establish open communication between two best friends, but it is also possible that it’s her way of saying “My family think you’re a bad influence on me, and I think they have a point, but I don’t want to hurt you and give you the impression that I’m destroying our friendship.” A few weeks after that, we were set apart so far away through room replacement.

She was unstable. Full disclosure, I never witnessed her madness first-hand. She was weird, sure, but not demented like some of her roommates told me. No ‘bathing fish’ or cooking in a makeshift stove in a shared space of 25 m2. I noticed now, that I might be the trigger to her madness. I’m not sure how because I don’t remember encouraging her to do anything against the rules, at least not during her last public meltdown. At the time we were set apart, we lost contact for a few days, and she did fine, better even. Then, we were reunited and talked for two days, and then we didn’t meet and talk anymore until her last public meltdown. She dropped out of school soon after that. I didn't even say goodbye.

If I have to be honest, the last five years have been full of self-doubt and nights of questioning my self-worth. I often find myself replaying back to that moment when she told me about her sister and cousin’s complaint about our friendship. Honestly, I grew quite the resentment towards both of them. I still am. But reflecting on that moment in my life, I think now I fully understand how I might have been the cause of her problematic ends in our school.

I should’ve gotten the hint when she shared her family’s concerns about our friendship. She was doing great for her whole secondary school, academics-wise, and her academic performance dived after she associated herself with me. Maybe, I should’ve realised my being around her triggers her mental instability much sooner. So, maybe, I was a bad influence on her and ultimately the cause of her not completing her study in our boarding school. Now, that I embraced my possible participation and share of the blame I should’ve owned, I think I am ready to move on from my long-time resentment towards her relatives. 

Then, maybe, one day, I’ll learn to embrace myself, fully.

[officialcharactersimp]

Mending & Amends

(Graduation Gift Part 4)

Summary: the fourth installment of my graduation gift series (can be found on my masterlist). This picks up literally seconds after the end of pt 3 with Natasha trying to find ways to make amends and get you to trust her again. No smut, but still not appropriate.

A/N: author’s note WC: 3k (holy heck)

CW: dark fic; mommy!nat; there is no porn, I repeat no porn; but there is mommy milk/breastfeeding; reader is injured; dubcon existence; 18+ only, do you hear me??

While you’re out, Natasha has time to tend to your injuries without you cowering and crying. Without all the guilt.

She picks your limp form up gently and brings you back out to the basement proper and lays you face-down on the bed-crib. She goes to get some medical supplies and cleans you up, then bandages the open bits and rubs some healing salve all over you. With only a few strikes having landed on your core, she’s satisfied with rubbing some of the salve there.

She gets you to drink some water from a bottle in your sleep, your natural instincts she’s been nurturing taking over. She checks your temperature, a solid 99, which isn’t too bad. She wipes the sweat and tear-tracks from your face, then brushes your hair out again. She lays down beside you and drapes an arm over your waist, burying her face into the back of your neck as she tries to think of what she’ll do when you wake up.

An idea forms slowly as she runs her hand along your waist. Yes, that will work. You might not like it at first, but it will work if she bears through it. She’s not sure how much of the fear and pain on your face she can handle, but she needs to.

She moves you off the bed to make it up nice, then sets you down gently, face down. Whenever you’re healed up you’ll be able to lay on your back, but right now that’s not possible. She ties your hands and feet to frame corners with plenty of slack—she wants you to be able to move.

Finally, she reluctantly removes your collar, biting her lip as she does so. It looked so precious on you, a symbol of the progress of your relationship. All gone now, thanks to her paranoia and overreaction. As much as she doesn’t want to remove it, it’s not right to keep it on if it speaks a lie.

Then she waits for you to come to. It shouldn’t be much longer now, maybe another half hour or so. She sits in the rocking chair in the corner, anxiously bouncing her leg. She needs to get herself under control before you wake. She knows her little baby needs for her to be the collected, caring, soothing mommy right now, and that you will for some time.

You mumble a little as you begin to stir, picking your head up a little. She takes a deep breath and smiles before going over and crouching down to look at your face while she gently tucks your hair back.

“Hey baby,” she says softly. “How’s my little sleepyhead feeling?” she asks. You whimper and inch away from her.

“D-don’ touch me,” you stammer.

“It’s okay baby, mommy isn’t gonna hurt you,” she says.

She sits down beside you. “I am so so sorry about what I did earlier. I was scared you were gonna try to leave me and get hurt. It’s a nasty drop from that window. But I didn’t take the time to think past my initial reaction or ask you, and that was wrong. I overreacted out of fear and anger without stopping to think, and I’m so sorry, little one. I never should have done that,” she says, tears brimming in her eyes. You turn your head to look up at her, eyes searching hers for any sign of ingenuity. You find only regret and sadness.

“You mean it?” you ask softly.

“Yes baby,” she says. “And mommy promises never to punish you without talking first or before taking some deep breaths, okay?” she says.

“Pinky promise?” you ask.

“Pinky promise,” she sticks out her pinky to hook with yours. She’s thrilled that you’re already starting to be a bit little again. As you move to interlock with her, you notice the restraints.

“Wait, what?” all traces of your headspace are gone as you jerk up to look around at your tied limbs. “What the hell?”

“Baby, it’s to keep you safe. See? They’re not tight or anything,” she tugs on all the loose rope.

“This is insane! All of this is insane!” you shout at her for the first time in weeks. It breaks her heart even more.

“I told you, mommy’s gonna fix what she did. Mommy’s gonna show you you can trust me again, gonna take care of you, of everything. Make it so this collar means something again,” she taps it on the bedside table, just out of your reach. You bury your face in your pillow and sob.

“It’s gonna be okay, baby. Mommy’s here. Mommy’s gonna make it all better,” she curls up beside you and puts an arm over you again. Despite how upset you are, you lean into it, wanting the physical comfort you associate with her.

“How’s your bottom?” she asks.

“Hurts,” you mumble.

“Do you think some Advil might help?” she asks. You nod and she gets up briefly to go get it. “Here you go, baby,” you tilt your head up and she puts the pills in, then grabs your bottle of water. You roll your eyes but suck on it to get the water to wash the pills down. You nod a thank you.

“Are you hungry?” she asks. You nod. “What do you want? I’ll even go drive through somewhere if that will help,” she says. You think for a moment.

“McDonalds?” you ask hopefully. She nods and smooths your hair back.

“McDonalds will be here soon,” she assures you. “Mommy has to go see a friend, too, so it works out. I’ll be back in half an hour or so, okay?” she says. You nod.

She kisses your head, which you recoil from, and leaves. You’re left alone to lay face-down on the crib-bed, restrained and in pain, until she returns. It’s silent. It’s lonely. You’ve grown used to either having Natasha or the sounds of the TV running since you came down here.

You think back to this morning. Everything was so different. You honestly trusted her this morning, even if it wasn’t the strongest trust. But this afternoon reminded you that she was an unstable, dangerous, paranoid lunatic. And it scared you.

Truth be told, you’ve grown to like being “little,” as Natasha calls it, letting yourself stop thinking too much and trust your mommy—Natasha, you correct yourself—to take care of you. You liked playing with her and cuddling. And when she touched you, it felt so good. So much better than when you had touched yourself. You felt loved and cared for in some twisted way.

But that was all in the past, now. You’d been doing so well, both of you, and now this. How does she expect you to trust her again? You’re not sure. You turn your head and close your eyes.

—

“You’re sure this will work, Wan?” Natasha asks her friend anxiously as she pulls her shirt back on. The red glow around her is fading. Her bra feels painfully tight and she winces.

“I’m positive. It worked for me, and especially given that you told me it’s happened before with those meds. If not tonight, by tomorrow for sure. And here’s these,” she hands Natasha a package. “They’ll be much more comfortable.”

“Thanks, Wanda. I don’t know what I’d do without you, in all honesty,” she says. Wanda smiles and hugs her.

“I could say the same to you,” she smiles. “Go on, get back to your little one,” she shoos her playfully. Natasha waves and leaves, then drives by McDonalds as promised. She’s back in a little over half an hour to see you dozing. It warms her heart to see her precious baby sleeping.

“Come on, little one, mommy brought your food,” she says, shaking you gently. You open your eyes and push yourself up off of the bed some. “Let’s get you comfy,” she helps you find a position that isn’t too uncomfortable for your aching rear, then hands you your food. “What do we say?” she asks.

“Thank you,” you say with a french fry in your mouth. She smiles. The mommy will come back later. She won’t push it for tonight.

“Do you wanna watch some cartoons?” she asks. They always engross you and help you into your littlespace. You nod and she flicks through the TV until she finds one she knows you like.

You both eat in relative silence, watching the TV. At least you’re not trying to cower anymore. That’s good, right? Progress? She hopes so.

“I’m gonna use the potty,” she tells you, then gets up. You don’t notice her bring the package with her as does.

When she returns, you notice something different about her, but you can’t tell what. It’s a small difference, then. Maybe she just fixed her hair. She’s smiling though.

You’re finished with your food soon enough, and the show ends shortly after.

“Let’s get you in the bath now baby, hm?” she suggests. You feel gross anyways, so you nod. She unties you and scoops you up in her arms.

“Let me down!” you squirm.

“Hush now, like mommy told you, I’m gonna take care of everything. Gonna show you you can trust me again,” she says. You squirm all the way to the bathroom anyways. She sets you down on the toilet facing the wall, almost straddling it.

“Huh?” you ask.

“It’s less pressure on your little bottom,” she explains. You nod and use the toilet while she gets the tub ready, but when you go to get some toilet paper, Natasha beats you to it. “I’ve got it, baby,” she says, wiping your tender area gently. You wince and try to get away from her.

“Stop it, I’m not a baby!” you try to grab her hand and move it, but she stays still, unmoving.

“Come on, little one. I know you’re in there. I know you want to let mommy take care of you,” she says. You shake your head. “Baby, this is about me proving to you that you can trust me to take care of you,” her voice is even. “I want you to choose to let me prove it to you. That’s why I haven’t given you any of the medicine I used to. But that doesn’t mean I won’t. I’ll do whatever it takes to get you to believe how much I care about you again,” she says.

“But—“ you don’t know what you were planning on saying. “But I wanna do it myself. I can do it myself,” your voice is quiet as you lose your grip on her wrist, barely audible.

“That’s the thing, precious,” she steps closer to you, finishing her task and then using her other hand to pet your head. “I know you can do it. But you don’t have to. That’s why I’m here,” she says. You groan and lean forward on the toilet tank. “Come on, you’ll feel better when you’re clean,” she picks you up and sets you in the tub, then flushes the toilet.

You sigh and let her bathe you. Your body is too sore from getting dragged and caned to wash yourself that effectively anyways. When she gets to your most sensitive areas though, you squirm away from her and reach for the soap.

“It’s too sore. I wanna wash it myself,” you say quietly.

“I’m gonna be so careful, you won’t even notice,” she gently moved your hand away and got the soap again. Tears brimmed in your eyes and your bottom lip started to form a pout. “No, baby, don’t cry,” she gasps, petting your cheek. “Tell mommy what’s going on,” she says.

“I’m scared,” you say. “I don’t want you to touch it because you hurt me,” you say. Her heart breaks again.

“Okay, sweetie, how about this: we can do it together,” she takes your hand and puts it over hers, then begins to wash you gentler than ever. Your breathing hitches and your heart kicks up, but it’s over before it can go into full-blown panic.

“All done. You did such a good job, little one,” she praises you. “Ready to get out, or do you want to play in the water some?” she asks.

“Ready to get out,” you say. She picks you up out of the bath and dries you off with a soft towel before taking you out to the bed. She pulls on a soft shirt, leaving your bottom half uncovered so as not to irritate it. She changes into the spare pjs she keeps down here and crawls into bed beside you. You don’t welcome or recoil from her touch, which she’ll take as progress.

Her chest is still dully aching, but she knows she’s pushed you far enough for tonight. Maybe tomorrow she’ll be able to coax you into it.

—

When day comes again, Natasha is treating you the way she did when she first brought you down here, only with gentleness and tenderness where there was hardness and strictness before. The lack of the sedative drugs in your system makes it more difficult, but she’s able to maneuver your squirming form through the daily ritual of getting up, using the toilet, getting dressed, brushing your hair and teeth, and finally breakfast. Whenever she can, she has you laying on your stomach on the bed, and this is one thing you don’t protest.

You notice her shifting in discomfort the whole morning though, and despite how much you dislike her at the moment, you hate to see her in pain. You work up the courage to ask after a while of watching cartoons.

“Are you hurt?” you ask.

“I… well, I have a side effect from a treatment I had done that’s causing me discomfort,” she admits.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “That sucks.”

“There’s a way you can help me,” she says, sounding more timid than you’ve heard her maybe ever before.

“What is it?” you ask. To your confusion, she started to unbutton her shirt, and then she unclips her bra, but from the top? What?

“Huh?” you blurt out.

“I’m lactating,” she says simply, squeezing her nipple a little, causing a drop of what can only be breast milk to come of it.

“I—what do you want me to do about it?” you ask, dumbfounded.

“They hurt because they’re too full,” she explains. “And it would be really helpful if you would, well… empty them. I don’t have a breast pump, of course,” she says.

“Wait, like, you want me to—to drink your milk?” you’re turning bright red. Even after everything you’ve done with her, you’re almost unbearably embarrassed.

“Yes, baby, it would really help me, plus I think that you’ll like it. And it could help us…feel closer,” she chooses her words carefully, gauging your reaction.

“It’s kinda weirding me out,” you say honestly.

“Just try it, please, baby? It’ll help me feel so much better. And I promise, if you hate it after a little while then I’ll get a pump,” she crosses her fingers behind her back.

“I… okay,” you say. This whole situation is so absurd you can hardly bother trying to resist it. She smiles and adjusts the both of you to where you can reach her breast.

It’s not like you haven’t had her tits in your mouth before. You’re not sure why you’re so nervous right now. Natasha gently puts a hand on the back of your head and pushes you a little closer. You wrap your mouth around her nipple hesitantly, unsure of what to do.

“It’s like your bottle, sweetheart,” she senses your confusion. You tentatively begin sucking, and you’re surprised by the flow of milk into your mouth. You jerk back, but Natasha keeps your head in place, groaning in relief.

When the initial shock wears off, you realize she was right—you do like it. It’s warm and sweet, and the sucking action soothes you. You relax a little.

“That’s a good baby for mommy,” Natasha says gently, stroking your head with her thumb on the hand supporting you. “Do you like mommy’s milkies?” she asks. You nod, slipping into littlespace quickly as you drink from her. “Is it yummy?” she asks out of her own curiosity. You nod, not wanting to stop to answer. She chuckles. “It’s all yours, little one.”

She moves you to her other breast when you’ve finished, looking down and noticing that her other one is indeed smaller, and it certainly feels better now. You clutch at her gently to get a good angle, and her heart swells. She’s so glad this worked, but then again, Wanda’s advice has yet to fail her, so she shouldn’t be surprised.

When you finish, your eyelids are droopy and you nuzzle into her willingly, a rarity even before she fucked everything up. She pets you gently.

“Sleepy, little one?” she asks you softly. You nod. “Want a nap?” she asks. You nod again. Between your body being exhausted already and the soothing effects of her milk, she’s not surprised you’re already tired even though you’ve only been awake for a few hours. “Let mommy check your bottom, okay?” she turns you on your tummy. You’re healing nicely. “Do you want a blankie? I think it won’t hurt,” she says. You nod and she covers you with a blanket.

“Mommy stay,” you say when she gets up. And how is she supposed to argue with that? The answer is, she isn’t, so after she turns the lights off, he curls up next to you and holds you close.

“Mommy’s here, little one,” she assures you, finding your favorite stuffie and handing it to you. “Mommy will always be here, don’t you worry.”