#like I want to know how she was raised please just a crumb of backstory

[bxtonpxss]

sk is so funny, cause I'm on mari's wiki page and

Born as the daughter of a fortune teller, she possesses slight psychic powers, yet she lacks Hao's ability of Reishi. Using latent telekinetic powers, she can manipulate puppets and psychically see into the future to foretell the time of people's death when she was only little.

[newtonsheffield]

Hi there thank you for giving me something consistent to look forward to each week i love the little (or not so little universe) you have here and because i love each crumb i get of this this is another *please scream here about something no one is asking about* (i will never tire of this plz and thx)

Hello! Hello! Hello! 

This universe is truly not so little anymore is it? Perhaps it will slowly become a supernova and implode in on itself like a dying star under the weight of the ridiculous backstories I keep piling on piece after piece. 

But thank YOU for your endless support of my work! Ad because I can’t seem to get enough of Edwina recently, Do we not feel it’s time the Sheffield sister’s truly get a chance to break down Kate’s first date? You didn’t think Edwina would let Kate off easily after her call found her at Anthony’s house the day after did you?

Kate bit her lip to keep the smile off her face as she shut Mary’s front door as Anthony left brunch or the plans he had with his mother. She could still feel his lips on her cheek and the way he’d whispered I’ll come by yours tonight. She could hear Mary and Edwina whispering down the hall as she made her way back towards them. Edwina, her broken leg propped up on the sofa, was animatedly saying  “I don’t know! But I’m going to-” 

Mary cleared her throat when she looked up and saw Kate standing in the doorway, an amused little smirk on her face.  “Katie! There you are we were just-” Mary started, her voice a little too bright. Kate cut across her, unable to hide the smirk. “Gossiping about Anthony and me?” Mary at least had the decency to look a little abashed. Edwina grinned broadly.  “Well, yes actually. And it would be much easier if you just told us what we want to know.” Mary tutted at her daughter though looked expectantly at Kate over her cup of tea as Kate settled on the floor, her back against the sofa Edwina was resting on. Kate cleared her throat suddenly feeling awkward. 

“Well... I guess Anthony’s my boyfriend now.” She said, unable to keep the smile from her face, liking the way the words sounded. Mary smiled brightly, clearing her throat a little oddly. Edwina groaned behind her. 

“Ugh! Kate! You’re making this so painful!” She said irritatedly as Kate spun towards her, a little surprised by her sister’s reaction. “We obviously know that already. He wouldn’t let go of your hand all morning, I honestly didn’t know you were so talented Kate. Cutting your pancakes single handedly, a true marvel.” The irritating smirk on Edwina’s face was growing wider by the second. Kate reached up and pulled the throw pillow from behind her sister, slapping it lightly across her face. Edwina let out a startled gasp, pouting a little as Kate laughed. 

“Kate! I’m recovering from surgery!” Edwina said indignantly, wincing theatrically.  “Girls! Honestly!” Mary admonished softly, as she stood, fussing over Edwina’s pillows once more. “You’d think you were raised by wolves, honestly.” Mary muttered, sighing before she said “It’s time for your pain meds, I’ll be back.” as she left the room.

As soon as she left Edwina turned on Kate.  “Right, now that she’s gone, what happened on that date?! Come to think of it, what happened after the date?” She hissed urgently, Kate sighed, there truly was no getting out of it.  “I went to a party at Daphne’s house, and it was... nice. And then there was this girl and she was kind of... I don’t know... all over him and I panicked and left.” Edwina gasped theatrically her eyes fixed on Kate’s. She tutted when Kate didn’t immediately continue. “Jesus Kate, and then what happened? He followed you and?” she prompted. Kate sighed, her heart fluttering as she whispered. “And then we.. kinda fought, I just felt so stupid, and I asked him why he’d even brought me and he... maybetoldmehelovedme.” Kate spat the last words out before she lost her nerve, a faint blush coming to her cheeks. Edwina’s mouth fell open.  “He told you...”  “He told me he loved me.” Kate nodded, her cheeks flaming. 

“KATE!” Edwina squealed excitedly. Kate covered her mouth, smothering another squeal as Mary called out  “Katharine, leave your sister alone!”  “I’m not doing anything to her!” Kate called back quickly, releasing Edwina a little guiltily. Edwina gasped again. “And what did you say?” her face was one of rapt attention, and if it hadn’t been so adorable that Edwina was so engaged in Kate’s life she would have rolled her eyes. Instead she bit her lip, suddenly unable to look her sister in the eyes.  “I told him... I told him that I love him too.” Kate felt her sister’s arms wrap around her tightly. from the side, and a lump formed in her throat as Edwina whispered in her ear.  “I’m so happy for you. Kate.” They stayed wrapped together for several seconds before Edwina said, the smirk back in her voice. 

“And then he took you back to his house?” Kate made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat shoving her sister away as Edwina laughed.  “We aren’t talking about this, Eddie.” Edwina scoffed “Kate! Please! I’m so bored! And this is the first interesting turn your life has taken in ages!” She whined theatrically, Kate scoffed, turning back around, refusing to dignify her sister with an answer, heat rushing to her cheeks as her mind flickered over the events of the last few nights.  “Oh my god! Kate! You’re blushing!” “I’m not!” Kate said quickly, though the blush settled more firmly on her cheeks “Oh my god! Was it that good?” A gasp “Oh, was it that bad?” Kate scoffed “It was perfectly satisfactory.” Edwina laughed.  “How satisfactory was it? You know I’m just going to keep asking until you tell me.” Edwina finished, and God, didn’t Kate know it was the true. Edwina had once reduced their father to near tears asking if hey were nearly there the entire way to Somerset. Kate Sighed. “Fine.” Kate said, turning to her sister, though not making eye contact, looking instead at a spot over Edwina’s shoulder. “I... arrived more than once before we arrived together.” Edwina’s perfect face seemed frozen midway between being surprised and impressed. Kate’s cheeks were burning with embarrassment. Edwina let out a little huffing laugh “My, My, my. Katharine Grace no wonder you look like the cat that got the cream this morning.” Edwina said, her infuriating smirk returning. Kate scoffed. “Please, stop.”  “I absolutely will, not. Well done, Anthony! I actually have a few men I’d like to introduce him to.” 

“Okay, You’re impossible.” Kate said irritatedly as Edwina cackled with laughter. “Mum!” Edwina called out quietly “You can stop pretending you can’t hear us now.” 

“I wasn’t!” Mary’s voice called from a little too close in the hallway and Kate privately hoped the ground would swallow her whole. 

This was... I don’t even know tbh. So sorry about me.

[comfortbucky]

true north: sneak peek

hiiii !!!!!! ladies and gents i am attempting (for the first time) to write a story !!! here is a sneak peek !!!! pls feel free to leave replies and let me know how i'm doing and what u think :)

summary: the reader was a pararescue along with sam and riley and was engaged to riley. the series will follow the canon events of the captain america movies (ca:ws and ca:cw) as well as (hopefully if i make it this far) get to the events of tfatws! this one is going to be a slow burn...so buckle up....

pairing: bucky x fem!reader

warnings: none!

A/N: this is going to follow the canon tl super closely, and we are starting with (one of the best marvel movies there i said it) ca:ws! also this is just the beginning of chap 1 to begin to introduce the character of the reader...so not much new happens...... :D also bucky is not going to be in this for a hot minute so when i mean slow burn i mean SLOW BURN

also for the series, i'm probably going to skip over the non-cap parts of the captain america movies,,,, so....

again, pls feel free to lmk what u think and any suggestions or comments u have hehe :) and it can be about literally anything like even formatting!!!!!!! i am new to all of this but excited to learn hehe <3

“Look who it is, the running man.” Sam looked up at Steve as he made his way to a table to organize pamphlets. Steve was about to reply when a voice shouted down the hall.

“Hey, Sam! Great session today!”

Sam and Steve turned their heads towards the voice approaching them.

“My only complaint is the snacks, you need better ones.” Y/N flashed a grin to Sam as she took a bite of a stale cookie, only to have the rest of it crumble in her hands.

“See!” Y/N said, her voice muffled as she tried to prevent crumbs from falling out of her mouth. “What good is it for me to come here only to end up with this?” She stretched her hands out to show Sam the remaining crumbs before tossing them out in a nearby trash can.

“Oh, I don’t know. The therapy? Healing?” Sam crossed his arms as Y/N let out a laugh and turned to introduce herself to the blonde man standing next to her.

“Hey- oh my god! You’re Captain America!”

Steve chuckled and extended his hand out for her to shake.

“Please, call me Steve.”

“Y/N.” Y/N shook his hand, eyes wide, and slowly turned to Sam.

“Are you friends with Captain America? When- How did I not know this?”

Sam smirked.

“I thought I was your only friend Samuel, I’m proud of you.”

Sam’s face immediately fell as Y/N and Steve shared a laugh.

“Well, I have errands to run, but it was an absolute honor to meet you Cap- Steve.” Y/N turned to smile at Steve. He returned the smile and watched as she walked away.

Y/N turned around and continued to walk backward as she yelled out to Sam.

“I’ll see you later Sam! Remember The Bachelor starts at 8 and please bring anything but those stale cookies!”

Sam and Steve chuckled as Y/N disappeared through the doors of the VA, signing off with a wave before turning the corner.

"Speaking of your session, caught the last few minutes, it’s pretty intense.” Steve leaned against the wall, as Sam started to organize the messy stack of pamphlets.

“Yeah, brother. We all got the same problems.” Sam continued to keep his eyes on the task in front of him as Steve watched.

“Guilt, regret.” Sam continued and looked up at Steve with a look in his eyes that Steve was familiar with. Loss.

“You lose someone?”

“My wingman, Riley. Flying a night mission. Standard PJ rescue op. Nothing me, him, and Y/N hadn’t done 1,000 times before. ‘Til an RPG knocked Riley’s dumbass out of the sky. Nothing we could do. It’s like we were up there just to watch.” Steve raised his eyebrows upon hearing Y/N mentioned.

“I’m sorry.”

“After that, I had a really hard time finding a reason for being over there, you know? Same thing for Y/N, maybe even worse. She was engaged to Riley, had the whole damn wedding planned out in a notebook. He was the last thing keeping her over there after everything she went through.”

Steve was shocked to learn a little about Y/N’s backstory. He never would have suspected that such a confident person like her to have gone through such a tragedy. He could tell by the look in Sam’s eyes that there was probably more to it, but couldn’t go further into it out of respect to her.

“But you’re happy now, back in the world? Both of you?”

Sam turned side to side to look at the empty hallway they stood in. “The number of people giving me orders is down to about zero.” He chuckled. “So, hell yeah. And I don't want to speak for Y/N, but I'm really proud of her recovery so far. She’s made a lot of progress.” He paused as he looked at Steve. “Are you thinking about getting out?”

Steve stared at the ground.

“No.” He paused. “I don’t know.” He returned his eye contact with Sam. “To be honest, I don’t know what I would do with myself if I did.”

“Ultimate fighting?” Steve chuckled at Sam’s comment. “Just a great idea off the top of my head.” Sam smiled as he continued. “Seriously, you could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?”

Steve paused, hearing a question he hadn’t thought about in years.

“I don’t know.”

[feralphoenix]

HOWMST BELL THE CAT? - A treatise on one aspect of how the Pale King sealed the Radiance

sup hollow knight fandom, i’m back with the picante takes again after having Noticed A Thing.

as with my previous essays i’ll put this guy up on dreamwidth later for accessibility purposes, since my layout text may be too small for high-res pc users. i will attach that in a reblog at a later point.

CONTENT WARNINGS FOR TONIGHT’S PROGRAM: This essay discusses canon-typical body horror and bodily boundary violations, with some side mentions of colonialism.

all game screencaps are mine. the screencap of the wiki is from the “developer notes” (style guide) section of the “cut content” page.

ALSO: if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of this particular part of hollow knight worldbuilding/lore is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay, ty

HOWMST BELL THE CAT? - A treatise on one aspect of how the Pale King sealed the Radiance

We understand more or less how the Pale King’s plan was supposed to work. Stuff Radiance into a no-thoughts-head-empty and silent Pure Vessel to trap, isolate, and silence her, both putting an end to the Infection and killing her for good. Stick that vessel in the Black Egg, which harnesses Void BS to both keep the vessel alive indefinitely and to cover Hallownest (and its neighbors) in a time-defying stasis so that the Pale King could successfully hoard his favorite shiny FOREVER, threatened by nothing. Then put a seal on the Black Egg to prevent anyone from getting inside and harming said vessel while it’s strung up and helpless. And THEN, put protective seals on the anchors (the Dreamers) to the Black Egg seal to protect them from any external harm: The stasis means the Dreamers won't die of old age or starvation.

All in all, a pretty foolproof plan!

...except that the Dreamers are still vulnerable to having their minds breached with the moths’ magic... and the Pale King failed to take into account that his Pure Vessel was a person actually and the amount of toxic stress his training/upbringing put on them made them REALLY POORLY SUITED FOR THEIR JOB... and also that killing 99% of his million children and turning the Abyss into a landfill for baby corpses would take enough of an emotional toll on his wife and #1 enabler the White Lady that she would walk out on him, ensuring he’d only ever have one shot at this whole deal...

Basically it’s the sort of plan that an emotionally constipated, low-empathy sort of guy who pours all his points into INT and has a big fat zero for WIS might think is foolproof. It has big holes in it that the Pale King did not consider to be big holes until he got owned by the various consequences of his actions and fell down said big holes, making the shocked pikachu face all the while. Rip in die, my guy.

Anyway, there’s a lot of incidental information scattered about the game that gives us more insight into the stages of TPK’s plan. Looking at Monomon’s notes in the Archive suggests that she was probably involved in designing the Black Egg; the hidden room in the Weavers’ den points to their being the ones to blueprint the Dreamer seal; the White Palace’s hidden rooms reveal both TPK’s morbid fascination with the Void and his mea culpa wrt his motives and the Path of Pain is certainly suggestive of a lot of things. The White Lady tells us straight out that she walked out on the Pale King because she wanted no part in a second vessel batch, but how TPK didn’t handle that is only revealed via map design and some incidental dialogue from the Old Stag.

This stuff presents us with, if not a full picture, then at least a decent connect-the-dots of certain aspects of crater politics and Pale Court drama at the time, and how exactly TPK’s plan came together.

But there is still one glaring question that these cookie crumbs do not provide us an answer to:

Who shall bell the cat?

How did TPK et al manage to stuff Radiance into Hollow in the first place?

This is the subject of a lot of memes and jokes within the fandom because it's so absurd. Radiance fuckin hates that dude! She’s probably gonna be pretty wary of him considering how he stole her people in the first place! And considering the anti-colonialism slant of the writing - beyond the general sympathetic view Team Cherry gives of each indigenous bug society, Seer makes it very clear that Radiance has very good reason to take violent action against Hallownest - the answer is probably not something like “she’s just that stupid” or “she rolled a crit fail”.

Well... I have an idea of how TPK managed to get Radiance in there. It raises about as many questions as it answers, mind, but it may be someplace to start.

[desc: the hollow knight's entry in the hunter’s journal. top text/ghost’s comment reads: “Fully grown Vessel, carrying the plague’s heart within its body.” bottom text/hunter’s comment says: “The old King of Hallownest... he must have been desperate to save his crumbling little world. The sacrifices he imposed on others... all for nothing.”]

Here we have Hollow’s bestiary entry. Most of what we’re concerned with here is the top text, which says the seal has literally trapped Radiance inside their body. (First of all, ew, TPK.)

We already knew Radiance is literally actually inside Hollow, though: The Infection is leaking out of their body, and to get to fight Radiance, Ghost has to go traipsing into their sibling’s mind. So what’s significant about that here?

[desc: screencap of the outside of the black egg temple, post-infected crossroads. there are large infection blobs in the foreground and background, connected to each other by veins that come from inside the temple.]

The infection blobs are weird and get weirder if you kill enough Lightseeds for the Hunter to tell you their origin story, i.e. that the literal actual sun has been having a very long bad day and cried a lot, and some of the liquid coalesced into living flesh, and some of that living flesh took on a mind of its own to become Lightseeds. (Hollow Knight is a WILD place.)

Lightseeds are Radiance’s accidental children and share a lot of her traits: They are harmless creatures that try to avoid conflict if possible but if pushed will get creative and find ways to fight regardless of their physical limitations. (For the Lightseeds this involves hiding inside Broken Vessel’s corpse and puppeting it around to try to stab you.) They even have her same distinctive yell. And according to the Hunter, they’re born from the infection blobs. These enemies only ever appear in the Ancient Basin, which both Radiance and the Void have ransacked, and in the Infected Crossroads.

The infection blobs are connected to and sort of a weird extension of Radiance because the Infection itself is sort of a weird extension of Radiance. In the game’s internal style guide Team Cherry explains that the Infection started as an accident, not her original intention but what happened when Hallownest tried to block her out.

[desc: screencap from the wiki of style notes attached to seer that describe a sketch of radiance’s finalized backstory. text reads: “The moth tribe were (perhaps) descended from Radiance. However, the King convinced them somehow to seal Radiance away. I guess so he could rule Hallownest with his singular vision, as a god/monarch with no other gods. The moths sealed Radiance away by forgetting about her. Hallownest was born and flourished. However, the memory of Radiance lingered (eg [sic] the statue at hallownest’s crown) and soon she began to reappear in dreams and starting [sic] exerting influence. The King and the bugs of Hallownest resisted this memory/power and it started to manifest as the Infection. Thus the first attempt to seal Radiance failed, and the King had to try another method - the Vessel.” emphasis mine.]

Some fans have posited the blobs as deposits of pupa juice, but given Team Cherry's description of the Infection’s origins I don’t know how likely that is. Since the Void also sticks its squamous tentacles into things via veiny looking things and the Nightmare’s Heart has similar veiny nonsense in the Nightmare Realm, I wonder if it isn’t just a Meddly God Shit thing in general.

Whatever the case, the blobs are very much connected to/a part of Radiance.

And when you’re hanging around them, you will notice two things: They pulse like they’re part of a circulatory system, and you can hear Radiance's heartbeat emanating from them.

[desc: screencap of the game’s title screen with the infected menu theme in use: a glowing orange ball at the center of a lot of black tendony webbing.]

Let’s also think of the Infected menu theme, which you unlock after getting either of the endings where Ghost takes over from Hollow and absorbs Radiance out of them. Ghost is infected and then sealed inside the Black Egg in Hollow's place. It’s suggested by the animation’s staging that Radiance briefly struggles to get out of Ghost after absorbed but is ultimately stuck in them, at which point the seal is reestablished.

If you haven’t used the Infected menu theme yourself, the... interesting thing about it is that it moves organically. The light ball expands and contracts - y’know, sort of like a living organ - and so does the black webby stuff around it.

Also, Radiance’s heartbeat is included in the theme's ambiance.

[desc: hollow’s bestiary entry again]

To cut to the chase, this part of Hollow’s bestiary entry that says “the plague’s heart”? I don’t think that’s just Ghost/Team Cherry being poetic. I think there’s a good chance it’s LITERAL.

I think TPK is the sort of person who could cram a native woman’s literal living beating heart inside his own child’s body so they can use it as... say, a focus to absorb and trap her mind/spirit inside their body, too. Mr. No Cost Too Great is capable of a lot in the name of keeping other people’s claws off his Big Shiny kingdom. This is kind of his whole brand.

But also, like, yuck.

This fits the worldbuilding too; generally speaking Hollow Knight is Body Horror City. Also there’s the case of Grimm: While he and Radiance are loose counterparts at best with WILDLY disparate outlooks and ethoses, his existence serves as precedent that a Higher Being’s heart specifically can be separate from the rest of them.

As I said before, though, this DOES raise as many questions as it answers. If this is another piece in the puzzle of how TPK belled the cat, we’re now left wondering how he got Radiance’s heart to use as Hollow's focus to begin with.

We know he has access to the Dream Realm because that’s ultimately where he hid when Hollow’s seal failed, but who did he send to do the stealing and how did they get away with it? (TPK certainly wouldn’t have gone; his own life’s the one cost too great for him to willingly pay.) Was Radiance’s heart separate from her like the Nightmare’s Heart, or was it a part of her body? (I think the latter is more likely just from her personality; Grimm’s hidden heart makes sense because of how he keeps even his own servants at arm’s length emotionally, whereas Radiance is all heart all the time. I think this makes more sense with their equal opposites schtick too. But this would make for a WAY riskier mission.)

I can imagine all kinds of possibilities. None of them are definitive, but the thing they have in common is that they are all Awful... and how on-brand that is for Hollow Knight as a whole is, maybe, the most persuasive argument for It’s Literally Actually Her Real Physical Heart there could be.

[thanatosbananatos]

What in the heckin' heck is Hanji's backstory? -- A Meta

At this rate, Yams is never going to tell us.

I guess it may not be all that important to the story, but then again, knowing his writing style, he really enjoys leaving mysteries, and it won't surprise me in the slightest if this series ends with a lot of the mysteries being unsolved.  Hanji's backstory will likely be one of them.

As a disclaimer, I use she/her pronouns for Hanji, but Isayama specifically has stated that Hanji's gender is irrelevant, so please feel free to use whatever pronouns you'd like. If Hanji was real, I don't think she'd care, either...

Anyway, I want to start this meta laying out the facts we already know about Hanji BEFORE the year 845.

--Hanji had joined the Corps for ??? reason, and had a thirst to kill the Titans mercilessly, just like Eren at the start of the story.  She was “fueled by insecurity and hate.”  However, she kicked a Titan's head and was fascinated by how light it was, which began her obsession with the Titans from a scientific standpoint.

--Hanji does not bathe regularly and doesn't care about hygiene.  Apparently Levi has to knock her out to get her to bathe.

--Hanji doesn't care about gender.  Or at least, Isayama said it doesn't matter to the story.  In a very early interview, he stated that Hanji was female but had moments of masculinity, which means she's gender-fluid or nonbinary.

--Hanji was in the Corps before Levi, Isabel, and Farlan joined.

--Hanji has known Erwin, Mike, and others for a little while--it's a quick little thing, but in episode one of season one, Hanji is shown to be in the same squad as Erwin when Shardis was the Commander.

--Hanji has anger issues.  Isayama has stated that she is the scariest character when angered, and is also a different person with and without her glasses/goggles.

Aaaaand that's it.

Thanks, Yams.

Well, if the Wings of Counterattack game is to be believed, Hanji was also a super cute kid who was always kind of androgynous and messy-haired and had bad vision. Super cute.  I love.

But that's really it.  Hanji didn't even get a character song, despite Romi Park having the singing voice of a fallen angel that's going to drag me straight into hell where there are hot jazz musicians and Satan serves us all whiskey on the rocks.  Did y'all know she released a jazz/pop album?  It's fire and you can't stop me from thinking about Hanji being able to sing like that.

...I'm getting off track.

ANYWAY.

Compared to many other recurring characters in the series, Hanji has a very limited amount of backstory.  She's never even drawn as younger, even in the panel we get of her kicking the Titan's head--if you recall, it's just a dark scribble with a scary-looking grin.

That being said, Isayama has indeed been dropping bread crumbs here and there with clues throughout the series that can lead us to a conclusion about Hanji's past.

Where was Hanji born and raised?

I think it's fair to say that Hanji was not raised with wealth.

It's hard to draw conclusions about her exact family, but considering her being totally chill with not bathing for weeks and being a little bit of a...gremlin, she probably grew up somewhere in Maria, or in the slums of someplace in Rose. However, I tend to lean more toward Maria.  

For me, it's not really an issue of just her hygiene--it's also her social skills.  Again, we know ZILCH about her parents/guardians, so they could have been weirdos, but I think also that Hanji just didn't have the proper upbringing to gain boundaries like normal people.  She gets up in people's faces, she can be very physical/grabby, and she can be argumentative and stubborn to a fault.  I think it's fair to sometimes call her actions childish, though some of them also are symptoms of something like ADHD.

I want to argue, however, that she is just eccentric.  I think it's part of who she is and was raised to be--or perhaps it's from a lack of attention.  

She also just doesn't care about a lot of things that people raised in high-status upbringings would care about.  She literally throws on her uniform jacket over her pajamas when called out to see Pastor Nick's death scene.  Showering/bathing every day is not a priority,but it's also not something that bothers her.  For instance, I'm incredibly busy, but I shower every day because anxiety dictates it to be so, but I also just enjoy being clean.  Hanji is super busy and could make time to shower/bathe more than she doesn't, but she doesn't see it as a priority and never once is it mentioned that she pays any mind to it.  

Regarding her gender, I wonder if she was an only child.  It's possible that there were expectations put on her to be more of a “lady,” but she was much more concerned with studying and learning.  

That's just speculation, of course.  Some people just are the way that they are.

However, I think she was an only child for a couple of other reasons, too.

First, I think that economically, if she did grow up in Maria, one child was all that her parents could afford. There are also just not a lot of people in the walled world with siblings; it's just not very convenient to add to an already-starving population, I suppose.  

But also, I think her love for studying might be connected to this.  I know that, as a kid growing up with older brothers MUCH older than me and not a lot of friends, I loved to read to the point that I owned my own encyclopedias and actually read them. A lot of kids who grow up lonely/isolated tend to do the same.  

Especially if she was already such an extroverted kid, I think she'd need the stimulation.

Why did Hanji hate the Titans?

It's possible to think about this from a couple of different angles, but there's one that I prefer over the other.

First, we could consider that Hanji perhaps lost someone she cared about to the Titans.  Maybe her parents joined the military and were killed.  Maybe her sibling, or aunt or uncle, or grandparents.  

Second, we could consider that she valued freedom and independence, and that she considered the Titans to be something that stood in the way of that.

Personally, I think the second one is more likely.  Of course, it's possible that both happened!  We really don't know.  

However, I lean toward the second option because of Hanji's personality, and the little we know about her when she joined the Corps.  She was a bit unhinged (as all interesting characters are), and she was very violent.  This tends to be a characteristic of people who are forced to keep everything in for a long amount of time.

In psychology, there are two categories of people:  externalizers and internalizers.  For instance, if a child endures trauma, and their reaction is to lash out violently (physically or verbally), or to become selfish and attention-seeking, that is considered externalizing.  On the other hand, if the child endures the trauma and then keeps it locked up, considers the abuser to be the “real” victim, learns self-blame, etc., then that is internalizing.  

For instance, Erwin is probably an internalizer, when we take into account his father's death and the trauma he endured because of it.  Armin is also an internalizer.

Hanji, however, is probably an externalizer.  She shows a lot of the signs of someone who has perhaps undergone something traumatic/repeated traumatic events and has lashed out as a sign of “dealing with it.”  It's a sign of emotional immaturity, so it makes sense that that's what Hanji was doing as a young'n.  She's also quite empathetic, which could add fuel to any flames, and she's also proven to be a skilled manipulator.

What was the trauma?  I think it was the feeling of isolation.

One thing that really is evident to me is how goddamned EXTROVERTED Hanji is.  If we have the scale E to I, Hanji is probably one of the farthest if not THE farthest over on the E side of ALL of the characters in this story.  She likes to talk, she verbalizes everything, she enjoys people, and she clearly gains energy from social situations.

I have a feeling that Hanji has always been a bright kid, and that perhaps she was understimulated as a result of growing up not only in a poor community, but being surrounded by this big-ass walls and constantly being told, “No, you can't go outside.  You'll be eaten alive by Titans.”

She would very naturally turn into this teenager/young adult with a thirst for absolutely destroying the things that kept her locked up in the first place.

Again, I think either situation is likely, but I have the feeling that it goes deeper than just getting revenge for someone's death. Something tells me that Hanji has been looking for answers to deep questions for a long time.

So, Hanji joins the military.  Then what?

Well, from the hints that Yams has dropped, Hanji met Erwin, Mike, Nile, and perhaps others at some point.  I don't think that Hanji was in the same class as them, save for maybe Moblit, but I think she probably knew them. This part is a bit hazy, considering that we don't know what age Erwin and company were when they joined the military.  Mike is canonically older than them all, pushing 40 years old (like a fine wine) at around 850.  Erwin is supposedly in his late 30's, and I believe even Levi is older than Hanji, which would put her around 30 at in the year 850.  

Now, if we think about when Levi entered the Survey Corps, which I believe was in the year 846...

Hanji was not a new recruit that year, and she already seemed to have a pretty close friendship with Moblit.  She was also more emotionally mature.

In other words, Hanji had probably already kicked the head of that Titan by the time Maria fell.

That means, it had to have been before Shiganshina/Maria fell that she had a change of heart.  

During all of this, Mike and Erwin were also in the Corps, and they probably witnessed this change.

However, despite it being explicitly mentioned in the manga, this is the hardest part to flesh out about Hanji's backstory.

We at least know the details of her becoming a Squad Leader specifically focused on the science of Titans, thanks to the OVA for Ilse's Journal.  It was thanks to her curiosity, emotional maturity, and a bit of dumb luck that it happened.  

But before this, we don't know much else about her time in the military, and it's hard to discern anything without knowing details about the others, too.  

I know that there are snippets of details in smartpasses (is that what they're called?) that reveal that she, Mike, and Erwin were friends, etc., but that really doesn't give us much to go on. Much of it, unfortunately, remains a mystery.

However, there is one last thing I want to point out:

In the first episode of season two, after Hanji lets Nick down instead of yeeting him off of the wall, she mentions “I haven't felt this way since I first went outside of the walls.  Talk about scary.”

There are many people who interpret this line as her fear of the Titans, but I think it's fear of her own anger.  She was ready to brutally kill someone who could have otherwise provided valuable information, just because of her pure rage.  

I think this moment, along with a couple of others (kicking down the table and saying “it was a roach,” for instance), drive home some of the assumptions from earlier in this meta.  Consider the torture scene and her actions compared to Levi's.  Levi grew up in an environment where violence was used as a form of communication.  You don't see him saying a lot as he punches Sannes over and over.  He doesn't stick around to talk to the men once they're returned to their jail cells.  

Hanji is, however, a bit too eager to rip the nails and teeth out of this guy (partially as revenge for Pastor Nick's death, I'm certain).  She rips into them verbally as well, as they sit defeated in their jail cell.  Her anger is a terrifying force.

So what's the point?

Well, there's not really one.

I just would like to know more about one of my favorite fictional characters of all time.

Is it important to the story?  Well, not necessarily.

But what if this backstory is more than I wrote here?  What if it's something quite wild or disturbing?  What if it digs further into the fundamentals of humanity?  Was she abused?  Was she bullied?  Is she just psychologically disturbed?  

Like I said, we may never know, and at this point (2019/09), the series seems to be coming to an end.

I personally think it's really too bad.  The story is a character-driven one, so to leave so much mystery around Hanji's past is very curious.  Hanji tends to get shoved to the side a lot (though not as much as some other MCs), so it’s pretty frustrating to see that even the creator isn’t divulging more information...

Then again, I guess it does make writing fics easier, right...?

[choupichoups]

Press F (Instagram/College AU) Ch.10

Lucas swears he’s the absolute master of undetected stalking. Or: Eliott is instagram famous and Lucas is the disaster gay who accidentally likes his post.

"You’re sure you're okay with this?”

Lucas pauses, croissant halfway shoved in his mouth as he regards Eliott with an inquisitive brow. “With what?” 

“Me announcing to… uh… all my followers who I’m dating.”

Lucas resumes eating, rolling his eyes as he brushes the crumbs off his fingers. “I already told you it’s okay,” he says, partly muffled due to the food in his mouth. “What can they do anyway?” 

Eliott chokes on a laugh, “What can they do? Lucas, have you seen the shit people do on social media?” He runs a fork over the leftover avocado on his plate. “You know what, I should probably delete that story, it’s only been half an hour anyway—”

“There’s no point, someone’s already saved that by now. It’ll just be up somewhere else.” He shrugs, feeling not an ounce of worry on this subject. “You posted about me before and if you haven’t noticed, some of your fans already found my account too.” He takes a sip of his coffee, smiling as he nibbles on the straw. “And your face is all over that one.” 

Eliott reaches over the table for Lucas’ hand, entangling their fingers together before bringing their hands up to his lips. He brushes a light kiss over the back of Lucas’ hand before pressing a smile into the same spot. “I just don’t want you feeling bad over any of this.” 

“No stranger on the internet can get to me, Eliott,” Lucas says, rolling his eyes again despite the fact that his voice might sound a tad too fond for eight in the morning. “Here.” He detaches their hands to get to his phone, pulling up that adorable photo he took of his boyfriend before leaving the apartment earlier. Tagging Eliott on the post is barely an afterthought and he cackles over the caption before placing his phone back down. “There, now if your admirers attack me it’s gonna be equally my fault.” 

Lucas hands Eliott’s phone over, laughing to himself when his boyfriend’s expression morphs into outright affront after seeing the comments. 

He goes back to eating his food, noticing that his own phone is now buzzing with a phone call. He’s been getting calls from an unknown number for the past week but no voicemails are ever left. Lucas makes a point not to answer until an actual human voice leaves a message, convinced that it’s some marketing company trying to sell him their life insurance or some shit. The buzzing stops eventually but it goes straight to into ringing again immediately after. 

Lucas wipes his hands down and turns the phone over, almost choking in his haste to swallow down the food in his mouth when he sees the caller. 

“Hello?”

“Hi, I’m looking for Lucas Lallemant?” 

“Yeah, that’s me,” he responds in a rush. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m so sorry for calling in so early, but Mrs. Lallemant has been asking for you all morning and we’re having trouble having her cooperate--”

Lucas doesn't let the nurse finish. “I’ll be there, I’ll be there soon. Can you let her know that?”

“Of course, we will, thank you--”

He’s already digging around his wallet before he ends the call, looking up to his boyfriend’s worried eyes when Lucas leaves money on the table that is very likely much more than what they owe. 

“I need to go,” he says, stumbling out of his chair in his hurry.

“Whoa, hey, slow down, what’s going on?” Eliott follows after him, catching his arm in a strong grip before Lucas can dash out to the streets without him. 

“My mom--” Shit, he doesn’t have the time nor the brain power to give Eliott the entire tragic backstory so he settles for an agitated, “It’s complicated. I have to go see her.” 

“Can I take you there?” Eliott asks carefully, holding Lucas’ face in between his hands so that the latter’s eyes would quit darting around and just focus on him. “I won’t go in with you, I’ll just drop you off. Is that okay?”

And Lucas does focus on him, worry increasing as he thinks of what Eliott’s reaction would be. But explaining to his boyfriend why he can’t accompany Lucas to a task as menial as dropping one’s significant other off to their parent’s house sounds more taxing than simply agreeing, so he nods. If Eliott notices the reluctance in the act, he doesn’t question it. 

But the closer their bus gets to the clinic, the more Lucas is starting to regret that decision. 

He can feel Eliott’s confused glances when Lucas gets off at a stop nowhere near the residential areas. The clinic is a lengthy building that takes up the entire acre beside the road— there are no other buildings beside it and the giant sign by the gated entrance gives it away without Lucas needing to explain where they are. 

Chancing a glance up at his boyfriend, Lucas can’t tell what’s going through his mind. Eliott’s face is blank, the confusion and worry from earlier have disappeared. It makes Lucas nervous.

However, that’s something he’ll have to deal with later. 

“Hey, I’m Lucas Lallemant, I got a call earlier for…”

“Ah, yes. I’ll get the nurse for you right away.” The receptionist busies herself with the phone and Lucas turns to Eliott, fiddling with the sleeves of his shirt. 

“Um, you don’t… have to stay if you don’t want to.”

Eliott’s eyes are trained on something over Lucas’ shoulder. “I’ll wait for you out here.” 

“Lucas?” A frazzled looking nurse addresses him and Lucas follows after her, trying not to think too much about Eliott being present for this. “Thank you so much for coming so quickly, we had notes on her file to call you if something like this happens but with Marie gone, we weren’t quite sure how to proceed.” 

“That’s fine, thanks.” To be fair, his mother hasn’t had any terrible meltdowns since moving into this clinic. 

“She’s in her room, not acknowledging anyone, just keeps saying your name.” 

Lucas thanks her again with a small, apologetic smile. The nurse looks young— she’s probably new, judging from the many emotions flitting across her features for every word she speaks. Lucas hasn’t seen a professional in this field who feels so much. Not even Marie. 

“Mama?” No response, but he’s figured that would happen. “I’m here now,” he continues, sitting by the bed and fixing the sheets around her shoulders. She’s situated to face the window, back towards him. “Did you need me for something?”

Still nothing. He sees the untouched glass of water placed beside her pills and Lucas runs a finger over the condensation forming on the side as he thinks of what to say next. 

She’s told him once before that hearing his voice helps her a lot. Especially on days like this, when she’s unresponsive and away from the reality she doesn’t quite want to face. 

“Do you hear it?”

Or maybe not as unresponsive as he’d thought.

Lucas straightens up, leaning on the edge of the bed to hear her soft voice better. “Hear what?”

“The trumpet.” 

There’s only silence around them. “No, mama, where is it?” 

“It’s been playing since this morning.” She turns on the bed, facing towards the ceiling. Lucas can see the pooling tears in her eyes. “The rapture’s here and I’ve been left behind. It’s because I’m such a bad mother is it? A terrible wife?”

“No—” He shuffles forward to take one of her hands in both of his. 

“Ephesians 5:22; wives, submit to your husbands,” she quotes absently, hand limp inside Lucas’ hold. “Is it because of the fight?”

A frown etches its way onto Lucas’ features. “What fight?” 

Tears escape from their fragile perch in her eyes. “He’s right.” She turns her head, looking at him this time. “Your life would be so much better if I just go.” 

Lucas doesn’t know where all of this is coming from but there’s dread forming in his chest, his mind picking up on everything that goes unsaid. “Where are you going, mama?” He shakes his head, the sight of her delicate tears triggering his own. “That’s not true, I don’t want you to go.” 

“So much better without me,” she whispers, head shifting back to resume gazing out the window. Her hand remains small and slack in his grip. It’s evident that she’s not listening to a word he says. 

Lucas gets up, scrubbing at his face as he closes the door to her room. He needs to tell Eliott to leave without him as he’s probably going to take a while— he doesn’t feel right, leaving his mama right away when she’s in this terrible of a state. 

Eliott’s standing by the walls only a few steps from the room and he gently takes Lucas’ face in his hands, wiping at the tears that stubbornly make their way down his cheeks despite his best efforts to stop fucking crying already. 

“Sorry, sorry I’m— this is so sudden I—” He tries to speak through the hitches in his breath. 

“Shh, don’t apologize,” Eliott says, pulling Lucas closer to place a sweet kiss on his forehead. 

This only serves to make him cry harder for whatever reason and Lucas has to take a deep breath, fists balled at his sides as he tries to reign over his emotions. “I’m gonna stay here for a bit, you should go.” His hands raise to hold onto Eliott’s forearms, thumbs tracing soft lines from back of the palm to wrist. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.” 

Eliott nods but doesn’t make a move to pull away. 

They only do so when a pair of footsteps echo in the hallway and Lucas does a double take when he sees the man walking beside his mama’s temporary nurse. “What the hell are you doing here?” 

Both his father and the nurse pause and Lucas is starting to really feel bad for the poor nurse, getting caught up in their family drama all in less than a day’s worth. 

“Please excuse us,” his dad says to her and she takes the golden opportunity to scramble the hell away from them. Eliott doesn’t take the same cue, moving back to give them space but staying within Lucas’ reach. “Hello, Lucas.”

“Why are you here?” Lucas brushes off the niceties. If there’s one thing he can’t stand it’s his father pretending to be a decent human being in front of others. “Have you been talking to her?”

“Yes.”

“Who says you can do that?”

“She’s my wife, I can talk to her.”

“She’s not!” Lucas steps closer, raising his voice as if he’d done the opposite. This man has lost the right to call them his family. “You don’t get to talk to her whenever it’s convenient for you! Did you see what you’ve done? She was doing so fucking well without you!” 

“Mind your language, Lucas,” his father grits out. The sound of crumpling papers makes Lucas look down to where the man’s hands are clenched around a file folder. “I’m still your father and I won’t tolerate—”

“Oh shut the fuck up,” Lucas scoffs, shaking his head at the audacity. “You’re so full of it.” 

Lucas sees the man’s fisted hand move— he sees it, but he does nothing to stop it. Maybe if the hospital cameras catch the bastard acting with violence then Lucas would have a real reason to want to throw him into jail. Or at least to have him stop stirring shit in their lives. Legally. 

But no pain reaches him even as he braces for it and when he tunes back in, it’s to Eliott’s back in front of him, one hand gripping Lucas’ father’s wrist in a firm hold. 

“That’s enough, sir,” Eliott says, mock polite. 

All hands drop back down to their respective sides but the tension remains high up in the air. 

His father’s eyes switch from Eliott to Lucas, face impassive. The thick silence only lasts a for few moments, however, because Lucas’ father is as shameless as one can get. He thrusts the file folder under Lucas’ nose, sidestepping the entire wall that is Eliott standing in between the two of them.

“Sign these and mail them back to me, pronto,” the man says, pocketing his hands once Lucas has taken the papers. “Don’t give me a hard time about this, it’s for your own good.” 

Lucas spares him the coldest glance he can manage as he reads through the file. Insurance claims? Transfer permission? To Marseille? Taking a sharp breath through his nose, Lucas simmers in silent rage. So this sad excuse of a man finds a new job that provides extra allowance to employees caring for disabled family members and suddenly he’s husband of the year? Fuck that, fuck him. 

Fuck everything and his fucked up life. 

“Fuck you,” he says, throwing the papers back at his father. He doesn’t give a shit that they land scattered on the ground— maybe the man would pick up some of his dignity along with those papers that way. 

Lucas turns around before his father gets over the shock of his reaction, gazes at his mama’s door but he can’t. He can’t deal right now, not after this. There’s a chance that he’d actually lose whatever’s left of his sanity if he goes in and is faced with the hopeless look in her eyes. His mother, who’s supposed to take care of him, hasn’t been able to care for herself for years and years. His father, who’s supposed to provide for him, has abandoned him for longer. Now, he’s stuck dealing with their escalating issues again, an unwilling tether to a breakable thread. He doesn’t know why his mother’s holding on so tight to the delusion of a complete family, he doesn’t know why his father’s holding on so tight to the farce of being a good man. 

And Lucas is so tired of this bullshit. 

His phone rings with the same unknown number and Lucas wants to throw it to the fucking floor.

He runs for the back exit, not wanting to run into his father when the man leaves the clinic as well. There’s a dire need inside him to breathe in some air, one that doesn’t linger with antiseptic, that clean, fabricated hospital smell that drives him up the wall. 

Eliott’s there to hold him when his knees threaten to buckle under him. Lucas turns into his arms immediately, clinging onto the hood of his sweater as he takes in unsteady breaths.

“I’m so sorry you had to see that,” he says into Eliott’s shoulder, tears making their unwelcome comeback in his tired eyes. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Eliott assures him, hands running back and forth over Lucas’ back. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” Lucas retorts. “It’s not.”

“Hey.” Eliott tilts his chin up with a thumb and smiles fondly when Lucas sniffs miserably up at him. Eliott brushes a hand through his hair and kisses him on the forehead again. Lucas’ heart melts, settling calmer with the knowledge that even if his world feels like it’s going for another ride in hell, at least Eliott’s here with him this time, the angel that brings light to his life. “Don’t worry, I get it.”

More tears spill over the corners of his eyes. Eliott deserves happiness all the time, not Saturdays with strange clinics and witnessing shouting matches with horrid fathers. 

“I’m so tired,” Lucas whispers, closing his eyes when Eliott’s thumbs come up to brush away his tears. He doesn’t know what he’ll do without them now-- doesn’t ever want to go back to a time without Eliott’s warm, gentle touches. “I just wish that everything’s normal for once.” 

“Normal how?” 

Lucas gestures to the clinic where he and his father held that unpleasant confrontation. The clinic has started to become his mama’s safe space but now that man’s just gone and ruined it. “I’m tired of that bullshit. Why can’t I just have a normal family?” He shakes his head, feels his phone ringing in his pocket for the thousandth fucking time and he doesn’t even want to think about what’s brewing on that front. Telemarketers aren’t that persistent. “Why can’t I just have normal people around me? A normal life? Fuck, I hate this. I don’t wanna deal with any more of this.” 

Eliott’s quiet above him but he holds Lucas tight in his arms, very tight. Lucas buries his face in Eliott’s neck and locks his own arms around Eliott’s torso, deflating after finally getting those thoughts out in the open. 

“You don’t have to.” Eliott whispers into Lucas’ temple, cheek nuzzling into his hair. 

“Hm?”

“You won’t have to deal with it.” 

“How?” 

“Let’s get you home, okay?” 

Yann is still there when Eliott drops him off at the apartment. Lucas must look as shitty as he feels because Yann doesn’t tease when he opens the door for them, Lucas being too out of it to bring out his keys. He can feel his best friend and his boyfriend exchange glances above his head and in a better state, he’d probably coo at how they’re able to hold silent conversations already. 

But as it is, Lucas just wants to take a goddamn nap.

Lucas turns to ask if Eliott would like to stay with them but his boyfriend brings him in for a rather abrupt embrace, so quick and inexplicably strong that Lucas loses his breath for a moment. His hands fly up to Eliott’s shoulders, fingers digging into the fabric of his hoodie as he presses his nose to Eliott’s chest. Eliott has his face buried in his neck and Lucas feels him take a deep, lingering inhale before pulling away with a soft touch to Lucas’ hair. 

“Take care of yourself, hm?” 

Lucas nods dumbly, watching Eliott walk away. 

lucallemant thank you for coming with me earlier do you have any plans tomorrow?

srodulv me and idris actually have to start another project so I'm gonna be busy for a while

lucallemant oh ok airplane mode type of busy?

srodulv yeah

lucallemant okay, take care of yourself this time lol don’t forget to eat and sleep  good night eliott ♥️

[ebdaydreamer]

Mother of Cats

It’s Mother’s Day in the UK so I thought I’d write a little something. This is my first GoT fic and my first fic in a while so constructive criticism is more than welcome.

Fandom: Game of Thrones (TV)

Pairing: Jonerys, Past Drogo/Dany

Warnings: Mentions of violence and underage sex but hey, this is Game of Thrones

Summary: Although Jon and Dany's histories with mothers are somewhat rocky, they've made their own Mother's Day tradition. A Modern AU.

[AO3]

There was never any reason for either of them to celebrate Mother’s Day: both of their mother’s died in childbirth after all.

As per usual, Jon had been invited for dinner at his Uncle Ned’s but had made up some excuse as he had done every year since he moved out. Whilst the rest of the Stark’s had accepted him as their own, his Aunt Catelyn had always resented her husband treating Jon as an equal son. Jon never brought it up, but Dany could see how the lack of mother figure compared to his adoptive siblings had affected him.

Despite the lack of mothers in their lives, Dany had woken up to a joke card for the past six years from ‘her children’: Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion.

*

6 years ago

“Are you going to your Uncle’s this Sunday?” Dany inquired from her position on the couch, Viserion curled in her lap.

Jon returned from the kitchen with the Pringles. “No, why would I?”

“Well,” Dany began, stealing the crisps from him, “it is Mother Day.”

Jon hesitated. “I haven’t really done that since Uni.”

“Why not?” Dany asked in between munches. “I thought you guys were close?”

“We are,” Jon sighed, glancing away. His face was becoming broody. After six months of dating, Dany had learnt the signs of a brood. “I mean, I am with my uncle- most of my cousins are like siblings to me-”

“Most?” Dany handed him the Pringles.

“Aye. Sansa and I were always distant.” He took three crisps into his mouth at once, chewing as he stalled. “She idolised her mother, you see. Aunt Catelyn… well, it was clear her priorities lay with her own children above her dead sister-in-law’s orphan.”

Dany’s heart stung. How could a woman - a mother, no less - make a child feel unimportant? How could she not see a child in need of love and then deny it them?

“It’s not a big deal, but I think she would rather spend Mother Day with her own children.”

She shuffled closer to him and lay her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s alright. Saves me a trip to Winterfell.” He turned, a rare smile on his face. “And I can spend the weekend with you instead of those nutters.”

Dany giggled, “Smooth, but I have plans.”

Jon’s brow furrowed, “With who?”

“My children,” Dany replied, lifting Viserion out of her lap to show him.

“Of course,” Jon rolled his eyes playfully. “What is it Missandei calls you? The Mother of Cats.”

“Don’t mock,” Dany glared, pulling Viserion into her arms for a cuddle. “I found them. I raised them. They’re my children - possibly the only ones I’ll ever have.”

Jon's eyes snapped to hers, and Dany instantly realised her mistake. Shit: that morbid joke of hers was supposed to stay between herself and Missandei. She’d only had a few ‘boyfriends’ since Drogo, and they’d never gotten very serious so the issue had never come up before. She wasn’t even sure when a good time to mention something like that was. Yet, she’d never felt anyone the way she’d felt about Jon. She’d never felt this safe with someone before. She’d never felt desired for more than her pretty face. She’d never felt so open with anyone before.

“What do you mean?”

His voice forced her to focus and breathe. Tragic backstories were something she’d never really shared before Jon either - not with a romantic partner anyway. Jon wasn’t the first she’d told about her parents - with her father’s reputation before he died, she’d never really needed to - but he was the first she opened up to her life in foster care and her emotionally abusive older brother.

“Ok.” Miraculously, her voice didn't come out shaky, but it was still a whisper. She placed Viserion on the floor and stuffed a few Pringles in her mouth. “Ok.” She brushed the crumbs off her palms and turned to face him. She sighed heavily, unable to force the tale to her mouth, until she felt Jon’s hand reach for her’s.

“When I was fifteen, living in Essos, Viserys was trying to get in with this gang. Have you heard of the Dothraki?” Jon nodded, running his thumb across the back of her hand. “Well, he set me up with their leader-”

Jon’s eyes widened. “Set you up… romantically?”

Dany nodded, willing herself not to cry until the end of her story.

“Gods above, Dany. How old was he?”

“Thirty,” Dany managed to gasp. “He was thirty years old and he was my first boyfriend. Let me finish, please,” Dany begged when she saw he was about to express his outrage. “Vis was my legal guardian by then and… well… he threatened more than emotional abuse if I didn’t comply. I looked older than my age, so I flirted and batted my eyes when Vis introduced me to him and he… saw what he liked.” Dany shoved some more crisps in her mouth to give herself a break. “Surprisingly, he was actually quite kind to me - compared to Vis he was a saint. I promise, Jon, he never did anything I didn’t want to. Yes, I know I couldn’t legally give consent; yes, I now know it was statutory rape… but Jon, he was the first person to ever show me respect. He treated me like an actual human being capable of making her own decisions.” Dany inhaled deeply, closing her eyes, trying to ignore all the emotions she could see coming from Jon. “I fell in love with him, and it felt so real back then. Now I can see I did it more for survival than anything else.”

Drogon chose this moment to jump up on the couch between them, desperate for attention as always. With her free hand, she dragged him into her lap and began petting him, knowing she’d need his presence for the rest of the story.

“Then I skipped a period.”

Jon inhaled sharply. “Dany-”

“Please. Just let me…” she glanced down at Drogon, happily purring away before forcing her gaze back to Jon.

“I was fifteen, I was terrified. I barely spent any time in school because of Drogo, but I couldn’t go to the doctors without someone finding out, so I went to the school nurse.” Dany tightened her grip on Jon’s hand. “I was pregnant.”

The tears began to fall now, and Jon brought his free hand up to wipe them away with so much care Dany almost began to cry harder.

“Drogo was ecstatic and this… this was the only time I felt I didn’t have a choice with him.” Dany gave a shaky exhale. “I warmed to the idea, actually. I’d already accepted that I would have no education and my life would be with the Dothraki, so I might as well have something that was mine.” Her eyes darted to the floor where Rhaegal was now rubbing against her leg, sensing her distress. “Vis wasn’t quite as happy.”

She paused, unable to bring herself to finish. Missandei was the only person she’d had to repeat the tale to thus far, and she’d been much less sober then.

“Dany?” Jon’s voice was barely a whisper. “You can stop. You don’t have to carry on.”

“I do.” She redirected her gaze to his. “I want to.” She swallowed. “He threatened me. His standing within the Dothraki was not what he intended. He wanted to be Drogo’s right hand but felt I’d stolen his focus, especially now with the baby. He threatened to slice me open and rip the fetus out of me, so Drogo shot him dead. And I was relieved. My own brother, my only flesh and blood, had just been murdered in front of me and I felt relief.”

“Shh,” Jon soothed her as the tears came heavier and faster. “He’d just threatened your life, Dany. He made your life a living hell. You were free from your tormentor.”

“I know,” she continued, “but it appeared the Dothraki agreed with him about me. Less than a month later, a group of them attacked us with knives… they stabbed Drogo in the chest and left him to bleed out in an alleyway, they-” she choked down a sob, “they stabbed me in my stomach. The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital a week later after what was apparently quite a few surgeries.” The hand stroking Drogon shifted towards her abdomen where her scars had mostly healed. When anyone asked, when Jon had asked, she said they were purely surgical scars and steeled herself to not get emotional at the sight of them. “I was told that Drogo was dead and I had lost my baby. I woke up alone.”

“Gods, Dany,” Jon muttered, his free hand now running gently up and down her arm.

“I was in the hospital for a few weeks regaining my strength before I was sent back into the foster system. I had about a month left before my sixteenth birthday and I’d be out on my own anyway.” Dany’s upper lip tugged upwards, “Lucky for me, I knew where Drogo kept his emergency stash and managed to get myself a little flat.” Her smile fell again when she remembered the point of her story. “But I had a checkup at the hospital and they said everything was fine…” Dany trailed off, her head shaking involuntarily, gaze dropping to her lap. “‘Everything is fine, Miss Targaryen, everything is fine except’... Except. Expect there was some damage - from the surgery or the stabbing they’re not sure - but there was some damage to my fallopian tubes and because of that it is likely that I may never be able to conceive a child again.”

She refused to look at him. She refused to move. She knew she’d ruined it. It was too much to admit she was this damaged after six months.

She almost jerked away when she felt his hand under her chin, lifting her head up to meet his eyes. Her blood tingled at the sight. He was staring at her with such awe and compassion and love that she wanted to cry all over again. In that moment, she knew there was no denying it: he loved her and she loved him.

She was speaking again, completely unaware of the words coming out of her mouth because they were so unbelievably honest it burned. “A lot for a sixteen-year-old, I know. It was an odd feeling, because I was unsure if I’d ever want kids after… everything. ...But I felt so alone, because I felt like I’d never have a family again. I knew I’d never have any blood relatives again. The once great Targaryen Family died in that alleyway. And I’m alone,” Dany finally sobbed.

Hastily, she was pulled onto Jon’s lap, his hands running soothingly up and down her back, as her’s found its way into his hair to steady herself, whilst another grasped his shoulder.

“You’re not alone,” he breathed into her ear. “You’ve got Missandei, you’ve got Jorah and Barristan. You’ve got hundreds that love you and care for because you set up your shelter and helped them, you showed them that they are loved, and so are you, Dany” He leant back, and she reluctantly followed, resting her forehead on his. “You are loved.” He cupped her face and wiped her tears. “I love you.”

A fresh wave of tears came crashing down at his words. She’d told him. She’d told him and he’d stayed. “I love you too.”

It wasn’t until later that night in bed that Jon asked, “So, why the Mother of Cats?”

Dany chuckled. “I actually found them when I was walking home from that checkup. Three tiny kittens in a box in an alleyway. After taking them to the vet I adopted them, and I supposed I imprinted my maternal instincts onto them.”

“Hm, so you get your nickname from the happy ending to a quite tragic story.”

“Mhmm.”

“And it has absolutely nothing to do with how you coddle them?”

“Absolutely nothing to do with it at all.”

She woke up that Sunday with a card written in his scrawling hand, signed from Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion.

The next year, after they moved in together, Ghost was added to the list.

*

“Good morning,” she greeted, lured into the kitchen by the smell of bacon.

Her husband glanced over his shoulder, mercifully shirtless as he cooked. “Morning, love.”

She pulled herself onto the stool by the island, enjoying the view of Jon in just his pyjama bottoms. Her card was sat waiting for her. “Thank you, love.”

“Don’t thank me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ah, of course.” She spun in the chair to see the cats lounged on the couch. “Thank you darlings.” She then turned to Ghost laying on his bed. When he met her gaze, the wolf came bounding over, stopping calmly by her side and nuzzling her leg. She smiled, “Thank you too, Ghost.”

She turned back at the sound of a plate being placed on the island and wasted no time in chomping down on her bacon sandwich.

Jon grinned. “Who knows, if all goes well, maybe we can add another child next year.”

Dany returned his grin. They had been trying for over a year now and were due to begin IVF treatment in a few weeks.

“I cancelled the appointment.”

Jon’s face dropped. “You did what? Why? Dany, if you were having doubts you-”

“No, love, come here.” He rounded the island and stood in front of her, shooing a reluctant Ghost away. She took his hands. “I cancelled the appointment because we don’t need it anymore.”

His eyes widened. “Are you… Dany are you saying…?”

Her face split into a smile so wide it was almost painful. “I’m pregnant.”

He lifted her out of her seat and she wrapped herself around him, burrowing her face into his neck. They held each other for a few moments before Jon began to shake, overcome by tears.

She lifted her head to look into his eyes. “We’re having a baby?”

Her face-splitting grin fell to a warm smile as she cupped his face, softly wiping away his tears. “We’re having a baby.”

Jon glanced to the wolf at their feet. “Now your behaviour makes sense,” he said accusingly. “I was beginning to think he started loving you more than me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, he’s always loved me more than you.”

Jon laughed, setting her down on the floor as he did, clasping her hands instead.

He pressed his forehead against hers. “We’re getting the family we always wanted,” she whispered.

“Aye, love. I promised you that you’d never be alone again and I am a man of my word.”

She brought their hands to her abdomen, lightly pressing against her scars.

“Happy Mother’s Day, Daenerys.”

[lena-went]

Non sei Rotto

                                          FREDERICK’S BACKSTORY

R: Frederick wasn't the only one in this relationship that was a bit of a snoop. After he had spent a few nights at my apartment we had spent multiple nights at his house. Nights after work were spent cooking and cuddling, nothing had ever been so mundanely perfect. On this particular night I was cleaning up crumbs on the floor from where we had been eating on the couch and I noticed a thick album bound in dark leather under the couch pushed nearly to the wall. I pulled it from its hidden shelter and dusted it off. 

Frederick was at the sink with his back turned toward me rinsing and cleaning dishes. I felt the spine of the album crackle as I opened it. Photos of a chubby baby with large green eyes stared up at me as I turned the pages reverently. Soon a young boy took the baby’s place. That stare was too familiar to be mistaken. Frederick. I looked towards where he stood, still busy cleaning. 

“Frederick,” I called to him from where I knelt beside the couch. 

“Yes my love?” He responded without turning from his task. 

“What’s this?” I saw him still and tense before turning off the water that had been steadily flowing into the sink.

 He turned slowly with an odd look on his face. I watched as he approached me in a near regretful fashion. He took a seat carefully on the floor beside me wincing slightly.

“That…is my family album.” He spoke slowly as if choosing every word carefully. 

I leaned my head on his shoulder and shifted closer to him. “You’ve never mentioned your family…to me I mean.” 

He leaned his head to rest slightly on mine. “There is not much to say. My father and mother died years ago.” 

I moved to wrap my arms around him in comfort. “I’m so sorry my love.” He took a deep sigh and patted my hand lightly. 

“As I said it has been years. I have had time to…adjust.”

I couldn't help myself, I had to press further if I wanted to avoid confusion around the subject in future. 

“How old were you?” I asked softly rubbing slow circles on his upper stomach. 

“24…I…had dropped out of Johns Hopkins and just started studying psychology at Harvard.” He took the album from my hands and flipped to the near end of the book. 

“This is us on the day I was accepted to medical school…my father…he told me he was finally proud of me.” My brow furrowed at the word finally which Frederick had emphasized with a heavy breath. 

He turned to me his eyes glazed with tears. “You should have seen his face the day I told him I had dropped out of the surgery program. He—he told me I was…’no longer his son’. He sarcastically mentioned psychiatry in passing as he berated me with insults and I ran with it not knowing what else to do.”

 My heart broke for Frederick as he spoke quietly and breathy obviously holding back tears. I kissed his neck gently and gave him a light squeeze from the arm I had wrapped around his middle. 

“The last thing he said to me was after my mother had tried to step in and protect me, he looked me dead in the eyes and said ‘You are a failure, and a quitter. Get out of my sight.’” Frederick choked back a sob at which I wrapped myself more around him. 

I would have tried stop him from crying but I could feel his body release a tension which must have been present for years. He continued through his tears, clutching at my arms. 

“A few weeks later I received these albums in the mail. That was his way of cutting me from the family dynasty…as it were. They both died in a car accident two months later.” I waited for him to speak again but he was silent, staring at the photograph as tears dropped, pattering onto the dusty plastic covering the pages of the album. 

I looked down at the photograph as well, until then my attention had been fixed on Frederick’s face. The photo was strange, a stern older man shorter than the young Frederick gripped Frederick’s shoulder with a self satisfied smirk. On the right side of Frederick was a small thin woman with dark black hair and tan complexion. She was smiling, but barely so. Then I looked at the young Frederick. His hair was gelled back within an inch of its life as he held a sweatshirt with ‘Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’ printed across it. His eyes were bright and youthful but his smile didn't quite reach them. I ran a hand through Frederick’s hair and placed a kiss on his shoulder. 

“I love you.” I whispered against his neck planting series of kisses there as well. 

“You should not. I am broken.” I pulled from him and moved the photo album from his arms, closing it and sliding it back under the couch. I stood only to move to kneel in front of him seconds later. I gathered his soft cheeks in my hands and forced him to look at me. 

“You are not broken. I love you. You are not broken.” I kissed him then hoping my lips would be able to relay my message to him if not by sound than by touch. 

I felt him choke against them and sob, his entire body heaving. He pulled me to him in between his raised knees burying his head in my neck. Goosebumps raised where his hot tears fell an immediate chill coming over me as more landed. I repeated myself over and over, my final mantra becoming ‘I love you’. Soon he spoke it back to me, first barely audible and gravely then more clear and strong. He released his tight hold on me and I moved to look at him. His eyes were red and swollen and his lip still carried a slight tremble. I rubbed over his cheekbones  erasing the trails tears had left down his face. 

“How does a hot bath sound my love…hmm?” I saw a flash of a microscopic smile and I took that as a sign of agreement. I helped him stand on shaky legs before embracing him tightly. He took a deep inhale of my neck and hair before pulling away. He spoke one final ‘I love you’ and our arms wrapped around each other as we began our climb upstairs.

F: We had both fallen asleep with our arms around each other and hair slightly damp from the long bath we had taken. So when I awoke first the next morning I smiled widely upon seeing the disheveled mess her hair had become. A few ringlets of curls had formed and now framed her face which was up turned towards me. I could only imagine the state of my hair. All the grief and pain of last night was forgotten upon seeing her in my arms. 

The cadence of her breath sent a pleasant shiver up my spine and I sighed at ease. I moved my hand on her back to stroke the soft skin that was exposed. She had a habit of squirming out of the covers as she slept and she would wake me murmuring in a dream state sometimes with teeth chattering. I would always retrieve the covers from where she had kicked them and tuck her in once more, pulling her tight against me to warm her. 

I suppose most men would find it an exasperating inconvenience to be woken multiple times a night but I adored it. It made me feel needed and even more protective over her. No doubt she could handle herself during her waking hours but as she slept I became her exclusive guardian and I swore every night that I would die before letting something happen to her. Sometimes when she was especially restless I would hum a song in her ear, soothing her to sleep like a newborn baby.

I treasured the warmth of her palms pressed against my chest and the poke of her little nose in my neck. God I loved her. As I watched the rise and fall of her bare chest I remembered what I had promised her a few days ago. Moving gingerly I pulled my arm from underneath her and rolled out of bed. Taking in one last look of her lying half covered by my black silk sheets I stood and walked to the dresser on the opposite side of the room. Carefully ensuring she didn't see my hiding place for her gifts I extracted the Cartier box and bag in silence. 

Then I stopped and looked at the gift in my hands. Was this enough? Just one gift? I knew I had promised only one but it seemed cheap to give her only one gift. I looked back in the drawer for something equally formal and expensive but came back empty handed. Groaning in frustration I shut the drawer and returned to the bed where I took a seat. Should I wait for her to get up and then give it to her? Should I try to wake her up now? Could I get away with putting it on her in her sleep? Jesus, what had I gotten myself into. Suddenly I saw her hand stretch out into the empty space where I had been a few minutes before. Her fingers smoothed over the surface of the sheets searching for something. I saw her brow furrow and her lips frown though she kept her eyes closed. 

“Baby?” her groggy voice asked small and soft.

I felt heat rise to my cheeks with her use of the endearment. She rarely used it but when she did it wrecked me. 

“Yes my love, I’m right here.” I reached out to stop the hand in its search for me. 

“Come back to bed.” She spoke while pulling at the hand I had placed on hers. Maybe now would be a good time? 

I cleared my throat, “Actually…I um…I have something of yours…” My lack of movement frustrated her and she moved the pulling hand to my leg which was bent half on and off the side of the bed.

 “Hmm?” She attempted to grip my leg but it was too large for her petite hands. She settled run a finger along what she could reach, soon she was tracing little patterns along my skin giving me goosebumps all over. 

“Open your eyes.” I placed the bag near her face with enough distance that she wouldn't go cross eyed the moment she opened her eyes. 

“Freddy…” She whined. God she really wasn't a morning person. I noted that in bold in the files of my mind. 

“Please.” With that word I saw her lips curl into a smile and she opened her eyes slowly, her eyelashes fluttering against her cheek.

First she looked confused and then she shot up so quickly I jumped from my seat on the bed to stand beside it. She looked at me and then back at the bag, back to me and then the bag. My startled look faded and I motioned towards the bag. She softly mimed opening a gift as if making certain it was what I wanted her to do. I nodded quickly, eager to see her reaction to the bags contents. She removed the white tissue paper from the dark red bag with great care and put a hand to her mouth with a silent gasp. She quickly lowered it again to pull out the jewelry box and place it in between us on the bed. Her wild hair moved back and forth as she shook her head. 

The squeak of the hinges on the box was deafening in my anxiety ridden silence. I watched her eyes most carefully, fearful that she would hate the necklace. She looked at the rose gold jewelry and then back at me. 

“Frederick…you shouldn't have…oh god…its beautiful. The color alone, and the diamond…oh my god Freddy.” My chest felt as if it would burst with the sudden pride racing through it. 

“Do you like it?” I found myself saying. 

She nodded wordlessly before carefully handing the necklace to me and motioning for me to put it on her. I moved closer to her on the bed as she gathered her hair in her hands and moved it from her neck and back. I first placed a kiss on the back of her neck, the newly exposed skin was simply too enticing to ignore. Then upon hearing her sigh happily I reached my arms over her head and fastened the clasp of the necklace. Her hand traced the chain of the necklace on her skin before she turned to me. I moved the bag and box to the bedside table and then refocused my attention on her. She seemed so impossibly elegant, completely nude wearing only my necklace. 

“Oh Frederick…its perfect. I’ve never owned anything this beautiful.” She whispered placing a hand on my cheek. 

I smiled at seeing her so lost for words. Placing a soft kiss on her lips and forehead I laid down once again and pulled my sheets and duvet over myself. She rolled her eyes and pinched my arm gently in annoyance. 

“Now you want to sleep?” Feigning a yawn I nodded my head turning away from her and pressing my face into my pillow in an attempt to hide a grin. 

Suddenly she was on me peppering me with kisses and tickling my arms and sides. I laughed so loudly I was sure the neighbors heard me. She pressed her lips to my neck and blew forcefully at it exacting a loud sound. I laughed hard, my stomach muscles contracting as my chest shook. I grabbed her wandering arms and twirled around pinning her down on the bed. 

Now it was my turn. My hands went immediately to her sides and began their dance which elicited the most delightful sounds from her. Soon she was gasping for air and pulling at my hands trying to stop me from my slow torture, but I was enjoying this too much to let her win. Pressing my lips to the smooth skin of her stomach I repeated what she had done to my neck moments before. Her laughter grew and she wove her fingers in my hair as I kissed over the spot I had offended. I fell to her side after kissing her firmly on the lips and covering both of us with blankets and sheets. She kissed at my neck and chest before nestling into the space below my jaw. I wrapped my arms around her and drew her body inward. Her legs tangled with mine and I sighed contentedly. 

“I love you.” I whispered as I placed a kiss in her hair. 

“I love you too.” A few moments passed and she was back asleep, murmuring and whining quietly against my neck. 

The sounds soothed me into following suit soon after.

F: I woke up to the sound of faint sound of singing. I made my way through the hall and down the foyer stairs to the kitchen. Her back was to me as I entered so I snuck around and took a seat at the bar. She was wearing one of my favorite dress shirts and her hair poured over the back of it in beautiful waves as she swung her hips back and forth. 

“Wild thing…you make my heart sing…you make everything groooovayyyyy. Wild thang…” 

Then she raised a whisk to her mouth as she tightly shut her eyes, “Wild thing I think I love you…but I wanna know for sure…so come on and pull me tight…I loooooovvvee you.” 

My smirk only spread as she kept dancing unaware of my presence directly behind her. She was in the process of making crepes from a mix we had bought at the grocery a few days ago. She had insisted on stocking my cabinets after learning that they were more often empty than full. 

Midway through her second chorus she turned to see me seated at the bar, my face painted with amusement and complete satisfaction. I expected her to stop but she didn’t. Instead she continued a little louder and her dance became more sensual her fingers tracing her hips and sides as she moved smoothly around the kitchen. I grinned again more than happy with the display in front of me. I tucked this memory in the most secure corner of my mind protecting it from the evils that often dwelled there.

So this was a bit of a long one, the characters simply refused to quit. I just want Freddy to be truly happy for a while. He’s suffered enough.

[stargleeksil-blog]

Criminal Minds s02e20 Honor Among Thieves - or more aptly named, a photoshoot of Shemar Moore, more Emily background and hot photos of Kirsten. YAY

Episode 20 – Honor Among Thieves

GUYS! It’s officially the weekend for me!! I cannot express how insanely happy I am that I was not slotted to work either Thursday or Friday on this weekend, so I’m so happy, I’m going to do some major catch up on the Criminal Minds review thingy I’ve got going on here, and basically just catch up with the times and reality.

Alrighty, so this episode’s name is seriously disturbing. Thieves? Plural? I don’t like where this is going.

Let’s see what happens.

We’re in Baltimore. Who are those bitches?

Oh, they’re Russian. Eek! Are we dealing with the Russian mob here? Oh damn. That was like straight out of West Side Story or something. LOL.

Okay, I know it’s not funny. But that’s where my mind went when they had that scuffle.

Oh shit, that girl was watching. They have a witness.

Lady, who are you and what makes you think you can just pull Prentiss and one of her superiors out of a briefing like it’s your bith-right?

Oh, shit! That’s Prentiss’s mom?

So Ambassador Prentiss thinks she can just bypass the usual laws and demand the BAU take the case she’s presents them with? Oh my god, that sounds awful.

Oh come on, ladies, just calm down.

Wait, hold up. Their father/husband was kidnapped and will be released for a ransom, and they are sending pieces of him to emphasize how serious they are? Well shit!

Russian proverb: “There can be no good without evil.” Well, that is horrifyingly true, if you don’t have evil, you cannot have a sense of what is good. Opposites require the two sides for comparison. That’s basic logic.

Wait. So the mother and daughter brought the finger as evidence, but they don’t want to give it up for processing? Aw damn. That’s gonna ‘cause trouble.

Wait. Prentiss knows Russian? Hot damn.

Hold up, they’re asking for $100,000? That’s a lot of money, dude. And it’s not personalized, it’s not addressed to anyone, there’s no instruction not to call the police, it’s like a memo at work. What the fuck is going on here?

So Gideon, Morgan and Reid are off to Baltimore with the daughter to profile the house. Morgan has instructions to profile the daughter. And they are gonna meet with a detective who knows the area.

Prentiss is talking with Mrs. Chernus, though that’s kind of bad. Hahaha, she’s not that good in Russian? Yeah right.

Oh boy. Those are criminals kidnapping criminals. Oh damn. Russian mob. Fuck.

“Get Garcia on the horn.” That’s one of the few funny lines I’ve heard Gideon utter in a while. I love it!

“Your friendly neighborhood oracle of all things knowable and unknowable at your service.” Oh lord I love this woman so much.

“I know. I know. We’re on the clock. I will compile and reconnect forthwith, junior G-man. Oracle out.”

“Junior G-man?” oh my poodle is confused in the noodle. So cute!

Wow. That girl is unfazed by anything. Her brothers died of diphtheria and she doesn’t even blink. What the fuck is going on here?

Oh damn. Her family escaped Communist Russia when she was little? Dang, that’s one tough family.

Oh my god. Those are fucking hanging mangled human carcasses and I want to puke my McNuggets right now.

So one guy enjoys the killing and torturing, making me want to mangle his little fucking zit head, and the other thinks about the money? Well, something’s not right here, he’s not letting the guy torture them and send more incentive. That’s not very mob-like.

I really don’t like that dick.

Why is he reassuring the guy? What’s going on here?

That poor dude. Oh my god, those corpses make me want to hurl.

Why’s Gideon knocking on the neighbor’s door? What’s going on?

He has a missing finger, too. He’s been kidnaped and released, oh shit.

That guy is so scared. Poor thing.

Oooh, who’s that in the fancy car?

Arseny Lysowski. He’s the big tough guy in the neighborhood. Damn.

Hey! Lady! Take it easy, girl!

That fucker gives me the creeps. Yikes.

Did he just threaten her in Russian? Ruh-roh.

Poor Mr. Cherbus.

Hey dude! You have two more hours! Come on, don’t be a dick.

Oh, the FBI are onto you, okay. Ew.

(side note: not gonna have that many pictures here, this episode is gross, majorly so, so most of these photos will be of hot people)

Derek profiling Natalia’s house as sad shouldn’t be this hot.

So they’re putting up appearances to look rich, but they aren’t? Why?

And why won’t the family have pictures of the kids around the house? And why are there only two chairs at the table when there are three people living there? Oh Derek, you smart puppy, you deserve a treat.

Ambassador Prentiss is seriously annoying me. Why is she interrogating Emily on her job? Come on, you’re so cold, typing away while asking cut-and-dry questions.

So her connections in Russia have proved futile? Damn. Too bad.

So the Russian mob tattoos have meanings? They’re messages? Damn.

Pakhan is the head of the Russian mob? And that’s Lysowski? Damn.

An Obochek is the pooled monetary fund the groups use for bribes and other types of support? Damn.

“That’s a remote region of the northern Ural mountains, for those of you playing the home game.”

She looks like a game-show hostess. Hahaha, I love her so much.

Vory v zakone. “The Thieves Code”: “Forsake all relatives, mother, father, brother, sister. Not have a family of his own. No wife. No children. Family makes you vulnerable.” That’s cold.

Yup. If he kidnapped Mr. Chernus, it wouldn’t make sense for Lysowski to offer his help. Damn.

What’s going on with Mrs. Chernus out there? Damn.

That’s one hot picture of him. Fuck.

Oh boy. Someone unexpected knocks.

Uri. A kid? What the fuck is he doing there?

Oh my god! They made the kid give her a box with her father’s fucking ear in it? Oh my god, those guys are sick as fuck.

Morgan talking about the cut-off ear shouldn’t look hot. Someone do something about Shemar, and by that I mean, get me on a fucking plane to his house right now.

Wait. They raised the ransom to 500,000? Damn. And the note said “Say hello to the FBI.” Oh crap.

If this is how he looks when he’s trying to coax a sobbing woman out of a bathroom, sign me up for a life-time.

Wait. Why won’t she answer him? Oh crap. She ran away? Why? Where the fuck is Natalia going? Shit.

Also, never let a woman ever run away from Shemar. I can’t stand that devastated look. Well, that’s a disappointed look that he failed, on a case, but it’s already pretty bad, I can’t imagine what it would be like if it were a romantic relationship. Oh my god, my fanfic-writing mind just went into overdrive. Down, girl.

Hey! Why won’t you let Gideon in there? Not nice.

Hahaha, oh Lysowski is one tough guy.

“I can see no reason for a man like you to help a family like the Chernuses.” “Man like me?” oh Gideon, you are stepping into one big hot mess, buddy.

That tattoo signifies he’s the boss? Damn.

Hey! Why is Natalia there? What the fuck is going on here? Why is she dismissing the FBI? What the fuck is going on here? Something isn’t right.

Sweetie, I mean, Ambassador Prentiss? Don’t call Penelope a computer expert, okay? Please, it’s Oracle of All Things Knowable and Unknowable. Got it? Good.

Damn, that is one fine human specimen.

So Natalia took the ear and the finger? Oh god, she’s in on the whole thing. Fuck. Fuck. Oh my goodness gracious, she ordered her father to be kidnapped and tortured. Oh my fucking goodness freaking gracious.

“She could be halfway back to Dogo-whatever by now.” Oh Morgan, you really need to work on your geographic memory, baby boy.

Wait. Hold up? She told him she’s from the same town as Lysowski? Oh boy.

“It’s the equivalent of bread crumbs to Hansel and Gretel.” I love you and your genius mind, lovely.

Oh my god, so it’s downloading the bank’s data to her? I love her so much.

“How could I not see this coming?” oh don’t beat yourself up, sugar shack. You’re still a good puppy to me.

“I’m in! … It’s a pretty archaic system once the parameters are understood.” You amazing, gorgeous doodlebug. Someone kiss her for me.

The money’s been transferred? What the fuck is going on here?

Hey! Gorban! What the fuck is going on here?

Oh shit! That muscular guy just totally killed Fyodor! Why? What did Fyodor do? He was nice to Mr. Chernus, why be a douche?

Wait. Hold up. The entire thing is a sting operation on Lysowski? To get him to pay the money? What the fuck is up with Natalia? She is one crazy fucker.

Wait. That buffed up dude is Lyov Fulenko? Lysowski’s bastard kid? Damn.

What is Natalia doing there? Oh god, she loves Lyov? And she has him torturing her daddy? Oh my god.

So we wanted a rich life? That’s why she kidnapped everyone and tortured them for ransom? Oh god, she is so fucked up.

Who is that?

Oh. It’s Lysowski’s people. Good. They got Mr. Chernus back, and oh my god, they totally just butchered Natalia and Lyov. Fuck.

Leo Tolstoy: “Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Wow, that seriously depresses me.

Can I just say? That lady is super hot! Seriously!

  Alrighty, we’re done with that. So this episode was seriously heavy on the Russian mob and I didn’t like it. The whole massacring the bodies thing? Ugh. But I did get lots of hot shots of Derek and Penelope, and I did get a confused poodle one. So that was fun. Overall, I loved more Emily backstory, and the eventual unsub was seriously fucking my mind with ‘WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? WHY WOULD SHE DO THIS?’ but I loved every minute of it.

Can’t wait to see the last three episodes of the season! Giddy over here!

I’ll see you next time, lovelies <3