prompt: something about sy and sj's relationship for the qiu haitang sy au?
part 1 | part 2 | part 3
After Qiu Haitang is taken from the woodshed near the bamboo house and installed at Mu Qingfang's personal ward on Qian Cao, Shen Qingqiu does not eat or sleep for the better part of five days.
The healers do not know whether she will live, or so they insist when Ming Fan begs them for some word of how she fares. She breathes still, at least: but the whip-lash cut deep, and there will be no telling what the loss of blood has done to her mind until she wakes.
She has not woken yet, the healers say; and she will not wake until she is a great deal better, for Mu Qingfang intends to put her into a healing sleep as soon as she shows signs of rousing.
But there is no telling whether Haitang will wake at all; and worse yet, Mu Qingfang's clinic has no records of a patient surviving a throat-wound as grievous as hers.
His fellow peak lords do not speak to him as the days draw on. Liu Qingge flung himself at Shen Qingqiu in a wordless fit of rage after he learned how Haitang had been injured—but Yue Qingyuan wrestled him away without so much as a glance in Shen Qingqiu's direction, and neither of them have set foot on Qing Jing since.
On the dawn of the sixth day, Ming Fan comes to the bamboo house and reports that Qiu Haitang has awoken.
"Is it—as the healers feared?" Shen Qingqiu manages to say, his voice hoarse. "Has her mind been affected?"
Ming Fan shakes his head.
"No," he says. "Shiniang is conscious, only very tired; but she cannot speak. When she wants something, she writes it down for the healers to read."
Shen Qingqiu's heart seizes. "Will she be able to speak again?"
"Shishu says that her throat will heal within a fortnight."
He hesitates for a moment, and then: "Zhangmen-shibo was there when I visited. He—well, he has forbidden—"
"He has forbidden me to see her, you mean."
"Yes, but—this disciple is sure he only said so because Mu-shishu thinks it would be best," Ming Fan says hastily. "After all, Shiniang is a patient, and shishu is a daifu. She must be upset as it is, and all healers say that the infirm must not be angered during times of sickness, lest..."
"Has she any word for me?" Shen Qingqiu asks.
Ming Fan winces. "She wanted to know how Li Haoran was faring."
"What did you say?"
"I told her that the wounds on his back had been treated, and that Zhangmen-shibo said he would approve if Li-shidi wanted to sever ties with you and pour tea for Shiniang instead."
With that, Ming Fan bows and slips out of the bamboo house, leaving Shen Qingqiu to his thoughts.
He sits in silence for a while longer, watching the sun rise; and at half-past chenshi, Yue Qingyuan comes to the bamboo house with a tray of covered dishes from Qiong Ding.
"Eat," he says quietly, when Shen Qingqiu looks doubtfully between the tray and Yue Qingyuan's somber face. "Ming-shizhi tells me that you have taken nothing for the past two days."
So he eats, picking at the rice and rich soup like a bird; and when he judges that Shen Qingqiu has had enough, Yue Qingyuan clears his throat and says,
"Haitang has suffered enough, shidi. This shixiong has come to request that you divorce her."
Silence.
"And what business is that of yours?" Shen Qingqiu says coldly, laying down his chopsticks. "I bowed to her; she is my wife. What is more, that lash was not meant for her, and she knows it."
"Shidi—"
"She can divorce me herself, if she would like to. I have never compelled her to remain my wife; that she does of her own volition, foolish as you might think it."
"Nay," Yue Qingyuan says softly. "She knows what transpired at the Qiu-fu, does she not?"
Shen Qingqiu feels as if the blood in his veins has turned to ice. Yue Qingyuan has never alluded to that wretched place by word or deed since their reunion thirteen years ago, but now—
"I must ask shixiong once again. What business is it of yours?"
"She does not love you."
Shen Qingqiu rises to his feet, incensed. "Yue Qingyuan—!"
"She blames herself, shidi," Yue Qingyuan tells him, following suit. "She bound herself to you because she could not bring herself to leave you after you had suffered so at the hands of her kindred—she was even willing to bear the indignity of your affairs with the brothel-women for that reason, but now—"
If he speaks further on the matter after that, Shen Qingqiu does not hear it. Instead, he stalks into his bedroom and slams the door, leaving Yue Qingyuan alone in the receiving chamber; and he does not emerge until he hears Yue Qingyuan's footsteps retreating down the path that leads to Qing Jing's main gate.
When Shen Qingqiu returns to the front room, he finds a sheaf of papers on the tea-table. The word he li strikes him at once, for it was written in crimson ink with a bold hand; and at length, he sinks into a chair and draws the papers into his lap.
Perhaps it would be better if we divorced, he thinks numbly. She has lived like a widow all these years, because she could not bear to lie with a man who had been dallying with other women, and now...
He puts the papers into his sleeve, his mind made up; and when Haiting summons him to Qian Cao in the beginning of the dew month, he brings the divorce papers with him.
As soon as he enters his wife's room, he breathes a sigh of relief. Haitang is sitting up in a chair by an open window, gazing down into the herb garden beyond it; and when Shen Qingqiu enters, she fastens the screen and covers the night-pearl standing at her elbow.
"So you've come," she croaks, as Shen Qingqiu seats himself on the chair opposite hers. "You took long enough."
"The fault is mine," Shen Qingqiu says stiffly. "How are you?"
"My voice will never be the same, or so Mu-shixiong tells me," Qiu Haitang shrugs. "But it will soften with time, and I have been assured that it does not sound unpleasant; so I suppose I am content."
"Are you...in very much pain?"
"None."
And then, in accusing tones: "I mean to take Li Haoran into my care as soon as I can return to Qing Jing. Zhangmen-shixiong has approved it, and he says I do not need to ask leave from you before having Li-shizhi pour tea for me."
"Let it be as the two of you wish, then. He has ever been an incompetent disciple, and insubordinate to boot—I have no desire to keep him."
Qiu Haitang's nostrils flare.
"All right," she says slowly, her eyes going to the bulge in Shen Qingqiu's sleeve. "Then there is nothing more for us to say. Leave me."
"There is something I must say," Shen Qingqiu tells her. "And it is something I ought to have said ten years ago. Yue Qingyuan brought me papers for a he li while you were ill—he believes you have borne enough as my wife, and I fear I must agree with him.
"Let us divorce, Haitang," he says, as he lays the papers on the table between them. "I am not a worthy husband to you, and I never have been. It is high time that you were free, and—"
"No."
Shen Qingqiu blinks, taken aback. "What do you mean—no?"
"I wish to remain married to you," Haitang says simply. "So, no. If you wish to divorce me—and you could, for my refusal to let you into my bed for all these years—you may do so at your leisure; but I will not divorce you."
"...And why not?"
"Must there be a reason?"
"You do nothing without due cause," Shen Qingqiu objects. "You do not love me—that I know full well—and our marriage is hardly more than a marriage-in-name either way. What good would it do for us to remain together?"
"For us? None," she snorts.
"Then why not agree to the he li?"
She says nothing for a long while, and then:
"I always knew what you were, Shen Jiu."
"Pardon?"
"You never dared show your true face to me," she says quietly. "But I knew you would become this way from the first. The beatings, the whoring: I knew how it would go before I agreed to uphold our betrothal. It is why I could not bear to have you touch me on our wedding night—why I left the bamboo house so swiftly after Yue-shixiong and Liu-shixiong told me that they had found you abed with a brothel-girl—for I knew you would fall prey to your lusts in time, though I did not expect it to happen before you had even come of age.
"And regarding your conduct with your disciples—I expected that, too."
"Why did you marry me at all, then?" he asks blankly.
"Because no one else could have stopped you."
Unbidden, Shen Qingqiu's heart seizes in his breast. "What—"
"A shimei has no right to intervene in her shixiong's doings," Haitang tells him, her eyes drifting shut against the light from the window. "But a wife has all the right in the world.
"That was all: nothing more, and nothing less. Someone had to put a leash on your neck to keep you from—from doing as he did, with the children; and Zhangmen-shixiong fears you too much to cross you, so who else was left but me?
"You hid it well," Haitang whispers. "What a fool I was! I thought the little ones would tell me if you ever dared lay a hand on them, but of course you arranged matters more neatly than that. It was one of my own disciples who warned me in the end; and if your silencing talisman had not slipped off the wall that day, I might have never realized that you were just as wretched as I feared.
"You will never be free of me, Shen Qingqiu. Not unless you have the face to go to Zhangmen-shixiong and repudiate me for having failed to consummate our marriage, or bear you a son. I shall watch you for as long as we both live, for I know now what you are; and I am your lawful wife, so who would dare object?
"Now get out," she rasps, her fists tightening in the folds of her satin dressing-gown. "I weary of the sight of you. And burn the papers for the he li, if you would be so kind—for you might yet be a widower, some day, but you will never be divorced. I swear it on my life."
we need to invent a way to explain how deep running and pervasive and subliminal racism and antiblackness is without immediately sounding like an insane conspiracy theorist
female characters are always lighter than male characters. strong characters are almost always dark. aggressive characters are almost always dark. peaceful and intelligent characters are almost always light. even amongst darker characters the lightest one is usually either the leader or the girls. dark is evil and light is good.
briefly pursuing a career in animation radicalized me on this. So many stories from the industry about how you have to start with your character design as dark as possible, because INEVITABLY you'll get "notes" from higher-ups asking you to make them lighter.
In a class about making a pitch bible my teacher once role-played as a shitty executive with a classmate, pressing them in intentionally abrasive ways about why they made their characters diverse. He emphasized that we had to learn to defend these things, because the racism in the industry is extremely deliberate.
Scenario: SQQ got into a fight with LQG after drinking a little too much at a party hosted by CQM sect. YQY tried to deescalate the situation, but this ended up with SQQ spilling (dumping?) wine all over the sect leader. In front of everyone.
YQY immediately stands up, hoists SQQ over his shoulder, and carries him out like a belligerent child. To avoid further embarrassment to both the sect and SQQ's reputation.
YQY took his robes down outside because they're drenched.
SQQ's ass is NOT carrying Xiu Ya.
(Got away from me a little, but initially based on this post by starsnores that's been living in my head since I read it):
This article is genuinely insane. I learned to read at the same time and it was completely different. I was taught to sound out the words and if I came across a word I didn't know, they did suggest we use context clues to figure out the meaning, but it was also made clear that that was not a perfect solution and the best option is always to look it up. But seriously, just a memorizing? That is inside.
I taught English as a second language for over ten years. In order to become a proficient reader in English, most kids will need to be explicitly taught phonics. To become proficient in Japanese, you need to learn radicals.
Three-cueing is essentially crutches that help you get by but let you down eventually. It's very common when learning a foreign language, I misread kanji sometimes because I pattern-recognize based on context instead of really looking. The solution is to do some proper studying, but I don't wanna.
It's also interesting that this sort of contexual confabulation and pattern-recognizing is how LLMs work. Not sure what to do with that.
Absolutely fantastic article, but I do want to say that this...?
... Is absolutely terrifying in the context of all other anti-intellectualism happening right now. This guy is STILL pushing his 'observations' while denying evidence that it doesn't work.
#the part where he says it doesn’t matter if a child reads horse instead of pony bc the meaning is the same is.. particularly dire 💀#it’s immediately obvious that this doesn’t work as soon as books don’t have pictures in them ???
Good thing that there aren't any texts where subtle differences in meaning are important or anything like that.
Kinda horrifying that I've seen three cueing defended on the grounds it's the correct way to teach kids with dyslexia to read and it's incredible to find out the guy who invented it doesn't believe dyslexia is a real thing.
I have dyslexia and I learned to read with phonics and I genuinely cannot fathom how anyone with dyslexia would benefit from not being taught phonics. All of my dyslexia education was focused on finding ways that I could slow down and see words distinctly so I could sound them out. I'm a really strong reader despite having dyslexia and I credit that to phonics. If I couldn't isolate a word and slowly sound it out I'd never be able to read anything.
Like I am fully wondering if I'm really a gifted reader or if I just got lucky and got taught to read correctly???? What the fuck????
Edit: Apparently all of the research says that dyslexic kids benefit from learning phonics and the rules of english as much as kids without dyslexia, so yeah no this three cueing is absolutely NOT how you should teach kids with dyslexia to read.
Does anyone have recs for tumblr blogs that talk about racial issues in an intersectional way? Like not in that insular drama kind of way that Tumblr is famous for
Hi im a librarian amd that's not now this works. If a library allows you to have a digital card and not live in the area, you are NOT taking away resources from other people, that's not how anything works. Please keep doing it!!! The more people that use our services, the more money we can get from funding sources!!! Please use us!!! We are not utilized enough, by people in or out of our community. Thanks.
Look for libraries online that have Books Unbanned programs that let you sign up online for cards for free even if you’re not in the area. So far I have Books Unbanned cards from Seattle and Brooklyn Public Library, even though I’m not from those places. And even if the Books Unbanned programs were originally aimed at teens and they still expect you to be a teen (in Brooklyn at least) when you sign up, and you’re not a teen, it doesn’t hurt anyone if you lie about your age. It actually helps libraries get more funding the more cards they have. And they do not have any way of checking, trust me. Also, Seattle’s Books Unbanned program is supposed to be for anyone up to age of 26 anyway.
Also, the Northern California Digital Library and Monterey County Free Libraries lets you get free cards as long as you’re in the state of California. Or for the Queer Libration Library, you can get cards wherever you happen to live.
Here’s the tumblr post with the link to sign up for the Queer Liberation Library: https://www.tumblr.com/mikkeneko/813204901445451776
💬 26 🔁 11691 ❤️ 12101 · Libby Access — Queer Liberation Library · periodic reminder that the queer liberation library is an awesome non-re
And here’s a link to a list of libraries that offer Books Unbanned cards:
Scumegaverse where Shen Yuan transmigrated from a non omegaverse world. Shen Jiu had been taking heat suppressants which were fucking up his health, so once OOC restrictions lifted, Shen Yuan goes off them. Mu Qingfang advises he wait for his first big heat to pass before he goes into seclusion, which Shen Yuan is not exited to experience. After all, this will technically be his first heat. He’s scared. He knows this is the type of omegaverse where your mind remains mostly unchanged during hormonal cycles, but how much worse is his heat going to be after such long suppression? He doesn’t have anyone to help him through it, to tell him if something is wrong— no one he trusts at least.
Yue Qingyuan comes to check on him even after he’s declared he won’t be disturbed for a little while. It’s clear the sect leader wasn’t expecting Shen Qingqiu to be in heat, he tries to maintain a respectful distance as he asks Shen Yuan if he needs food, water, entertainment, a new blanket. Maybe it’s his hormones talking but oh… Shen Yuan misses his brothers. His Da-ge especially was 8 years older than him, he would always come visit Shen Yuan in the hospital, read to him, make sure he was okay. He was never weird about Shen Yuan’s failing health, never made him feel like a burden.
He couldn’t tell you who made the first step, but Yue Qingyuan has very warm, solid arms. He’s stiff, scent even a little scared, but he follows when Shen Yuan drags him into the nest. His hold makes him feel small in a good way. He feels taken care of. As though theres no reason to worry about the system or his responsibilities, because Yue Qingyuan is there to make sure everything will be okay.
The backlash was a major lawsuit from 9 tribes alongside other lawsuits from advocacy groups like NDN Collective. You can support NDN Collective by donating to them here.
Plot shenanigans happen and the sect leaders need a virgin to lift a curse, Shen Jiu is horrified to learn that everyone is having sex on the regular except him and it reinforces his idea that everyone is a pervert.
It's wild to watch the phrase "tumblr sexyman" morph into "man that tumblr thinks is sexy," because when I first saw the phrase come into use, I always saw it used in reference to the phenomenon of "when presented with a wide array of fictional characters, tumblr will always pick the skinny white man to obsess over, and if the fan-favorite character has no canonical human appearance, the fandom will inevitably create a popular fanon of the character as as a skinny white man."
When I hear "tumblr sexyman," I think of Cecil Night Vale being constantly depicted as a skinny white man instead of literally anything else. I think of the background character white men who get elevated over protagonists that are women, people of color, or otherwise not the white man power fantasy.
"Tumblr sexyman" is, like. An insult. I DON'T want any of my blorbos to win a "tumblr sexyman" poll. "Tumblr sexyman" is the exact opposite of what I want my own OCs to be. If any of my characters ever get called "tumblr sexyman," I will have to immediately re-evaluate myself and the art I'm making.
Oncelercest, because if there aren't two skinny white men to ship, tumblr fandom will start shipping the skinny white man with himself.
Bill Cipher inexplicably being fanon'd as a white twink despite being a fucking triangle.
Everyone fawning over Marvel Loki while shoving every woman and Black person in the MCU aside.
The way nearly every single character in Hazbin Hotel has the same "tall and skinny" body type, along with all the criticisms Black audience members have made about the issues with Alastor's design.
The way tumblr got obsessed with the white man villain in Sinners.
Never forget that DOGE was formed so Elon et al could fumble around sensitive government databases in order to hamper multiple investigations into his companies and government contracts
He is now a trillionaire thanks in no small part to this fiasco
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