Chương 1077: Day One Thousand And Seventy-Five

Dear Diary, Kinda funny, I've waffled between 'I want to experience every bit of culture from my new home', 'I really hope I'm not destroying the local culture, 'oh, holy shit this place is fucked', and 'the culture hereabouts needs an enema' so often, mostly without realizing that I've been doing it, that I don't think I've really realized how much of what I think of as culture really isn't. I mean, it is, but it's... Oh, shit. It's culture, but there's culture, there's culture, and there's culture.

That's entirely before going into how I am a Gentlewoman of Culture, which is an entirely different thing that I will not digress into at this time. That was the other night with Siobhan. Thing is, 'culture' covers a lot of shit, and people conflate different things into one big lump, and that's kind of like me saying that I'm a dumbass bitch from the streets. It's not entirely untrue, but it's both incomplete, dismissive, and functionally useless.

I'm also gonna stick a pin in how I just realized that calling myself that and summing everything up under one umbrella isn't useful. Getting back to the point, and holy shit is this how neurotypical adults function, because I dunno how this is hitting like this but I like it. At any rate, in my experience and from my reading, culture comes from at least three different places, and frankly only one of them would be considered 'healthy' in an individual, and I don't see why that doesn't apply to cultures as well.

The first part, the healthy part, the part I want to experience with my family and friends, is the deep roots that grow over time, the celebration of a group of loosely associated people's unique history and lived experience. I mean, all of a culture is part of its history, but I'm talking about challenges overcome, triumphs achieved, the kind of stuff that when you learn about it you get a sense of pride in your people.

I heard that bit about 'if you're studying history and feel pride, you're probably not studying history', but frankly, I think that's missing an important phrase that turns it from important cautionary statement to purest bullshit. That being 'nothing but'. If you feel nothing but pride? You're not looking at history, you're looking at propaganda. But any group of people is gonna have things one or more of their people did that they can feel proud of.

If the people has been around long enough, there's probably gonna be some things they're ashamed of. Given that people are people, there are gonna be some things that fill them with deep and abiding sorrow. Sometimes the shame and sorrow come from the same piece of history. Fuck, sometimes the pride and sorrow do, too. Like, I remember the ROTC DI teaching us about World War II. Tough old bastard didn't mince words, showed us all the bits where we almost came into the war on the side of the fuckin' Nazis.

Where we even debated that shit like it was a morally viable option. Thing is, along with that shame, he also pointed out moments of valor, both individual and collective. Then the liberation of the camps, where Eisenhower insisted they be photographed, that the politicians who considered hitching the American star to the Nazi swastika look at what happened. Shame, pride, sorrow, all from the same war. Yeah, anyhow, every groups gonna have moments of legit pride. They're also gonna have cultural traumas.

I think I am in a unique position... Nah, nah, I'm really not in a unique position to realize that 'trauma' is not something you want to base your identity on. Yeah, it has an effect. Yeah, there's even gonna be occasional pride in surviving that trauma. But when it goes past that it can wind up twisted. Just like with a person, trauma is shit you need to heal. Not just survive.

Because if you're constantly reminding yourself of trauma, basing your entire fuckin' identity on it, you're just retraumatizing yourself over and over and over again. I dunno, but I'm pretty sure that goes for cultures as well as individuals. Before I'm misunderstood, that's for after the trauma is over and done and in the past. Not while that shit is ongoing.

Not while Malcom X's knife is still in your collective backs, and not while the dude who stabbed you is standing there with the bloody knife in his hand, wanting props for pulling it out, threatening to stab you again if you don't thank him for his 'kind' act. Yeah, so shared pride, shared trauma, and the last one, kinda related to that prior one, but imposed shit. Shit where nobody within the culture wanted something, but some empowered assholes forced it on them until it became, I dunno, cultural habit.

When it gets really bad, even when the oppressors are removed from power, the chimpanzees still beat the shit out of any new chimpanzees who try to get that banana. I want to share in those rituals that make my new family proud. I want to understand their sorrow, so I can related to it and maybe, in some kind of way, help them heal. Yeah, that would be irrationally egotistical for most people, but I am a fuckin' Goddess, a force of nature, the Primordial of Change.

If I can't not be that, I can at least remember that Healing is Change, and focus on that shit. I do not want to help them wallow in their trauma, and I definitely do not want to perpetuate any enforced bullshit.

Okay, like any red blooded girl kisser, I am perpetually tempted to perpetuate the 'everybody takes a turn on this ride' bullshit, but in the first place that's fuckin' evil as shit, and in the second place apparently by championing the cause of free will, Agency, and Consent, I've placed myself as a prime target for folks exerting their free will and Agency to Consent to Revel with me. Fuck, more than Consent, I just realized that they compete for that shit.

Like, 'the person who does the most good for the most people gets the intimate personal attention of the Goddess'. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Y'know, I could feel some kinda way about being a trophy, but fuck it, if it's gonna make a better world for my kids, my ladies, my people, polish my ass up and stick me on the fuckin' mantle.

Yeah, at any rate all this stemmed from a conversation I had with the kids after dinner, which led to what I wound up doing all day today. After a dinner which I spent most of coaxing Siobhan to nom down some protein to let her poor overworked muscles actually get some potential gains from her hard work, I carried her up to the Bath. Okay, right before we went, I noticed that Saffron hadn't been eating very much; she'd mostly been leaning on her elbow staring at me as I fed Siobhan.

As I picked Siobhan up, I also scooped Saffron up with my tentacles. Shit, I'm sorry, Kitten. Have I been monopolizing our Ice Pop? She just smiled at me. Maybe a little. Uh, have I been neglecting you? She rubbed the side of her face against one of my tentacles, still smiling softly. Oh, love, how could I feel neglected when you're taking such good care of our Darling? Uh, 'cause I'm not doing it to you? I mean, not focusing on you? She chuckled, that fuzzy sound that rubbed velvet inside my skull.

Beyond the fact that I am an adult woman who can tell you if I'm feeling neglected, beside the fact that Tallulah is quite attentive, and entirely separate from the fact that we all, including our 'Wifiest of Wifes', support and fulfill one another turn and turn alike? Yeah, that chuckle rubbed my skull again, and might have rubbed a little lower too. I still find your domesticity both adorable and insanely hot. Yeah, sometimes I can feel when my grin gets Goofy, and that was definitely one of those moments.

Uh, tonight? Oh, very much so. Yay! At any rate, once I got Siobhan soaking, trying to ignore her pouts about finishing her goals yesterday and not being ravished into unconsciousness then ravished some more in her dreams, Ria, Maze, and Lindsey waded over.

"What's up, girls?" Lindsey glanced at the other two. Ria looked at Maze, who chuckled, then said, "you're coming with us tomorrow." I snorted out a laugh.

"Okay. I guess I'm going with you three tomorrow."

"No," Ria shook her head.

"With all of us."

"What are we doing?" So weird, normally when I talk with Lindsey, it's just me and her, so I don't notice how quietly she speaks, but after Maze's ever present understated snark and Ria's customary declaration, Lindsey's voice almost sounded like a whisper.

"Gathering wood for the Solstice bonfire."

"Oh, hey, sure. Although I'm not sure I want you all around when I'm felling trees." They all three started shaking their heads, talking over one another then stopping after half a word, until Tallulah rescued them.

"It is traditional to use deadfall for the Summer Solstice bonfire." I scrunched up my nose in thought.

"Uh... I don't remember us doing that last year. Or the year before." Saffron chuckled, and once again I desperately wanted the kids to go to sleep.

"There isn't enough deadfall in and around Phileo to feed all the Solstice fires in the City."

"Okay, but last year?" She just nodded.

"We'd not been here long enough for the woods to be even remotely safe. Also, we'd just cleared," here she very definitely looked me right in the eye and forced my own gaze down. Not out of any kind of submission, even.

"Vast tracts of land." I thought about it, then nodded.

"Are we gonna make this a whole Homestead thing?"

"Children. Mothers." Marie's statement took me a second to parse.

"Oh! It's a kids thing, but moms go along to keep them safe?" Saffron just glanced to where Menace, Alex, Anise, and Felicia were already starting some kind of splashy game.

"And on task." What else could I say?

"Okay, kids. Tomorrow is wood gathering day." That got a cheer, at which point the three returned to the Horde Hoard to deliver the news. I got a little cheer and collective 'thank you, Mama' from all of them, then they settled into their nightly tub games. When everybody got into bed, I settled Siobhan and Aoibh in, fully expecting Saffron to whisk me off, only to have my Kitten gently lift a snoozing Aoibh and hand her to Marie. A moment later, Saffron, Siobhan, and I were in the Bedroom.

Saffron had dropped me on the end of the bed with Siobhan sitting on my lap, facing the mirror. Also, incidentally, facing Saffron, who stood in front of her, arms akimbo.

"Goof?"

"Yeah, Kitten?"

"I believe our Concubine has some complaints. She's feeling neglected and insufficiently used." I shook my head.

"Yeah, no. She injured herself last time." I winced, then corrected myself.

"I injured her, because I didn't realize she wasn't fully healed up." Saffron reached past Siobhan and stroked my cheek.

"Do not belabor yourself about that, love. She is an adult, and made her decision." Then she turned to Siobhan, waggling a finger at her.

"An irresponsible one that made Tabitha feel very guilty, mind you, and one she won't be allowed to make again until we're all certain she's fully healed." Siobhan whined at that, then whimpered, "but..."

"No! No butt. In fact, nothing is going into you below the waist again until you are healed to my satisfaction." Darling whimpered again.

"As you wish, Mistress."

"Still, you're feeling neglected, are you not?" Siobhan nodded.

"Well then. Needs must." She dropped to her knees and stopped talking. Siobhan gasped out, "Mistress, no, that's far too... I can't be that selfish!" Saffron looked up at me, Grinned, and said, "love? Do shut her up, please?"

"Uh, how?"

"No one said anything about orifices above the waist." Yeah, Siobhan's been working her Endurance, but my Kitten got Skills. Took a bit of focused effort, but we knocked her entirely the fuck out. After which Saffron insisted I do the same to her. Oh, noes, a Goddess' work is never done.