#Operation Babymaker

[pseudowho]

Operation: Babymaker-- Benchpress

When it comes to trying for a baby, Nanami Kento always works overtime. And the reader had better be ready.

💜 💛 Part 1 LINK HERE: A Trip to the Tailors

💜 💛 Part 3 LINK HERE: Ditch the Party...again

💜 💛 Part 4 LINK HERE: Wet Dreams

💜 💛 Part 5 LINK HERE: Honeytrap/Maid Café

💜 💛 Part 6 LINK HERE: Grapple

Interrupt Kento's workout? Get ready to be manhandled 💛

Warnings: 18+ throughout, breeding kink, fertility/infertility discussion, manhandling, full nelson 💛

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"How strong are you, Kento? Really?"

In just his checked pyjama trousers, Nanami Kento still cut an imposing figure. Even though his waist was thick with muscle (though not with heavily defined decorative abs-- just subtle planes under freckled skin), his chest and shoulders broadened out dramatically, his arms thick and veiny, his hands bold and angular.

Kento paused, his coffee halfway to his lips, holding his book open with one hand, before answering; "Strong enough, I should think. Why?"

Just modest, you thought. You looked him slowly up and down, your filthy imagination whirring. You smiled, tucking your legs up under you on the sofa, cupping your tea between two hands.

"No reason."

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You couldn't help yourself from watching.

"One."

A home gym was a blessing for Kento, who neither worked out for enjoyment nor vanity, but purely for the demands of his job.

"Two."

He was away from home enough. And people at the gym stared so much, that Kento's workouts used to feel cloying, claustrophobic, skin prickling with the eyes of thirsty or envious fellow gym-goers.

"Three."

As he pulled himself up again, feeling everything in his body clench with exertion, he did, however, feel one pair of eyes on him.

"Four...why are you hiding in the shadows, hmm?"

You jumped, biting your bottom lip between your teeth. Your mind had been spirited away by thoughts too obscene to say out loud. Thoughts of being restrained. Thoughts of being grappled into submission, pinned, gasping. Thoughts made so easy to have about the man who you knew would never hurt you.

Stepping out from behind the doorframe, your coy demeanour made Kento huff, a short puff of air from his nose, and you watched blatantly as he finished his set. In snug shorts set halfway up his thighs, and a loose drop-sleeved tank top, you reasoned you couldn't be expected to take your eyes off him either.

Kento continued, walking over to the narrow Benchpress bench, beginning to place weights on the bars, one, after another, after another and you felt yourself filled with wicked intent.

"You can't lift that," you scoffed. Kento's jaw clenched, a small smile gracing his lips, as he continued shifting plates. Your words rolled off him, water off a duck's back. The ungoadable man.

"If you think you're going to interrupt me," Kento toned, smooth and reasonable, "you're wrong. I always get my workout done in 45 minutes, and..." he crooked his wrist, checking the time, "...I won't be late for anything."

Kento laid himself back on the narrow seat, no bench left at all on either side of his hips, the wings of his shoulders gaping out over the bench's confines. As the soft fabric of his shorts stretched over his thick thighs, settling over the prominent bulge of his groin, you gulped. Your mouth watered. And as Kento began to lift, with short ragged grunts rumbling from his chest, it all became too much to resist.

Kento's eyes were fixed upwards, hyper focused, feeling the impossibly deep ache of lifting something just about too heavy for him to lift. He barely noticed the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye-- you, languidly undressing down to your underwear, eyes fixed on Kento's thighs.

Kento jolted as he felt you settle, warm and blushing, straddling his spread thigh. He almost fumbled his lift, and coughed in alarm to see you sat, almost naked, pressing your core against his tensed muscles.

"Won't be late for anything? Even me? Even when I want your baby so badly, Kento," you purred, your hands coming up to remove your bra, dropping it onto Kento's twitching abs as your breasts slipped free. Kento felt a bead of sweat drop down his temple, and he growled at you in warning, frustrated to feel his composure wobble.

"Shit...you little-- got to keep to time--" Kento's arms shook as he completed the lift, resting the bar for a moment as he panted, and you rocked your hips against his thigh, pleasure immediately churning through you. Kento's jaw twitched, fists clenching and unclenching, determined to maintain his schedule, but feeling his body betray him, his cock twitching to life in his gym shorts.

Straight after, Kento reassured himself, fighting the urge to throw you over his shoulder, throw you onto the bed, and pound his cum into you until you begged for mercy, nearly done, keep to time, keep to time.

Kento's watch beeped, and he bolted to action, gripping the bar again, beginning another set of lifts-- anything to distract himself from you slipping your underwear to the side as you continued to rock your pussy, now wet and puffy, against his bare thigh. You sighed and keened, two hands planted for support on his hips, the palm of your hand brushing temptingly against his aching cock.

Kento groaned, unsure if it was from the painful stretch of the lift or from your desperate attention to his thigh, heat spreading across his shoulders and chest. His cock was throbbing now, uncomfortably tight in his shorts, pressed down at an awkward angle.

You watched Kento shift and twitch as you humped his thigh, and shivered with a sweet little moan as his muscles fluttered under your clit. Kento felt his throat go dry when your hands drifted lazily to pinch and roll your own nipples. He could feel you getting closer to orgasm, and it drove him mad that he wasn't filling your belly with his seed at the same time.

Leaning forwards, still panting, furiously rutting against Kento's thigh, drips of your arousal now running down the sides, you ghosted your hands over the outline of his cock. Kento gasped mid-lift, almost dropping the bar onto himself.

"Fuck--" he gasped, snapping your name. He hopped one hand centrally on the bars, and clapped his other hand over yours pressed to his erection, "--wait a few minutes or I swear, you're going to kill me--" Kento's words caught in his chest, his other hand darting up to stabilise the tilting bar, as you lowered his shorts, his cock springing free against his clenching abs.

With a lip-biting, devious smile, you waited until Kento had begun another lift, still stubbornly refusing to stop his workout, before grasping his cock, and laying a long, flat-tongued lick to the underside from ball to tip.

Kento cursed like a sailor, his elbows buckling, the bars lilting sideways with a metallic smash into the dock. Spitting curses at you, coming out of him in a series of growling chastisements, Kento coughed again, a spurt of pre-cum salting your tongue as you giggled around his needy cockhead.

Kento fumbled, lost in your wet little mouth sucking him in. He struggled to lift the bars again to place them in their dock, as your thighs cramped and trembled, approaching your orgasm.

His hands splayed above him like a surprised kitten, his chin to his chest as he stared down at you in fury and alarm, Kento groaned. His head snapped back to press to the bench, then back to his chest to watch your nose graze his honey-blonde hair again.

As he moved a hand down to tangle in your hair, colours popping in his eyes in ecstasy, you released his cock with a wet suck, mouth falling open as you came on his thigh. With one hand still gripping Kento by the cock, he bit into the back of his knuckles to stop himself from emptying into your hand.

Kento still glared at you in barely-restrained fury, for having nearly ended his life through means of a deadly benchpress, and opened his mouth to bark at you. His orgasm still threatened at the edge of a precipice.

"Not only am I now late," he growled, "you almost killed me-- I don't know which one is worse, I--"

When you moved up his body, straddling his hips and rolling your slick heat along his cock, Kento gripped the bars above him again for sanity, spitting feathers at you again, infuriatingly flustered.

"Thought if you were that strong," you panted, cheeks flushed and euphoric, "you could do both at once." Kento huffed at you again like an angry bull and, as if to prove a point, rolled the bar in his palms, shifting his shoulders, brick-like and tense, ready to begin another lift.

For a second time, as Kento moved into another benchpress, you raised yourself above his weeping cock, and sunk down onto his length, your wet walls plump and stretchy and inviting him to bottom out in one slick movement.

Kento moaned, his hips lifting you clear of the bench for a second as he brought the bar down to his chest, twitching and heaving with exertion and twisted pleasure. You stayed flush, rocking backwards and forwards, revelling in the fullness of him inside you, not pulling him out of you for a second.

Kento thought he had died and seen heaven when, the moment he pushed upwards to lift the weights off his chest, you leaned forwards and whispered up to him; "Hey, Kento-- I'm ovulating."

Kento came with a hoarse, wounded cry, everything pushing out of his body at once as he completed the lift, and his cum spurted up into you with mind-blowing force. Groaning a series of short, agonised groans, his cock still jumping and gushing, he slopped the bar back into the dock. You continued to rock his seed into you, eyes closed and a satisfied little smile on your face. Kento saw red.

You felt yourself being instantly grappled. Kento lifted your thighs up towards you enough that he could spin to you face the other way, his cock still plugging his cum inside you. Lifting you against him, locking your arms behind your head and your knees beside them, Kento dropped you both to the gym mat, completely restraining you in a full-nelson.

You squeaked, trying to squirm. It was absolutely futile, and you felt Kento's hot breath in your ear.

"Not that strong, hmm?" He hummed, low and threatening, "Strong enough to open your pickle jars for years though, apparently." You started to laugh, and cut off abruptly as Kento squeezed you tighter, chuckling as you squeaked again. His chuckle stretched into a groan, low and lusty, at the feeling of your pussy throbbing around his length, which had barely softened, and was rapidly hardening again.

Grappling you with his back to the floor, Kento shunted his cock up into you, satisfied at you crying out and pressing back against him; "Not that strong?" Kento planted a harsh kiss to your temple, and bucked up into you again, satisfied to feel you melt, helpless in his hold. Kento felt a lick of pride run through him as he continued to hammer upwards into you, the air filled with the squelch of his cock in your cum-filled cunt.

"Punched men through concrete-- haaah, shit-- crushed Curses under brick walls," Kento listed, grunting and ruthless as he slammed into you now, feeling his tip bully into your cervix, "and look at you now-- more origami than woman-- and you will take every-- fucking-- bit-- of --it--" Kento snapped his hips back to punctuate each word, and you mewled pitifully at him, tears streaking into your hair.

Kento laughed, feeling himself peaking again, licking your tears away with mock-gentle shushes, captivated by the way your tits bounced every time he rutted up into you.

"So-ooo-- good-- Kentooo-ooo," you squeaked out around his thrusts, a thick hot pleasure roiling in your womb as you begged him, "h--harder--please." Kento snorted, his hands gripping your thighs harder, lifting you off him to slap you back down in time with him pressing up into you. You shuddered, marshmallow-soft, twitching in pleasure as your second orgasm washed through your belly, ready to gulp Kento into you.

Kento was awash with the closeness of you, the delicious hot wet suck of your walls around his cock, the thought of you round and full and growing, because of him. Keeping you restrained with one thick forearm holding your thighs and arms back, his other hand drifted to your belly, pressing lightly, feeling the jolt as his cock rammed against your cervix.

Feeling your pussy squeeze and flutter around him, Kento's grip never faltered as he gasped, husky and satisfied, feeling his cock spurt inside you again, rolling you from side to side as he thrust lazily up into you, careful to not allow any of his seed to slip free. He lay with you in his arms for a few moments hand massaging your belly, willing his cum to soak up inside you.

With one final slow groan, Kento pulled out of you, pressing your thighs together on exit, and releasing you from the trap of his arms. Though you had planned to fall asleep, there and then, on the gym mats, Kento had other ideas.

You felt yourself being scooped up, held upside down against Kento by the waist, and he walked you to his pull-up bar across the room. You were appalled to feel him drape your legs over it, and as he let go of you, you were forced to hang upside down by the backs of your knees, a child on the monkey-bars.

"Kento!" You squeaked, appalled, cupping your breasts in your hands as he dusted off his hands and moved to settle himself again for benchpressing, "You-- how dare you-- you can't just hang me up like wet laundry!"

Kento hummed smilingly to himself as he checked his watch, reaching up to grip the bars again;

"Well darling, I've got a workout to finish. And you've got a baby to make. Isn't that what all this nonsense was about?"

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Up next: Ditch the Party Part 2 and more surprises

[pseudowho]

I am flattered 😭

Also 👀 just wanna expand a bit on my Kento thirst

You say he'll become insatiable when he knows he can have babies. I can imagine he'll go to great lengths just to find the sexiest spots and sometimes semi public spots to just fuck his lover. Sometimes his brain goes blank and all he can think about is to breed and sometimes...he's not even in the best place to do so but he can't help it.

With his strength, he definitely can pick up his lover and just pin them to the wall and fuck them until he empties himself completely into them with such a loud growl. 🥵🥵🥵🤭

Bacon!!! Please! You’re killing me! I was going to recommend @/pseudowho’s operation baby maker series but I saw in the notes that you’ve already read them 🤭

I don’t wanna expand too much on it because I kinda agree with literally everything Haitch send in those but he definitely insatiable when babies are on the cards!!

[saigethearies]

saige’s terrortober presents…

future

seeing how good tetsuro is with kids has you wanting him to put one in you.

camp counselor!tetsuro kuroo x fem!reader

contents/warnings: breeding, unprotected doggystyle, vaginal fingering, kitten and mama petnames, mentions of marriage and babymaking, no pregnancy reader is on birth control, reader and kuroo are in college and work at a camp

wc: 1.4k

18+ MINORS DNI

the crisp fall air felt even more refreshing at night. the changing colors surrounded the camp in pretty hues of orange and red, matching the warm flames crackling away in the middle of the circle. storytimes are firepit were always a hit during the fall season, when the camp operated more as a babysitting service for couples on a date night rather than the usual summer sleepaway. it was honestly nice, allowing you to keep your counselor job into the start of the semester without having to work as many hours so you had time for your coursework.

the convenience wasn’t the only thing you loved, though.

“the group inched closer to the closet, flashlights held tight in their hands as they crept through the dark,” kuroo narrated, voice projecting so every kid listening in could hear.

you smiled at the way your boyfriend had them all on the edge of their seat, everyone’s undivided attention on the rooster head as he told his tale. he knew exactly when to pause for dramatic effect or when to emphasize a certain point. it was honestly impressive how great of a storyteller he was.

“they finally reached the door, turning the knob slowly and opening the door with a loud creak only to find…a report card! full of f’s!”

the kids all laughed, seemingly amused with the funny twist kuroo chose to end his story with. he didn’t want to send the kids back to their homes too scared, now. you chuckled along with them, heart feeling all warm watching the way he interacted with the children.

in your three years of dating, it was not lost on you how naturally amazing kuroo was with kids. he always treated them with the same kindness and respect he would give an adult, and you could see the content smile that would come onto his face whenever a youngster would engage in conversation with him.

not only was it precious, but it was honestly attractive. you were nearing the end of your college years, graduation on the horizon, and he’d already brought up the m word multiple times- not to mention you caught him studying the sizes of your rings that one time. while you told him not to rush anything, you knew he was the one you were going to marry. not only that, but this was the man that would most likely be fathering your children, and every time you saw him bring a smile to a kid’s face, it just reminded you of how amazing of a dad he was going to be.

and that made you want him so much.

knowing that he would take such good care of you and your potential babies drove you up the wall, wishing you could skip to your white picket fence era despite telling him that the two of you were young and didn’t need to be in a hurry.

kuroo caught you staring at him from across the firepit and sent you his signature grin, and you had to resist the urge to press your thighs together, knowing that this wasn’t the place.

the thoughts were still shuffling around in your mind when kuroo drove the two of you back to his apartment later, shift finally over now that all of the children had been picked up by their guardians. visions were dancing across your brain of him gently rocking a little baby, giving piggyback rides to a toddler, teaching a child how to spike a volleyball.

your boyfriend had noticed you were much more quiet than usual but chose not to question it. he figured you would talk once the two of you got home.

the elevator trip once you arrived was silent, and kuroo was starting to worry that there really was something bothering you.

so imagine his surprise when your lips were crashing against his the second he locked his front door, smaller hands gripping his shoulder and pulling him down to your height. his eyes went a little wide in surprise before he closed them and melted into the kiss, never one to look a gift horse in the face.

you pulled away to gasp for air and he grinned, bringing a thumb up to press against your bottom lip.

“what’s gotten into you, kitten?”

nothing could prepare him for what you said next, your eyes glassy and breath labored.

“wanna have a baby with you.”

now wasn’t the time, both of you knew that, and it was mainly just the lust talking at the moment. however, the idea still filled both of you with a sense of excitement and adrenaline. you were on birth control, but a little practice for the real deal in the future couldn’t hurt, right?

you felt his large hands snake under your t-shirt, forehead coming to rest against yours.

“is that right? my pretty girl wants to become a mommy?”

you nodded. “wanna make you a daddy.”

he hummed at that, beginning to kiss you once more as he backed you towards his bedroom, tugging both of your shirts off in the process. each of you were shedding your clothes, nude as can be by the time you reached the bed.

kuroo gave you one final kiss before commanding you to get on the bed.

“all fours.”

you did as you were told, keeping your ass towards him and arching the way he liked. you heard him step towards you and almost cried when you felt his fingers teasing at your entrance.

he slowly pumped his index and middle in and out of you, amazed at how wet your cunt already was. how long had you been wanting this?

not in the mood to waste time, you craned your neck to look at him, a desperate look in your eyes.

“inside, tetsu! want you inside now!”

he normally would refuse, insisting on prepping you. but tonight you had asked for a baby. you asked for a baby as if you knew about the endless dreams and fantasies in his head of you with a sweet little bump on your belly.

he’d give into your plea to forego foreplay tonight, but only this once. only because you managed to hit him where it really hurts.

the moan that tore from your throat as he split you open was the neediest he’d ever heard, and he wasted no time in starting to cant his hips as deep as possible. you were mewling, trying to push back to meet his thrusts each time, the want to be filed fogging your mind.

“so good! so good!”

you felt his hand between your shoulder blades, pressing down to arch your back even more. he groaned as he started to hit even further down in your walls, as if he was trying to get as close to your cervix as he could.

“good girl, such a good fucking girl for me.”

he didn’t think he’d ever felt your pussy grip him this tight. you were going to milk him for everything he was worth, and he honestly couldn’t wait.

you felt him lean over you, his chest against your back as his hot breath fanned against your ear.

“gonna be the prettiest mama ever. can’t wait to see how beautiful you look carrying my baby.”

you whined at his words.

“baby! want your baby, tetsu! want it so bad!”

“fuck.”

your cries had him pistoning into you even faster, so ready to give into your pleas and grant you your wish. maybe not today, but someday.

the coil in his stomach had grown so taught, and from the way your thighs were shaking, he knew yours had, too. he brought his thumb to your clit, knowing it would be the last shove you needed to tumble over the edge with him.

“where do you want it, kitten?”

he already knew the answer.

“inside! inside inside inside, please!”

one last rub at your sensitive nub had the wave of pleasure crashing over you, your orgasm sending kuroo into his own as he spilled his cum deep into your cunt. you’d never felt so full in your life.

you slumped against the bed, boneless. you heard kuroo chuckle behind you and felt a kiss pressed to the crown of your head.

“come on, mama,” kuroo said. “don’t go tapping out on me just yet.”

____

saige’s terrortober masterlist

[yutahoes]

i'm so excited to see you posting again and you don't disappoint. what are the fics we should look out for?

can i be 🌻 anon?

Hi, 🌻 anon. Thank you for this. 😍 I'm surprised someone is still excited to see my posts. 🤭 Thank you so much.

So, I have a lot of WIPs which are divided into three: those that I started typing, those I wrote in my handy dandy notebook, and just plain ideas still.

WIPs already typed:

* Yuta x insecure foreign reader (I'm still missing the smut part)

* professor Yuta x student reader (Also missing smut part)

* Devil Inside 2

* Cupid part 2

* Asayake

WIPs written in the notebook:

* Baby Prank

* Clueless Yuta

* Play Date

* Forget me not

Ideas:

* Babymaker Reader

* JAV actor Yuta

* Sex hotline operator Yuta

* Sugar Baby Yuta

* next door neighbor Yuta

Yeah, it's too much. So I might be presenting you with a lot of fics in the coming days. I hope I'm not that busy with school stuff. 😁

Thank you again, anon. Sorry this was too long. Stay safe.

[pseudowho]

Nanami Kento being INTO YOU even when you're so ill is 👌👌👌✨

Following for more vibes.

a bite-sized nanami x f!reader sickfic as i recover from a cold of my own 💖 suggestive but no smut

You give a hearty sniffle, the covers tucked up to your chin as you huddle under the warm blanket, shivering. You sigh. You hate being sick. You’ve been laid up for the past day with a fever, stuffy nose, and scratchy throat. There’s no end in sight yet—but, to your luck, your sweet husband has stayed home to play nurse for you. And you do love being taken care of by him.

“Kento,” you call out, your voice hoarse, cracking around the edges. You cringe at the sound.

You don’t see how Kento halts in the next room, warmth pooling low in his stomach. You have no idea how deeply, how instantly, it affects him—the sound of your voice, pitched low and throaty like this. He reminds himself for the hundredth time that you need rest, that he has no right to jump your bones when you’re sick and exhausted. No matter how infuriatingly sexy you sound. He clears his throat, trying to gather himself.

“Yes, darling?” you hear from the living room. His tone betrays nothing.

“Can you bring me some water please? I’m all out.”

“Sure, be right there.”

You stare at the ceiling, slightly dizzy, as your husband bustles about in the kitchen. Soon he’s by your bedside with a glass of cool water, a small plate, an apple, and a paring knife.

He guides the glass into your hands, watching approvingly as you take a long sip. Then he picks up the apple and the knife and begins peeling it. You watch him with a smile, your cheeks and lips flushed rosy with fever.

“How did I ever deserve such an attentive husband,” you murmur, your voice like warm gravel. Kento’s hands falter for just a second. He clears his throat and resumes cutting small slices of the fruit. He feels the beginnings of a flush creeping up the back of his neck.

“Hush. You know I love taking care of you.”

Your chuckle is like a soft burble of water, punctuated at the end by a sniff. Kento holds a piece of apple up to your mouth, which you dutifully open for him. He pokes the piece between your lips, his thumb grazing your bottom lip as he withdraws his hand.

“Mm, tastes good,” you hum, low and soft, around the mouthful of fruit. The sound goes straight to Kento’s groin, and he coughs to dislodge the breath that catches in his throat. You peer up at him, concerned.

“You’re not getting sick too, are you?”

“I’m fine,” he assures you, smoothing your hair from your forehead. You catch his wrist and tug, trying to pull him closer, even weak as you are in this state. He leans forward to humor you. You scrutinize him with eyes soft and glassy from fever.

“You’re flushed, Kento. Are you sure you don’t have a fever?” you worry, pressing the back of your hand to his forehead. He lets out a soft sigh at the contact, his eyes fluttering for a moment.

“I’m not sick, sweetheart. Just guilty of loving my wife too much,” Kento murmurs. He pulls your hand from his forehead to place a soft kiss to your palm. You shudder at the tender brush of his lips on your skin, made extra sensitive from fatigue and fever.

“Do you love her enough to give her a kiss, even though she’s full of germs?” you wheedle, eyes crinkling at the edges as you smile at him. He chuckles as he laces his fingers with yours.

“I love her enough to give her much more than a kiss,” he smirks. You shiver again, this time not from fever, and you clench your thighs together as Nanami traces the softness of your bottom lip with his thumb. You let out a breathy sigh as he noses into your cheek before pressing a chaste kiss to your lips.

“But, as enticing as you are, you need your rest, love.”

You pout, letting out a disappointed sound as Kento pulls back. His gaze is soft but firm.

“Don’t whine. Get well first, then I’ll lavish you with all my saved up affection. I promise,” he says, his voice hushed, as he presses a final kiss to the top of your head.

You chew your lip before giving him a reluctant nod. You snuggle back under the covers, your eyes slipping shut. You’re filled with the determination to heal now, if you’re to get what you want out of your husband.

Kento watches you as your breathing evens out, your brow relaxing as a feverish sleep pulls you under once again. He sits there for a while, just admiring you—the way your hair splays out on the pillow, your warm cheek smushed so cutely against it, your lips parted as a soft, sleepy moan escapes you.

Kento stands suddenly. He makes a beeline for the bathroom, his pants tight. He chastises himself as he swallows the urge to rip off your blankets and keep you warm another way.

[lizzybeth1986]

Quick Thoughts on TRH Book 1, Chapter 3

• I'm hoping that if I have this chapter out early enough (doubtful, because compiling and organizing my screenshots takes time, and my drafts often don't save which means there are times I will have to replicate whole paragraphs from scratch. But fingers crossed!), I might try and do revisits of the first book. I did four of those chapters last year, and I think now - when we're looking at some of the stories told to us in Book 1 from a new lens - is a good time to explore that first book again.

• I hope the read more issue is resolved by now. It made posting quite hard the last time. In the meantime these are the tags you can block: #long post, #trh quick thoughts, #trh qts, #trh qt reblogs.

• Thanks a lot to @pixieferry for her Hana playthrough, @thefirstcourtesan for her Drake playthrough screenshots and the Abhirio YouTube channel for the Maxwell playthrough screenshots. Not much of those are up, because of lack of space to put up the pictures and the fact that this particular chapter wasn't specifically LI centric.

• Title: Your Kingdom Awaits.

Alternative Title: Tell Me What's Gestating in My Womb Today, Cordonia! A Cordonian Ruby? An Autumn Glory? A Granny Smith?

• Three chapters in and I'm getting more and more baffled by this story by the day. There's stuff I like. Some of the characters I still love. I have fun looking at the little hints, the bits of symbolism, the callbacks. I love theorizing what we'll be doing next! But all of this needs to be glued together by a coherent storyline and this just isn't it.

• Even if we push aside the gross inequalities in balance (re: character development), there's still so much that just doesn't make sense. Why is there so much rush. Why is everyone in this country (and outside) so invasive and entitled over this one noble's child? Why are we doing such insane scales of prep over a process that is in itself is so unpredictable? Why am I learning about Cordonia's allies/potential enemies in such a vague and shoddy fashion? And most of all what kind of bullshit Royal Council is this???

• But I'll elaborate on all those questions later. For now let's move on to the chapter!

• If you didn't buy the corgi in Book 2, they ask you if you'd like to buy it now at the beginning of the chapter. Possibly that may affect the entry of the second corgi in some way? Idk. 

• Esther, the Queen of Cordonia is also still the queen of winging it. You'd think they'd have planned a look for her (esp given the amount of time they could spend on the train) and gotten her ready by the time they reached there, not scrambled around for an outfit the minute they reached Valtoria.

• The LI tells the MC that they're fixed an appointment with the best obstetrician they could find, and we will be going there to ask our preliminary questions plus get a check up. I was wondering if in Hana's case they would be going to a fertility specialist instead.

• In any case, Bertrand volunteers to help us with an outfit for the last time in a short while, because he's traveling to Texas to prepare for their wedding. (we're going there too, but later. I'm not looking forward to another round of Savannah-worship - possibly with an added side of Bianca-worship - no thank you).

• Bianca's ranch is called the Walker Ranch, after Jackson's last name. Why Jackson's?

• Our OOTD!

Electric blue with a gold belt and a black and white border on the neckline, accessorized with a necklace (I think it's pearls set in gold?) and a brooch pin in the shape of a crown.

I kinda like this one and knowing the way this team operates when it comes to outfits most of the time, I'm pretty sure the colour scheme was chosen on purpose. With this outfit, the MC is presenting herself in the national colours, with a tiny signifier of what her future role might be. Either as Queen or as mother of the future heir to the Crown. This is an outfit that would send a message during Liam's announcement, whether she is (symbolically) wearing that crown or not.

• I'm obviously not very comfortable with the implications that would go with that outfit (esp if she is not the Queen), but I can't deny it does its job.

• The MC can opt to go for either being poised, acting like a diva or being very casual in her approach. Whatever she does the crowd pretty much worships her.

•

So everyone except Liam has someone (media, a fan, common people) approaching them as a way of showing how famous and revered the entire group has become in Cordonia. Liam doesn't need one coz he's anyway getting his moment with his big speech in front of the Valtoria manor.

Drake - Donnie Brine from the CBC speaks to Drake, positioning him as a man of the masses, the person that the Cordonian people see as their representative. Drake is woefully unprepared and freezes, blurting out that "things are great" which probably might end up becoming a meme on Cordonian internet later. Random Cordonian Woman from Applewood saves him by confirming this statement even though her trees have yet to grow and the tax problems are pretty much making her life "not great".

Maxwell - Where are Jiro and Camellia from Applewood? I like little Marco and Valerie but I hope they're not the only kids PB is going to be showing every time they need to show children. Marco approaches Maxwell and the MC both to sign his copy of Maxwell's book, and Maxwell takes care to do a dramatic signature that will not "obscure the picture of his face". I'm giggling at that image.

Hana - Valerie approaches Hana with a handmade flower necklace, presumably with a pattern made from "the Lee family crest". Now either Lorelai's family in Cordonia have the same surname as Xinghai, or Xinghai got himself a house crest for some reason. Either way, to toss out a detail like that so casually (a family crest is something that passes down through generations, esp in noble families) without even thinking of the logistics of it...(when an entire book of yours has been dedicated to sigils and crests) is pretty lazy.

BUT. In good news this means that my longtime speculation that Hana's mother's house had flowers as part of their court of arms is correct! (I was also right about a couple other things, like Maxwell's ancestors and Liam's mother being alive when Olivia was brought to the palace. YAY! 😁)

• We now move on to Liam's public announcement. Which sounds kinda weird whichever way you look at it. A married Liam announces that he and his wife are on a mission to enjoy babymaking and a single Liam announces this:

(Screenshots from a Hana playthrough by @pixieferry)

I will translate what both Liams are saying into Cordonian:

Married Liam: We don't have an apple cinnamon bun in the oven yet, but we're definitely having fun kneading that dough nudge nudge wink wink.

Single Liam: I'm neither making apple buns nor kneading dough. I'll leave that to my friends the bun-making experts here. I'm just gonna park my butt outside the oven door along with the rest of Cordonia.

Sounds weird? You're welcome. It was meant to sound weird.

• Esther finally reunites with her corgi Joy! I wonder if at some point she'll meet up with her horse Celestia and red pandas Hansel and Gretel too xD

• Mara tells me safety checks have been done, but...it's Mara saying that, so I'm not sure I'm quite convinced. The alternative is Bastien, so...we're kinda screwed I guess.

• The group then discusses the future foetus, and Liam takes this opportunity to hint at their childhood history. You know what that means? DIAMOND SCENE!!

•

(Screenshots for Asian Liam from my playthrough, Black Liam from @pixieferry and White Liam from @thefirstcourtesan)

LOOK AT THE WEE LITTLE KIDDIES AND LIAM'S MOM OMG AAAAAA.

As far as I can tell, among the kids the sprites for all three Liams and Drake are very much new, and the rest come from variations and changes to different faces. Maxwell's face is a copy of Simon from THoBM (only the mouth is slightly different), Hana's has a lot of similarities to young Kenna in TCaTF, but with pigtails instead of tiny buns. Olivia's is a little harder to place but I think there are plenty similarities between hers and RoE Camellia's face. For Queen Eleanor they used Young Mary's (MC's mother) sprite from D&D in accordance to whichever Liam you chose. Perhaps the only Mary sprite not used here would be the brown/Indian one, because Liam's ethnicities mainly feature White, Black and Asian. She even wears Mary's opera outfit (that incidentally Mary also ended up wearing to her wedding lol).

• Somehow they forgot that Maxwell was supposed to be a cute chubby little hippo who was loved by his mother.

• I'd like for Black Liam to grow more hair on his head because the curls on his younger self are lovely 😍

• Since most of the childhood tales revolve around the experience of growing up in the palace, this build up to the diamond scene begins with the MC asking questions about each of the boys (Liam, Drake, Maxwell).

- Little Liam and His Crown: Liam claims he only wore those during state occasions, but Maxwell (who admittedly didn't see Liam as much as Drake did but saw him often nonetheless) saw him practically sleep in the thing, and Drake has pictures to prove it lol.

- Grumpy Drake: Maxwell and Liam agree on Drake becoming grumpier as he grew older, but disagree on what metaphors to use to describe it. Maxwell favours "scratchy bark on a secretly loveable tree", and Liam claims he is "whiskey maturing in its barrell". ("oh", I want to ask Drake, "so that's what they call 'old grain mash' these days?" 🤣 This is my revenge for him referring to wine as old grape juice back in Book 2). No prizes for guessing which metaphor Drake liked better.

- Banning Maxwell from Palace Rooms: Maxwell's lucky he has a king for a friend because apparently before Liam jokingly and unwisely decided to give the man a royal pardon Maxwell was banned from all the good rooms 😅

• Hana clearly hasn't lost her touch when it comes to epic savagery. "I imagined you guys like the Three Musketeers, only...less French". 😅😅

• This diamond scene is split into three parts. You have the fun 'adventures' of the little boys (and later Olivia) at the palace, split in between by a slightly more sombre tale of little Hana's loneliness. The narrative voice in all three is very much that of a child, and focuses on Liam's and Hana's imaginations, so as to make their childhood stories more real to us while still providing us background information about the country's recent history (the "recent history" bit doesn't apply to Hana, though, since she is in China at the time).

- Pirate Adventures at The Palace Courtyard: Liam, Drake and Maxwell pretend to be pirate kings, battling rivals on the palace courtyard. After rescuing Maxwell from being stuck on the branches of a tree, the trio decide to continue their adventures on the gardens that are his mother's brainchild, but are stopped by a palace guard. Liam is briefly saddened by this, but is comforted by Drake and Maxwell. The boys then decide to continue playing in the palace kitchens. This scene begins by focusing on the antics of the little ones, but is really about the changed atmosphere in the palace that the boys themselves were too young to notice at the time.

(We also find out which place in TCaTF the Beaumonts originated from, since young Maxwell refers to himself as a pirate from Panrion in both scenes that he is in *cue Lizzy looking very very smug because I've been saying the Beaumonts were from Panrion/someplace in Ebrimel since way back in Book 2*)

The MC has options to respond to this tale (either about whether they were always this naughty, or about the increased security in the palace). In response to her question about the three of them, the boys tell us that Liam was known for being a free spirit and would skip many diplomacy meetings before he even met the other two (again, Constantine, Liam was A CHILD). If you ask the question they want you to be asking, however, about the increased security in the palace, Drake and Maxwell will tell you the security wasn't as strict earlier, and Liam will explain that the royal family had recently received threats at the time, and his parents were a lot more tense and on-edge than usual. Either way, you either get to know a bit about the political atmosphere at the time, or realize that little Liam wasn't the heavily burdened one we met on that first night in New York.

- Pretend-Teatime with a Young Hana: Hana continues on this thread of conversation by focusing on the bond between the boys, commenting on how she never grew up with that kind of experience. To which Drake and Maxwell have these reactions:

@Drake, pls fall on a cactus.

@Maxwell. Honey. She said this to you yesterday. She's probably said this more than once. You've seen her parents!! Wtf kind of friend are you if you can't even take what she said seriously the first time?

@Hana pls get yourself better friends 😭

Like @callmetippytumbles said in her response to this scene, I have no patience for this kind of selective stupidity.

So Hana's scene is technically a call-back to something she once told the MC back in Book 1 Chapter 6, when they were on their way to the post-Derby tea party with Queen Regina. At the time, Hana spoke of her parents not allowing her toys because they thought them frivolous, and how she had to make do with whatever was lying around instead. We actually see this happen in reality here. We see her PoV of what her inanimate objects do, we see her practicing court etiquette on these objects with her tea set, and we see her leave space for her asshole mother even though Lorelai doesn't deserve that much respect or consideration. There is a lot to unpack in this scene and I want to do that in my General Thoughts section later on...but for now I'll just say that it broke my heart, and not just in an "oh poor Hana" way.

- The Attack from Lythikos: I love this sequence too, not only because it shows us Olivia, a younger Constantine and Liam's mother Eleanor, but because the narrative framing in itself alludes to what happened between Lythikos and the Capitol earlier through the pirate story. Liam and Olivia still speak in the language of their story, but the sequence actually plays out what happens in their real lives. Olivia attacks the pirates, but is left desolate, sword broken, at the end of it (just like her parents tried to, and died in the process - leaving an innocent Olivia alone without support). Liam offers her terms that would give her safety and protection, and in return, she asks to be Pirate Queen and for Drake's sword - which he reluctantly gives.

Constantine mistrusts Olivia and attempts to limit her natural abilities and instincts, but it is Liam's empathy, support and validation of her pain, that eventually makes her the steadfast ally that she becomes as an adult - not Constantine's paranoia. Had Liam followed Constantine's lead, the chances of Olivia falling into the trap of subscribing to her aunt's beliefs would have been much much higher, and Constantine would have found himself at the receiving end of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The narrative may also be implying how deep Eleanor's own impact on her son must be, long after her death, since the narrative frames him as adopting her way of dealing with situations often.

In any case the narrative allows us to see the children as they were before their individual tragedies changed them (except in Olivia's and Hana's cases - where they were still struggling to survive the situations they were in), and allows us to see what shaped them into the adults they are today.

The MC then gets to ask one of two questions: either why Constantine treated Olivia so badly, or about the arguments his parents were having. We learn from these that this incident was shortly after Liam became friends with her and his parents brought her to the palace (this references both Liam's conversation about Olivia to the MC in Book 1 Chapter 7, and Lucretia's complaints about Constantine "keeping Olivia hostage" in her diamond scene in Book 3).

• Possibly this may not be the only scene of its kind we will see. Possibly the next few may be Drake-centric, since we may actually meet Bianca in a few chapters. But these scenes may definitely have an impact on dialogue later, just like how learning of the assassination attempt in Drake's Italian Restaurant Scene and Eleanor's death in Liam's Fydelia Balcony Scene in Book 2 are referred to later (if bought) in the hospital scene with Constantine.

• In any case, we leave the past in the past (for now), and move towards Valtoria's throne room. Where we meet Penelope, just back from her first canine fashion show, Kiara who tells us she has everything kept under control (you always do boo 😍) and Madeleine who is all up our uterus.

• She mentions King Bradshaw from Auvernal and his "impossible to control" wife, then mentions a Queen Amalas immediately after without bothering to tell us where this person is from. WTF? At least tell me the name of her goddamn country if she's another person!! You'd just have to say Queen Amalas of ChickenFeetonia and I would understand.

• ...you're telling me the Queen of this country (in my playthrough) has barely looked at a map of the place she's ruling or checked out who rules what?? You're telling me that the Royal Communications Director is STILL going to give her a gazillion flash cards to read something that she could sum up in five minutes, at the very last minute? Bitch what have you been doing this entire time? Touching up your manicure??

•

@Penelope: No you're not.

@Kiara: STOP ENABLING HER, KIKI, AND GET YOURSELF BETTER FRIENDS.

@Madeleine: Pls fall on a cactus.

• Madeleine hasn't been here for even five minutes and already I've had enough of her entitled ass. "Little apple gestating in your womb"...just...I can't. Ugh. Get your nosy nose out of my oven!!

• Remember how I told you guys about how apple analogies may be used to denote fertility? (mostly because RoE spoke of this apple cutting ceremony and it was a very obvious indicator towards apple metaphors being used to describe pregnancy and childbirth).

• I facepalmed when Kiara agreed with her but she's also probably thinking "well see this is why they call me the smart courtier. I don't have to deal with this shit anymore and now you do" (she isn't wrong).

• WELL HELLO OLIVIA.

• She informs us that we're expected at the solarium. I have a solarium?

• Apparently it was Mara's honeymoon gift to us. More like her "sorry Bastien and I screwed up last book" gift, I'd say.

• So wait where was this roster Liam was speaking about in the last book's epilogue? I see one Cordonian noble and one Englishman who until my wedding wanted to have nothing to do with Cordonia, and who's now bleating "our country, our kingdom, we're under attack" like a panicking patriotic nanny goat.

• Why can I not see Emmeline here, who is clearly the expert on her duchy? (I mean like. Landon is nice, but I'd really like to see more women in this Council too). Also does Kiara's inclusion into the Council cancel out the presence of her father Hakim, who is a seasoned diplomat and might possibly have some really good suggestions for dealing with these foreign powers (and seriously he'd be a better option than Godfrey anyway).

• Now Esther has a suggestion! Let's see what it is...

• A royal ball, apparently. Which...given the company, I'm sure it probably would be appropriate but I'm pretty sure we'll need to have more than that in place. I'm pretty sure the people in this council should either be finding out whether the person making these suggestions knows anything about these issues or whether she is simply talking out of her ass. This was a problem last book as well. The MC rarely feels the need on her own to explore these situations more, is okay with just learning things last minute and rolling with it and has the same solution to everything. It's either tours or balls but very little actual exploration of the situation. (I mean there is even a point where she barely shows any empathy at Portavira - even though they're still reeling from a bunch of natural calamities - and thinks it's appropriate to tell them to come for her wedding anyway. No wonder Liam panicked and started giving her diplomacy lessons, stat!) I'd actually take the MC seriously if she were doing her research and her suggestions weren't so shallow and one-note.

• Hana is grinning and giving justifications like this suggestion makes sense. STOP. ENABLING. HER. HANA.

• I especially want to know what Liam's experiences with these dignitaries have been. Both last chapter and this one, I'm seeing him in a position where he is defiant and digging his heels into whatever ideas he is having, but I don't know the context yet and would like to make sense of that. From whatever I've read so far...Liam took the year following Leo's abdication to familiarize himself with taking the front seat in negotiations, and probably may have been familiar with this kind of situation and the kind of people involved even before he became Crown Prince. It makes me wonder how difficult negotiating with them has been, and I want to see why Liam is so done with these people, so fed up. We're missing some context here and I think learning at least a little more than these scraps would have been better for everyone.

• I like that they remember Kiara as the only one outside of the charmed six to get a seat in this council (Kiki deserves the best). I also liked how succintly she summed up Drake and Hana's points about what the heightened taxes are doing to the people as "a reminder that we're not just here for ourselves".

• I find the entire idea of Drake Walker being the sole commoner representative in the Council laughable, especially in a narrative where every other commoner barely has a face, hardly has a name, and almost never has a voice. A man who has spent a huge chunk of his life in a palace, and who I've hardly seen even interacting with a commoner in the story...I'm expected to believe he will have great insights on commoner issues?? Even in this meeting, it's Hana who does a better job explaining this situation (she's the one highlighting the tax issues) than he does. Then again this Council also somehow gave a seat to Duke Karlington - a man who literally never had Cordonia's best interests in mind last book, and who only ended up attending our wedding because we had to be brought in as family counselors to settle HIS family disputes (I mean lol Godfrey how can you call this wedding a disaster when it caused you to magically become so "patriotic"!)

For God's sake, I want to see other commoners on this council. I want people who are actually living these experiences highlighting their issues. This is an issue I have with the MC too. She started out a commoner herself a waitress who wouldn't even flinch at the sight of rats in a dumpster. For someone of that background and who has possibly lived under the worse circumstances than some Cordinians themselves, you'd think that she'd have questions and show interest in how the people who aren't owning lands and are regular individuals on the street live their lives, and whether things are okay for them. But she's so immersed in the world of nobility that she rarely ever even tries to come out.

• Before Liam takes into account everyone's points and comes to a conclusion, the MC has the opportunity to give them her opinion. She can either say that we can't trust anyone, which Godfrey agrees with, or that an alliance would be good for Cordonia, which Godfrey views as naive, OR (and I didn't expect to like this response but I actually do) that she's a waitress from the States, and wouldn't know all that much about this situation. To which there isn't much of a reaction as such, but that's kind of what seems different about this book compared to the others.

• Once the meeting is wrapped up, our LI and Maxwell/Hana whisper in a corner about a surprise they have in store, and take us upstairs to show us what it is. If you're marrying any of the other three, Maxwell is the one who has arranged and picked out themes and colour schemes for the nursery. If you're married to Maxwell, Hana takes over this role.

• Ooooh. New (I think!) baby music! Nice. Very lullaby-like.

• Every design has these basic components:

a crib with a pillow (which I think will be updated later)

a couch nearby, likely for comfort when the mother wants to breastfeed (the updated versions seem to have a footrest)

a table with a lamp

three empty frames (also to be updated. I'm guessing for one of those "my first hand/foot impression" kind of thing and maybe even photoshoots etc)

a ceiling lamp/chandelier

a hook, also on the ceiling.

The two updated versions have footrests, updated lamps and ceiling decorations, additional carpet and customized designs (except for the crib and the pictures and the hook, which I think will be updated later). The Royal Glam theme is all reds and golds, very luxurious and very Valtoria. The Fairytale Forest theme has more whimsy, with bears, foxes, leaves, flowers and apples on the wallpaper, wood paneling, a beautiful golden lamp. Very pretty. Both seem to reference the MC's journey in TRR: her being either a Royal and the closest thing to one, and her journey being very fairytale-like (remember, the same logic was used for Hana's "something blue" gift for the MC's - where she views her as Cinderella).

• Only problem is...who exactly buys a nursery before they have a baby! Especially considering how unpredictable pregnancy and childbirth can be.

• We now meet Dr Ramirez for an appointment. I'm not sure about her suggestion that prenatal vitamins etc they will deal with after she has conceived. I know a number of people who did pre-pregnancy appointments and vitamins and folic acid were on the top of the list of things they'd start a routine with.

• As expected, all the appointments go roughly the same, with the usual answers to the usual questions (one about sushi, another about morning sickness and a last one about potential complications). The MC and LI are in the clear, and can start preparing - but apparently shouldn't stress. LMAO. Thank you doctor, I'm sure that will be easy to do in this country 😂

• Hana's goes differently, and it's clear this doctor's visit was primarily written to address her situation with the MC. The tests go differently, the suggestions given to them are different, the questions the MC asks (one about choosing donors, when they should start, and who should carry the child). The bombshell that immediately follows this is:

Wow. Seriously. Wow. You couldn't find a more temporary reason for why the MC has to be the one conceiving? It has to be something that would make her overall ability to conceive almost impossible?? (and this we find after one test? No follow ups?) I recall someone putting up/reblogging these screenshots with a caption about how the narrative pretty much took Hana's entire ability to conceive from her, and it's so true - and so disturbing when you place it in the context of how they've dealt with her issues so far (more on this later).

• In Hana's playthrough, she struggles with implications of this news, but constantly tries to veer the focus back to "well at least one of us can is able to have this baby". Twice, she is shown moving away from her pain to ask about the other possibilities for the MC.

• Anyway...we now move to the next morning, when the couple wake up to bad news - and it's concerning the pictures taken during their honeymoon. Given that Maxwell/Hana is holding a magazine when they tell the MC they found out who was responsible...I wonder if it's one of our news outlets. Or whether it's a foreign media rep.

• So I guess this complicates things at our Ball, since we're already on thin ice and this news would have spread to those other dignitaries as well. So we're going to have to deal with whatever implications come with those pictures (perhaps a spin on the royal gang having fun while Cordonia is in a national crisis? Who knows. It would be hypocritical of Cordonians and people from other neighbouring countries to judge the couple over the babymaking that they themselves were enforcing on these two!)

• In any case...royal ball this week. And in the universe of PB's stories that usually means some shit will go down.

General Thoughts and Observations:

• The funny thing about the MC's responses now is that her heightened position now seems to allow her to get away with a lot more than she used to. Now if she gives a joke response, the media and people laugh with her rather than at her. If she is a diva, the crowd will lap it up. I'm guessing what the book is trying to imply is that these are the people she has won over and doesn't exactly need to worry about, and now the ones she will have to convince are from other, more powerful countries - ready to back Cordonia into a corner anytime.

• As you can tell by now, I absolutely loved the childhood sequences. They sounded like children, most of the narrative lines up with what was already said in the previous series, and there were some interesting narrative devices used here.

• I think the third sequence especially drives home the point about what Liam did right, even as a young boy, and what Constantine refusing to look past Olivia's lineage to see her as an individual could have cost him. Constantine's ruthlessness and lack of genuine care for his bonds/friendships (eg. Hakim) had him in a position where he was unable to relate to anyone beyond his own tiny bubble (even his own wife Regina was taking countermeasures to make the best of his horrid plan), and had him make decisions that did more harm than good. For instance, take what he did to the MC, for no fault of her own other than that he didn't think she'd be a good Queen. Not only was what he did utterly disgusting, but it also would have made his own family a subject of shame in the country (which is why Constantine practically begs her never to expose him, because then Liam would be paying the price). Imagine what would have happened if Constantine didn't agree with Liam and perhaps Eleanor, never brought Olivia to the palace, and Liam had never shown her his constant support. Liam's genuine empathy in this case pretty much ensured the safety of his own line.

• I also love the implications of that sequence. Constantine is so wrapped up in his fear that he tries to break what Olivia considers most precious (Zenobia the sword in this case, but this could allude to her parents' deaths and later, her possible marriage to Liam at his Coronation). Liam attempts to fill that gap by taking her in, caring for her, and giving her the tools to continue being the Lythikos fighter she has always been.

• There are a few TCaTF references in the palace scenes: Maxwell mentions Panrion twice, and Olivia calls her sword "Zenobia" in honour of her historical hero (she still speaks of Zenobia with something akin to worship during the Winter Festival in Lythikos).

• Olivia's dress is also modelled on Zenobia's, with the same colour and bodice embroidery. In fact most of the clothes are very similar to their adult garments: Drake still wears denim, Maxwell favours dark colours (still should have been chubby though), Liam's clothes are similar to his casual wear minus the ascot, and Hana wears pink, with flower designs on the skirt.

• What I like most are the narrative voices for both Liam and Hana, who are the ones narrating these stories, and how rooted in their imaginations the scenes themselves sound. But there are significant, heartbreaking differences in how we see their imaginations play out:

Here are a few samples of narration I've managed to save from Liam's PoV. Notice how Liam and his friends are so into their little game that they find adventure in everything? Notice the language they use to describe themselves and what they are doing? Once-defiant topiaries shaking in fear at their antics. "Liberating" chocolate tarts. "Conquering" the upper floors. These boys are playing out their dreams and showing us the kind of men they would want to be. The heroes. The victors. The ones everyone looks at with awe and reverence.

This is also not a story Liam is creating alone. Drake and Maxwell happily join in, sink into their characters and display their heroics alongside him. Olivia also joins in and holds her own, and when Liam's father tries to break her spirit, Olivia shows Liam her trust and faith in him by using the language of the game.

On the other hand, here is what the narration technique in Hana's tea scene looks like:

There is a lot to unpack here. A lot. There is perhaps more in this one scene of Hana's than there is in all of Book 3, where she was pretty much pushed to the sidelines.

We were told in Book 1 that Hana had to get creative because she wasn't allowed toys. This was told to us in a rather matter-of-fact way, by a person who was normalized in this way of life and who hadn't yet realized just wrong her upbringing was or how damaged her self of self was. It's perhaps easy to forget this bit of dialogue if you were reading it for the first time because at the end of the day it's spoken of without much gravity.

It's when you see it play out in front of you, in little Hana's voice, from an adult Hana who will now view this entire sequence very, very differently, that the tragedy of it all really hits you. At such a young age she is forced to make do with the little she has: the little she has in terms of things to play with, the little she has in terms of relationships. What the MC says after that sequence is half-right, it's sweet how Hana used her imagination in spite of her parents' rules and strict lifestyle. But what that misses is the burden experiences like that would place on a child in her earliest, more formative years. What stand out to me the most in this sequence are these:

- The most obvious: the use of a 'tea party' to teach herself etiquette and diplomacy. In the present, Hana tells the group that "a lot of what I learned about courtly negotiations, I learned from the tea table". This is the level Hana chooses to focus on after telling her tale, to soften the blow of the story itself.

- The fact that despite her mother's treatment of her, Hana still leaves space for Lorelai. Still wants to believe the best of her, still wants her involved in her life. Lorelai denies her her support and comfort, which is the initial layer to her injustices against Hana. In a lot of ways, even now - Hana is still leaving space for Lorelai, giving her chances to improve, trying to educate her on respecting her boundaries better. It's a long, exhausting process, and Lorelai doesn't deserve the many chances Hana keeps giving her, but Hana is also a person who struggles to completely cut off from the people in her life, controlling and emotionally abusive though they may be.

- At the end of the day, the objects she is giving a life and a personality to, are inanimate objects used for other purposes. Not toys, not real friends. Every last one of them. Miss Doily is kind and caring, Princess Sinckerdoodle is jealous and gives a damn about etiquette (I like how you can see allusions there to Olivia and the MC in the Bakery Ball dialogue!). But they're essentially all objects that cannot move the way her narration describes them as moving. Even dolls and toys, inanimate though they are, are made for the express purpose of allowing a child to participate in pretend play. They can be given a voice, their limbs can be moved, the child can easily turn such a space into an active space with the use of her toys. The doily, the napkin, the sock...these are things Hana will have very little actual control over. They will not be able to move the way she wants them to, do the things she wants them to. Everything has to be happening in her head and there is very little outlet for her other than the few things she has at hand (a similar example of of Hana using scraps we will also find in Book 2, where she draws whiskers on a rock to replicate a toy mouse).

Look again, at the differences in the way Liam narrates his tale and how Hana narrates hers. Liam's is also a fantasy, also uses inanimate objects. But supporting him in building this imaginary universe are his friends, and the parents who both don't stop him from immersing himself in this imaginary world, and have a safe normal (for now) life to return to when those "adventures" are over. On the other hand, Hana has to do the heavy work...in every way. She has to imagine not only the background of what is happening, but also what the objects in front of her are like, what they will do, how they will interact with her, how they will interact with each other.

If I had to replicate such a scene into film, the loneliness of this sequence would perhaps hit harder. A large, empty room. A tiny girl. A tea set and several strange items - and none of them actually move. She is sitting alone, in the dim light, in the silence, talking to these objects that will never respond so she pretends they do, just to chase away that yawning, aching feeling of not having a single friend. All she gets in return is silence. All she finds in front of her is space, and more space. The kind of space that could swallow a child in its emptiness.

And in the center, is a seat left empty. For a mother who doesn't believe her daughter is worth the time.

I think there will be very few who will appreciate the strength it takes to survive a lifetime of that, and that's sad.

• The little Hana sequence reminds me of the animated film Cinderella, particularly in how the main character uses dreams and imagination as an escape from her life of drudgery and the abuse she faces daily. Particularly the song "Sing Sweet Nightingale", where Cinderella's dull world bursts into vivid colour through the soap bubbles that emerge from the washing bucket.

It's a beautiful, soft, almost surreal little sequence...but when you strip it all down to its basics, what you're essentially seeing is a woman so abused by her family and so trapped in this life she does not deserve, that she has to grasp at straws to find joy. Or in this case, soap bubbles.

What Hana faces in her home is perhaps a little more similar to Rapunzel's situation in Tangled than Cinderella's, but there are definite similarities in the way both characters use their imaginations to soothe and comfort themselves. She is forced into a situation where her imagination - and these things that can't respond to her - are all she has, and the only ways she can keep herself safe and happy. That's way too big a burden for a child so young to bear.

• I wonder if there will be more than the memories. Perhaps documents, news clippings, research material that the MC can use to dig further into what's going on in this country. It's possible, but it's also possible that memories will entirely be how we unravel this mess. I was speaking to @thefirstcourtesan the other day and she mentioned that Bianca and Bastien would both be pretty good sources for finding out more - Bastien, after all, had a lot of respect for the second queen and was close to Jackson, and Bianca would have heard certain things from her husband or witnessed something at the very least (and if they were friends, that angle too). I probably would add Lucretia and maybe Anton (if we see them and if they cooperate), Bertrand or someone new who knew Bartamely (if we can find out more about the Beaumont house that would be lovely!), the Lees, and...Francesco? (I still haven't forgotten that Bertrand mentioned him as being a friend of Liam's mother). I also want to see what new information Olivia got from the last time she did her research on any hidden deals or laws that could endanger the kingdom. There are quite a few possibilities in terms of what we could find and how it can be presented, so I'm looking forward to that. This scene was a good start.

• Having said that, this was something they should have been addressing the previous book. If they hadn't spent so much of their focus on all the wrong things, we wouldn't have as much ground to cover as we do now. And I'm not sure they've learned their lesson enough that we will not see the same mistakes repeated this time.

• Why is the system in place to inform and update the MC on what's happening so poor this time. At least earlier, we'd have a fairly good idea of what would be happening next, even if some important stuff was done last minute. Now the explanations themselves are poorly formed and done without proper thought on whether the MC/readers might understand what's going on or not. It doesn't look good on the story, nor does it look good on those characters esp the MC. This is stuff she could have maybe gotten away with as a suitor. But now she is Duchess/Queen, and an influential figure. What looked good in her days as a suitor won't look so good on her now.

• The Royal Council could be a way forward - for the nobility and royalty-heavy narrative to something that shows us more perspectives from the people who really form the backbone of this country - the commoners who actually populate Cordonia's lands and duchies, whose hard work likely keeps the economy running. Just one Drake isn't adequate for that kind of representation - not when he very rarely addresses their issues in the first place. Please tell me there will be more in that Council because the Council as it stands is in no way an improvement on the status quo.

• I've said more than enough about how bizarre and downright OOC Liam sounds, but I do think we should not ignore the context - the fact that every single individual involved is making these demands of the MC and expecting her to save their country through her child without really checking if she has basic knowledge or other resources in place (such as information about the rulers she is meeting). That includes the LIs. It's very easy to make just a character or two a convenient scapegoat, but let's not forget that there isn't a single person in this entire narrative that is bothering to examine the implications. Not a single.

• What really got me angry...was the Hana doctor sequence. Maybe two books ago it would have just hurt - but more on the level of "it hurts to see Hana like this but I have hope for her". Hope that she would have the space to grieve something she had lost before she could ever even have it, hope that the narrative would validate her pain and encourage her healing. But I can't even hope for that anymore.

This is a very very painful, complicated situation to put a person in. And yes, sometimes those are things you want to talk about and finding out you can't have children when you've always wanted to have them is a very real, very difficult situation - and there is a lot you can explore in terms of how a person with these conditions would feel. But the thing is...Hana has already been on the receiving end of multiple tragic storylines. I have already seen enough and more of her in pain. What I'm not seeing is a good - or even adequate - payoff that validates her painful journey and allows for a release of those emotions. I'm constantly seeing more tragedy, less triumph. I'm not seeing enough satisfactory resolution to those many many issues, and I've spent three books just watching her hurt be brushed aside both by the people who bully her AND the people who are supposed to be her friends (let's be real, they're doing it even now). And now is supposed to be a good time to pile up another difficult situation on her???

• Whenever Hana has been forced into situations that hurt her, her emotions and thoughts have always been pushed to the sidelines - unless and until it was to elevate the MC to a pedestal in Hana's eyes. Hana has rarely - if ever - been given the space to speak out against injustices done to her, has rarely been allowed to have an opinion on people who have harmed her.

When the narrative should have been validating what Madeleine put Hana through, they opted to create sympathy for Madeleine instead...and had her completely minimize what she did to Hana ("I'm sure Hana will be willing to let bygones be bygones").

When the narrative should have been allowing her to discover what her sexuality was, they opted not to talk about it at all. They opted to make her MC-sexual instead. Even with the "alternative LI" they planned for her (*pukes*), they focused more on Madeleine's feelings than Hana's.

When the narrative should have allowed her the space to explore what her parents did wrong and arm her against their faulty arguments about her being the "delicate flower" who cannot survive without them, the writers opted to push her into a 'solution' that was still centered around her usefulness, not her emotional state. Her 'happy ending' with her parents involves constantly educating them on how to treat her with respect, a suffocating, draining process for a child with her background.

When the narrative should have - at least - given her a good wedding, after showing us what dreams she had for it, a wedding where she was treated like a bride, not a bridesmaid, her writers did exactly the opposite. She is more skilled than the MC yet it is the MC that gets the duchy. She is the creative one who comes up with the polo moves yet it is the MC that gets the credit. She is the one that didn't have a chance to fully plan her own wedding the way she wanted earlier, yet the same MC still treats her like her wedding planner rather than a bride. In not one of these situations is she ever allowed to vent about or even speak of what this is doing to her.

Maybe they will give her a chance to explore this difficult journey, maybe they won't. But how dare they push another tragic, difficult (to her) truth such as this, when they have barely allowed her to voice discontent or pain on a host of other issues!

Piling more pain on top of the pain a character already has, isn't going to make your character better developed. Allowing them the space to feel and show those feelings to others will. Thinking of worthy resolutions to those issues, will. If you want to be fair to Hana, center her in her story. Expand on her origins. Focus on story not skills. And validate her pain goddammit!!

• Sigh. Until next time, folks.

[kariachi]

What started as a cute thing with Ben and Kevin talking about their children and spouses got, kinda dark there.

Way back when they were young, Ben never would’ve figured Kevin for the sort to move out into the country. The very idea of seeing him outside the middle of the city on a regular basis just didn’t compute. But now it just felt right. Sitting on the back porch, looking out over so much acreage shared between the Amalgams, a massive yard like he hadn’t been able to give his kids in the city backed by pasture and livestock and gardens. Watching Kenny try to use his position as Cool Cousin to keep the black-and-brown blur that was Devlin from jumping into the pond rather than just darting around its edge catching frogs and crawfish. It was homey, relaxing.

“I still don’t know,” he said, nursing his beer and cringing as his teenager slipped on a rock and fell into the water, only to sputter back out a heartbeat later none the worse for wear, “how you and Manny managed to make such a cute kid.” Beside him, Kevin just shrugged.

“Well,” he said, “if Kai can sire cute kids off you, makes sense I could dam one from Manny.” Ben reached out to swat his arm with a grin.

“Hey, I was cute!”

“Yeah yeah,” Kevin lifted his chin haughtily, grinning widely at Ben, “and Manny claims Devil looks like him at that age, but we all know where the looks and brains in these kids really comes from.” Tutting under his breath, Ben shook his head. Out in the yard, Kenny had fallen on his ass again and Devlin was taking the opportunity to show off a big frog.

“So what you’re telling me is for the best children we should’ve gotten you and Kai together.” Kevin nodded.

“Exactly. We settled for you two, to the children’s detriment. Such a shame.”

“Worst bestfriend I’ve ever had, I swear.”

“Love how this is what does it and not the attempted murder.” Chuckling, Ben leaned back against the step behind him.

“That’s our thing, though,” he said, and took another sip of beer. “By the way, how’s Operation Spare Heir going? Still trying?” With a groan Kevin rolled his eyes so hard they about fell out of his head.

“You have got to stop calling it that,” he said with a sip of his own drink. “Kinda? I mean, fifteen years of unprotected sex and one six-year-old later, you gotta accept that he’s a fluke.” He sighed. “Right now we’re trying to figure if we wanna see a specialist about the matter or focus all our attention on adoption or what the hell we’re gonna do here.”

“Tough choice.”

“Be easier if Manny would stop hemming and hawing.” He sighed again and took a moment to crane his neck and confirm that the boys were just on the other side of the pond and not drowning or anything. “We’re already digging into adoption, but he doesn’t want to stop trying for another, but getting him to agree to talk to a specialist about the matter is like pulling teeth.” Ben nodded along like he understood what Kevin was dealing with, though both of them knew he didn’t. He and Kai had had a surprisingly easy time of it. They’d gotten married, started trying, and had Lyn and Kenny both about on the schedule they’d planned. Gwen had been endlessly proud of them for the accomplishment. Even now they were long divorced, neither felt any need to reverse the measures they’d taken against any more children, or to even consider expanding their families.

“Well,” he ended up saying, “you two have only been really trying for a few years.” Kevin shook his head.

“He just doesn’t wanna hear somebody say he’s the weak link in the babymaking.” For a moment Ben was confused, but, yeah, he could see somebody not wanting to hear that they were why babies weren’t happening.

“He might not be, I mean you’ve only had-”

“Four pregnancies, one with him, in the past, fuck, 24 years?” Okay, now Ben was confused, his face twisting in it even as Kevin raised four fingers and counted off for emphasis. “Abortion, abortion, miscarriage, Devlin.”

“Wh-” he caught himself, lowering his voice so as not to attract the kids’ attention, “what? When?”

“Ages ago,” Kevin said, “my teens, before Manny and I were a solid thing.”

“How did I not know about this?!”

“The first one we weren’t on speaking terms yet, the second we weren’t close enough for that sorta talk, and the third one I lost before I could spread the word.” He shrugged, much too calm for Ben’s tastes given he himself was reeling. “It’s cool. Losing the one still hurts like a bitch, but I’m fine.” Ben wasn’t sure if he was hurt, angry, or guilty, and settled on just, taking a deep breath and letting it all sink in.

“Okay,” he said, “so maybe Manny is the one with fertility problems. Does he know about all that?”

“Of course.” Kevin was quiet a moment before punching Ben’s arm with a smile. “Buck up, man. How’s Lyn doing? College treating her okay?” A second deep breath, a third, as Ben let his thoughts unjumble.

“She’s fine,” he said, smiling back, “annoyed as hell the classes aren’t tougher.” Kevin chuckled.

“Gwen’s blood to the bone, that one.”

Out in the yard, Devlin and Kenny devolved into an argument or whether bullfrogs or crawfish were cooler.

[strikersunindie]

Timothy thought this was a rather romantic moment, especially when Carlos had said those words. He never felt like he'd end up in any sort of romance like this growing up, especially given the life he ended up in once he was an adult. It was a wave of calm and love washing throughout his whole body when he heard those words and knew Carlos wasn't lying. Yet in the next moment, those eyes revealed something else.

"Hey, it's okay," he whispered to Carlos as the older man slid onto the grass. He knew Carlos was essentially living alone before and for such a long time. Being that vulnerable was scary for Timothy too. He wondered what it could be that Carlos needed to say, but then the hand moved. A glowing belly tattoo? Not human, immortal? Bear kids? How? Carlos had a dick too, and it wasn't an operation from the looks of it. Centuries… Carlos was much older than he said. This was a lot to handle…

"I saved you? No… I think it's the other way around," he said before holding Carlos's head in his hands. Thumbs wiped away a couple of tears that fell as Timothy stared into Carlos's eyes. "What did I say? I'm yours', and you are mine. I've been with some shitty humans before, and you aren't one of them." Timothy slid off the bench too so they were both on the grass.

"I don't care if you were a babymaker and didn't always have this," he said while palming Carlos's cock and balls. The tattoo was still glowing, and then Timothy put his hand on it. "Or if this is some weird magic thing. It won't hurt you, right? Then it's nothing to worry about." Timothy didn't know what was going on, but there was clearly more to Carlos than he let on. The fighter simply pressed his forehead against Carlos's, simply wanting to be close to him and feel his heartbeat.

"Hey, let's go sit on the porch. You finally got me naked out here, and we should have a little something strong so I don't lose my nerve," he suggested, the sexual energy from before fading out in that vulnerable moment. He stood up and pulled Carlos up with his strength. Once they were both up, Timothy kissed Carlos and gave him a pat on the ass to start walking. The patio provided shade and a table for their drinks so that Timothy could have a moment to process. He sat down on the worn out couch, expecting Carlos to get the drinks for them by relaxing and putting a leg on the rest of the seat so the other couldn't sit there.

Pulled into Timothy's embrace, Carlos let his body be as light as a feather. He wanted that touch, that manhandling, and that tight embrace. He let his body rest on top of Timothy's, the wood bench making small noises under the sudden amount of weight of two naked men together. He suddenly felt so happy that he could barely register how ridiculous a man his age might have looked like that. But there was no time to think such thoughts. Timothy sat up and Carlos' legs spread so he was sitting on the other's lap. He felt the words as much as he felt the hands that caressed him and once the digits touched his hole again, he felt something he hadn't felt in many, many years.

The warm feeling around his belly button was also inside his belly. It was of such an intensity he almost stopped breathing. Luckily, Timothy was not looking at his face when it happened. Carlos tried to ignore it as he held tighter to that body of muscles and sweat. He felt the hickey and he let out a low moan, a small ouch, and a laugh. Carlos' body was on fire and the source was his belly. A love like this could cure him, but Carlos always thought he needed a god for it. When Timothy said the last order, Carlos moved back a little, their cocks joined into the palm of Timothy's hand.

He didn't look down because he was looking deep into those black eyes. His own hand joined the cocks and they started rubbing themselves together. Carlos said it. He said it clearly and was filled with desperate hope. "You are mine. I am all yours, Timothy. Completely." The intense feeling finally left him without air. He put his other hand over his belly button and his face showed the amount of surprise and a bit of fear he felt. "I- Something's-" He had to pull away from that embrace, falling back on the grass around the bench.

"I think I should tell you something important." The pain in his belly, that fire, was subduing. It was just a feeling he hadn't felt in many years. He took his hand away, and the small tattoo around his belly button, which had looked like a scar before, had a golden glow to it. "I'm not a human like you. I mean, I am, I'm just- immortal. I was once chosen by the gods so I could bear their children. Heroes for their wars. I-" He gulped, kneeling in front of Timothy with wet eyes. "This hasn't happened in centuries." He said almost out of breath, feeling a wetness in his ass that he had only felt when a god came to visit. "I think you saved me." He finally finished, looking at Timothy with just a bit of fear that whatever was happening in his belly would scare his Man away.

[julystorms]

Hello! How do you think the Survey Corps handle unplanned pregnancies within their ranks? Especially, let’s say, if they are people with positions— like squad leaders. I really wanna know your thoughts on this :D

Sorry, I promise I wasn’t ignoring your first ask! I just wantedto find the time to respond properly. For the longest time I had a drafted metapost about this topic (“Pregnancy & Disability in the Survey Corps”) that Ioccasionally added to when I had a thought. I think I deleted it when I purgedmy drafts, though. Oops!

I definitely have a lot of thoughts on the topic. This is a really long post; there are a lot of things to consider with a question like this!

Let me start by saying this: I feel that strong worldbuilding isprimarily a result of consistency. I know SnK’s worldbuilding is, overall,rather weak, but there’s no reason we as creators can’t force consistency intoour own narrative explorations of that world! A consistent set of rules for thecharacters to operate under make for a better experience overall, not just inthe canon, but also for readers/viewers of fanworks. You can always switch thingsup for fun, but I personally like to have one particular set of rules that I useby default. It makes it easier for me as a writer to sink down into the storyand portray it without having to think too hard about every little detail as Igo.

One of the most interestingthings about SnK is that it portrays a sexist world but still allows women intothe ranks of its military branches—all three of them. However, we generallydon’t see women in positions of power: there are no female government members,no powerful merchants, no notable members of the aristocracy, and no confirmedtop female officers*.

*Rico is the closest we get,but she doesn’t seem any higher-ranked than Ian or Mitabi were, and is clearly outrankedby Kitz, so she doesn’t count. Hange is the only POSSIBLE high-ranked femaleofficer in the entire series, but “possible” =/= “actual” so again, no-go.

Boris accuses Hitch of(essentially) using her femininity in an underhanded way to get into the MP; asI’ve said before, we don’t know if he’s right or if he’s just trying to be anasshole because he doesn’t like Hitch, but I think it’s fair to say that thiskind of misogyny is something that women in SnK’s military face on the regular,especially if they perform on par with male classmates. Hell, this is somethingwomen who work in male dominated fields face daily in our world. It doesn’t surprise me. Isayama’s not portraying autopia with this series, after all. But it’s clear he didn’t put a lot ofthought into the little things: like sexism/misogyny in the military and how itwould clearly impact the lives of the girls and young women who enlist.

I don’t think it makessense to say: SnK’s world is 100% reliable and the narration we receive is 100%credible. We don’t see what happens to our female characters behind-the-scenes.We don’t see if they’re treated differently by their instructors, teachers,trainers—in front of peers or alone. We don’t see if any of them werepropositioned for sex or other favors. We don’t know that team leaders in theSurvey Corps, Military Police, and Garrison don’t abuse their positions of relativepower over new recruits. We have to assume that in an imperfect and clearly sexistworld, these kinds of things do happen, and some people aren’t left with a lotof choice as to how to deal with it. What would Hitch be able to do if hercommanding officer (Eibringer IIRC) propositioned her or touched her or [insertother possibilities here]? Who is she going to tell? Will they believe her? Andwhat are the chances that saying something would tank her career in the MP? Shedid all that work to get into the MP; would she risk doing something now that might get it taken away again? Yeah, saying nothing means putting up with abuse, but if she doesn’t disturb thewater, so to speak, she’ll have a long career that pays well ahead of her—somethingmost people on Paradis don’t get to have. These are the little details thatweren’t considered but do mean agreat deal when you’re writing about the daily ins and outs of the world thesecharacters live in.

Which brings me topregnancy, sex, and all related topics. I’ve seen writers use various kinds oftea as “birth control.” I’ve seen authors use oral sex or the pull-out methodto try and avoid the possibility of pregnancy. Some characters track theircycle (assuming for them it’s reliable enough to be tracked) as a form of birthcontrol. And look, all of these are perfectly valid and all are very likelyused in the world of SnK. Not all of them work. There may not be many herbalremedies that are effective; there may not be many that are readily or cheaplyavailable. These are the things to think about. Just because someone claims itworks doesn’t mean it does. The characters have to contend with that!

And because no methodexcept abstinence is 100% effective, some characters are going to get pregnant—andnot just in the Survey Corps.

This world is sexist. Youhave to consider whether or not the Garrison or MP would allow for pregnantsoldiers to stay enlisted and you have to think about what would happen after ababy was born. Think carefully. Yes, it seems feasible to work and raise achild, especially on the Military Police’s paygrade. But would it be allowed? Again, we don’t see hardly any femalecharacters in a position of power, and the ones we do see aren’t shown to bemarried or have children.

Think, too, about thepopulation, and about the world’s belief that humanity is going extinct insidethe walls. All of these things affect the mindset of the general population:how they feel about women, what they feel a woman’s job/place in the world is,and so on. Notice that in background shots, you see women carrying babies,groceries, with their children, and always wearing skirts. Chances are, womenare wives, daughters, housekeepers, and babymakers first and foremost, andworking women (women who don’t have a choice and/or are yet unmarried) do “lowerwork” and probably not for much money (laundry for better-off folks, shellingnuts, simple factory tasks, sewing/darning, waitressing, prostitution).

All right, so…with these considerationsin mind, let’s talk about pregnancy.

There’s a lot to thinkabout when it comes to someone in the military of SnK’s world getting pregnant.Is it considered shameful to get pregnant out of wedlock? Seems kind of thatway, re: Historia’s awful mother and cheating father. Nobody blinks an eye atmen having affairs but women are another story. What are their optionsregarding birth? Are midwives easy to find? Doctors who can make a differentsure seem rare (re: Grisha showing up and magically being able to help people;Ragako Village letting some quack come in and inject them all without oncequestioning it)! Midwives who are trained and experienced? Expensive andprobably not easy to come by. You’re probably going to be stuck with anotherwoman who has given birth before helping you out, and if something out of the ordinaryhappens, you or your baby could die. Because of this, abortion may be anoption, but what kinds of choices do these people have? The old coat-hangerroutine (that can easily end with death when the bleeding doesn’t stop and isextremely painful)? Herbal remedies that might have side-effects that you can’thide/that may spell the end for your career?

If we assume that pregnancyand childbirth are a free pass out of the military, it will be abused. Therehave to be measures in place that would make a person want to avoid pregnancy.Is it a dishonorable discharge? Do you have to pay a fee? Do you have to givethe baby up for adoption? These sorts of things would discourage a lot ofpeople who might otherwise benefit from having a baby. The Survey Corps alsohas a built-in discouragement: your lover dying and leaving you alone with ababy to raise. But then, what’s to stop them from crippling themselves to getout? It wouldn’t be that hard to drive a sword through your own foot and makeit look like an accident. (No doubt doing this on purpose is treasonous andpunishable by death, just like running away/disobeying orders if doing soyields bad results.) The only way to keep that in check is to assume that itwould be hard for them to find work if they were too disabled. Maybe for somepeople it would be worth it, but others…not so much.

Being realistic, losingyour post in the Military Police would be discouragement enough; characterslike Hitch who are young and wanted very much to get in and stay in are likelyto avoid pregnancy like hell; any man who got her pregnant could deny it andwhat recourse would she have if he refused to acknowledge her and help her? Theydon’t have paternal testing in this world. And she’s not a high-rankedrespected member of the military: she’d be out of a job with two mouths to feedand no experience in anything but military training! That’s terrifying. In manyways, that serves as its own form of birth control. (But we can’t pretend thatmen don’t abuse their positions of power in the military and push themselves onwomen anyway. We can’t pretend that characters like Hitch can always say no and have that norespected. She’s going to be thought of as disposable to many people.)

The Garrison is a littlebit more interesting. They’re not hurting for soldiers, so if a few women hereand there decide to get pregnant and leave the military, there will be plentyof replacements to take their places. It’s possible that the Garrison forcesyou to quit but it’s not looked on so poorly. It’s also possible that if you’rerespected or liked enough, or you know the right people, you might be allowedto keep working doing administrative work. Hey, being a paper-pusher might notpay as well as scouting on top of the walls or cleaning artillery, but at leastit’s work if you need it. And if you’re single: you will. Plus, since yourstation is permanent, you could have your parents move in with you to help withthe kid and maintain a full-time job without too many issues. Hell, because it’snot so terrible a crime, or even a crime at all, you can probably speedily getmarried and avoid too much gossip. (That’s not to say that people aren’t kickedright out of the Garrison for getting pregnant, but there’s probably more roomfor the well-liked and hard-working individuals to stay on after giving birth.The MP are elites and may view pregnancy out of wedlock (possibly also workingwives) as imperfect and therefore not okay. Garrison soldiers are not elitesand don’t have those kinds of delusions or grand appearances to keep up.

That brings me to theSurvey Corps. How many people join only to regret it a few months later? A babyseems a small price to pay compared to being eaten by a titan, trampled, orworse, mangled so badly you’re permanently disabled & discharged from themilitary—left with no way to care for yourself (except to maybe rely onrelatives if you have any to take care of you). Like I said earlier, if havinga baby was a free ticket out of the Survey Corps, people would be trying for iton purpose. There must be rules in place: dishonorable discharge,fraternization rules with stiff penalties, a steep fee you have to pay toleave, you’re forced to stay in the military and give up the baby for adoption.One or several of these would work well.

That said, giving up a babyfor adoption seems fine, but this is a world where the population is both “toosmall” and “way too big” (ugh…). It makes sense in its own way, but there areprobably tons of homeless children out there like Eren, Mikasa, and Armin, who didn’t join the military. There areprobably lots of young women in poverty with babies they can’t take care of,dropping them off at churches and on the porches of slightly better off people—maybeeven at military HQ buildings. That makes that option feel…a lot less likelyIMO.

I want to look at anexample. Let’s say Nanaba and Mike are in a relationship and she finds out thatshe’s pregnant. Now, Mike’s a decent person, right? He won’t deny his role inNanaba’s pregnancy. In that way, she’s luckier than some women would be, butshe still has to tell him, still has to deal with his reaction. It’s her bodybut her options kind of all suck, so it might be nice for her to discuss itwith him and get his opinion, too. How far along does she think she is, howsafe are abortion methods, would she be comfortable aborting, what are theside-effects of trying something like that—arethe risks worth it? If they are, she has to try one of them, and theoutcome could be: hey, she can return to work in a few days (everyone probablyknows why she wasn’t around, tbh). It could also just as easily be: she triesto return to work and can’t due to side-effects of an herbal remedy or becauseher body is too weak, or she hemorrhages and dies within 24 hours, or she doesreturn to work but the side-effects linger and cause her death on an expedition—orworse, they cause someone else’s death.

So maybe she decides tokeep the baby. Mike cares about her, he won’t abandon her to raise a baby alonewith no help, but where is she going to live? With her parent(s)? His? Alone?What if neither of them have living parents? Or, as portrayed in the anime,what if her parent(s) are abusive? Is she going to take her baby back to aplace like that? Does she have much of a choice?

Maybe she does. Maybe Mike’sparents will be happy to have her live with them. Mike can send them money. Heonly gets furlough at most 4x a year so they get to see each other a few timesa year for a few days/a week. This could depend on how far away they live, somaybe Mike uses some savings to move them closer so that visiting can happen onweekends or afternoons off. Cool. Great.

If Mike is 40, his parentsare likely to be 60+ years old and maybe not in the greatest health. This worlddoesn’t exactly allow for easy aging, you know. Are they working? Is Mikepaying all the bills himself? Well, what’ll happen when Mike eventually dies oris hurt so badly he can’t fight anymore and is sent home to die or lay arounduselessly?

Nanaba has to sit at homeand think about that kind of stuff. What if Mike dies? She can’t help him, can’tbe there for him; she’s just at home waiting for the news. It’s possible he’lldie before their kid is very old and won’t remember him at all. How are thebills going to be paid? Are his parents capable of watching the kid if Nanabahas to try and go to work herself?

It’s scary no matter howyou slice it.

And that’s not includingthe potential dishonorable discharge, payment of a high fee for leaving, andpossibly even a paycut for the remaining spouse if they fess up to their rolein it (all of which make raising a baby even more difficult).

You would think thispotential future (or worse, depending on circumstance) would promote abstinence(or at least methods of sex that have no chance for pregnancy)—and it probablydoes…but not in everyone. A lot of people enjoy sex, and mistakes happen; somepeople may just get carried away but others may have too much to drink or lackthe foresight to consider what may happen to them if they do get pregnant.

The problem here is that it’swomen who primarily suffer the consequences of a pregnancy. It’s women who losetheir position in the military. It’s women who can be pushed around or abusedby male peers or superior officers and women who won’t be trusted or believedif they complain. And it sucks, but in the world we’re presented with in the canon…itfits. And it leaves us to wonder how many women this happens to. How many arepassed over for promotion because they’re women (and considered likely toleave/want to leave/or less-than their male counterparts)?

It really makes you think!

I know I didn’t give you adefinitive answer to your question, anon, but I hope that there was enoughspeculation here to help you come up with your own headcanons (while alsogiving you a good idea of what mine might be). ;)

The usual disclaimer: IMO, YMMV, et cetera and so on.

To add, I didn’t really talk a whole lot about pregnancies as a product of rape or of a loving relationship where the man denies his part in it, but a lot of the same things apply. 

Lastly, I don’t want readers to think that men can get away with anything in the SnK world; I don’t actually think that’s the case. But like in our own world, a patriarchal society makes it hard for women to feel safe speaking up, with the result being that very few women do. The problem with SnK is that there aren’t many ways to prove that what you’re saying is true; if you say you’re pregnant, you can’t prove who the father is unless by some miracle that baby comes out looking like them (and that would truly be a mixed blessing anyway). If you’re not a respected officer who will believe you? If you’re accusing a respected officer, or worse, accusing someone who is married with children already, do you think anybody will be on your side? I do think some men are caught in the act, or there is proof of some kind (love letters clearly written  by them); sometimes they’re even brought to court and prosecuted for crimes and fired or sent to jail or fined (and forced to pay some compensation to the mother-to-be in the case of a child). But how often do these things end in favor of the women involved? Probably not often. With rape it’s: “Boys will be boys.” “What were you wearing?” “Well you can’t blame him... you’re a healthy, attractive young woman.” How many women say something and are faced with these kinds of things? In court, even? Women still hear some of these things today. In a modern society. And with men who would choose to run from their responsibilities instead of facing them like an adult, the women involved still have to deal with the emotional betrayal and all of the other fallout. 

It’d be kind of silly to imagine that a fantasy world that clearly functions as a patriarchal society wouldn’t be almost exactly the same in this regard.

[pseudowho]

Operation: Babymaker-- Wet Dreams

When it comes to trying for a baby, Nanami Kento always works overtime. And the reader had better be ready 💛

When the busy days and exhausted nights keep you and Kento apart, things get a little...creative 💛

💜 💛 Part 1 LINK HERE: A Trip to the Tailors

💜 💛 Part 2 LINK HERE: Benchpress

💜 💛 Part 3 LINK HERE: Ditch the Party...again

💜 💛 Part 5 LINK HERE: Honeytrap/Maid Café

💜 💛 Part 6 LINK HERE: Grapple

Warnings: 18+ throughout, breeding kink, fertility/infertility discussion, somnophilia (m receiving and f receiving)

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"I miss you. So much. I'm going to be home so late, I know it."

Kento could picture you now, leant against the wall, the heel of your palm pressed to your forehead, trying to massage away the impending headache. Eyes drifting closed, he sighed, craving you back home.

"I'll wait up for you," Kento assured, smiling as you sighed, feeling that soft breath whisper over his ear instead. You had been gone for days, and Kento had resisted every urge to stroke himself to the thought of you, knowing he should save himself for when you were home.

Images of all that cum, dripping from you, and being pushed back in with his fingers, and the sound of your voice, had his cock swelling embarrassingly fast. Picturing your disappointed face over the last two months, the small pile of negative pregnancy tests, he felt a competitive surge, a challenge. Kento shivered, jaw clenched, cracking his fingers in anticipation.

"And if I do fall asleep," he half-joked, wicked, "do feel free to have your way with me."

A giggle, a hushed moan ("Kento, stop-- you'll give me ideas"), making him twitch against his pyjamas. Kento reached down, trying to squeeze his cock into submission. Hand shaking, hooking himself out of his pyjamas to sit, hot and heavy, leaking onto the honey-blond hair of his belly, Kento begged, low and husky.

"Tell me more," he hummed, edging himself with no intention to finish, stroking his slit with one pre-cum wet thumb, "about those ideas."

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You were right about being late home.

At 2am, you crept through the doorway, stripping all the way to the bathroom, moving seamlessly from front door to shower, finally feeling the grime of the day wash off you in glorious wet heat.

You heard soft snores from your bedroom as you stepped out, hair wrapped and drying. Reaching out to where you knew Kento had left his t-shirt for you-- clean, but with just enough him smell on it to make you feel deliciously his, your face softened at his sleeping form.

Half upright, propped on pillows, Kento's hands rested on a folded book across his chest, face sideways, warm and relaxed in his slumber. You crept over to him, needing to touch him, scratching your nails languidly through his sleep-mussed hair.

Kento groaned, his chest rumbling in his sleep, and you felt a stir of want in your belly to see his hips twitch upwards, as if he were between your legs in his dreams.

Biting your lip between your teeth, remembering your conversation on the phone, you ghosted your hand over Kento's bare navel. Scratching your fingers down his happy trail, you were delighted to see his belly twitch, his eyebrows pinching together.

Possessed, you climbed slowly onto the bed, your hips either side of Kento's knees as you reached into his bedside drawer, retrieving the little remote control vibrator he hid there.

"God, Kento, you're so beautiful," you whispered in the dark, lowering his pyjamas just enough to free him, soft in your hand, "you don't even know it."

Leaning forwards, lightly squeezing Kento's cock, you slipped the vibrator inside your underwear, sliding it between your rapidly wetting folds, switching it on. You hushed your own moan by opening your mouth, and sealing it around Kento's twitching cockhead.

His mouth had dropped open in his sleep, one hand slipped from his chest to fist at the duvet, a shivering gasp in the night. You let the spit collect in your mouth, tonguing his cockhead, wet and warm, sucking the blood to his length. Awash with the eroticism of him hardening, completely unaware, inside your mouth, you rolled your pussy against his legs, using the pressure to rock the vibrator against your clit.

You swiped your tongue around him, feeling him grow between your lips, his tip hitting deeper with each bob of your head around him. You tasted salty pre-cum, licking it down with a swallow, thrilled by his unadulterated twitches, gasps, and slow sandy moans.

Half-hard against the roof of your mouth, you released Kento, and he whimpered in protest, fucking himself up into your spit-wet hand. You were captivated by him, obsessed with the way his body reacted so viscerally; hips twitching, brows furrowed in anguished pleasure, pre-cum dripping out into your hand...

...you could have cum then and there, jerking him off faster and harder to have him spill in your hand. Instead, you slowed, stretching out your tongue to taste him again. Spitty, mewling around his length as you edged yourself with the vibrator humping against his legs, you moved your mouth fluidly as you pictured Kento awake, knuckles deep in your hair while he fucked your mouth.

Solid and throbbing in your mouth now, Kento panted, hair mussed, cheeks flushed as one hand fisted the duvet, and the other reached up behind him to squeeze the pillow, his fingers rolling over something absent mindedly in his dream.

"Is it me?" You whispered against him, painting your lips against his cockhead while Kento shuddered, "Is it me, in your hands? I hope so." You felt his thighs and back twitching rapidly, feeling his impending orgasm, desperate to feel full with him, desperate for the day you could finally surprise him with his morning coffee and two sweet blue lines--

Giving him one final lick as his hips bucked up towards you, you stripped your underwear, holding your vibrator in place as you held his cock upright, rubbing it against your entrance. Kento's gasps were shuddering and desperate now, words ghosting over his lips, his hands shaking, white-knuckle-clenching the sheets.

You quickly lowered yourself, taking his whole length in one smooth drop onto his hips.

"Oh fuck, Kento--" you mewled, not pulling him out at all, rocking him inside you and feeling his tip kiss your deepest walls, already fluttering around him and desperately close to orgasm, "-- feel so good-- so full-- cum inside me please please please--"

You begged him like this as you pleasured yourself on his cock, circling the vibrator over your clit in trembling little movements. Kento mumbled, your name on his lips, teeth gritted as his pleasure began to peak, lost in the wettest dream.

Rutting yourself down onto him, hips wiggling just a little harder to feel him in your belly, Kento grunted, euphoric and convulsing beneath you, and you encouraged it as you came with him, clamping down around him, lost in a blissful haze with his reflexive orgasm inside you.

"Fffuck.. that was amazing," you smiled to yourself, full of admiration to see Kento relax, marshmallow soft and slumped against the pillows. You pressed a kiss to his chest, slipping him out of you with a shiver, legs clamped together, snuggling yourself under his arm as you put his softening cock back into his pyjamas.

You fell asleep like this, ecstatic that you had shared your wicked little ideas with him before you got home.

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Kento woke early, to the birdsong dawn and you, soft and snoring, under his arm. Wakefulness came to him slowly, unsure why he felt sticky inside his pyjamas, why there was a pair of your underwear on his belly, why the vibrator he liked to pin between your legs was now under the covers, pressed against his thigh--

All the puzzling couldn't stop the way his cock answered the question for him, that morning testosterone whoosh making it rock solid against his belly in seconds.

"What have you been up to, you dirty little minx?" Kento whispered, low and conspiratorial as he snaked one arm under your head and neck, the other lazily lifting your leg over his hips as he shucked his pyjamas down, kicking them off.

Kento's other hand grazed down the front of your body, moaning to feel your thighs and pussy, soaking wet and dripping with more than just your arousal.

"Did you fuck me while I slept?" He whispered against your ear, feeling your body squirm against him, far away in your lavender clouds, "How...presumptuous of you. I should rather have been awake." Kento's fingers dipped between your folds, sliding easily into your entrance, fingering you with his own cum. He groaned to feel your walls flutter around him, pressing three fingers into you as you mewled, twisting against him.

Kento laughed softly, deep and sleep-gruff, "Come now...you've had bigger than that," he teased, teeth clenched with the taboo thrill of using you while you slept, "and just a few hours ago, too...shall we fill you up some more?"

Kento was possessed, overtaken by the squelch of his fingers pistoning into your sloppy cunt, biting his lip with husky groans to feel you jolt and wiggle, whining against him. Adding his thumb over your puffy clit, tightening his arm over your neck and chest, Kento felt his cock leap against you as you sank your teeth into his arm, mewling in your sleep.

"Good girl," he encouraged, "we'll fill you up again, hmm? Have you all fucked-out and dripping, all tucked up in bed..." Kento moved his fingers faster, reaching as deeply as he could, pressing against your spongey sweet spot, "...and then I'll make you breakfast...and fuck you some more."

You cried out, twitching weakly as you came, wet and clenching around his hand, and Kento was so far gone, lost in how good you'd feel, all pliable and blissful in his arms. Locking your thigh over his hip, Kento began to push easily into you, clasping you against him with his other arm across your chest.

Feeling you, floppy and sleep-warm against him, had Kento biting into the back of your shoulder, nuzzling and nipping, resting his cock in your tight walls for just long enough to pull himself back from the edge.

"...haaah, darling-- too good...s'too good-- fuck, 'm not letting you out of bed today--"

Kento started to move within you, drunk on the wet drag of himself through you, moaning, shuddering into your neck. He kept this torturous pace, fast enough to feel you shiver with pleasure, and slow enough to keep you from waking.

Kento's hand roamed your body unashamedly; squeezing the soft pouch of your belly, trailing fingertips lazily along stretch marks and cellulite, the softness of your hair, the full plush of your breasts and thighs, rolling your nipples in a way that brought him faint, distant memories of his dreams that night.

Eyes closed, deep in the sensual little cocoon of your bed, Kento whispered dirty little thoughts to you, the sunlight warming his back, casting shadows on his hips as they rolled into you; "--send to you work tomorrow-- haaah, fuck-- cum dripping down your legs-- your panties in my pocket-- lock the staffroom door and-- and--shit--"

Hips stuttering, groaning and burying his nose into your soap-scented hair, Kento came, holding you by the belly as long spurts of seed painted your cervix white. Feeling you shuffle and whimper, Kento bit into you with a growl, instinctively trapping his cock inside you. Grunting as his cock twitched weakly, emptying him of the last few spurts of cum, Kento felt you twist your head towards him, sleepy as you nuzzled the side of his head.

"...mmmm...morning, gorgeous."

Receiving a fractured little groan and hot, fast pants in response, the rest of your body began to wake, and you wiggled with a smile to feel Kento's cock, warm inside you.

"...sorry," offered Kento, sheepish, "...couldn't resist." You giggled, accepting musty morning kisses from him as you pictured him the night before, fast asleep, irresistible, book folded open on his chest.

"I know what you mean. Want to go out for breakfast?" Kento groaned, eyes still closed as he manhandled you onto your back, pressing sloppy kisses onto your face as you giggled, being rocked from side to side.

"Another day," he begged, voice low and persuasive "you're too busy today-- got a baby to make."

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My pussy wrote this, and she hopes you liked it 💛

[nettlestonenell]

@jammeke and I might be having a little nervous breakdown about The Babymakers: Fertile Ground, a wholly fake and not at all going to happen romantic comedy starring Chris Pine and Lucy Griffiths as two wildly attractive people thrown together following some shenanigans at a Toronto fertility clinic.

“Ms. Covington—“ began the lawyer, looking efficient and, in fact, preoccupied (though he was trying his best to hide it).

Perhaps that was how all high-end lawyers looked, she thought. As though they were at present desperately needed elsewhere. “Please, call me Ada. It makes me feel like less of a criminal.”

“Oh, certainly. Certainly! There is no question about your part in this, Ms.—Ada. Your actions have been perfectly legal and above-board. Our client, the Clinic, in no way would wish you to think—“

She interrupted. “You must excuse me, you said we needed to meet, so I have driven into the city to learn whatever it is that could not be dealt with over the telephone. If you could cut to the chase, we are at shearing the alpacas today, and it’s really something of an event at the farm--?”

“We needed to meet to discuss a new, unexpected development,” he said. “Your parking, of course, will be validated. And we would be delighted to provide you with lunch.” There was a pause, during which she did not thank him. “Someone, we believe at the clinic, has leaked Donor #879’s confidential profile.”

“What, his medical records? His test results?”

“His everything,” said the legal clerk that generally occupied the same room as the lawyer, but like a servant on some British costume drama, never spoke, save in hushed tones to the lawyer, and that very seldom.

“Why, that’s horrible, that’s…invasion of privacy. Certainly that must be illegal!” The clerk slid her the document. “What is—why, should I even be looking at this?” She looked at it.

“It’s a matter of public record, now,” the lawyer, as always, sounded eminently reasonable. “And yes, it was an illegal action that will be prosecuted once the source of the leak is discovered.”

She continued to look at it, though not deliberately. “Why, it’s everything but his picture!”

“And that will join it soon enough once TMZ hunts him down.”

Ada’s was distracted, reading through the profile. “Good heavens,” she said under her breath, finding the test scores, the volunteer history, the CV hard to believe. “What, does he also drive a Bugati?”

The legal clerk answered, her tones half-hushed, “actually, he drives a Volkswagen he converted to run off used cooking oil…” The lawyer gives the clerk a stern look.

“Crew, of course!” said Ada, coming to the Athletic section of the profile. “Of course he rowed at university. Di-Did you read this?” she asked the lawyer, “this reads like—like—“

“Every ovulating woman’s fantasy football team rolled into the body of one man?” The legal clerk finishes it for her, earning another hard look from the lawyer.

The lawyer cleared his throat. “He is the top requested donor among the clinic’s clientele seven years and running.”

“I can’t even read the title listed here for his last book.”

“It’s in Dutch,” the law clerk interjected helpfully, her voice half a whisper.

“Dutch?”

“Presumably, the explanation for that is a long story, it’s something about eighteenth century agrarian practices as depicted in the literature of the time--?” the lawyer replied, trying to brush off the detour the meeting had taken. “Nevertheless, we have called you here—“

“To show me,” Ada consulted the paper, finding the name, “Conrad Bierkut’s dossier?”

“No, not at all Ms.—Ada. But to warn you that if #879’s confidential profile has been leaked, it is to be expected that yours will no doubt shortly follow.”

Color rose up on her cheeks. “But what of Garrett—what of my parents?”

A bar, around happy hour. Nearby a university, but an establishment that caters more to faculty than students.

“Well if it isn’t old #879,” says a forty-ish man seated at a table, glass in front of him.

Conrad rolls his eyes, “buy a fella a drink before you call him names like that.”

He takes a seat at the table with his friend Mick.

Mick consults a screen on his phone. “You do look more than a little impressive on paper, Dr. Bierkut,” he says, snarkily. “I’ll give that to you. Do you reckon getting ‘outed’ like this is gonna make women more or less likely to date you? Knowing they could get your ‘high quality’ stuff for free?”

Conrad rolls his eyes. “You always were a sweet talker, Mick.” He takes a drink on the beer that has arrived. He doesn’t look too worn out, but he is a little less talkative than usual.

“I’m not usually glad mom’s gone on,” he says, “But in this case, probably for the best.” He raised his glass to the air in front of him.

“You don’t think she’d handle the news too well?”

He gives Mick the side-eye. “She always wanted grandchildren. It was all she could talk about from the day Julie and I got married—well past the day Julie served me with papers. That, and with what her priest would have to say about it? No. Susan Bierkut would not have handled this news at all well.”

“Internet’s having a field day with it.”

“Always glad to help out.” Conrad toasted with his pilsner.

“You shouldn’t feel too lonely, Connie. Looks like they’ve leaked Female #B34’s as well.” He flashed his screen at Conrad before turning it back to further peruse it.

“I wonder whose documents they paid more for?” Conrad asked the air in front of him, without sounding truly interested.

“They haven’t got a photo to go with it yet, but here she is in black and white—“ Mick told him. “You’ve never met her, not even with all this legal wrangling?”

“The lawyers were trying to preserve our privacy.”

“So much for that. Suppose you two can meet, now. But don’t take her out for steak.”

“Howzat?”

“Vegan, going on fifteen years. Eats nothing but organic. Little high count on the cholesterol, even so.”

“Great. Great news, Mick. Good to know.”

“Says here she’s currently pursuing locating her birth parents in order to provide more accuracy in her family medical history.”

“So she’s adopted.”

“Looks like. Owns and operates her own business. Phi Beta Kappa. Plays bass viol at competition level. Archery team captain at uni.”

“Vio—what?”

“Larger-sized stringed instrument.” Mick shrugs. “Just tryin’ to acquaint you with your baby mama.”

“She is not my baby mama,” it’s starting to get to Conrad now. He’s paying less attention to his drink.

“Well, she’s that baby’s mama. And you’re it’s Poppa. So that has to make her your something.”

Conrad has moved to try and sift through the stack of books, manuscripts, and student papers he brought into the bar along with his satchel. It is a frustrating task, as the pile is constantly trying to get away from him and flutter thud to the floor. ”It makes her another person named in this outlandish legal—whatever. It puts a target on her back, same as mine.”

“Yeah, nevermind,” Mick commiserates. “She’s probably some dried-up, flax-seed loving, ‘no don’t eat that, no don’t wear that, no don’t buy that thing you want from that corporation, what’s the internet’ buzz kill who took the money that clinic paid her to raise six thousand vegetarian cats.”

Trying to right the pile on the table before him one final time, Conrad dissented, “Uh, I don’t have anything against flax seed—“

“Or not,” Mick looked more closely at his screen. “They’ve just posted her photo.” He flashes it to Conrad, who grabs it away from him, with intent to power it down.

“Cut it ou—“ his eyes inadvertently go to the on-screen image. “Aw, man,” he shakes his head, as too late he has seen the image.

Mick whistles. “That’s gotta be one pretty little baby.” 

*There may also be a scene in the script at a point following this where Conrad and Ada get stuck in an elevator on their way to see the lawyers (separately) and they spend the whole time trying to pretend they don’t know who the other is.

[jennifertple]

Quite a reading. I saved the link from my cousin and promise myself to read it when I have time. Since I just got a broken relationship, I know it’s not the right time to read it but .... 

Hey, guess what? I got married two weeks ago. And like most people, I asked some of the older and wiser folks around me for a couple quick words of advice from their own marriages to make sure my wife and I didn’t shit the (same) bed. I think most newlyweds do this, especially after a few cocktails from the open bar they just paid way too much money for.

But, of course, not being satisfied with just a few wise words, I had to take it a step further.

See, I have access to hundreds of thousands of smart, amazing people through my site. So why not consult them? Why not ask them for their best relationship/marriage advice? Why not synthesize all of their wisdom and experience into something straightforward and immediately applicable to any relationship, no matter who you are?

Why not crowdsource THE ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP GUIDE TO END ALL RELATIONSHIP GUIDES™ from the sea of smart and savvy partners and lovers here?

So, that’s what I did. I sent out the call the week before my wedding: anyone who has been married for 10+ years and is still happy in their relationship, what lessons would you pass down to others if you could? What is working for you and your partner? And if you’re divorced, what didn’t work previously?

The response was overwhelming. Almost 1,500 people replied, many of whom sent in responses measured in pages, not paragraphs. It took almost two weeks to comb through them all, but I did. And what I found stunned me…

They were incredibly repetitive.

That’s not an insult or anything. Actually, it’s kind of the opposite. These were all smart and well-spoken people from all walks of life, from all around the world, all with their own histories, tragedies, mistakes, and triumphs…

And yet they were all saying pretty much the same dozen things.

Which means that those dozen or so things must be pretty damn important… and more importantly, they work.

Here’s what they are:

1. Be together for the right reasons

Don’t ever be with someone because someone else pressured you to. I got married the first time because I was raised Catholic and that’s what you were supposed to do. Wrong. I got married the second time because I was miserable and lonely and thought having a loving wife would fix everything for me. Also wrong. Took me three tries to figure out what should have been obvious from the beginning, the only reason you should ever be with the person you’re with is because you simply love being around them. It really is that simple. – Greg

Before we even get into what you should do in your relationship, let’s start with what not to do.

When I sent out my request to readers for advice, I added a caveat that turned out to be illuminating. I asked people who were on their second or third (or fourth) marriages what they did wrong. Where did they mess up?

By far, the most common answer was “being with the person for the wrong reasons.”

Some of these wrong reasons included:

Pressure from friends and family

Feeling like a “loser” because they were single and settling for the first person that came along

Being together for image—because the relationship looked good on paper (or in photos), not because the two people actually admired each other

Being young and naive and hopelessly in love and thinking that love would solve everything

As we’ll see throughout the rest of this article, everything that makes a relationship “work” (and by work, I mean that it is happy and sustainable for both people involved) requires a genuine, deep-level admiration for each other. Without that mutual admiration, everything else will unravel.

The other “wrong” reason to enter into a relationship is, like Greg said, to “fix” yourself. This desire to use the love of someone else to soothe your own emotional problems inevitably leads to codependence, an unhealthy and damaging dynamic between two people where they tacitly agree to use each other’s love as a distraction from their own self-loathing. We’ll get more into codependence later in this article, but for now, it’s useful to point out that love, itself, is neutral. It is something that can be both healthy or unhealthy, helpful or harmful, depending on why and how you love someone else and are loved by someone else. By itself, love is never enough to sustain a relationship.

2. Have realistic expectations about relationships and romance

You are absolutely not going to be absolutely gaga over each other every single day for the rest of your lives, and all this “happily ever after” bullshit is just setting people up for failure. They go into relationship with these unrealistic expectations. Then, the instant they realize they aren’t “gaga” anymore, they think the relationship is broken and over, and they need to get out. No! There will be days, or weeks, or maybe even longer, when you aren’t all mushy-gushy in-love. You’re even going to wake up some morning and think, “Ugh, you’re still here….” That’s normal! And more importantly, sticking it out is totally worth it, because that, too, will change. In a day, or a week, or maybe even longer, you’ll look at that person and a giant wave of love will inundate you, and you’ll love them so much you think your heart can’t possibly hold it all and is going to burst. Because a love that’s alive is also constantly evolving. It expands and contracts and mellows and deepens. It’s not going to be the way it used to be, or the way it will be, and it shouldn’t be. I think if more couples understood that, they’d be less inclined to panic and rush to break up or divorce. – Paula

Love is a funny thing. In ancient times, people genuinely considered love a sickness. Parents warned their children against it, and adults quickly arranged marriages before their children were old enough to do something dumb in the name of their emotions.

That’s because love, while making us feel all giddy and high as if we had just snorted a shoebox full of cocaine, makes us highly irrational. We all know that guy (or girl) who dropped out of school, sold their car, and spent the money to elope on the beaches of Tahiti. We all also know that that guy (or girl) ended up sulking back a few years later feeling like a moron, not to mention broke. That’s unbridled love. It’s nature’s way of tricking us into doing insane and irrational things to procreate with another person—probably because if we stopped to think about the repercussions of having kids, and being with the same person forever and ever, no one would ever do it. As Robin Williams used to joke, “God gave man a brain and a penis and only enough blood to operate one at a time.”

Romantic love is a trap designed to get two people to overlook each other’s faults long enough to get some babymaking done. It generally only lasts for a few years at most. That dizzying high you get staring into your lover’s eyes as if they are the stars that make up the heavens—yeah, that mostly goes away. It does for everybody. So, once it’s gone, you need to know that you’ve buckled yourself down with a human being you genuinely respect and enjoy being with, otherwise things are going to get rocky.

True love—that is, deep, abiding love that is impervious to emotional whims or fancy—is a choice. It’s a constant commitment to a person regardless of the present circumstances. It’s a commitment to a person who you understand isn’t going to always make you happy—nor should they!—and a person who will need to rely on you at times, just as you will rely on them.

That form of love is much harder. Primarily because it often doesn’t feel very good. It’s unglamorous. It’s lots of early morning doctor’s visits. It’s cleaning up bodily fluids you’d rather not be cleaning up. It’s dealing with another person’s insecurities and fears and ideas, even when you don’t want to.

But this form of love is also far more satisfying and meaningful. And, at the end of the day, it brings true happiness, not just another series of highs.

Happily Ever After doesn’t exist. Every day you wake up and decide to love your partner and your life—the good, the bad and the ugly. Some days it’s a struggle and some days you feel like the luckiest person in the world.

– Tara

Many people never learn how to breach this deep, unconditional love. Many people are instead addicted to the ups and downs of romantic love. They are in it for the feels, so to speak. And when the feels run out, so do they. Many people get into a relationship as a way to compensate for something they lack or hate within themselves. This is a one-way ticket to a toxic relationship because it makes your love conditional—you will love your partner as long as they help you feel better about yourself. You will give to them as long as they give to you. You will make them happy as long as they make you happy.

This conditionality prevents any true, deep-level intimacy from emerging and chains the relationship to the bucking throes of each person’s internal dramas.

3. The most important factor in a relationship is not communication, but respect

What I can tell you is the #1 thing, most important above all else is respect. It’s not sexual attraction, looks, shared goals, religion or lack of, nor is it love. There are times when you won’t feel love for your partner. That is the truth. But you never want to lose respect for your partner. Once you lose respect you will never get it back. – Laurie As we scanned through the hundreds of responses we received, my assistant and I began to notice an interesting trend.

People who had been through divorces and/or had only been with their partners for 10-15 years almost always talked about communication being the most important part of making things work. Talk frequently. Talk openly. Talk about everything, even if it hurts.

And there is some merit to that (which I’ll get to later).

But we noticed that the thing people with marriages going on 20, 30, or even 40 years talked about most was respect.

My sense is that these people, through sheer quantity of experience, have learned that communication, no matter how open, transparent and disciplined, will always break down at some point. Conflicts are ultimately unavoidable, and feelings will always be hurt.

And the only thing that can save you and your partner, that can cushion you both to the hard landing of human fallibility, is an unerring respect for one another, the fact that you hold each other in high esteem, believe in one another—often more than you each believe in yourselves—and trust that your partner is doing his/her best with what they’ve got.

Without that bedrock of respect underneath you, you will doubt each other’s intentions. You will judge their choices and encroach on their independence. You will feel the need to hide things from one another for fear of criticism. And this is when the cracks in the edifice begin to appear.

My husband and I have been together 15 years this winter. I’ve thought a lot about what seems to be keeping us together, while marriages around us crumble (seriously, it’s everywhere… we seem to be at that age). The one word that I keep coming back to is “respect.” Of course, this means showing respect, but that is too superficial. Just showing it isn’t enough. You have to feel it deep within you. I deeply and genuinely respect him for his work ethic, his patience, his creativity, his intelligence, and his core values. From this respect comes everything else—trust, patience, perseverance (because sometimes life is really hard and you both just have to persevere). I want to hear what he has to say (even if I don’t agree with him) because I respect his opinion. I want to enable him to have some free time within our insanely busy lives because I respect his choices of how he spends his time and who he spends time with. And, really, what this mutual respect means is that we feel safe sharing our deepest, most intimate selves with each other. – Nicole

You must also respect yourself. Just as your partner must also respect his/herself. Because without that self-respect, you will not feel worthy of the respect afforded by your partner. You will be unwilling to accept it and you will find ways to undermine it. You will constantly feel the need to compensate and prove yourself worthy of love, which will just backfire.

Respect for your partner and respect for yourself are intertwined. As a reader named Olov put it, “Respect yourself and your wife. Never talk badly to or about her. If you don’t respect your wife, you don’t respect yourself. You chose her—live up to that choice.”

So what does respect look like?

Common examples given by many readers:

NEVER talk shit about your partner or complain about them to your friends. If you have a problem with your partner, you should be having that conversation with them, not with your friends. Talking bad about them will erode your respect for them and make you feel worse about being with them, not better.

Respect that they have different hobbies, interests, and perspectives from you. Just because you would spend your time and energy differently, doesn’t mean it’s better/worse.

Respect that they have an equal say in the relationship, that you are a team, and if one person on the team is not happy, then the team is not succeeding.

No secrets. If you’re really in this together and you respect one another, everything should be fair game. Have a crush on someone else? Discuss it. Laugh about it. Had a weird sexual fantasy that sounds ridiculous? Be open about it. Nothing should be off-limits.

Respect goes hand-in-hand with trust. And trust is the lifeblood of any relationship (romantic or otherwise). Without trust, there can be no sense of intimacy or comfort. Without trust, your partner will become a liability in your mind, something to be avoided and analyzed, not a protective homebase for your heart and your mind.

4. Talk openly about everything, especially the stuff that hurts

We always talk about what’s bothering us with each other, not anyone else! We have so many friends who are in marriages that are not working well and they tell me all about what is wrong. I can’t help them, they need to be talking to their spouse about this, that’s the only person who can help them figure it out. If you can figure out a way to be able to always talk with your spouse about what’s bugging you then you can work on the issue. – Ronnie

There can be no secrets. Secrets divide you. Always. – Tracey

I receive hundreds of emails from readers each week asking for life advice. A large percentage of these emails involve their struggling romantic relationships.

(These emails, too, are surprisingly repetitive.)

A couple years ago, I discovered that I was answering the vast majority of these relationship emails with the exact same response.

“Take this email you just sent to me, print it out, and show it to your partner. Then come back and ask again.”

This response became so common that I actually put it on my contact form on the site because I was so tired of copying and pasting it.

If something bothers you in the relationship, you must be willing to say it. Saying it builds trust and trust builds intimacy. It may hurt, but you still need to do it. No one else can fix your relationship for you. Nor should anyone else. Just as causing pain to your muscles allows them to grow back stronger, often introducing some pain into your relationship through vulnerability is the only way to make the relationship stronger.

Behind respect, trust was the most commonly mentioned trait for a healthy relationship. Most people mentioned it in the context of jealousy and fidelity—trust your partner to go off on their own, don’t get insecure or angry if you see them talking with someone else, etc.

But trust goes much deeper than that. Because when you’re really talking about the long-haul, you start to get into some serious life-or-death shit. If you ended up with cancer tomorrow, would you trust your partner to stick with you and take care of you? Would you trust your partner to care for your child for a week by themselves? Do you trust them to handle your money or make sound decisions under pressure? Do you trust them to not turn on you or blame you when you make mistakes?

These are hard things to do. And they’re even harder to think about early on in a relationship. Trust at the beginning of a relationship is easy. It’s like, “Oh, I forgot my phone at her apartment, I trust her not to sell it and buy crack with the money… I think.”

But the deeper the commitment, the more intertwined your lives become, and the more you will have to trust your partner to act in your interest in your absence.

There’s an old Ben Folds song where he sings, “It seems to me if you cannot trust, you cannot be trusted.” Distrust has a tendency to breed distrust. If your partner is always snooping through your stuff, accusing you of doing things you didn’t do, and questioning all of your decisions, naturally, you will start to question their intentions as well—Why is she so insecure? What if she is hiding something herself?

The key to fostering and maintaining trust in the relationship is for both partners to be completely transparent and vulnerable:

If something is bothering you, say something. This is important not only for addressing issues as they arise, but it proves to your partner that you have nothing to hide.

Those icky, insecure things you hate sharing with people? Share them with your partner. Not only is it healing, but you and your partner need to have a good understanding of each other’s insecurities and the way you each choose to compensate for them.

Make promises and then stick to them. The only way to truly rebuild trust after it’s been broken is through a proven track record over time. You cannot build that track record until you own up to previous mistakes and set about correcting them.

Learn to discern your partner’s own shady behavior from your own insecurities (and vice-versa). This is hard and will likely require confrontation to get to the bottom of. But in most relationship fights, one person thinks something is completely “normal” and the other thinks it’s really grade-A “fucked up.” It’s often extremely hard to distinguish who is being irrational and insecure and who is being reasonable and merely standing up for themselves. Be patient in rooting out what’s what, and when it’s your big, gnarly insecurity (and sometimes it will be, trust me), be honest about it. Own up to it. And strive to be better.

Trust is like a china plate. If you drop it and it breaks, you can put it back together with a lot of work and care. If you drop it and break it a second time, it will split into twice as many pieces and it will require far more time and care to put back together again. But drop and break it enough times, and it will shatter into so many pieces that you will never be able to put it back together again, no matter what you do.

5. A healthy relationship means two healthy individuals

Understand that it is up to you to make yourself happy, it is NOT the job of your spouse. I am not saying you shouldn’t do nice things for each other, or that your partner can’t make you happy sometimes. I am just saying don’t lay expectations on your partner to “make you happy.” It is not their responsibility. Figure out as individuals what makes you happy as an individual, be happy yourself, then you each bring that to the relationship. – Mandy

A lot is made about “sacrifices” in a relationship. You are supposed to keep the relationship happy by consistently sacrificing yourself for your partner and their wants and needs.

There is some truth to that. Every relationship requires each person to consciously choose to give something up at times.

But the problem is when all of the relationship’s happiness is contingent on the other person and both people are in a constant state of sacrifice. Just read that again. That sounds horrible. It reminds me of an old Marilyn Manson song, “Shoot myself to love you; if I loved myself, I’d be shooting you.” A relationship based on sacrifices cannot be sustained, and will eventually become damaging to both individuals in it.

Shitty, codependent relationships have an inherent stability because you’re both locked in an implicit bargain to tolerate the other person’s bad behavior because they’re tolerating yours, and neither of you wants to be alone. On the surface, it seems like “compromising in relationships because that’s what people do,” but the reality is that resentments build up, and both parties become the other person’s emotional hostage against having to face and deal with their own bullshit (it took me 14 years to realize this, by the way). – Karen

A healthy and happy relationship requires two healthy and happy individuals. Keyword here: “individuals.” That means two people with their own identities, their own interests and perspectives, and things they do by themselves, on their own time.

This is why attempting to control your partner (or submitting control over yourself to your partner) to make them “happy” ultimately backfires—it allows the individual identities of each person to be destroyed, the very identities that attracted each person and brought them together in the first place.

Don’t try to change them. This is the person you chose. They were good enough to marry so don’t expect them to change now. – Allison

Don’t ever give up who you are for the person you’re with. It will only backfire and make you both miserable. Have the courage to be who you are, and most importantly, let your partner be who they are. Those are the two people who fell in love with each other in the first place. – Dave

But how does one do this? Well, it’s a bit counterintuitive. But it’s something hundreds and hundreds of successful couples echoed in their emails…

6. Give each other space

Be sure you have a life of your own, otherwise it is harder to have a life together. What do I mean? Have your own interests, your own friends, your own support network, and your own hobbies. Overlap where you can, but not being identical should give you something to talk about and expose one another to. It helps to expand your horizons as a couple, but isn’t so boring as both living the exact same life. – Anonymous

Among the emails, one of the most popular themes was the importance of creating space and separation from one another.

People sung the praises of separate checking accounts, separate credit cards, having different friends and hobbies, taking separate vacations from one another each year (this has been a big one in my own relationship). Some even went so far as to recommend separate bathrooms or even separate bedrooms.

Some people are afraid to give their partner freedom and independence. This comes from a lack of trust and/or insecurity that if we give our partner too much space, they will discover they don’t want to be with us anymore. Generally, the more uncomfortable we are with our own worthiness in the relationship and to be loved, the more we will try to control the relationship and our partner’s behaviors.

BUT, more importantly, this inability to let our partners be who they are, is a subtle form of disrespect. After all, if you can’t trust your husband to have a simple golfing trip with his buddies, or you’re afraid to let your wife go out for drinks after work, what does that say about your respect for their ability to handle themselves well? What does it say for your respect for yourself? I mean, after all, if you believe a couple after-work drinks is enough to steer your girlfriend away from you, you clearly don’t think too highly of yourself.

Going on seventeen years. If you love your partner enough you will let them be who they are, you don’t own them, who they hang with, what they do or how they feel. Drives me nuts when I see women not let their husbands go out with the guys or are jealous of other women. – Natalie

7. You and your partner will grow and change in unexpected ways; embrace it

Over the course of 20 years we both have changed tremendously. We have changed faiths, political parties, numerous hair colors and styles, but we love each other and possibly even more. Our grown kids constantly tell their friends what hopeless romantics we are. And the biggest thing that keeps us strong is not giving a fuck about what anyone else says about our relationship. – Dotti

One theme that came up repeatedly, especially with those married 20+ years, was how much each individual changes as the decades roll on, and how ready each of you have to be to embrace the other partner as these changes occur. One reader commented that at her wedding, an elderly family member told her, “One day many years from now, you will wake up and your spouse will be a different person, make sure you fall in love with that person too.”

It logically follows that if there is a bedrock of respect for each individual’s interest and values underpinning the relationship, and each individual is encouraged to foster their own growth and development, that each person will, as time goes on, evolve in different and unexpected ways. It’s then up to the couple to communicate and make sure that they are consistently a) aware of the changes going on in their partner, and b) continually accepting and respecting those changes as they occur.

Now, you’re probably reading this and thinking, “Sure, Bill likes sausage now, but in a few years he might prefer steak. I can get on board with that.”

No, I’m talking some pretty serious life changes. Remember, if you’re going to spend decades together, some really heavy shit will hit (and break) the fan. Among major life changes people told me their marriages went through (and survived): changing religions, moving countries, death of family members (including children), supporting elderly family members, changing political beliefs, even changing sexual orientation, and in a couple cases, gender identification.

Amazingly, these couples survived because their respect for each other allowed them to adapt and allow each person to continue to flourish and grow. When you commit to someone, you don’t actually know who you’re committing to. You know who they are today, but you have no idea who this person is going to be in five years, ten years, and so on. You have to be prepared for the unexpected, and truly ask yourself if you admire this person regardless of the superficial (or not-so-superficial) details, because I promise almost all of them at some point are going to either change or go away.– Michael

But this isn’t easy, of course. In fact, at times, it will be downright soul-destroying.

Which is why you need to make sure you and your partner know how to fight.

8. Get good at fighting

The relationship is a living, breathing thing. Much like the body and muscles, it cannot get stronger without stress and challenge. You have to fight. You have to hash things out. Obstacles make the marriage. – Ryan Saplan

John Gottman is a hot-shit psychologist and researcher who has spent over 30 years analyzing married couples and looking for keys to why they stick together and why they break up. Chances are, if you’ve read any relationship advice article before, you’ve either directly or indirectly been exposed to his work. When it comes to, “Why do people stick together?” he dominates the field.

What Gottman does is he gets married couples in a room, puts some cameras on them, and then he asks them to have a fight.

Notice: he doesn’t ask them to talk about how great the other person is. He doesn’t ask them what they like best about their relationship.

He asks them to fight. Pick something they’re having problems with and talk about it for the camera.

And from simply analyzing the film for the couple’s discussion (or shouting match, whatever), he’s able to predict with startling accuracy whether a couple will divorce or not.

But what’s most interesting about Gottman’s research is that the things that lead to divorce are not necessarily what you think. Successful couples, like unsuccessful couples, he found, fight consistently. And some of them fight furiously.

He has been able to narrow down four characteristics of a couple that tend to lead to divorces (or breakups). He has gone on and called these “the four horsemen” of the relationship apocalypse in his books. They are:

Criticizing your partner’s character (“You’re so stupid” vs “That thing you did was stupid”)

Defensiveness (or basically, blame shifting, “I wouldn’t have done that if you weren’t late all the time”)

Contempt (putting down your partner and making them feel inferior)

Stonewalling (withdrawing from an argument and ignoring your partner)

The reader emails back this up as well. Out of the 1,500-some-odd emails, almost every single one referenced the importance of dealing with conflicts well.

Advice given by readers included:

Never insult or name-call your partner. Put another way: hate the sin, love the sinner. Gottman’s research found that “contempt”—belittling and demeaning your partner—is the number one predictor of divorce.

Do not bring previous fights/arguments into current ones. This solves nothing and just makes the fight twice as bad as it was before. Yeah, you forgot to pick up groceries on the way home, but what does him being rude to your mother last Thanksgiving have to do with anything?

If things get too heated, take a breather. Remove yourself from the situation and come back once emotions have cooled off a bit. This is a big one for me personally—sometimes when things get intense with my wife, I get overwhelmed and just leave for a while. I usually walk around the block two or three times and let myself seethe for about 15 minutes. Then I come back and we’re both a bit calmer and we can resume the discussion with a much more conciliatory tone.

Remember that being “right” is not as important as both people feeling respected and heard. You may be right, but if you are right in such a way that makes your partner feel unloved, then there’s no real winner.

But all of this takes for granted another important point: be willing to fight in the first place.

I think when people talk about the necessity for “good communication” all of the time (a vague piece of advice that everyone says but few people seem to actually clarify what it means), this is what they mean: be willing to have the uncomfortable talks. Be willing to have the fights. Say the ugly things and get it all out in the open.

This was a constant theme from the divorced readers. Dozens (hundreds?) of them had more or less the same sad story to tell:

But there’s no way on God’s Green Earth this is her fault alone. There were times when I saw huge red flags. Instead of trying to figure out what in the world was wrong, I just plowed ahead. I’d buy more flowers, or candy, or do more chores around the house. I was a “good” husband in every sense of the word. But what I wasn’t doing was paying attention to the right things. She wasn’t telling me there wasn’t a problem but there was. And instead of saying something, I ignored all of the signals.

– Jim

9. Get good at forgiving

When you end up being right about something—shut up. You can be right and be quiet at the same time. Your partner will already know you’re right and will feel loved knowing that you didn’t wield it like a bastard sword. – Brian

In marriage, there’s no such thing as winning an argument. – Bill

To me, perhaps the most interesting nugget from Gottman’s research is the fact that most successful couples don’t actually resolve all of their problems. In fact, his findings were completely backwards from what most people actually expect: people in lasting and happy relationships have problems that never completely go away, while couples that feel as though they need to agree and compromise on everything end up feeling miserable and falling apart.

To me, like everything else, this comes back to the respect thing. If you have two different individuals sharing a life together, it’s inevitable that they will have different values and perspectives on some things and clash over it. The key here is not changing the other person—as the desire to change your partner is inherently disrespectful (to both them and yourself)—but rather it’s to simply abide by the difference, love them despite it, and when things get a little rough around the edges, to forgive them for it.

Everyone says that compromise is key, but that’s not how my husband and I see it. It’s more about seeking understanding. Compromise is bullshit, because it leaves both sides unsatisfied, losing little pieces of themselves in an effort to get along. On the other hand, refusing to compromise is just as much of a disaster, because you turn your partner into a competitor (“I win, you lose”). These are the wrong goals, because they’re outcome-based rather than process-based. When your goal is to find out where your partner is coming from—to truly understand on a deep level—you can’t help but be altered by the process. Conflict becomes much easier to navigate because you see more of the context. – Michelle

I’ve written for years that the key to happiness is not achieving your lofty dreams, or experiencing some dizzying high, but rather finding the struggles and challenges that you enjoy enduring.

A similar concept seems to be true in relationships: your perfect partner is not someone who creates no problems in the relationship, rather your perfect partner is someone who creates problems in the relationship that you feel good about dealing with.

But how do you get good at forgiving? What does that actually mean? Again, some advice from the readers:

When an argument is over, it’s over. Some couples went as far as to make this the golden rule in their relationship. When you’re done fighting, it doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong, it doesn’t matter if someone was mean and someone was nice. It’s over. It’s in the past. And you both agree to leave it there, not bring it up every month for the next three years.

There’s no scoreboard. No one is trying to “win” here. There’s no, “You owe me this because you screwed up the laundry last week.” There’s no, “I’m always right about financial stuff, so you should listen to me.” There’s no, “I bought her three gifts and she only did me one favor.” Everything in the relationship is given and done unconditionally—that is: without expectation or manipulation.

When your partner screws up, you separate the intentions from the behavior. You recognize the things you love and admire in your partner and understand that he/she was simply doing the best that they could, yet messed up out of ignorance. Not because they’re a bad person. Not because they secretly hate you and want to divorce you. Not because there’s somebody else in the background pulling them away from you. They are a good person. That’s why you are with them. If you ever lose your faith in that, then you will begin to erode your faith in yourself.

And finally, pick your battles wisely. You and your partner only have so many fucks to give, make sure you both are saving them for the real things that matter.

Been happily married 40+ years. One piece of advice that comes to mind: choose your battles. Some things matter, worth getting upset about. Most do not. Argue over the little things and you’ll find yourself arguing endlessly; little things pop up all day long, it takes a toll over time. Like Chinese water torture: minor in the short term, corrosive over time. Consider: is this a little thing or a big thing? Is it worth the cost of arguing?

– Fred

10. The little things add up to big things

If you don’t take the time to meet for lunch, go for a walk or go out to dinner and a movie with some regularity then you basically end up with a roommate. Staying connected through life’s ups and downs is critical. Eventually your kids grow up, your obnoxious brother-in-law will join a monastery and your parents will die. When that happens, guess who’s left? You got it… Mr./Mrs. Right! You don’t want to wake up 20 years later and be staring at a stranger because life broke the bonds you formed before the shitstorm started. You and your partner need to be the eye of the hurricane. – Brian

Of the 1,500 responses I got, I’d say about half of them mentioned at some point or another one simple but effective piece of advice: Don’t ever stop doing the little things. They add up.

Things as simple as saying, “I love you,” before going to bed, holding hands during a movie, doing small favors here and there, helping with some household chores. Even cleaning up when you accidentally pee on the toilet seat (seriously, someone said that)—these things all matter and add up over the long run.

The same way Fred, married for 40+ years, stated above that arguing over small things consistently wears you both down, “like Chinese water torture,” so do the little favors and displays of affection add up. Don’t lose them.

This seems to become particularly important once kids enter the picture. The big message I heard hundreds of times about kids: put the marriage first.

Children are worshipped in our culture these days. Parents are expected to sacrifice everything for them. But the best way to raise healthy and happy kids is to maintain a healthy and happy marriage. Good kids don’t make a good marriage. A good marriage makes good kids. So keep your marriage the top priority. – Susan

Readers implored to maintain regular “date nights,” to plan weekend getaways and to make time for sex, even when you’re tired, even when you’re stressed and exhausted and the baby is crying, even when Junior has soccer practice at 5:30am the next day. Make time for it. It’s worth it.

Oh, and speaking of sex…

11. Sex matters… a LOT

And you know how you know if you or her are slipping? Sex starts to slide. Period. No other test required. – Anonymous

I still remember back in college, it was one of my first relationships with a cute little redhead. We were young and naive and crazy about each other. And, because we happened to live in the same dorm, we were banging like rabbits. It was everything a 19-year-old male could ask for.

Then after a month or two, we hit our first “rough patch” in the relationship. We fought more often, found ourselves getting annoyed with each other, and suddenly our multiple-times-per-day habit magically dried up. And it wasn’t just with her, but with me. To my surprised adolescent male mind, it was actually possible to have sex available to you yet not want it.

It was almost as if sex was connected to emotions! For a dumb 19-year-old, this was a complete shocker.

That was the first time I discovered a truth about relationships: sex is the State of the Union. If the relationship is good, the sex will be good. You both will be wanting it and enjoying it. When the relationship is bad—when there are unresolved problems and unaddressed negative emotions—then the sex will often be the first thing to go out the window.

This was reiterated to me hundreds of times in the emails. The nature of the sex itself varied quite a bit among couples—some couples take sexual experimentation seriously, others are staunch believers in frequency, others get way into fantasies—but the underlying principle was the same everywhere: both partners should be sexually satisfied as often as possible.

But sex not only keeps the relationship healthy, many readers suggested that they use it to heal their relationships. That when things are a bit frigid between them or that they have some problems going on, a lot of stress, or other issues (i.e., kids), they even go so far as to schedule sexy time for themselves. They say it’s important. And it’s worth it.

A few people even said that when things start to feel stale in the relationship, they agree to have sex every day for a week. Then, as if by magic, by the next week, they feel great again.

12. Be practical, and create relationship rules

There is no 50/50 in housecleaning, child rearing, vacation planning, dishwasher emptying, gift buying, dinner making, money making, etc. The sooner everyone accepts that, the happier everyone is. We all have things we like to do and hate to do; we all have things we are good at and not so good at. TALK to your partner about those things when it comes to dividing and conquering all the crap that has to get done in life. – Liz

Everyone has an image in their mind of how a relationship should work. Both people share responsibilities. Both people manage to finely balance their time together with the time for themselves. Both pursue engaging and invigorating interests on their own and then share the benefits together. Both take turns cleaning the toilet and blowing each other and cooking gourmet lasagna for the extended family at Thanksgiving (although not all at the same time).

Then there’s how relationships actually work.

Messy. Stressful. Miscommunication flying everywhere so that both of you feel as though you’re in a perpetual state of talking to a wall.

The fact is relationships are imperfect, messy affairs. And it’s for the simple reason that they’re comprised of imperfect, messy people—people who want different things at different times in different ways and oh, they forgot to tell you? Well, maybe if you had been listening, asshole.

The common theme of the advice here was “Be pragmatic.” If the wife is a lawyer and spends 50 hours at the office every week, and the husband is an artist and can work from home most days, it makes more sense for him to handle most of the day-to-day parenting duties. If the wife’s standard of cleanliness looks like a Home & Garden catalog, and the husband has gone six months without even noticing the light fixture hanging from the ceiling, then it makes sense that the wife handles more of the home cleaning duties.

It’s economics 101: division of labor makes everyone better off. Figure out what you are each good at, what you each love/hate doing, and then arrange accordingly. My wife loves cleaning (no, seriously), but she hates smelly stuff. So guess who gets dishes and garbage duty? Me. Because I don’t give a fuck. I’ll eat off the same plate seven times in a row. I couldn’t smell a dead rat even if it was sleeping under my pillow. I’ll toss garbage around all day. Here honey, let me get that for you.

On top of that, many couples suggested laying out rules for the relationship. This sounds cheesy, but ultimately, it’s practical. To what degree will you share finances? How much debt will be taken on or paid off? How much can each person spend without consulting the other? What purchases should be done together or do you trust each other to do separately? How do you decide which vacations to go on?

Have meetings about this stuff. Sure, it’s not sexy or cool, but it needs to get done. You’re sharing a life together and so you need to plan and account for each person’s needs and resources.

One person even said that she and her husband have “annual reviews” every year. She immediately told me not to laugh, but that she was serious. They have annual reviews where they discuss everything that’s going on in the household that they like and don’t like and what they can do in the coming year to change it. This sort of stuff sounds lame but it’s what keeps couples in touch with what’s going on with each other. And because they always have their fingers on the pulse of each other’s needs, they’re more likely to grow together rather than grow apart.

13. Learn to ride the waves

I have been married for 44 years (4 children, 6 grandchildren). I think the most important thing that I have learned in those years is that the love you feel for each other is constantly changing. Sometimes you feel a deep love and satisfaction, other times you want nothing to do with your spouse; sometimes you laugh together, sometimes you’re screaming at each other. It’s like a roller-coaster ride, ups and downs all the time, but as you stay together long enough the downs become less severe and the ups are more loving and contented. So even if you feel like you could never love your partner any more, that can change, if you give it a chance. I think people give up too soon. You need to be the kind of person that you want your spouse to be. When you do that it makes a world of difference. – Chris

Out of the hundreds of analogies I saw these past few weeks, one stuck with me. A nurse emailed saying that she used to work with a lot of geriatric patients. And one day she was talking to a man in his late-80s about marriage and why his had lasted so long. The man said something like, “relationships exist as waves, people need to learn how to ride them.” Upon asking him to explain, he said that, like the ocean, there are constant waves of emotion going on within a relationship, ups and downs—some waves last for hours, some last for months or even years. The key is understanding that few of those waves have anything to do with the quality of the relationship—people lose jobs, family members die, couples relocate, switch careers, make a lot of money, lose a lot of money. Your job as a committed partner is to simply ride the waves with the person you love, regardless of where they go. Because ultimately, none of these waves last. And you simply end up with each other.

Two years ago, I suddenly began resenting my wife for any number of reasons. I felt as if we were floating along, doing a great job of co-existing and co-parenting, but not sustaining a real connection. It deteriorated to the point that I considered separating from her; however, whenever I gave the matter intense thought, I could not pinpoint a single issue that was a deal breaker. I knew her to be an amazing person, mother, and friend. I bit my tongue a lot and held out hope that the malaise would pass as suddenly as it had arrived. Fortunately, it did and I love her more than ever. So the final bit of wisdom is to afford your spouse the benefit of the doubt. If you have been happy for such a long period, that is the case for good reason. Be patient and focus on the many aspects of her that still exist that caused you to fall in love in the first place. – Kevin

I’d like to take a moment to thank all of the readers who took the time to write something and send it to me. As always, it was humbling to see all of the wisdom and life experience out there. There were many, many, many excellent responses, with kind, heartfelt advice. It was hard to choose the ones that ended up here, and in many cases, I could have put a dozen different quotes that said almost the exact same thing.

Exercises like this always amaze me because when you ask thousands of people for advice on something, you expect to receive thousands of different answers. But in both cases now, the vast majority of the advice has largely been the same. It shows you how similar we really are. And how no matter how bad things may get, we are never as alone as we think.

I would end this by summarizing the advice in one tidy section. But once again, a reader named Margo did it far better than I ever could. So we’ll end with Margo:

You can work through anything as long as you are not destroying yourself or each other. That means emotionally, physically, financially, or spiritually. Make nothing off limits to discuss. Never shame or mock each other for the things you do that make you happy. Write down why you fell in love and read it every year on your anniversary (or more often). Write love letters to each other often. Make each other first. When kids arrive, it will be easy to fall into a frenzy of making them the only focus of your life…do not forget the love that produced them. You must keep that love alive and strong to feed them love. Spouse comes first. Each of you will continue to grow. Bring the other one with you. Be the one that welcomes that growth. Don’t think that the other one will hold the relationship together. Both of you should assume it’s up to you so that you are both working on it. Be passionate about cleaning house, preparing meals, and taking care of your home. This is required of everyone daily, make it fun and happy and do it together. Do not complain about your partner to anyone. Love them for who they are. Make love even when you are not in the mood. Trust each other. Give each other the benefit of the doubt always. Be transparent. Have nothing to hide. Be proud of each other. Have a life outside of each other, but share it through conversation. Pamper and adore each other. Go to counseling now before you need it so that you are both open to working on the relationship together. Disagree with respect to each other’s feelings. Be open to change and accepting of differences. Print this and refer to it daily.

This post originally appeared at MarkManson.net. Follow @iammarkmanson on Twitter.

[gonebyionnalee]

playlist: Operation Babymaker

peaches // mommy complex 

blondie // already naked

e-rotic // en mon coeur

yelle // je veux te voir

cupcakke // spider-man dick

so vaguely saucy songs about having relations then just really hit it home on the last track. guaranteed to make you pregnant 

[glossgal]

.@raheem_devaughn is a #singer #leader and maker of a truly #remarkable #legacy in #music #justice #philanthropy #education #childcare #child #development #prevention of #domesticviolence #support of #mothers who have been abused and as the co-founder of @crossrhodes368 with @wesfeltondc he is bringing #gospel to the stage tonight along with #babymaking #music Along with the @crossrhodes368 #school I worship at the @crossrhodes368 #church where #faith operates alongside #action (at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill)

[dionahfeferrer]

Every successful relation is successful for the same exact reasons.

LOVE IS PATIENT Every successful relationship is successful for the same exact reasons Mark Manson  January 13, 2017  Respect each other. (Reuters/Lucy Nicholson) Hey, guess what? I got married two weeks ago. And like most people, I asked some of the older and wiser folks around me for a couple quick words of advice from their own marriages to make sure my wife and I didn’t shit the (same) bed. I think most newlyweds do this, especially after a few cocktails from the open bar they just paid way too much money for. But, of course, not being satisfied with just a few wise words, I had to take it a step further. See, I have access to hundreds of thousands of smart, amazing people through my site. So why not consult them? Why not ask them for their best relationship/marriage advice? Why not synthesize all of their wisdom and experience into something straightforward and immediately applicable to any relationship, no matter who you are? Why not crowdsource THE ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP GUIDE TO END ALL RELATIONSHIP GUIDES™ from the sea of smart and savvy partners and lovers here? So, that’s what I did. I sent out the call the week before my wedding: anyone who has been married for 10+ years and is still happy in their relationship, what lessons would you pass down to others if you could? What is working for you and your partner? And if you’re divorced, what didn’t work previously? The response was overwhelming. Almost 1,500 people replied, many of whom sent in responses measured in pages, not paragraphs. It took almost two weeks to comb through them all, but I did. And what I found stunned me… They were incredibly repetitive. That’s not an insult or anything. Actually, it’s kind of the opposite. These were all smart and well-spoken people from all walks of life, from all around the world, all with their own histories, tragedies, mistakes, and triumphs… And yet they were all saying pretty much the same dozen things. Which means that those dozen or so things must be pretty damn important… and more importantly, they work. Here’s what they are: 1. Be together for the right reasons Don’t ever be with someone because someone else pressured you to. I got married the first time because I was raised Catholic and that’s what you were supposed to do. Wrong. I got married the second time because I was miserable and lonely and thought having a loving wife would fix everything for me. Also wrong. Took me three tries to figure out what should have been obvious from the beginning, the only reason you should ever be with the person you’re with is because you simply love being around them. It really is that simple. – Greg Before we even get into what you should do in your relationship, let’s start with what not to do. When I sent out my request to readers for advice, I added a caveat that turned out to be illuminating. I asked people who were on their second or third (or fourth) marriages what they did wrong. Where did they mess up? By far, the most common answer was “being with the person for the wrong reasons.” Some of these wrong reasons included: Pressure from friends and familyFeeling like a “loser” because they were single and settling for the first person that came alongBeing together for image—because the relationship looked good on paper (or in photos), not because the two people actually admired each otherBeing young and naive and hopelessly in love and thinking that love would solve everything As we’ll see throughout the rest of this article, everything that makes a relationship “work” (and by work, I mean that it is happy and sustainable for both people involved) requires a genuine, deep-level admiration for each other. Without that mutual admiration, everything else will unravel. The other “wrong” reason to enter into a relationship is, like Greg said, to “fix” yourself. This desire to use the love of someone else to soothe your own emotional problems inevitably leads to codependence, an unhealthy and damaging dynamic between two people where they tacitly agree to use each other’s love as a distraction from their own self-loathing. We’ll get more into codependence later in this article, but for now, it’s useful to point out that love, itself, is neutral. It is something that can be both healthy or unhealthy, helpful or harmful, depending on why and how you love someone else and are loved by someone else. By itself, love is never enough to sustain a relationship. 2. Have realistic expectations about relationships and romance You are absolutely not going to be absolutely gaga over each other every single day for the rest of your lives, and all this “happily ever after” bullshit is just setting people up for failure. They go into relationship with these unrealistic expectations. Then, the instant they realize they aren’t “gaga” anymore, they think the relationship is broken and over, and they need to get out. No! There will be days, or weeks, or maybe even longer, when you aren’t all mushy-gushy in-love. You’re even going to wake up some morning and think, “Ugh, you’re still here….” That’s normal! And more importantly, sticking it out is totally worth it, because that, too, will change. In a day, or a week, or maybe even longer, you’ll look at that person and a giant wave of love will inundate you, and you’ll love them so much you think your heart can’t possibly hold it all and is going to burst. Because a love that’s alive is also constantly evolving. It expands and contracts and mellows and deepens. It’s not going to be the way it used to be, or the way it will be, and it shouldn’t be. I think if more couples understood that, they’d be less inclined to panic and rush to break up or divorce. – Paula Love is a funny thing. In ancient times, people genuinely considered love a sickness. Parents warned their children against it, and adults quickly arranged marriages before their children were old enough to do something dumb in the name of their emotions. That’s because love, while making us feel all giddy and high as if we had just snorted a shoebox full of cocaine, makes us highly irrational. We all know that guy (or girl) who dropped out of school, sold their car, and spent the money to elope on the beaches of Tahiti. We all also know that that guy (or girl) ended up sulking back a few years later feeling like a moron, not to mention broke. That’s unbridled love. It’s nature’s way of tricking us into doing insane and irrational things to procreate with another person—probably because if we stopped to think about the repercussions of having kids, and being with the same person forever and ever, no one would ever do it. As Robin Williams used to joke, “God gave man a brain and a penis and only enough blood to operate one at a time.” Romantic love is a trap designed to get two people to overlook each other’s faults long enough to get some babymaking done. It generally only lasts for a few years at most. That dizzying high you get staring into your lover’s eyes as if they are the stars that make up the heavens—yeah, that mostly goes away. It does for everybody. So, once it’s gone, you need to know that you’ve buckled yourself down with a human being you genuinely respect and enjoy being with, otherwise things are going to get rocky. True love—that is, deep, abiding love that is impervious to emotional whims or fancy—is a choice. It’s a constant commitment to a person regardless of the present circumstances. It’s a commitment to a person who you understand isn’t going to always make you happy—nor should they!—and a person who will need to rely on you at times, just as you will rely on them. That form of love is much harder. Primarily because it often doesn’t feel very good. It’s unglamorous. It’s lots of early morning doctor’s visits. It’s cleaning up bodily fluids you’d rather not be cleaning up. It’s dealing with another person’s insecurities and fears and ideas, even when you don’t want to. But this form of love is also far more satisfying and meaningful. And, at the end of the day, it brings true happiness, not just another series of highs. Happily Ever After doesn’t exist. Every day you wake up and decide to love your partner and your life—the good, the bad and the ugly. Some days it’s a struggle and some days you feel like the luckiest person in the world. – Tara Many people never learn how to breach this deep, unconditional love. Many people are instead addicted to the ups and downs of romantic love. They are in it for the feels, so to speak. And when the feels run out, so do they. Many people get into a relationship as a way to compensate for something they lack or hate within themselves. This is a one-way ticket to a toxic relationship because it makes your love conditional—you will love your partner as long as they help you feel better about yourself. You will give to them as long as they give to you. You will make them happy as long as they make you happy. This conditionality prevents any true, deep-level intimacy from emerging and chains the relationship to the bucking throes of each person’s internal dramas. 3. The most important factor in a relationship is not communication, but respect What I can tell you is the #1 thing, most important above all else is respect. It’s not sexual attraction, looks, shared goals, religion or lack of, nor is it love. There are times when you won’t feel love for your partner. That is the truth. But you never want to lose respect for your partner. Once you lose respect you will never get it back. – Laurie As we scanned through the hundreds of responses we received, my assistant and I began to notice an interesting trend. People who had been through divorces and/or had only been with their partners for 10-15 years almost always talked about communication being the most important part of making things work. Talk frequently. Talk openly. Talk about everything, even if it hurts. And there is some merit to that (which I’ll get to later). But we noticed that the thing people with marriages going on 20, 30, or even 40 years talked about most was respect. My sense is that these people, through sheer quantity of experience, have learned that communication, no matter how open, transparent and disciplined, will always break down at some point. Conflicts are ultimately unavoidable, and feelings will always be hurt. And the only thing that can save you and your partner, that can cushion you both to the hard landing of human fallibility, is an unerring respect for one another, the fact that you hold each other in high esteem, believe in one another—often more than you each believe in yourselves—and trust that your partner is doing his/her best with what they’ve got. Without that bedrock of respect underneath you, you will doubt each other’s intentions. You will judge their choices and encroach on their independence. You will feel the need to hide things from one another for fear of criticism. And this is when the cracks in the edifice begin to appear. My husband and I have been together 15 years this winter. I’ve thought a lot about what seems to be keeping us together, while marriages around us crumble (seriously, it’s everywhere… we seem to be at that age). The one word that I keep coming back to is “respect.” Of course, this means showing respect, but that is too superficial. Just showing it isn’t enough. You have to feel it deep within you. I deeply and genuinely respect him for his work ethic, his patience, his creativity, his intelligence, and his core values. From this respect comes everything else—trust, patience, perseverance (because sometimes life is really hard and you both just have to persevere). I want to hear what he has to say (even if I don’t agree with him) because I respect his opinion. I want to enable him to have some free time within our insanely busy lives because I respect his choices of how he spends his time and who he spends time with. And, really, what this mutual respect means is that we feel safe sharing our deepest, most intimate selves with each other. – Nicole You must also respect yourself. Just as your partner must also respect his/herself. Because without that self-respect, you will not feel worthy of the respect afforded by your partner. You will be unwilling to accept it and you will find ways to undermine it. You will constantly feel the need to compensate and prove yourself worthy of love, which will just backfire. Respect for your partner and respect for yourself are intertwined. As a reader named Olov put it, “Respect yourself and your wife. Never talk badly to or about her. If you don’t respect your wife, you don’t respect yourself. You chose her—live up to that choice.” So what does respect look like? Common examples given by many readers: NEVER talk shit about your partner or complain about them to your friends. If you have a problem with your partner, you should be having that conversation with them, not with your friends. Talking bad about them will erode your respect for them and make you feel worse about being with them, not better.Respect that they have different hobbies, interests, and perspectives from you. Just because you would spend your time and energy differently, doesn’t mean it’s better/worse.Respect that they have an equal say in the relationship, that you are a team, and if one person on the team is not happy, then the team is not succeeding.No secrets. If you’re really in this together and you respect one another, everything should be fair game. Have a crush on someone else? Discuss it. Laugh about it. Had a weird sexual fantasy that sounds ridiculous? Be open about it. Nothing should be off-limits. Respect goes hand-in-hand with trust. And trust is the lifeblood of any relationship (romantic or otherwise). Without trust, there can be no sense of intimacy or comfort. Without trust, your partner will become a liability in your mind, something to be avoided and analyzed, not a protective homebase for your heart and your mind. 4. Talk openly about everything, especially the stuff that hurts We always talk about what’s bothering us with each other, not anyone else! We have so many friends who are in marriages that are not working well and they tell me all about what is wrong. I can’t help them, they need to be talking to their spouse about this, that’s the only person who can help them figure it out. If you can figure out a way to be able to always talk with your spouse about what’s bugging you then you can work on the issue. – Ronnie There can be no secrets. Secrets divide you. Always. – Tracey I receive hundreds of emails from readers each week asking for life advice. A large percentage of these emails involve their struggling romantic relationships. (These emails, too, are surprisingly repetitive.) A couple years ago, I discovered that I was answering the vast majority of these relationship emails with the exact same response. “Take this email you just sent to me, print it out, and show it to your partner. Then come back and ask again.” This response became so common that I actually put it on my contact form on the site because I was so tired of copying and pasting it. If something bothers you in the relationship, you must be willing to say it. Saying it builds trust and trust builds intimacy. It may hurt, but you still need to do it. No one else can fix your relationship for you. Nor should anyone else. Just as causing pain to your muscles allows them to grow back stronger, often introducing some pain into your relationship through vulnerability is the only way to make the relationship stronger. Behind respect, trust was the most commonly mentioned trait for a healthy relationship. Most people mentioned it in the context of jealousy and fidelity—trust your partner to go off on their own, don’t get insecure or angry if you see them talking with someone else, etc. But trust goes much deeper than that. Because when you’re really talking about the long-haul, you start to get into some serious life-or-death shit. If you ended up with cancer tomorrow, would you trust your partner to stick with you and take care of you? Would you trust your partner to care for your child for a week by themselves? Do you trust them to handle your money or make sound decisions under pressure? Do you trust them to not turn on you or blame you when you make mistakes? These are hard things to do. And they’re even harder to think about early on in a relationship. Trust at the beginning of a relationship is easy. It’s like, “Oh, I forgot my phone at her apartment, I trust her not to sell it and buy crack with the money… I think.” But the deeper the commitment, the more intertwined your lives become, and the more you will have to trust your partner to act in your interest in your absence. There’s an old Ben Folds song where he sings, “It seems to me if you cannot trust, you cannot be trusted.” Distrust has a tendency to breed distrust. If your partner is always snooping through your stuff, accusing you of doing things you didn’t do, and questioning all of your decisions, naturally, you will start to question their intentions as well—Why is she so insecure? What if she is hiding something herself? The key to fostering and maintaining trust in the relationship is for both partners to be completely transparent and vulnerable: If something is bothering you, say something. This is important not only for addressing issues as they arise, but it proves to your partner that you have nothing to hide.Those icky, insecure things you hate sharing with people? Share them with your partner. Not only is it healing, but you and your partner need to have a good understanding of each other’s insecurities and the way you each choose to compensate for them.Make promises and then stick to them. The only way to truly rebuild trust after it’s been broken is through a proven track record over time. You cannot build that track record until you own up to previous mistakes and set about correcting them.Learn to discern your partner’s own shady behavior from your own insecurities (and vice-versa). This is hard and will likely require confrontation to get to the bottom of. But in most relationship fights, one person thinks something is completely “normal” and the other thinks it’s really grade-A “fucked up.” It’s often extremely hard to distinguish who is being irrational and insecure and who is being reasonable and merely standing up for themselves. Be patient in rooting out what’s what, and when it’s your big, gnarly insecurity (and sometimes it will be, trust me), be honest about it. Own up to it. And strive to be better. Trust is like a china plate. If you drop it and it breaks, you can put it back together with a lot of work and care. If you drop it and break it a second time, it will split into twice as many pieces and it will require far more time and care to put back together again. But drop and break it enough times, and it will shatter into so many pieces that you will never be able to put it back together again, no matter what you do. 5. A healthy relationship means two healthy individuals Understand that it is up to you to make yourself happy, it is NOT the job of your spouse. I am not saying you shouldn’t do nice things for each other, or that your partner can’t make you happy sometimes. I am just saying don’t lay expectations on your partner to “make you happy.” It is not their responsibility. Figure out as individuals what makes you happy as an individual, be happy yourself, then you each bring that to the relationship. – Mandy A lot is made about “sacrifices” in a relationship. You are supposed to keep the relationship happy by consistently sacrificing yourself for your partner and their wants and needs. There is some truth to that. Every relationship requires each person to consciously choose to give something up at times. But the problem is when all of the relationship’s happiness is contingent on the other person and both people are in a constant state of sacrifice. Just read that again. That sounds horrible. It reminds me of an old Marilyn Manson song, “Shoot myself to love you; if I loved myself, I’d be shooting you.” A relationship based on sacrifices cannot be sustained, and will eventually become damaging to both individuals in it. Shitty, codependent relationships have an inherent stability because you’re both locked in an implicit bargain to tolerate the other person’s bad behavior because they’re tolerating yours, and neither of you wants to be alone. On the surface, it seems like “compromising in relationships because that’s what people do,” but the reality is that resentments build up, and both parties become the other person’s emotional hostage against having to face and deal with their own bullshit (it took me 14 years to realize this, by the way). – Karen A healthy and happy relationship requires two healthy and happy individuals. Keyword here: “individuals.” That means two people with their own identities, their own interests and perspectives, and things they do by themselves, on their own time. This is why attempting to control your partner (or submitting control over yourself to your partner) to make them “happy” ultimately backfires—it allows the individual identities of each person to be destroyed, the very identities that attracted each person and brought them together in the first place. Don’t try to change them. This is the person you chose. They were good enough to marry so don’t expect them to change now. – Allison Don’t ever give up who you are for the person you’re with. It will only backfire and make you both miserable. Have the courage to be who you are, and most importantly, let your partner be who they are. Those are the two people who fell in love with each other in the first place. – Dave But how does one do this? Well, it’s a bit counterintuitive. But it’s something hundreds and hundreds of successful couples echoed in their emails… 6. Give each other space Be sure you have a life of your own, otherwise it is harder to have a life together. What do I mean? Have your own interests, your own friends, your own support network, and your own hobbies. Overlap where you can, but not being identical should give you something to talk about and expose one another to. It helps to expand your horizons as a couple, but isn’t so boring as both living the exact same life. – Anonymous Among the emails, one of the most popular themes was the importance of creating space and separation from one another. People sung the praises of separate checking accounts, separate credit cards, having different friends and hobbies, taking separate vacations from one another each year (this has been a big one in my own relationship). Some even went so far as to recommend separate bathrooms or even separate bedrooms. Some people are afraid to give their partner freedom and independence. This comes from a lack of trust and/or insecurity that if we give our partner too much space, they will discover they don’t want to be with us anymore. Generally, the more uncomfortable we are with our own worthiness in the relationship and to be loved, the more we will try to control the relationship and our partner’s behaviors. BUT, more importantly, this inability to let our partners be who they are, is a subtle form of disrespect. After all, if you can’t trust your husband to have a simple golfing trip with his buddies, or you’re afraid to let your wife go out for drinks after work, what does that say about your respect for their ability to handle themselves well? What does it say for your respect for yourself? I mean, after all, if you believe a couple after-work drinks is enough to steer your girlfriend away from you, you clearly don’t think too highly of yourself. Going on seventeen years. If you love your partner enough you will let them be who they are, you don’t own them, who they hang with, what they do or how they feel. Drives me nuts when I see women not let their husbands go out with the guys or are jealous of other women. – Natalie 7. You and your partner will grow and change in unexpected ways; embrace it Over the course of 20 years we both have changed tremendously. We have changed faiths, political parties, numerous hair colors and styles, but we love each other and possibly even more. Our grown kids constantly tell their friends what hopeless romantics we are. And the biggest thing that keeps us strong is not giving a fuck about what anyone else says about our relationship. – Dotti One theme that came up repeatedly, especially with those married 20+ years, was how much each individual changes as the decades roll on, and how ready each of you have to be to embrace the other partner as these changes occur. One reader commented that at her wedding, an elderly family member told her, “One day many years from now, you will wake up and your spouse will be a different person, make sure you fall in love with that person too.” It logically follows that if there is a bedrock of respect for each individual’s interest and values underpinning the relationship, and each individual is encouraged to foster their own growth and development, that each person will, as time goes on, evolve in different and unexpected ways. It’s then up to the couple to communicate and make sure that they are consistently a) aware of the changes going on in their partner, and b) continually accepting and respecting those changes as they occur. Now, you’re probably reading this and thinking, “Sure, Bill likes sausage now, but in a few years he might prefer steak. I can get on board with that.” No, I’m talking some pretty serious life changes. Remember, if you’re going to spend decades together, some really heavy shit will hit (and break) the fan. Among major life changes people told me their marriages went through (and survived): changing religions, moving countries, death of family members (including children), supporting elderly family members, changing political beliefs, even changing sexual orientation, and in a couple cases, gender identification. Amazingly, these couples survived because their respect for each other allowed them to adapt and allow each person to continue to flourish and grow. When you commit to someone, you don’t actually know who you’re committing to. You know who they are today, but you have no idea who this person is going to be in five years, ten years, and so on. You have to be prepared for the unexpected, and truly ask yourself if you admire this person regardless of the superficial (or not-so-superficial) details, because I promise almost all of them at some point are going to either change or go away. – Michael But this isn’t easy, of course. In fact, at times, it will be downright soul-destroying. Which is why you need to make sure you and your partner know how to fight. 8. Get good at fighting The relationship is a living, breathing thing. Much like the body and muscles, it cannot get stronger without stress and challenge. You have to fight. You have to hash things out. Obstacles make the marriage. – Ryan Saplan John Gottman is a hot-shit psychologist and researcher who has spent over 30 years analyzing married couples and looking for keys to why they stick together and why they break up. Chances are, if you’ve read any relationship advice article before, you’ve either directly or indirectly been exposed to his work. When it comes to, “Why do people stick together?” he dominates the field. What Gottman does is he gets married couples in a room, puts some cameras on them, and then he asks them to have a fight. Notice: he doesn’t ask them to talk about how great the other person is. He doesn’t ask them what they like best about their relationship. He asks them to fight. Pick something they’re having problems with and talk about it for the camera. And from simply analyzing the film for the couple’s discussion (or shouting match, whatever), he’s able to predict with startling accuracy whether a couple will divorce or not. But what’s most interesting about Gottman’s research is that the things that lead to divorce are not necessarily what you think. Successful couples, like unsuccessful couples, he found, fight consistently. And some of them fight furiously. He has been able to narrow down four characteristics of a couple that tend to lead to divorces (or breakups). He has gone on and called these “the four horsemen” of the relationship apocalypse in his books. They are: Criticizing your partner’s character (“You’re so stupid” vs “That thing you did was stupid”)Defensiveness (or basically, blame shifting, “I wouldn’t have done that if you weren’t late all the time”)Contempt (putting down your partner and making them feel inferior)Stonewalling (withdrawing from an argument and ignoring your partner) The reader emails back this up as well. Out of the 1,500-some-odd emails, almost every single one referenced the importance of dealing with conflicts well. Advice given by readers included: Never insult or name-call your partner. Put another way: hate the sin, love the sinner. Gottman’s research found that “contempt”—belittling and demeaning your partner—is the number one predictor of divorce.Do not bring previous fights/arguments into current ones. This solves nothing and just makes the fight twice as bad as it was before. Yeah, you forgot to pick up groceries on the way home, but what does him being rude to your mother last Thanksgiving have to do with anything?If things get too heated, take a breather. Remove yourself from the situation and come back once emotions have cooled off a bit. This is a big one for me personally—sometimes when things get intense with my wife, I get overwhelmed and just leave for a while. I usually walk around the block two or three times and let myself seethe for about 15 minutes. Then I come back and we’re both a bit calmer and we can resume the discussion with a much more conciliatory tone.Remember that being “right” is not as important as both people feeling respected and heard. You may be right, but if you are right in such a way that makes your partner feel unloved, then there’s no real winner. But all of this takes for granted another important point: be willing to fight in the first place. I think when people talk about the necessity for “good communication” all of the time (a vague piece of advice that everyone says but few people seem to actually clarify what it means), this is what they mean: be willing to have the uncomfortable talks. Be willing to have the fights. Say the ugly things and get it all out in the open. This was a constant theme from the divorced readers. Dozens (hundreds?) of them had more or less the same sad story to tell: But there’s no way on God’s Green Earth this is her fault alone. There were times when I saw huge red flags. Instead of trying to figure out what in the world was wrong, I just plowed ahead. I’d buy more flowers, or candy, or do more chores around the house. I was a “good” husband in every sense of the word. But what I wasn’t doing was paying attention to the right things. She wasn’t telling me there wasn’t a problem but there was. And instead of saying something, I ignored all of the signals. – Jim 9. Get good at forgiving When you end up being right about something—shut up. You can be right and be quiet at the same time. Your partner will already know you’re right and will feel loved knowing that you didn’t wield it like a bastard sword. – Brian In marriage, there’s no such thing as winning an argument. – Bill To me, perhaps the most interesting nugget from Gottman’s research is the fact that most successful couples don’t actually resolve all of their problems. In fact, his findings were completely backwards from what most people actually expect: people in lasting and happy relationships have problems that never completely go away, while couples that feel as though they need to agree and compromise on everything end up feeling miserable and falling apart. To me, like everything else, this comes back to the respect thing. If you have two different individuals sharing a life together, it’s inevitable that they will have different values and perspectives on some things and clash over it. The key here is not changing the other person—as the desire to change your partner is inherently disrespectful (to both them and yourself)—but rather it’s to simply abide by the difference, love them despite it, and when things get a little rough around the edges, to forgive them for it. Everyone says that compromise is key, but that’s not how my husband and I see it. It’s more about seeking understanding. Compromise is bullshit, because it leaves both sides unsatisfied, losing little pieces of themselves in an effort to get along. On the other hand, refusing to compromise is just as much of a disaster, because you turn your partner into a competitor (“I win, you lose”). These are the wrong goals, because they’re outcome-based rather than process-based. When your goal is to find out where your partner is coming from—to truly understand on a deep level—you can’t help but be altered by the process. Conflict becomes much easier to navigate because you see more of the context. – Michelle I’ve written for years that the key to happiness is not achieving your lofty dreams, or experiencing some dizzying high, but rather finding the struggles and challenges that you enjoy enduring. A similar concept seems to be true in relationships: your perfect partner is not someone who creates no problems in the relationship, rather your perfect partner is someone who creates problems in the relationship that you feel good about dealing with. But how do you get good at forgiving? What does that actually mean? Again, some advice from the readers: When an argument is over, it’s over. Some couples went as far as to make this the golden rule in their relationship. When you’re done fighting, it doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong, it doesn’t matter if someone was mean and someone was nice. It’s over. It’s in the past. And you both agree to leave it there, not bring it up every month for the next three years.There’s no scoreboard. No one is trying to “win” here. There’s no, “You owe me this because you screwed up the laundry last week.” There’s no, “I’m always right about financial stuff, so you should listen to me.” There’s no, “I bought her three gifts and she only did me one favor.” Everything in the relationship is given and done unconditionally—that is: without expectation or manipulation.When your partner screws up, you separate the intentions from the behavior. You recognize the things you love and admire in your partner and understand that he/she was simply doing the best that they could, yet messed up out of ignorance. Not because they’re a bad person. Not because they secretly hate you and want to divorce you. Not because there’s somebody else in the background pulling them away from you. They are a good person. That’s why you are with them. If you ever lose your faith in that, then you will begin to erode your faith in yourself. And finally, pick your battles wisely. You and your partner only have so many fucks to give, make sure you both are saving them for the real things that matter. Been happily married 40+ years. One piece of advice that comes to mind: choose your battles. Some things matter, worth getting upset about. Most do not. Argue over the little things and you’ll find yourself arguing endlessly; little things pop up all day long, it takes a toll over time. Like Chinese water torture: minor in the short term, corrosive over time. Consider: is this a little thing or a big thing? Is it worth the cost of arguing? – Fred 10. The little things add up to big things If you don’t take the time to meet for lunch, go for a walk or go out to dinner and a movie with some regularity then you basically end up with a roommate. Staying connected through life’s ups and downs is critical. Eventually your kids grow up, your obnoxious brother-in-law will join a monastery and your parents will die. When that happens, guess who’s left? You got it… Mr./Mrs. Right! You don’t want to wake up 20 years later and be staring at a stranger because life broke the bonds you formed before the shitstorm started. You and your partner need to be the eye of the hurricane. – Brian Of the 1,500 responses I got, I’d say about half of them mentioned at some point or another one simple but effective piece of advice: Don’t ever stop doing the little things. They add up. Things as simple as saying, “I love you,” before going to bed, holding hands during a movie, doing small favors here and there, helping with some household chores. Even cleaning up when you accidentally pee on the toilet seat (seriously, someone said that)—these things all matter and add up over the long run. The same way Fred, married for 40+ years, stated above that arguing over small things consistently wears you both down, “like Chinese water torture,” so do the little favors and displays of affection add up. Don’t lose them. This seems to become particularly important once kids enter the picture. The big message I heard hundreds of times about kids: put the marriage first. Children are worshipped in our culture these days. Parents are expected to sacrifice everything for them. But the best way to raise healthy and happy kids is to maintain a healthy and happy marriage. Good kids don’t make a good marriage. A good marriage makes good kids. So keep your marriage the top priority. – Susan Readers implored to maintain regular “date nights,” to plan weekend getaways and to make time for sex, even when you’re tired, even when you’re stressed and exhausted and the baby is crying, even when Junior has soccer practice at 5:30am the next day. Make time for it. It’s worth it. Oh, and speaking of sex… 11. Sex matters… a LOT And you know how you know if you or her are slipping? Sex starts to slide. Period. No other test required. – Anonymous I still remember back in college, it was one of my first relationships with a cute little redhead. We were young and naive and crazy about each other. And, because we happened to live in the same dorm, we were banging like rabbits. It was everything a 19-year-old male could ask for. Then after a month or two, we hit our first “rough patch” in the relationship. We fought more often, found ourselves getting annoyed with each other, and suddenly our multiple-times-per-day habit magically dried up. And it wasn’t just with her, but with me. To my surprised adolescent male mind, it was actually possible to have sex available to you yet not want it. It was almost as if sex was connected to emotions! For a dumb 19-year-old, this was a complete shocker. That was the first time I discovered a truth about relationships: sex is the State of the Union. If the relationship is good, the sex will be good. You both will be wanting it and enjoying it. When the relationship is bad—when there are unresolved problems and unaddressed negative emotions—then the sex will often be the first thing to go out the window. This was reiterated to me hundreds of times in the emails. The nature of the sex itself varied quite a bit among couples—some couples take sexual experimentation seriously, others are staunch believers in frequency, others get way into fantasies—but the underlying principle was the same everywhere: both partners should be sexually satisfied as often as possible. But sex not only keeps the relationship healthy, many readers suggested that they use it to heal their relationships. That when things are a bit frigid between them or that they have some problems going on, a lot of stress, or other issues (i.e., kids), they even go so far as to schedule sexy time for themselves. They say it’s important. And it’s worth it. A few people even said that when things start to feel stale in the relationship, they agree to have sex every day for a week. Then, as if by magic, by the next week, they feel great again. Cue the Marvin Gaye tunes: 12. Be practical, and create relationship rules There is no 50/50 in housecleaning, child rearing, vacation planning, dishwasher emptying, gift buying, dinner making, money making, etc. The sooner everyone accepts that, the happier everyone is. We all have things we like to do and hate to do; we all have things we are good at and not so good at. TALK to your partner about those things when it comes to dividing and conquering all the crap that has to get done in life. – Liz Everyone has an image in their mind of how a relationship should work. Both people share responsibilities. Both people manage to finely balance their time together with the time for themselves. Both pursue engaging and invigorating interests on their own and then share the benefits together. Both take turns cleaning the toilet and blowing each other and cooking gourmet lasagna for the extended family at Thanksgiving (although not all at the same time). Then there’s how relationships actually work. Messy. Stressful. Miscommunication flying everywhere so that both of you feel as though you’re in a perpetual state of talking to a wall. The fact is relationships are imperfect, messy affairs. And it’s for the simple reason that they’re comprised of imperfect, messy people—people who want different things at different times in different ways and oh, they forgot to tell you? Well, maybe if you had been listening, asshole. The common theme of the advice here was “Be pragmatic.” If the wife is a lawyer and spends 50 hours at the office every week, and the husband is an artist and can work from home most days, it makes more sense for him to handle most of the day-to-day parenting duties. If the wife’s standard of cleanliness looks like a Home & Garden catalog, and the husband has gone six months without even noticing the light fixture hanging from the ceiling, then it makes sense that the wife handles more of the home cleaning duties. It’s economics 101: division of labor makes everyone better off. Figure out what you are each good at, what you each love/hate doing, and then arrange accordingly. My wife loves cleaning (no, seriously), but she hates smelly stuff. So guess who gets dishes and garbage duty? Me. Because I don’t give a fuck. I’ll eat off the same plate seven times in a row. I couldn’t smell a dead rat even if it was sleeping under my pillow. I’ll toss garbage around all day. Here honey, let me get that for you. On top of that, many couples suggested laying out rules for the relationship. This sounds cheesy, but ultimately, it’s practical. To what degree will you share finances? How much debt will be taken on or paid off? How much can each person spend without consulting the other? What purchases should be done together or do you trust each other to do separately? How do you decide which vacations to go on? Have meetings about this stuff. Sure, it’s not sexy or cool, but it needs to get done. You’re sharing a life together and so you need to plan and account for each person’s needs and resources. One person even said that she and her husband have “annual reviews” every year. She immediately told me not to laugh, but that she was serious. They have annual reviews where they discuss everything that’s going on in the household that they like and don’t like and what they can do in the coming year to change it. This sort of stuff sounds lame but it’s what keeps couples in touch with what’s going on with each other. And because they always have their fingers on the pulse of each other’s needs, they’re more likely to grow together rather than grow apart. 13. Learn to ride the waves I have been married for 44 years (4 children, 6 grandchildren). I think the most important thing that I have learned in those years is that the love you feel for each other is constantly changing. Sometimes you feel a deep love and satisfaction, other times you want nothing to do with your spouse; sometimes you laugh together, sometimes you’re screaming at each other. It’s like a roller-coaster ride, ups and downs all the time, but as you stay together long enough the downs become less severe and the ups are more loving and contented. So even if you feel like you could never love your partner any more, that can change, if you give it a chance. I think people give up too soon. You need to be the kind of person that you want your spouse to be. When you do that it makes a world of difference. – Chris Out of the hundreds of analogies I saw these past few weeks, one stuck with me. A nurse emailed saying that she used to work with a lot of geriatric patients. And one day she was talking to a man in his late-80s about marriage and why his had lasted so long. The man said something like, “relationships exist as waves, people need to learn how to ride them.” Upon asking him to explain, he said that, like the ocean, there are constant waves of emotion going on within a relationship, ups and downs—some waves last for hours, some last for months or even years. The key is understanding that few of those waves have anything to do with the quality of the relationship—people lose jobs, family members die, couples relocate, switch careers, make a lot of money, lose a lot of money. Your job as a committed partner is to simply ride the waves with the person you love, regardless of where they go. Because ultimately, none of these waves last. And you simply end up with each other. Two years ago, I suddenly began resenting my wife for any number of reasons. I felt as if we were floating along, doing a great job of co-existing and co-parenting, but not sustaining a real connection. It deteriorated to the point that I considered separating from her; however, whenever I gave the matter intense thought, I could not pinpoint a single issue that was a deal breaker. I knew her to be an amazing person, mother, and friend. I bit my tongue a lot and held out hope that the malaise would pass as suddenly as it had arrived. Fortunately, it did and I love her more than ever. So the final bit of wisdom is to afford your spouse the benefit of the doubt. If you have been happy for such a long period, that is the case for good reason. Be patient and focus on the many aspects of her that still exist that caused you to fall in love in the first place. – Kevin I’d like to take a moment to thank all of the readers who took the time to write something and send it to me. As always, it was humbling to see all of the wisdom and life experience out there. There were many, many, many excellent responses, with kind, heartfelt advice. It was hard to choose the ones that ended up here, and in many cases, I could have put a dozen different quotes that said almost the exact same thing. Exercises like this always amaze me because when you ask thousands of people for advice on something, you expect to receive thousands of different answers. But in both cases now, the vast majority of the advice has largely been the same. It shows you how similar we really are. And how no matter how bad things may get, we are never as alone as we think. I would end this by summarizing the advice in one tidy section. But once again, a reader named Margo did it far better than I ever could. So we’ll end with Margo: You can work through anything as long as you are not destroying yourself or each other. That means emotionally, physically, financially, or spiritually. Make nothing off limits to discuss. Never shame or mock each other for the things you do that make you happy. Write down why you fell in love and read it every year on your anniversary (or more often). Write love letters to each other often. Make each other first. When kids arrive, it will be easy to fall into a frenzy of making them the only focus of your life…do not forget the love that produced them. You must keep that love alive and strong to feed them love. Spouse comes first. Each of you will continue to grow. Bring the other one with you. Be the one that welcomes that growth. Don’t think that the other one will hold the relationship together. Both of you should assume it’s up to you so that you are both working on it. Be passionate about cleaning house, preparing meals, and taking care of your home. This is required of everyone daily, make it fun and happy and do it together. Do not complain about your partner to anyone. Love them for who they are. Make love even when you are not in the mood. Trust each other. Give each other the benefit of the doubt always. Be transparent. Have nothing to hide. Be proud of each other. Have a life outside of each other, but share it through conversation. Pamper and adore each other. Go to counseling now before you need it so that you are both open to working on the relationship together. Disagree with respect to each other’s feelings. Be open to change and accepting of differences. Print this and refer to it daily. This post originally appeared at MarkManson.net. Follow @iammarkmanson on Twitter.

[pseudowho]

Operation: Babymaker-- Ditch the Party...again

When it comes to trying for a baby, Nanami Kento always works overtime. And the reader had better be ready.

💜 💛 Part 1 LINK HERE: A Trip to the Tailors

💜 💛 Part 2 LINK HERE: Benchpress

💜 💛 Part 4 LINK HERE: Wet Dreams

💜 💛 Part 5 LINK HERE: Honeytrap/Maid Café

💜 💛 Part 6 LINK HERE: Grapple

It's a beautiful day for a party, and Kento is a naughty, naughty goose drunk 🪿💛

And...LINK HERE to the original Ditch the Party

Warnings: 18+ throughout, breeding kink 💛

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"Kento! Are you nearly done? We've got to go!" You leaned out of the bathroom, smirking at Kento and the scrutinising eyes he ran over your niece's expertly wrapped birthday present.

Kento grumbled, mildly offended; "'Nearly done'," he scoffed, "as if I'd leave it to the last minute. It's been wrapped for a week." You padded over to him, pleased with your gift choices; a knight's costume (complete with sword and shield) and a glittery nail polish set.

"I can't believe she's five already," you crooned, fingers grazing over her gift, wistful. Leaning down, pressing a kiss to your forehead, Kento smiled into your hair.

"I can't wait," he hummed, the prospect of parenthood filling him with fizzy excitement.

You looked up at him with sternly pinched lips, and an unwavering memory of your last badly-behaved-Kento party attendance; "Well, you'll have to wait. It's child-friendly today. The strongest thing going past your lips is pink lemonade."

You headed towards the door. Kento had the absolute audacity to look at you with total innocence.

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"Happy birthda-- oh, she's gone."

Leaning down to hug the birthday girl, your niece, was futile-- she darted away laughing, slippery as an eel, into the maelstrom of other children, several dozen boys and girls her own age who had taken over the garden.

The obnoxiously loud party music, screeching kids on the bouncy castle, bustling parents making awkward small-talk, and flamboyant party entertainers turned the scene into a sensory nightmare. You felt Kento lean close, his smooth voice grazing your ear.

"I'll get us a drink, shall I?"

Before you could turn and beg to go with him, he was gone, weaving back to the kitchen with a sly look in his eye. Other parents stepped back from you, the currently child-free sacrifice, and you were as a gazelle on the Sahara.

"Tag, YOU'RE IT--"

You squeaked as a child slapped your thigh, promptly sprinting away. You smirked, tying back your hair, ready to be the cool auntie.

Ready to be IT.

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Kento strolled through your sister's kitchen, nodding politely to the horde of strangers, catching your sister's eye and being beckoned over. She looked sweaty, and harangued, but happy.

"Kento! Drink?" Without waiting for an answer, she bustled around behind her, scooping a ladle into an enormous crystal dish of juice, "Here, you'll need this, I promise. It's not that strong--"

Kento wasn't listening as two big red cups were pushed into his hands, and stared instead out of the window into the garden, his gaze meltingly soft and adoring.

He watched you, hair up, dewy in the Spring sun, laughing as you darted after squealing children. His chest burst, his head a montage of you and him and a fantasy child. Kento sighed, and took a generous swig of juice, thirsty after your long drive. He raised his fine eyebrows, glancing down into the cup.

"I don't normally like juice," he said aloud to your sister, who offered him a guilty little smile, "but this has something about it."

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Panting, and being congratulated by your watch for completing a good workout, you lolloped away from the crowd of children, who had now mercifully abandoned you for a live magician.

"Where is that man," you pondered aloud to yourself, as you poured yourself a glass of lemonade in the kitchen, "who promised me a dri-- oh!"

You slopped lemonade down your arm with a squeak of surprise, as strong arms wrapped around your waist, a wet kiss being pressed behind your ear.

"Kento! There you are. I was beginning to think you'd left me," you teased, wriggling away to wash your arms at the sink. Kento hovered behind you, predatory in his affections.

"Leave you?" He began, low and sultry, "How could I possibly, when you taste so--"

Kento was interrupted, your mother leaning past him to give you a kiss. As you spoke with her, you reapplied your lipstick, and Kento felt a wicked lick of heat in his belly, all inhibitions thrown out of the window after three large cups of 'juice'.

Your mother left, and you turned to drape your arms around Kento's neck, ready to be held at arm's length in accordance with his strict ick towards public affection. With a jolt of surprise, you felt his arms lock behind your waist instead, holding you flush against his body, his light slacks and summer shirt (why was his tie loose? how were the top three buttons suddenly undone?) leaving little to the imagination.

"That colour suits you," Kento whispered, husky as his eyes flicked down to your lips, one thumb coming up to slowly brush your bottom lip down, shuddering at the lipstick coming off onto his skin, "but it would suit my cock much better, don't you think?"

You blushed furiously, trying to battle your way out of his arms as he chuckled against your decollete. Your frantic eyes spotted the punch bowl, your sister-- from whom drinks should never be accepted-- and a series of empty cups.

You stuttered up at Kento, feeling yourself throb against your will as his tongue darted across his lips, smearing the lipstick residue on his thumb onto his neck instead. You began to hiss at him, berating, squirming against him to release yourself from his arms.

Kento groaned into you, and you clapped your hands over your face to hide your blush; "Keep that up," he threatened, low and laughing, "and I might just have to tie you up before I cum in my--"

You dropped out of his arms, wiggling under them and whipping your head round to check for other people, before pointing a finger at him. You mimed zipping your lips, eyes glistening, cheeks pink, and Kento felt his cock twitch at you telling him off. You had backed away, but Kento smirked, lopsided, and slowly loped towards you, eyes hungry, backing you into a corner.

"Tag, you're it!" A little hand batted at Kento's leg, and he flipped smoothly, spinning and jogging off into the garden after your niece. You stood, red faced, feeling your heartbeat between your legs, and wondering where to hide to cover your sha--

"You alright? Looking a bit..." Your brother-in-law walked into the kitchen, and finished weakly, unsure if he was about to inadvertently insult you. You smiled, flapping your hand at him.

"Hot," you gasped, "running round after this lot!" He smiled appreciatively, offering you a cup of your sister's deadly punch. You took a swig before holding it away from your lips, coughing.

"What the hell did she put in this?" You sputtered. Your brother-in-law looked sheepish, at least, on his wife's behalf.

"Everything, I think," he apologised, "Kento likes it, anyway--"

"Oh, he would," you snipped, before excusing yourself to the garden. Unable to spot Kento amongst the knights and princesses, your neck prickled, feeling distinctly hunted.

Staring from treehouse, to bouncy castle, to little wooden playhouse, to game of tag, you raised your cup to your mouth, ready to chug a mouthful of Dutch courage-- and you felt a long-fingered, enormous hand pluck the cup out of your grasp from behind, hearing Kento release a hum of satisfaction as he drained your punch in one gulp.

"Gorgeous punch," Kento drawled, slipping one foot between yours and one arm round your waist, "let's dip your tits in it and I can suck it right off."

Without warning, Kento hooked one of your legs from under you as you squeaked at him, and he took the opportunity to heroically catch you before you fell to the ground.

A small cluster of parents looked over to you both. Kento dusted you off, smiling at you, and gently chastising; "you shouldn't drink so much at a children's party, darling."

Your jaw dropped. Wordlessly, Kento abandoned you and hopped onto the bouncy castle with your niece; you sputtered at the faintly judgemental looks from the mothers beside you. Mortified, you moved to the party food table, pretending to organise plates to hide how flushed your face was, and how you had to clamp your legs together to stop the throbbing.

Turning round once you had calmed down, you felt Kento's arms cage you in against the table, just like the last party, and you gaped up at him in mute horror. Kento maintained eye contact, brown eyes twinkling as he reached round you, picking up an eclair from a plate of party cakes.

"Cream-filled," whispered Kento, taking a languid bite, whipped cream pouring from the end facing you. Kento chewed, leaning close to you as he swallowed, tongue darting out to lick cream off his lips, "my favourite."

You could have exploded, your whole body on fire with embarrassment and want. Nearby, your elderly great-aunt cooed as Kento appeared to lovingly offer you a bite of his pastry. You were silent, stunned; she reassured you.

"Don't mind me, dear, take a bite!"

"I'm-- I mean, uh--" you stuttered, and Kento smiled at your aunt, pulling you in sweetly by the hip.

"I think she's full, actually," Kento laughed with your aunt, smiling again as she walked off. Spinning back to face you, Kento's smile was gone and replaced by wolfish hunger again, "but not as full as you could be, all fucked-out on my cock, hmm?"

"Oh my god, Kento," you whimpered, face in your hands, now surrounded by children being invited to the table for lunch. Kento smiled, bending down to pass plates out, before pulling you aside again.

"Say it again," he growled, low and desperate, tucking your hair behind your ear, fingers lingering for a fraction too long, "but next time, I want it because I'm pulling your hair."

You ran, positively melting, in dire need of a hiding spot. Zipping through the kitchen, past the living room, you rounded the corner into the hallway, finding the nearest cupboard, and darting in.

No sooner had you reached up, pulling a little string to switch the light on...than a hand, strong and determined, closed around the doorframe, pulling Kento into view. You felt faint, both hands pressed over your mouth to stop yourself from audibly gasping.

Kento never once took his eyes off you, stepping into the narrow shelved cupboard, and reaching up for the light pull. The last thing you saw before being plunged into darkness, was Kento removing his tie.

Your senses heightened, you smelled Kento's cologne before feeling his lips on your neck, shamelessly sucking you, tasting you. Kento groaned, loud and shuddering, and he laughed as you slapped him on the chest. You felt him thrust loosely against your belly.

"I love parties," Kento lied, and you scoffed.

"You hate parties, Kento, you just love--"

"Fucking you with words before squirrelling you away somewhere?" His mouth moved lower, shifting your shirt and bra aside to pull your nipple into his mouth, hot and wet and sucking you just a little too hard, "Foreplay, darling."

You gasped, your fingers tangling in Kento's hair, his other hand making quick work of undoing your shorts. Idly slipping his hand inside and underneath your underwear, you bucked against his hand, Kento shivering with glee at your delicious wetness.

"Fuck yourself on my hand," he whispered, husky with restraint, "and we'll see who cums first, hmm? A little competition." You clapped a hand over your mouth as he curled two thick fingers inside you, so long that the edges tickled your cervix and you felt him in your belly.

The heel of Kento's hand pressed flush to your clit, and your hips stuttered as you rolled them against him, seeing stars with the friction, rutting down onto his fingers, holding him by the wrist.

Kento had already undone his trousers in the dark, and palmed his aching cock desperately inside his boxers. Whispering filth to you, sucking and releasing your breast into his mouth again and again with wet pops as he pinched your nipple between his lips, Kento wished he had more hands.

"Keep going-- fuck, good girl-- such a good girl--" he whispered, unable to stroke his cock for fear of cumming down your thigh, his head swimming with your velvety wet walls clenching around his fingers, using his hand as a toy to pleasure yourself.

Kento felt his high begin to creep down his spine, his balls clenching, biting lightly against your nipple and trying not to rip into you like a wild animal. As you felt your own orgasm creep closer, humping the heel of his hand, fucking his fingers as deep as they could reach for relief...Kento removed his hand with urgency.

"--can't-- can't hold back--" he shuddered, shunting down your underwear for better access, "--can't waste it--" Kento grabbed your hand, wrapping it round his twitching cock, and settled his weeping cockhead against your clit, keeping his other hand close.

Wrapping his fingers round yours, keeping himself pressed against your clit, Kento stroked himself fast, his groans building, until they tapered off into stuttering moans. You felt short, hot bursts of Kento's seed hit your clit, and fall into his other, waiting hand.

Kento shivered and swore to feel you rub his cockhead on your clit, using his cum as lube. He had gathered the rest of his cum, thick and white, on his fingers, and thrust them back inside you, not stopping until they grazed your cervix again. Positioning the heel of his palm against your clit again, Kento squeezed your thigh, pulling it forwards to encourage you to fuck his hand again.

You complied, Kento's seed giving you the lubrication you needed, pressing your aching pussy down around his fingers until you felt him deep in your belly again. Kento's mouth and other hand were full, busy with your breasts, kneading and massaging and pinching as he whispered encouragement to you.

"--got to cum-- suck it all up into you-- then I'll fuck it in even deeper--" Kento's drunk filth rolled off his tongue without a filter, going straight to your core, and your orgasm burned through you like wildfire.

Kento kissed you deeply, drinking your cries and whimpers down like liquor. Kento's strong hand thrust you through your ecstasy, feeling your pussy clench and suck against his fingers, leaving barely a trace of his cum behind.

Pulling his fingers out, Kento replaced his hand with his knee to keep you upright against the wall. In the dark, you blushed to hear the wet sucks of Kento licking his fingers clean.

"Ready?" He toned, low and devious.

"For wha--" With little warning, Kento lifted you against the wall, wrapping your legs around his waist, and pressing his half-hard cock into your pussy, still twitching from your recent orgasm.

Kento groaned into your neck, hot and squirming with overstimulation, letting your incoordinate shocked little thrusts suck his cock deeper, bringing it back to life. He felt himself twitch inside you, growing longer and harder as the blood rushed back.

Drunk on Kento's insistent need to fill you with his cum, you had tuned out the sounds of the party, letting Kento hold your weight and shuddering in delight as you felt his cock warm and swelling inside you. A change in the tone of voices beyond the cupboard snapped you to attention.

"Hide and seek!" cried a little voice in the garden, "You hide, and I'll count...one, two--" A flurry of little screams and footsteps came closer, into the house.

"Kento," you hissed panicking. Kento chuckled against your neck, rutting lazily into you, trembling with the bittersweet tang of overstimulation. Encouraging you to lock your hips round him, Kento looped his tie through the door handle, wrapping the tails around his hand and bringing it back to your arse you hold you up again.

"One more time," he moaned, suckling little red hearts into your skin, "I won't-- won't be long--"

Hearing Kento's wavering voice, so intoxicated by his need to fill you, you slipped two fingers down, shivering as you used the remnants of his cum to rub circles on your clit, deliberately squeezing your walls around Kento until he whimpered against you. Feeling you pleasure yourself around him had Kento reeling.

Kento began to lift you by the thighs, ramming you down onto his cock, now rock solid, and you muffled your squeals into his chest. You heard him growl, shuddering as you bit into his pecs, and it spurred him on to fuck you harder. Clinging on around his neck, Kento felt a rush of satisfaction as to your pussy quivered in response to his brutal pace.

"--so close--" he whined, his breaths hot and panting, fruity with the deadly punch that brought him to this, "--got to-- you first...fuck, so deep--" Kento's arms faltered, and you dropped deeper around his cock with a squeak, the jolt making you convulse with pleasure.

Kento came with a muted growl, biting into you, unable to press himself any deeper than he already was. Overtaken by the euphoria of feeling himself twitch and spurt inside you, hearing you trying to suppress your gasps, Kento thrust lazily into you, finally satisfied, panting as he came down from his high; you flopped against him, lost in delirious pleasure.

Your stomach dropped as you heard little voices outside the door. Kento held his tie taut as hands pulled at the handle, before declaring "it's locked!", the footsteps scurrying away. Kento chuckled into your neck, devious as you slapped at his chest again.

"You need to lie down," he whispered into you, helping you to dress yourself again, filled with anguish as he thought of his cum dripping out of you.

"I do need a lie down," you agreed, still giggling and love-drunk. Releasing the tie and taking you by the hand, Kento peered surreptitiously out of the doorway before spiriting you away to the living room. A set of little boys and girls, dressed incoordinately as princess-knights, sat playing with nail polish and make-up.

They looked up at you both as you approached, taking your rumpled appearances in as evidence of a really fun playtime.

Kento filled once more with wicked intent.

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Lying back on the sofa with cucumber over your eyes, your lips were pursed as your niece plastered them with sparkly lipstick.

Kento sat cross-legged on the floor beside you, fingers splayed, nails now covered with nail polish of pink and red and gold and--

"Where did they get this cucumber?" You asked, sniffing, frowning. Kento's jaw twitched, answering after thanking a blushing little girl for her wonderful manicure.

"Sandwiches."