#interestingly opposite

[icehearts]

7, 8, and 11. Please and thank you :>

Three? THREE?! Oh boy, thank you for the ask! [ sexuality headcanons & questions ]

7. what attire do they feel most attractive in?

In her day-to-day, Esca tries to strike a balance between function and femininity. When she really wants to feel herself (or if she wants a little more, hm, social leverage), she has a few favored styles:

Corseted tops (the more intricate and convoluted lacing, the better), low necklines, and open backs. Anything that accentuates her figure while remaining out of reach or otherwise difficult to access. (Why yes, she does love to be withholding.)

Saving some post length and putting the rest of the questions & answers under here:

8. what attire do they find others most attractive in?

If asked directly, she'd probably say she's attracted to those who are well-dressed, garbed in expensive finery, or even wearing a prestigious uniform of some kind. Truthfully? It's not a complete lie — uniforms can be rather attractive, after all — but someone wearing attire as a status symbol is less attractive to Esca than, say, clothing that is meticulously well-cared for.

A dragoon wearing a full suit of carefully polished armor? She wants to pick it apart, piece by piece, until she finds the person underneath it all. A tracker wearing a linen shirt, holes mended and patched by hand? She wants to trace the fingertips of the one who held the needle and thread.

Also? Honestly? Putting all of that other stuff aside, Esca loves a little bit of exposed skin. A playful bit of stomach peeking out, a collarbone visible under a loose shirt, forearms flexing against rolled-up sleeves, a skirt riding up to show a hint of thigh — juuust enough to make her mind wander.

11. how do they feel about foreplay?

Oh, it's her favorite part! Esca thrives when she's winding her partner up, taking her sweet time and teasing out all kinds of different reactions until they're putty in her hands. Few things please her more than maintaining her composure while transforming her partner into a blushing, pleading mess.

[napoleonic-confessions]

[andalorii]

Absolute best thing I've ever hatched <3 abyss and mint just so happens to be my top tier favourite combination of colours and although my dream g1 is XXY abyss/mint, I am Absolutely Not going to say no to an XYX oh my... he is perfect and I can't believe the luck!! https://www1.flightrising.com/dragon/89751049

[gigglegirlhappy]

Y’all remember how in the rebooted Archie Sonic continuity, Sonic’s Werehog transformation was caused by him inhaling some nasty Dark Gaia essence, resulting in a slow, gradual first transformation that took place over several days?

I humbly propose a Sonic Unleashed AU, where the events of Sonic Unleashed play out pretty much the same as they usually do, but with one key exception: the fissures that resulted from the world splitting apart emits the same misty vapor, resulting in other mobians having to deal with the whole Werehog thing after some nonce inevitability ends up inhaling the stuff.

I feel like, since Chip gives Sonic the whole spiel about how it was his own will that kept him pure, the personality of werehoggified mobians should probably fall more in like with how it affects people being influenced by Dark Gaia, but with more feral and frenzied undertones, similar to the crazed frenzy Archie Sonic found himself in during his first proper transformation.

I’d love to see how something along those lines would affect not only the story, but also the character’s relationship with one another. We didn’t see many mobians in Unleashed, which makes me wonder more about how, for example, Team Chaotix would deal with a newly werehogified member (or members).

We have a lot of story potential here today fellas!!!!!!

[new-haven-psych-ward]

so I realized the main four geats riders could all be tracked to the four stages of grief and the lamentation arc went hard so:

[kissycat]

The older I get the more it turns out I have the snufkin nature

[chromotps]

h-hey so. I saw your tweet? from such a long time ago (eh no I think it was october) that was about cora/law and something something basically law being soooo much into cora and sick of waiting in general (can I also mention here. the 1975 - fallingforyou and especially the /you said some day we might, when i’m closer to your height/ line) so uhhhhh what about. a cora lives AU when they reunite once law becomes a warlord (also don’t tell me the 100 hearts weren’t meant for cora) and cora has been somehow found and brought back to life by the marines??? but kept hidden from public information for as long as doflamingo was running loose and rampant. but after dressrosa it’s no longer important and anyway they meet again and it’s all. reserved and polite and cora is just happy to see law all grown up and how much influence and power he has etc etc meanwhile law. keeps inviting him to the most high-end/expensive restaurants. buys him the most expensive wine. gets him heart-themed jewelry. the finest silk shirts/scarves. some rare types of tobacco. basically like a reverse sugar daddy thing except it’s law who absolutely spoils cora except cora doesn’t really have any idea what to do with it? bc law just says it’s bc cora took care of him all these years ago and now law wants to reciprocate. except he’s. way too invested in this/there’s something else in his eyes when he looks at cora, instead of just gratitude. IDK IM JUST. they’re such a weird ship to me bc i can’t stomach it at all in any other form than Cora lives AU and they meet as adults + the age diff/dynamic remains kinds the same (master/protegee? sorta) + law is just so fucking into him it’s unreal. bc hes spent so much time thinking about Cora? growing up? much longer than he had actually known him. so he kind of became something mystical in his mind, so when he finally meets him in flesh again? law can’t really deal with whatever he’s feeling toward him except it’s a whole fucking lot. again idk even what I wanted to say through this it’s just back to that tweet - yes I also think it’s a shame there isn’t more coralaw where law is the one leading the relationship/courting cora (or. domming him. like you said) and generally being lowkey obsessed about him. thanks lmfao and bye

HJGSFGSDjgdfshj first off this ask made my day... is there anything like the internet to bring together two fans of a very niche and specific dynamic ANYWAY

GOSH I do love the idea of Law spoiling Cora, especially bc like, from what we saw Cora went from a life of luxury in his youth, to one of struggle and then eventually medium-ish comfort, and was happy to throw it all away again for Law when they went on the run. So it's like, now Law can give that all back to Cora easily and I'd even sort of read it a bit as Law subconsciously trying to show how he's not just some little kid anymore so let him sleep with you Corazon, look, you think a guy who gives you this many silk shirts doesn't know how to show you a good time

Cora getting a little overwhelmed when the gifts and meals start being sprinkled with signs of courting... like, a brush of a hand or Law bringing them somewhere secluded on a walk and carefully getting into Cora's space. Asking Cora to be his +1 to big fancy dinners and escorting him around with a hand on his back ahahaHA

Cora can't deny that Law is just like, a dream guy, but he's gonna need a little extra push to let go of that sense of propriety saying that "they really shouldn't do this"

I tried responding to some other parts of the ask but it got really long and sort of turned into me just rambling about lawcora, so... i separated it all from here 😂

GOSH the 100 hearts being for Cora... another hopelessly romantic tribute from Law, the most Extra Adult-ass Emo walking around. It's exactly like you said, that's one of my favorite things about Law around Cora--the depth of his emotion... we know Law had this deep capacity for hatred when they first met—he was just this well of resentment and anger, even as a kid. But after seeing just how far Cora would go for him, that intensity got completely redirected into love (or "low-key obsession" haha—the naming his pirate crew after Cora and modeling his coat and tattoos after him). It's especially wild considering how "reserved" Law is around others, I guess? Like, he wants everyone around him to Stop Being So Ridiculous, but I feel like with Cora he would just want more and more, to draw out bigger and bigger reactions from him and encourage Cora to screw convention and run off with him. bc in his head they're all that really matter...? he's an all-or-nothing kind of guy!! I guess

And yeeeeah on Cora's side, it's definitely a difficult ship to pin down. I'm kind of like you, really picky about how I'd want it to play out... Part of me doesn't want Cora to be completely oblivious, and I don't love when people strip out how much of a badass/tough/discerning guy he is (though I do love the klutzy, naive-ish side of him). I don't know......... I think I like how I laid it out in the tweet, where Law has always sort of harbored feelings for Cora in the form of puppy love that transformed into an all-consuming fixation. Then it's just a matter of Cora finding out about it, denying those feelings (but the reason changes from "I couldn't see Law that way!!" to "he couldn't really feel that way about me/he could find someone more 'his equal' (in age? status? what excuses are you making Cora??)" over time. And at that point, when Law knows Cora wants him just as bad but is holding back from it, he just snaps. 😂

If they really did have just one long separation, and then a sudden reunion, I like the idea of Law re-learning who Cora really is... Like, he has faded memories of Cora's bravery and goofiness and weird little habits, but he wasn't prepared to meet him again and only end up liking him MORE. He learns about what Cora went through as a kid/in Doffy's shadow, and seeing how he still stayed so kind and brave just makes Law wilder than ever about him lmao!!

[cottageivy]

some ava outfits ive done recently (with a mini lore? dump? ish? about fucking CLOTHES in the tags lol)

[bluemoonrabbit]

I forgot how much I like recording my meals. It's like I get to look at and think about each delicious thing I ate twice as long.

[quick-bright-things]

Thisssss. Also my ADHD cannot with video/audio. I have a nonfunctional relationship with time and time-bound information formats. Give me reading plz.

I am slowly losing my mind over the shift towards video as the default media format.

I do not find this to be an efficient way to absorb information. I am bored and distracted by the time the largely unnecessary introduction is over. I can't use ctrl+f to find the specific information I'm looking for. If there are instructions to follow, I don't want to have to constantly pause and back up to the part I need.

At least give me a fucking transcript.

[tchaikovskym]

going to send this to my advisor and tell her its a biblically accurate angel

[mightaswelljxmp]

hm ok so interestingly, bdubs’s courthouse is built on an odd number of blocks. note the roof of the facade coming to a point, but more importantly, the nine pillars….

you don’t use an odd number of pillars. like ever.

let me get this out of the way first: i get why you’d build with odd numbers in minecraft. i usually do it myself, to not run into problems like double doors or two-wide pointed roofs or frustrating spacing/symmetry between decorative elements. however. to not even out the design of something so unequivocally done in every other example of columns and pillars…. fascinating implications…

every other example guys. every other building with columns like this has an even number of them.

doing so sets the line of symmetry at an invisible point between two pillars, an even number on each side. but an odd total number of pillars makes the central pillar itself the line of symmetry. this does a couple things.

one, it upends the sense of community and equality. which i know sounds crazy, but really, a group of columns are all put there to hold up a structure. there’s no focus on one because they are all are working as supports.

symbolically, at least when first used in ancient greece, pillars represented people. and it makes sense for courthouses, especially, to want to show an even, fair, equal number of people on each side. no focus on any one, no inherent bias right off the bat just looking at it.

with an odd number of pillars, though, one will always be placed front and center.

and THEN. and then you walk in the courtroom itself (also odd-numbered blocks) and you are immediately opposite the judge, bdubs, located exactly centrally. and true, courtrooms are often set up like this anyway. but bdubs ups the ante and reaffirms that no, focus is on him by staging it all as a daytime court show, boom mic just over his head, cameras pointed in, spotlights on him.

literally by design, it was not built for justice. it’s built for show, for entertainment. and just look at the credits to know exactly what sort of message you’re supposed to be getting from this show.

the biblical story he used, with king solomon. it’s about king solomon. isn’t really about the trial itself, or the babies, or the women. it’s about showing (off) how wise and just he is. that’s the point. hm. interesting.

now, getting to the second point that etho also picked up on: it feels like a prison.

it’s not just the color palette. when your eyes naturally draw to the center point, you aren’t seeing an open space. instead of feeling like an arch or gateway or otherwise some kind of opening, the pillar there makes it feel closed off. the overall effect is that of prison bars. not pillars lining the entrance to a place of order or a temple. bars of a cage, a cell.

imagine the lincoln memorial were set up with 11 or 13 pillars. he’d look so much more trapped in there.

having a central pillar blocks the entrance. it’s not welcoming. you have to go around it; it’s immediately inconveniencing you. and when you go to leave, it’s there blocking you again.

this courthouse was not designed and built to be fair, nor accomodating, nor equitable, on any terms. even if unintentional, i wouldn’t call it so much coincidental as i would… subconscious.

after all, y’know. form follows function.

[willinghands]

birth control (and/or spiro?) straightened my hair and im actually so sad about it ☹️ i loved my curls! i didn’t even know hormones could do that but in retrospect i do think being on t made it curlier. i also love not having pmdd or hormonal acne anymore but i was already thinking about going back on t at some point and that would be a big tick in the pro column (but going off my current hormones is a very scary prospect bc i’m worried that my skin and mental health will both flip out 😬 so i may or may not work up the courage to do that. would be good to be on it for a while before top surgery though i hear…i wonder if there’s a trans informed dermatologist out there who would give me a preemptive accutane rx lol).

[anghraine]

It's always been intriguing to me that, even when Elizabeth hates Darcy and thinks he's genuinely a monstrous, predatory human being, she does not ever perceive him as sexually predatory. In fact, literally no one in the novel suggests or believes he is sexually dangerous at any point. There's not the slightest hint of that as a factor in the rumors surrounding him, even though eighteenth-century fiction writers very often linked masculine villainy to a possibility of sexual predation in the subtext or just text*. Austen herself does this over and over when it comes to the true villains of her novels.

Even as a supposed villain, though, Darcy is broadly understood to be predatory and callous towards men who are weaker than him in status, power, and personality—with no real hint of sexual threat about it at all (certainly none towards women). Darcy's "villainy" is overwhelmingly about abusing his socioeconomic power over other men, like Wickham and Bingley. This can have secondhand effects on women's lives, but as collateral damage. Nobody thinks he's targeting women.

In addition, Elizabeth's interpretations of Darcy in the first half of the book tend to involve associating him with relatively prestigious women by contrast to the men in his life (he's seen as extremely dissimilar from his male friends and, as a villain, from his father). So Elizabeth understands Darcy-as-villain not in terms of the popular, often very sexualized images of masculine villainy at the time, but in terms of rich women she personally despises like Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and even Georgiana Darcy; Elizabeth assumes a lot about Georgiana in service of her hatred of Darcy before ever meeting her).

The only people in Elizabeth's own community who side with Darcy at this time are, interestingly, both women, and likely the highest-status unmarried women in her community: Charlotte Lucas and Jane Bennet. Both have some temperamental affinities with Darcy, and while it's not clear if he recognizes this, he quietly approves of them without even knowing they've been sticking up for him behind the scenes.

This concept of Darcy-as-villain is not just Elizabeth's, either. Darcy is never seen by anyone as a sexual threat no matter how "bad" he's supposed to be. No one is concerned about any danger he might pose to their daughters or sisters. Kitty is afraid of him, but because she's easily intimidated rather than any sense of actual peril. Even another man, Mr Bennet, seems genuinely surprised to discover late in the novel that Darcy experiences attraction to anything other than his own ego.

I was thinking about this because of how often the concept of Darcy as an anti-hero before Elizabeth "fixes him" seems caught up in a hypermasculine, sexually dangerous, bad boy image of him that even people who actively hate him in the novel never subscribe to or remotely imply. Wickham doesn't suggest anything of the kind, Elizabeth doesn't, the various gossips of Meryton don't, Mr Bennet and the Gardiners don't, nobody does. If anything, he's perceived as cold and sexless.

Wickham in particular defines Darcy's villainy in opposition to the patriarchal ideal his father represented. Wickham's version of their history works to link Darcy to Lady Anne, Lady Catherine (primarily), and Georgiana rather than any kind of masculine sexuality. This version of Darcy is a villain who colludes with unsympathetic high-status women to harm men of less power than themselves, but villain!Darcy poses no direct threat to women of any kind.

It's always seemed to me that there's a very strong tendency among fans and academics to frame Darcy as this ultra-gendered figure with some kind of sexual menace going on, textually or subtextually. He's so often understood entirely in terms of masculinity and sexual desire, with his flaws closely tied to both (whether those flaws are his real ones, exaggerated, or entirely manufactured). Yet that doesn't seem to be his vibe to other characters in the story. There's a level at which he does not register to other characters as highly masculine in his affiliations, highly sexual, or in general as at all unsafe** to be around, even when they think he's a monster. And I kind of feel like this makes the revelations of his actual decency all along and his full-on heroism later easier to accept in the end.

------------

*The incompetently awful villain(?) in Sanditon, for instance, imagines himself another Lovelace (a reference to the famous rapist-villain of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa). Evelina's sheltered education and lack of protectors makes her vulnerable to sexual exploitation in Frances Burney's Evelina, though she ultimately manages to avoid it. There's frequently an element of sexual predation in Gothic novels even of very different kinds (e.g. Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis's The Monk both lean into this, in their wildly dissimilar styles). William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams, a book mostly about the destructive evils of class hierarchies and landowning classes specifically, depicts the mutual obsession of the genteel villain Falkland and working class hero Caleb in notoriously homoerotic terms (Godwin himself added a preface in 1832 saying, "Falkland was my Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes ... Caleb Williams was the wife"). This list could go on for a very long time.

**Darcy is also not usually perceived by other characters as a particularly sexual, highly masculine person in a safe way, either, even once his true character is known. Elizabeth emphasizes the resilience of Darcy's love for her more than the passionate intensity they both evidently feel; in the later book, she does sometimes makes assumptions about his true feelings or intentions based on his gender, but these assumptions are pretty much invariably shown to be wrong. In general the cast is completely oblivious to the attraction he does feel; even Charlotte, who wonders about something in that quarter, ends up doubting her own suspicions and wonders if he's just very absent-minded.

The novel emphasizes that he is physically attractive, but it goes to pains to distinguish this from Wickham's sex appeal or the charisma of a Bingley or Fitzwilliam. Mr Bennet (as mentioned above) seems to have assumed Darcy is functionally asexual, insofar as he has a concept of that. Most of the fandom-beloved moments in which Darcy is framed as highly sexual, or where he himself is sexualized for the audience, are very significantly changed in adaptation or just invented altogether for the adaptations they appear in. Darcy watching Elizabeth after his bath in the 1995 is invented for that version, him snapping at Elizabeth in their debates out of UST is a persistent change from his smiling banter with her in the book, the fencing to purge his feelings is invented, the pond swim/wet shirt is invented. In the 2005 P&P, the instant reaction to Elizabeth is invented, the hand flex of repressed passion is invented, the Netherfield Ball dance as anything but an exercise in mutual frustration is invented, the near-kiss after the proposal in invented, etc. And in those as well, he's never presented as sexually predatory, not even as a "villain."

[ashasdiary]

Pumpkin

Pairing: Nanami Kento x fem!reader

Synopsis: Husband!nanami (later father!Nanami) being super domestic during your pregnancy, birth, and arrival of your baby. 

CW: a smidge 🤏🏻 of angst but mainly FLUFF, pet names, established relationship, pregnancy, birth, babies  WC: 1.9k A/N: this is a sequel to Vitamins but can be read as a standalone if the smut in Vitamins is not your jam. Enjoy this fluffy goodness 🥹

Ever since those two tests had very loudly informed you of your pregnancy, Nanami had not let you lift a single finger to do anything. Not that he had even before your pregnancy — your husband’s love language was acts of service — but now? He was very hyperactive in taking care of you. 

“Honey, did you note down the appointment time in the calendar?”

“Honey, did you take your folic acid?”

“Honey, you’ve been on your feet too much today. You need to rest.”

“Honey, do you want me to give you a massage?”

“Kento,” you sigh, “I’m fine, really. It’s still early stages.”

“And you have to be careful during the early stages,” he notes. 

“I know. But you’re also treating me like I’m china and…it’s just…a bit too much,” you say. You didn’t want to tell him this, because you knew he meant well, but you also had to communicate your feelings to him. You were worried he’d be upset when you did, but he looks at you apologetically, seemingly taking it in his stride. 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’t mean to make you feel…suffocated. I was worried I was being too overbearing, but I wanted to make sure you knew that I want to do as much as I can for you. And the baby,” he explains in one breath. Your eyes soften and you step into his embrace, hugging him tightly, burying your face into his neck. 

“I do. I’ve always known that. I appreciate everything you’re doing for me, but I would also like to do things myself sometimes.”

“I understand. I’ll be more mindful, my love,” he rubs his hand up and down your back. 

“Thank you, Ken. I love you,” you kiss his cheek and he turns his face to capture your lips with his in a chaste kiss. 

Every week, you’d made it tradition to take a side profile picture of the bump along with the fruit that the baby was the size of. This was Nanami’s idea, of course, and he made it creative and fun. Seeing him be so excited for the arrival of your child made your heart swell with joy. 

He’d very proudly started to create a scrapbook of all the happenings during your pregnancy which he was eager to show your child when they got older. 

Interestingly, Nanami did not want to do a gender reveal when the ultrasound technician offered to write it down at one of the scans. And you couldn’t fault his logic when he later explained, “It’s silly. It’s a social construct. We’ll find out when they’re born, and regardless, even then it won’t matter. We’ll still love them the same.”

Every craving, every need, he provided. Including the need to jump his bones in the second trimester. Damn, did he keep up with you. You knew it was because he found the cute little swell of your belly so incredibly sexy — he’d voiced it on numerous occasions — knowing he’d done that, nothing made him more unhinged. 

Ever the doting husband and expectant father, he’d started reading up more about babies and often tell you facts you’d have never known. “Did you know that your heart grows bigger during pregnancy?” He informs you while you’re laid back on the couch, on opposite ends, 5 months in. 

“I…did not know that,” you blink, surprised. 

“Yep. It’s to help the heart pump more blood to the baby. Babies can also cry in the womb.”

“Oh no,” you pout, “I don’t want baby to cry.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that, hon, they’ve been quite gentle so far. You can sing to them, they’ll hear it by now. And talking to them in another language is also beneficial,” he notes and you let out a soft laugh at how he’s rattling off these fun facts. 

“Your brain truly amazes me sometimes, Ken, it’s like a sponge,” you prop your arm up and rest your chin on your hand. 

“So’s the baby’s right now. We should get a Duolingo subscription and get them started on another language already,” he jokes and you let out a hearty laugh, which earns you a little kick in protest from your baby. 

“Well, your child just said no to that,” you giggle. 

His mouth falls open and he scoots over and lies between your legs, coming face to face with your bump. “Listen here, you little squirt, you will learn another language whether you like it or not.”

“Oh, daddy’s setting rules,” you whisper. 

“And in addition to that language, which you will be fluent in, you’ll also learn jujutsu,” Kento tells your bump definitively. You laugh at how he’s instructing the baby firmly one minute and then lovingly pressing kisses to your skin the next. 

He relaxes against you, and you decide to tell him a fact you’d found out recently. “Did you know that eggs can pick and choose whether the sperm gets to fertilise it? For a while, I thought it was just a race of the best sperm to get to the egg. But the egg can reject it if it wants to. Isn’t that fascinating?”

He raises an eyebrow in slight surprise and amusement at this newfound knowledge. He wasn’t aware of that little detail either, but he finds it very intriguing. “That’s pretty impressive. I had no idea that they had such power over which sperm gets to fertilise them. Who knew eggs were such shrewd gatekeepers?”

“Right? But my egg was a terrible gatekeeper. Probably a combination of that and your sperm just being overachievers.”

He laughs heartily at your comment, the image of his overly ambitious sperm and your easy-going egg combining to form your miracle is quite the amusing picture. 

“Well, I do have some pretty strong swimmers, I can’t deny that. And your egg must have had a weak moment, letting my little overachievers through. But I'm glad it did,” he smiles warmly at you, his hand gently rubbing your leg. 

There were moments where you couldn’t wait to meet the little one, but you also found yourself getting emotional a few times that it wouldn’t just be you and him anymore. When he notices your glassy eyes one day while you’re eating breakfast, he frowns and takes your hand in his. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

The dam suddenly bursts — darned pregnancy hormones — and you start to bawl, managing to say between breaths, “It’s— not— going to— be just— you and me any— anymore…”

He has to stop himself from laughing at your sudden realisation and he circles around the dining table, embracing you. 

“And I know how stupid I sound right now, because I wanted this, and still do, but I’m— I’m just…scared,” you cry, inhaling shaky breaths. “What if I’m not a good mother? What if parenthood is the complete opposite of what I envision it to be?” You ramble.  

He rubs your back gently and comforts you, kissing the crown of your head as you rest it on his chest. “I know, honey. You don’t sound stupid. It’s natural to feel nervous. Parenthood is a new venture for both of us but it won’t be vastly different to what we think it’ll be. And you’ll be a fantastic mother. I’ll be by your side every step of the way, you’ll never be alone. We’re doing this together. We’ll make mistakes together. Clean up messes together. Strive together. It’ll be alright.”

His words of reassurance bring you a sense of calm and you feel the warmth of comfort spread through you slowly, easing your anxieties. 

He reassured you every time you felt any sense of worry or sadness, provided the love that you needed and more, and was a real anchor to harbouring your emotions. 

Week 40 arrived before you knew it. With a bright and large orange pumpkin in hand, you took what you hoped would be the last picture for the scrapbook. You both subsequently started referring to the baby as “pumpkin” that week. Every day that week, he had tried to coax them out with sweet words. 

“Are you gonna come out today, pumpkin? Today’s a good day to join us, I think. The weather’s nice out. You should come see it,” he whispered to your bump in the morning before you were awake. 

When your baby decided that they were ready to come out, Nanami was there, holding your hand the entire time, not once letting go. You were quite afraid of this final hurdle but with Nanami by your side, you knew you’d be okay. 

It was a long and tiring 14 hours, exhaustion was settled into your bones, but when you finally, finally give the final push and the baby is out, you cry. From the relief of birth being over, from the new chapter that had just opened, from having sight of the baby that you and Nanami had made. 

Nanami kisses your head, eyes glassy as he whispers praises of how well you did, that it’s over and that he’s so proud of you. 

The midwife places pumpkin onto your chest for some skin to skin, placing a blanket on top, the little thing curled up and looking disapproving of being pushed out of the coziness of your womb. 

Nanami chuckles softly as he peers over and the baby’s rosy lips tremble before they take their first breath and start to cry quietly. You sniffle as you wipe your own tears and look at your husband and he kisses your forehead. 

You hush the baby gently, speaking softly, “You’re here, pumpkin…here with us. I’ve got you.” 

After they cut the umbilical cord, the afterbirth comes out, and the midwives take the baby to bathe, clothe, take measurements, and bundle them up. 

“How do you feel?” Kento asks, holding your hand still as you stand up, ready to take a shower. 

“I feel a little empty inside, it also hurts. Not looking forward to peeing,” you sigh and he caresses your back gently. 

“You’ll get better with time, honey,” he guides you to the shower room.

There, he tends to all of your needs, helping you carefully wash up, dry off, put ice and a giant pad on, and then your clothes. You could almost cry from his attentiveness.

You hug him and squeeze gently, gazing up at him gratefully and lovingly. “What did I do to deserve you?” You whisper. 

He smiles sweetly, caressing your cheek and giving you a chaste peck. “You can’t say that after you just pushed our baby out,” he chuckles. You laugh softly and you hold each other for a moment longer, before you both go back into the room.

There, the midwives wheel the bassinet over to you, where pumpkin is awake and looking for something to come into focus. 

“She’s very healthy, Mr. and Mrs. Nanami.”

“She?” You repeat, feeling your heart flutter. A sweet little girl. 

Nanami smiles to himself, he’s elated. He has a daughter. “Sweetheart, come on, look at her lips, they’re totally yours.”

You give him a small smile, eyes filling with happy tears as you both fawn over your daughter. It was a little early to tell, but you hope she has his eyes. She had a bunch of blonde hair, too.

“Hold her, Ken,” you whisper and he obliges, gently picking her up and angling his arms perfectly to fit his little angel against him. 

He’s quiet for a minute, just soaking up the feeling of having his daughter in his arms, the warmth of her, her existence setting in. 

“Now, about those language lessons that you refused to do…” he speaks to her in a gentle tone, and your lips curl into a bigger smile at his jokes, “I don’t want to hear another word from you, little miss. Any objections?”

He’s quiet for a beat and the baby just pouts as she looks up at her father, which you laugh softly at. “Good choice. Maybe start to brush up on some Malay, sweet pea, your mama and I will be taking you to Malaysia one day soon,” he promises to her you feel your heart flutter in your chest at the thought.

The three of you, your little family, in your shared happy place. Something out of a dream, but soon would be reality.

You couldn’t wait.

Read the sequel, Pumpkin's First Birthday, here <3

Do not copy or translate my work. © ashasdiary, all rights reserved. Divider by cafekitsune

[creantzy]

Defying God - a parallel between Fyolai and Stavrovensky

The Demons brainrot is taking over, and you know what happens when I acquire a new interest: my brain WILL find a way to connect it to my other interests, whether I like it or not!! And this is essentially what it's about xD I've come here to present a parallel I found between Fyolai (Fyodor & Nikolai from BSD) and Stavrovensky (Verkhovensky & Stavrogin from "Demons" by Dostoevsky). Before I start I want to clarify a few things:

• I don't think these two pairings are similar, I just love picking up any crumbs of connections I can find between my interests, even if it'd count as reaching.

• This interpretation (in either character's case) is in no way "the only true way of looking at it". It's merely one interpretation out of many and I chose to focus on just a few aspects out of the many others there are to explore in these complex characters. 

• Feel free to add onto or disagree with anything I say! I'm interested in your thoughts :D

WARNING: There will be spoilers for Bungou Stray Dogs and Demons.

The reason Nikolai wants to kill Fyodor is because he feels affection for him. Emotions are a prison to him, and he basically seeks the opposite of what his emotions make him want to do. Thus, in the face of affection, which makes you want to be closer and wish the best for your friend, he does the opposite and decides to kill said friend, going directly against his feelings in an attempt to prove free will. But here I want to focus more on the "You want to defy God in order to lose sight of yourself" part, specifically the bit about God.

One part of my interpretation is that Nikolai associates God with control. If there is a God who controls all, how can there be a free will? He wants to go against Him and His creations (the human mind, morality, etc.) to prove that it's possible. But God is very abstract - the idea of God is influential but varies depending on cultures, etc. For this point, I'll use the example of the biblical God, or, more specifically, some attributes commonly assigned to the idea of God:

• omnipotence (all-powerful)

• omnipresence (all-present)

• omniscience (all-knowing)

What I am leading up to is the fact that these traits can, in one way or another, be applied to Fyodor. Fyodor's character represents everything Nikolai wants to defy. Nikolai hates control; he wants to fight the idea of God and prove the possibility of complete independence. Fyodor (though not in a "direct" way) could be seen as a symbol for God. He knows everything, he is always present (metaphorically and sometimes literally, the way he spawns sometimes I swear-), and he seems to control everything. Only few people actually see him, but he pulls the strings behind the scenes, and his power is felt everywhere. For Nikolai, to kill Fyodor is not just a protest against his feelings of affection, but can also be a symbolic act of defying "God", of killing "God", by killing Fyodor.

This is supposed to be very symbolic and not taken literally. I feel the need to repeat this because I personally dislike the notion of Fyodor as a literal God (and disagree with the idea of him having a God-complex), so this is merely about the God-like traits he possesses, like a "substitute" for the idea of God, and how it interacts with Nikolai's philosophy. (I've also exaggerated some points for the sake of simplification - for example, I don't actually believe Fyodor is in control of absolutely everything, etc.)

Moving onto Demons:

Pyotr Verkhovensky grew up religious and (assuming based on Stepan's description) with a fear of God.

Now he's an atheist and very anti-religious. He plans to overthrow society, and destroying religion + everything it preaches is part of that plan. But interestingly enough, he picks not himself as the official future "ruler", but someone else: Nikolai Stavrogin. He chooses Stavrogin to be the role of the leader in Verkhovensky's ideal society. But not exactly the "leader" in the traditional sense, because he wouldn't necessarily give Stavrogin all the power. He would simply use him as a "pawn" (for lack of a better word) while himself pulling the strings behind said society. With that, Verkhovensky puts someone else above himself, in a God-like position, but he wants to do it while still keeping full control over Stavrogin. By doing so, he would overcome his childhood fear of God because instead of being controlled by God, *he* will control God.

(Same case here, not the literal God, but the character who he assigns God-like traits to.)

I am undecided (with both Nikolai's and Verkhovensky's character) whether this could be read as a solely subconscious intention or if it would make sense as a conscious one as well. Given that both have a different "main" goal (Nikolai focuses on emotions and Verkhovensky on the revolution) I lean more towards thinking it's subconscious (if present at all - like I said, just interpretations!)

It doesn't help that Verkhovensky describes his vision of Stavrogin's leadership as "hidden": Everyone believes in him and his power, but only very few people are said to actually have laid their eyes upon him. When I first read this part, I was honestly reminded of Big Brother from Orwell's 1984, but eventually realised that similar things can be said about God as well.

While these are parallels, they don't come without differences. Nikolai needs Fyodor dead, Verkhovensky needs Stavrogin alive. Nikolai wants to kill Fyodor for a sense of freedom, Verkhovensky wants to keep Stavrogin for a sense of control. Yet both symbolic goals are bound to fail:

Fyodor turns out to be unkillable, and Stavrogin ends up dead.

At the end, "God" stays untouchable.