#brenda has many opinions

[brendaonao3]

Hey so since you posted a mission: impossible thing I'm just gonna ask you:

Which do you prefer out of Mission: Impossible 2 and Mission: Impossible 3?

Hihi!!!

Please feel free to ask me ANY Mission: Impossible questions you want!!! I'm not only a huge fan of the film franchise - THE best action film franchise of all time (I said what I said) - but I also love the TV series for the over the top crazy late 60s/early 70s vibes and total mindfucks. :D

Okay, so, having said that - I'm going to give an honest answer - but I need to lay a few caveats: 1) I LOVE LOVE LOVE John Woo - I think he's a brilliant director and I'm a huge fan of both his Hong Kong films and his Hollywood films. I fully believe he and Ridley Scott are the 2 greatest living directors.

2) I cannot STAND JJ Abrams. And not just for what he did to Star Wars. He did his damnedest to ruin Star TREK first - a franchise he knew nothing about (and man, you could tell) - all to GET the Star Wars gig, and then fucked that up too. And we won't even get into all of the ways he should never be allowed to direct action or write women (yes, I know about Alias - again, I said what I said) or try to work on anything other than weird indies.

That being said - much as it pains me to admit it - MI3 is objectively a better film. I love MI2 because it shows how broken Ethan was after MI1 and losing his entire team and getting betrayed by his old mentor (not to mention, the IMF) and how hard all of those blows made him, until he met Nyah and she cracked that hard shell open and gave him back his purpose. The end of MI2 also perfectly sets up MI3 in that loving Nyah allowed Ethan to be open to Julia.

But MI3 has the superior villain (PSH might be the best MI villain if I'm honest) and introduces Benji and is the first to show us the behind the scenes machinations of the IMF and is the first film to really show us just how deep and true Ethan and Luther's friendship has become and it's also the first film that gives us the full scope of Ethan's skill set - his ability to quickly read people, the languages, the improvisation, the ingenuity, all of his weapons skills, the way he can pivot and make a new plan on the fly, his ability to train people, and his absolute inability to believe a job cannot be done.

And, most importantly, MI3 gave us Julia. I mean, look, I love Ilsa with my entire heart and soul, but Julia is still my favorite character after Ethan, because her arc is just brilliant in the way she goes from clueless civilian to survivor to protector. And she's the only person who knows Ethan at his core, all parts of him.

So yeah, as much as I hate JJ, I have to give him props for MI3.

[bookskiver]

Tmr characters going trick or treating together (HAPPY HALLOWEEN):

(This one's been chilling in my drafts waiting for spooky day so here we go)

Let's start with the obvious, thomas and newt ARE DOING matching costumes.

Tbh I think they'd do something very basic, theyd get white sheets cut holes out and be ghosts but they'd wear some colourful fluffy socks and pull them up and wear blackout sunglasses over the sheets

And if minho wanted to do a trio they'd do alvin and the chipmunks (minho as alvin, thomas as simon and newt as Theodore (in my humble opinion))

If not, then I feel minho and brenda would go as those two from Subway surfers, tricky and jake, bc they both thought it was cool (they would both bring real spray paint cans and may or may not dabble in some vandalism, but shhhh)

Gally (being gally) didn't want to go, but when he saw everyone getting excited, he felt left out

"FIIIINEEEE if you insist, I'll come with you all"

"We didn't say anyt-"

"NONO it's fine, too late to apologise, I'm going now"

He would either just wear all black clothes and a scary mask (one of those light up purge ones probs) OR, he would still wear all black but put a police cap on and be the policeman from subway surfers to go with minho and brenda

If the girls did a group costume they would be the victorious girls (teresa as tori sonya as cat brenda as trina and Harriet as jade YES PLEASE!!!!!) (I would say they could do that one improv episode with the sleepover at sikowitz's but trina isn't in it 😔)

Alby would be there to babysit these CHILDREN

He would be the angry dad tapping his foot at the end of the driveway waiting for them to get their sweets

He's the one chasing down minho and brenda if they use their spray paint

Give my guy alby a break 😭😭😭

I can picture teresa as coraline, cute outfit she's wearing the blue wig yellow raincoat and everything

No one goes as a character from coraline with her but she's chill slaying alone. She stays back chatting to alby, trying to calm the poor man down from sprinting after gally because he jumpscared a group of children.

CHUCK GOES AS A CREEPER

He wears full green and paints a box to put over his head. Thinks it's really cool until SOMEBODY (gally) starts repeatedly smacking the top of his box

(Gally has been smacked in the back of the head by alby so many times he may have a bald spot at this point)

Harriet and sonya go as jake and finn from adventure time (sonya as finn harriet as jake) or if aris wants to go (I feel like he wouldn't care for Halloween but sonya bribed him with the promise of sweets) they'd go as kenny Stan and kyle from south park. They'd go as this is because aris DEFINITELY has that big orange coat kenny wears and you cant tell me he doesnt bc he does (he goes as kenny Harriet as stan and sonya as kyle)

Fypan (wanting to make chuck feel better) goes as a minecraft zombie with a box on his head (live laugh frypan 🥹🫶)

And if they did a whole group costume they'd go as SIMS!!! They'd print out print out those plumbob crystals and glue them to headbands. They'd all be green accept for gally who was given a red one and alby who's red plumbob was very much forced upon him

And yes, they do walk around talking simlish :)

(This was so all over the place im so sorry i had alot to say 😭) HOPE YOU ENJOYED HAPPY HALLOWEEN MY LOVELYS <33333

[la-femme-au-collier-vert]

Sources on Louisiana Voodoo

door in New Orleans by Jean-Marcel St. Jacques

For better or worse, (almost always downright wrong,) Louisiana Voodoo and Hoodoo are likely to come up in any depiction of the state of Louisiana. I’ve created a list of works on contemporary and historical Voodoo/Hoodoo for anyone who’d like to learn more about what this tradition is and is not (hint: it developed separately from Haitian Vodou which is its own thing) or would like to depict it in a non-stereotypical way. I’ve listed them in chronological order. Please keep a few things in mind. Almost all sources presented unfortunately have their biases. As ethnographies Hurston’s work no longer represent best practices in Anthropology, and has been suspected of embellishment and sensationalism on this topic. Additionally, the portrayal is of the religion as it was nearly 100 years ago- all traditions change over time. Likewise, Teish is extremely valuable for providing an inside view into the practice, but certain views, as on Ancient Egypt, may be offensive now. I have chosen to include the non-academic works by Alvarado and Filan for the research on historical Voodoo they did with regards to the Federal Writer’s Project that is not readily accessible, HOWEVER, this is NOT a guide to teach you to practice this closed tradition, and again some of the opinions are suspect- DO NOT use sage, which is part of Native practice and destroys local environments. I do not support every view expressed, but think even when wrong these sources present something to be learned about the way we treat culture.

*Start with Osbey, the shortest of the works. The works in bold are those I consider the best- many are primary sources. To compare Louisiana Voodoo with other traditions see the chapter on Haitian Vodou in Creole Religions of the Caribbean by Olmos and Paravinsi-Gebert. Additionally many songs and chants were originally in Louisiana Creole (different from the Louisiana French dialect), which is now severely endangered. You can study the language in Ti Liv Kreyol by Guillery-Chatman et. Al.

Le Petit Albert by Albertus Parvus Lucius (1706) grimoire widely circulated in France in the 18th century, brought to the colony & significantly impacted Hoodoo

Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston (1935)

Spirit World-Photographs & Journal: Pattern in the Expressive Folk Culture of Afro-American New Orleans by Michael P. Smith (1984)

Jambalaya: The Natural Woman's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals by Luisah Teish (1985)

Eve’s Bayou (1997), film

Spiritual Merchants: Religion, Magic, and Commerce by Carolyn Morrow Long (2001)

A New Orleans Voodoo Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau by Carolyn Morrow Long (2006)

“Yoruba Influences on Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo” by Ina J. Fandrich (2007)

The New Orleans Voodoo Handbook by Kenaz Filan (2011)

“Why We Can’t Talk To You About Voodoo” by Brenda Marie Osbey (2011)

Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System by Katrina Hazzard-Donald (2013)

The Tomb of Marie Laveau In St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 by Carolyn Morrow Long (2016)

Lemonade, visual album by Beyonce (2016)

How to Make Lemonade, book by Beyonce (2016)

“Work the Root: Black Feminism, Hoodoo Love Rituals, and Practices of Freedom” by Lyndsey Stewart (2017)

The Lemonade Reader edited by Kinitra D. Brooks and Kameelah L. Martin (2019)

The Magic of Marie Laveau by Denise Alvarado (2020)

In Our Mother’s Gardens (2021), documentary on Netflix, around 1 hour mark traditional offering to the ancestors by Dr. Zauditu-Selassie

“Playing the Bamboula” rhythm for honoring ancestors associated with historical Voodoo

Voodoo and Power: The Politics of Religion in New Orleans 1880-1940 by Kodi A. Roberts (2023)

The Marie Laveau Grimoire by Denise Alvarado (2024)

Voodoo: An African American Religion by Jeffrey E. Anderson (2024)

[spiraling-voids]

Things I thought of about Hatchetfield characters

These are kinda like my opinions or theories. Also, be prepared cause it’s a lot

Ted will probably never love someone like he loved Jenny ever again. Sure he would care about someone in his own Ted Spankoffski way, but never fully love them.

Alice would be the perfect person to be possessed by Blinky. During Watcher World when she found out her phone is broken she says, and I quote, “I need to be liking her post so she knows I’m watching her!” And keeps saying that she has to be around Deb to make sure their relationship stays.

Even if Max didn’t die and tries to change, him being redeemed would take a while. Weeks, months, maybe after high school! Redemption after being a bully for years doesn’t happen over night

The lords in black and lady in white may be eltric gods, but they still bicker and fight like any mortal siblings

If Max continued to not allow Kyle and Brenda to date, I feel like they would date in secret. The very little moment we get of those two, their relationship seems healthy and they both like each other.

Richie got most of his shirts from Hot Topic, and some of his anime themed things

Paul 23 probably thought of the real Paul when Android Emma said “You weren’t living it! You were running away from it” hence why he picked to stab the real Emma.

I like the idea of some of Jon’s characters being related. So, I like to think Ted just gave Peter to Paul every now and then cause he heard that Paul watched Alice, and because of that, Richie and Peter met each other.

Daniel/Stopwatch has definitely done many pranks on Richie and Trevor with the help of his powers, sometimes the three band together to prank Paul

[casscainmainly]

You know, I was never a big fan of the post-Puckett Batgirl issues, but your analysis actually managed to breathe new life into them, great work!!

Wow, thank you so much! I definitely think Puckett has the least weak spots overall, and my ultimate fav issues will always come from early Batgirl (2000). Yet Horrocks and Gabrych both flesh out Cass in interesting directions, and I don't think her character would be the same without them.

Horrocks, for instance, gives us a lot of the gender exploration, as well as the fight with Babs, some nice Steph-Cass moments, the great Bruce fight, etc. Those are some defining moments for Cass and great examples of her growth.

Then Gabrych utilises Cass' voice the best out of any writer (in my opinion), really demonstrating how much she's learned since she had no internal monologue. We also get Tim interactions, a confirmation that Cass wants to be Batman, Brenda, learning Shiva's her mom, Steph death hallucinations, etc.

They both have contributed key pieces to our understanding of Cass today, and without editorial mandates their runs probably wouldn't have had so many flaws (like the very last issue, War Games, etc.). I think they deserve a lot of appreciation!

[myfandomrealitea]

I'm convinced anyone who honest-to-god rages at that post is just someone who feels very impotent and useless off the computer, so they're hardcore compensating by trying to look and feel like they're doing as much "activism" as possible online. Either that, or they have zero understanding of how basic human psychology works and in turn, they don't realize that if people didn't have spaces where they didn't need to constantly be on guard about getting slapped with activism onuses, everyone would burn out. And be useless even if they were able, occasionally, to dive into that stuff before. Not to mention, everyone has a limit. Someone dealing with depression, a death in the family, MS, and the stress of a move has enough shit on their plate and they don't owe anyone an explanation re: "why they don't reblog that post, otherwise it means they're contributing to genocide". Hell, nobody owes anyone an explanation because Brenda, being stressed and pissy and raising your blood pressure about something does not mean you can actually help anyone, and also, half those mutual aid posts are scams.

I know a lot of people were tripped up (apparently) by how I worded it, which in hindsight was probably my fault because I did write it while I was pretty pissed off myself.

But yes, the general amount of people who read it and still insist on either bending over ass backwards trying to nitpick every single possible nuance or immediately launch into accusations and flag waving is just... Disappointing, really.

The whole world is never going to agree on everything, but it is actually very sad to see just how many people have been sucked into the cycle of forced activism, guilt manipulation, setting themselves on fire to keep others warm, ect.

I do hope in the future they allow themselves to let go a little and understand that mentally and physically we are simply not capable of being 'on' every single second of every single day. It helps nobody, and actually, a lot of today's activism is performative and signalling rather than actually effective or influential.

Its people loading up videos of candles on their phones instead of actually lighting real ones.

The unfortunate reality is that a lot of the online "activism" we see isn't.... Actually activism. Its not actually doing anything. There's no outcome from it. Spamming 'FREE PALESTINE' under cat videos and celebrity photos from their holidays doesn't actually accomplish anything. Its just making you feel like you've done something.

Especially activism on a global, actually at war scale like Gaza. It doesn't help anyone. People aren't being freed from hostage camps because user dontlookawayfromwar spammed a tagline under a baking video with an audience of 400 and called the content creator a cunt for not mentioning Gaza once while telling people how to bake scones.

Its likely an unpopular opinion; but modern internet culture has actually ruined activism, compassion and how we understand influence and real change. We are so out of touch with what is actually helpful and what is just virtue signalling and running on a hamster wheel of performative activism. The internet is a communication tool. You can't build a wall with a spoon and you can't stop a war with Tumblr posts telling people they're awful for having family dinners that don't revolve around dead bodies and human greed.

[shannendoherty-fans]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/opinion/shannen-doherty-gen-x.html

The New York Times — Opinion

We Owe Shannen Doherty an Apology

July 17, 2024. By Jennifer Weiner

Shannen Doherty was difficult.

If you were alive and sentient in the 1990s — whether you, like me, were a devoted fan of “Beverly Hills, 90210” and E! or you were just the most casual reader of People magazine — you knew this to be true. The sky is blue. The earth is round. Shannen Doherty, the star of multiple hit movies and television shows, is difficult. She was, per the tabloids, a volatile, unmanageable diva, and that reputation was only reinforced by the pouty, prima donna roles in which she was so often and so brilliantly cast.

Ms. Doherty died on Saturday, at the age of 53, of the cancer that was diagnosed in 2015. Since the news broke, the tenor of the conversation around her has changed. Instead of being an eye-roll-inducing wild child, Ms. Doherty is now being praised for the sensitivity and candor with which she discussed her cancer diagnosis and her time in the spotlight. And those ’90s tabloid stories? They’re hitting differently. The glee with which they were once consumed no longer feels appropriate. Ms. Doherty made her fair share of mistakes, but Gen X’s quintessential bad girl no longer looks all that bad.

If this reassessment feels familiar, it’s because in death, Ms. Doherty has joined the growing ranks of female celebrities whose scandals and legacies are being reconsidered by a newly sensitive culture.

In 2002, when Britney Spears’s high-profile relationship with Justin Timberlake ended, she was a train wreck, a bad joke, a problem. Eventually, her career and her money were placed under her father’s control. In 2008, Katherine Heigl went from queen of the rom-com to Hollywood purgatory for the sins of taking herself out of Emmy contention and having the temerity to say that “Knocked Up” was “a little sexist.” In 2009, Megan Fox got slammed — and fired — for calling out Michael Bay, her director on “Transformers,” for a desire “to create this insane, infamous madman reputation.” (OK, maybe she did also compare him to Hitler, which never ends well.)

Today, so many of the former tabloid mainstays do not look like punchlines or cautionary tales, but like regular young women enjoying the pleasures of fame. Some even look like role models. Ms. Spears emerged as a hero, not a villain, and it’s her ex who’s the target of comedians’ jabs. Post #MeToo, Ms. Heigl and Ms. Fox look like truth-tellers, not ingrates. Ms. Doherty, sadly, did not live long enough to enjoy her restored reputation.

A former child actress, Ms. Doherty was only 19 when she landed a starring role in “Beverly Hills, 90210.” She played Brenda Walsh, half of a set of fish-out-of-water Midwestern twins navigating the halls of West Beverly High. She left the show after four seasons, reportedly after feuding with co-stars, including Jennie Garth and the boss’s daughter, Tori Spelling. When Aaron Spelling hired her again, giving her a three-season run on “Charmed,” tensions with a co-star reportedly led to her being fired a second time. She was separated from the other actors as though she were an irrational toddler rather than a skilled, valued employee.

Those high-profile roles, along with her talent and her beauty, made her a star. But the conversation about her often made it seem as if her real job was to be fodder for the tabloids and a target for late-night comedians.

To be sure, Ms. Doherty gave them plenty to work with. There were the feuds and bar fights, a pair of quickie marriages and a D.U.I. arrest. Producers complained that she showed up late to the set, hogged the spotlight, bailed on the Emmys. A former fiancé filed an order of protection.

Ms. Doherty was eviscerated for this behavior in a way that indecorous male actors were not, at least at that time. A People magazine cover labeled her a “hard-partying, check-bouncing bad girl.” A zine called Ben Is Dead published an “I Hate Brenda” newsletter, complete with the “Shannen Snitch Line,” where informants could call in reports of unaired bad behavior.

In a 1992 cover story, People asked “TV’s brashest 21-year-old” why she, “alone among ‘90210’ co-stars and teen idols,” got stuck with the “difficult” label. Is she “one of those women who rhyme with rich? Is she, as the tabloids have gleefully reported, impossible on the set? Is she a prima donna? Also: After hours, does she party too much?”

Years later, Ms. Doherty copped to some of her misdeeds. “I have a rep,” she told Parade in 2010. “Did I earn it? Yeah, I did. But, after awhile you sort of try to shed that rep because you’re kind of a different person.”

So what drove the scandal? Blame it on youth. “90210” begat a whole generation of shows with ensemble casts of teenagers. Ms. Doherty was not the only one who needed time to grow into her outsize prominence. “We were locked in this sound stage for 14 to 16 hours every day,” Ms. Garth, who was also just a teenager, said years later. “There were times when we loved each other and there were times when we wanted to claw each other’s eyes out.”

Blame it on a desire to typecast female celebrities as heroes and villains, sweethearts and shrews, and the time-honored tradition of setting women against each other.

Or blame it, if you like, on plain old sexism. Ms. Doherty said the first time she was called a bitch was when she called out a male cast member on the set of “Heathers” for taking advantage of an extra. “I’m a strong woman,” Ms. Doherty told People. “There are still some people out there who can’t deal with that.”

Today, maybe more people are equipped to deal, more likely to look askance at misbehaving men instead of the women who call them out. Instead of the coy, “is she a rhymes-with-rich?” of early ’90s People, a Rolling Stone tribute is headlined “Nobody Could Break Shannen Doherty, and Everybody Tried.” “Shannen Doherty was irresistible, underrated and permanently shackled to misogynistic speculation,” wrote Adam White in The Independent. The headline on an opinion piece in Vogue read, simply, “Team Brenda Forever.”

The reassessment is more than just a desire (sincere or otherwise) not to speak ill of the dead. It’s a result of a few tough decades that have taught us what real bad behavior in Hollywood looks like: not impolite ingénues but Harvey Weinstein. Or Bill Cosby. Or Danny Masterson.

Maybe Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and Tara Reid were not hot messes, but just girls being girls, the same way we’ve always allowed boys to be boys. And at least their misdeeds were largely victimless, unlike the missteps of so many male counterparts or superiors.

Maybe showing up late to the set, while not ideal, is not completely unexpected from a teenager adjusting to sudden, unimaginable wealth and fame. Maybe the bitches and the bad girls were giving voice to inconvenient truths about men with power and the sexist scripts they greenlighted, the abusive film sets they ran and the bad behavior they indulged in or ignored. Maybe the difficult women like Ms. Doherty are the ones we should have been listening to all along.

[cleoselene]

the top 5

So I'm not really a film buff. I like a lot of movies, but I'm a tv person. TV is my love, TV is where my passion is. And I've been mulling over the question of what are my actual top 5 favorite TV shows of all time?

I can tell you the top three easily:

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - uncontested favorite show of all time. Perfect characterization. Covers nearly every genre you can think of. Intricate, deliberate, patient storytelling. Gets a reputation for being the "dark" Star Trek but is still loads brighter and more hopeful than anything labeled "Star Trek" after 9/11. The writing is so strong, the characters are so lovingly crafted, there are over 100 incredible episodes to dig into. It doesn't overwhelm you with anything, when the story is very serialized, it gives you a break. When the story gets too intense, it takes a turn and gives you something lighter. I have SO MANY OPINIONS about how fandom kind of lets me down in its appreciation of this show but my appreciation of it is perfect.

Six Feet Under - beginning to end, uniformly wonderful quality. Claire Fisher and I went through a few too many of the same experiences as young women in the early '00s. I think if we're lucky, we find a television show that portrays experiences in a way that are true to us, and Six Feet Under speaks a certain kind of truth for me. Claire and I had the same cynical views, the same confusion in early adulthood, the same flirtations with sinister older men, the same asshole artist boyfriend who got us pregnant and then acted like when she/I had to get an abortion it was all about HIM. That complicated, painful relationship a young woman has with her mother, that's fraught with fighting and pain and a fierce kind of love. And the most perfect, beautiful ending in television history. My only complaint with SFU is that Nate Fisher is an incredibly difficult character to sit through on rewatch (and on first watch honestly) but I forgive it because through Nate we get Brenda, who is the Difficult Woman that fandom always claims they want to have to love but always hates when they get her. Brenda is amazing. I love Brenda.

Twin Peaks - a multi-decade obsession that I don't think I need to get into too deeply here because I have been fawning over it on this blog for months, but a few notes: This show takes a single tragedy and doesn't allow you to get over it, in a television landscape that encourages you to consume a new violence every week and then forget about it, Laura Palmer's death has lingers with us for over three decades because it should. It should be terrible and awful and painful. Twin Peaks also came about when crime media like Silence of the Lambs was telling us that the true evil scary bad guy was a crossdressing serial killer, when television soap operas coded crossdressing as a deviant, evil behavior, and said, "one of our explicitly coded good people is transgender." Twin Peaks told us that the killer is not some weird other, but as it is in reality, someone more familiar and mundane that we try to imagine is a terrifying monster to cope with the brutal mundane reality. And that's just the tip of a massive iceberg when it comes to what this piece of interpretive art is tackling. The wonderful thing about Twin Peaks is that you can read a million theories trying to define exactly what it's about and they can all be correct, because it's not just about consumable tv violence or trying to make monsters out of the mundane, it's about how we perceive our realities and so, so much more. The iceberg's depth is endless.

and then after those top three, I struggle to round out the top five. I have other shows I LOVE, but hesitate to put in with these elite three, for a variety of reasons. I love Star Trek: TNG and Voyager, but the uneven quality I think kicks them off the top five. Voyager has brilliance but some really dog bad episodes, TNG has some whole bad seasons.

HBO's "Rome" is an obsession that was so potent while it lasted that I am tempted, but it was a 2 season show and the quality fell off badly because the plot was majorly rushed in S2. I don't think it qualifies for top five, either.

My most recent sci-fi obsession is The Orville in that it really comes close to hitting the sweet spots the 90s Treks hit within the limitations of shorter modern television seasons, but I don't know if it's a complete work yet. I HOPE NOT. Season 3 was as beautiful and wonderful as modern television gets. It's got major top 5 potential.

Legend of the Seeker is up there with Rome in that the obsession was potent but way too brief: a 2 season affair. It's tempting to put this one in the top 5 because honestly I had almost no complaints about it. It adapted absolutely dog-awful atrocious shit source material and Raimi/Tapert gave it the same magic they infused into Xena to make it a really fun, progressive show. I want to give it a top 5 spot just because IT DESERVED BETTER AND EVERYONE ON IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL. Also the fandom was super fun and I made really good friends in it and it was just a really joyful show to watch. It made me feel happy. TV doesn't make me feel happy enough anymore. Usually it makes me feel depressed *cough all the new Star Treks, cough* but Legend of the Seeker just lifted me UP. It was syndicated and I worked graveyard shift and I would get home after working all night at 7am and watch the new episode before bed and it was just. Such a boost of happiness.

Finally, I think Farscape deserves a slot. I don't know where. I am WAY overdue for a Farscape rewatch. After the roommates and I get through DS9 (one of them has never seen it!!) we are going to Farscape next. I always love telling people that Farscape is like Star Trek if Star Trek allowed itself to be kinky. What was that one TWOP description of Farscape? "American man lost in the Australian S&M scene." Roflcopter. Also, John/Aeryn is one of the more epic ships of all time. OF ALL TIME.

[karin-gespenst]

CtM CS 2023 first rewatch and further thoughts

early foreshadowing for Mr. Sharma: he says "I can find my own way." he's clearly referring to his navigator skills.

Angela's teacher promised her "house points" for making the scrap book. Can somebody tell me if "house points" is a common thing for teachers to use? I've only encountered the term in fiction books.

Fred calling Angela treacle was very sweet. Now that I think about it, Fred probably sees more of the Turner children than of his own grandchildren, or Violet's. He always organising something for the kids in the neighbourhood, from running the cubs to joining the bus ride to see the Christmas lights and sending his paper boys to the clinic for working children, and now he's the lollipop man. Good on him!

Tim passing his driving test reminded me of the giant bills I've been paying in the last few months for my kid going to driving school. And then I noticed that Shelagh still does not drive. Chummy learned and Sister Winifred and I'm sure by now Delia has taught Patsy as well. On the other hand, Patrick is always using the car, Shelagh would have to get her own vehicle if she wants to drive.

Meanwhile, Miss Higgins is aquiring new premises for the clinic, and shows her best no-nonsense attitude while the badminton match is going on behind her. It's hilarious.

Sister Monica Joan is not impressed by Apollo

her complaint about Patrick is exquisite: "Can you not remove this man? He seems to be pleading the case for eternal life."

Trixie in her hostess gown! Opinions? I like the gown better than her new hairdo.

Matthew cooking a festive dinner for them - good on him!

Geoffrey! So much to unpack there, he'll get his own post. What's his profession again? something with the expat community in Malta?

Brenda and Toni together in the maternity home, being honest but kind and sharing their fears, that is just beautiful. Having family around is lovely, but the kind of support and understanding that young mothers can give each other is really one of a kind.

Mr. Sharma in the hospital deserved more real attention instead of just well-meaning words from the staff, so they could maybe have lessened his fear and avoided his running off out through the snow without understanding why he's feeling so unwell. Without Cyril's patient kindness and the respectful trust he established this could have gone much worse.

Filming in the ambulance must have been exhausting. Birth scenes are always strenuous, but with three or four adults and several babies in the cramped space, I don't fancy being the cameraperson. The only other mother in labour who had Patrick sitting behind her as support was Shelagh, so Brenda is expertly looked after at this point.

What kind of care did the specialist give to Brenda during her pregnancy? apart from that one palpation he's just parading around and celebrating what he sees as his own achievments, when the development of fertility drugs is a joint effort of many people and the mothers are bearing most of the actual load.

I've noticed Nancy is more comfortable now reassuring mothers who share some of her experiences. Having a safe space to live together with Colette has given her calm and happiness.

I've had a two-hour-drive today in the dark and I did not like it. Phyllis driving home in pain through the snow makes me want to reach through the screen and pick up her car like a toy and place it safely in front on Nonnatus house. Glad to see her snapping many, many photos at the Christmas party.

Tim at the church organ made me smile. The entire scene is magical, brimming with detail, and everyone playing their parts proudly. Apart from maybe baby Mark, who was not quite aware of the backstory.

[nomoreusername]

Hate You? (Part 1)

Pairing:Brenda x female reader

Summary:With Brenda's constant attitude towards you, you are convinced it's because she hates you, even when Frypan points out one other reason.

There's just something about Brenda that gets under my skin. Maybe it's her attitude, maybe it's the way she always looks just as irritated when I'm around, or maybe it's just her in general. Whatever the reason though, isn't the point. The point is that there's this unspoken but mutual rivalry.

"Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, you actually have a tiny, itty bitty, little crush on her?"Frypan suggested.

"I know that I don't,"I huffed.

"Okay. Don't you think that maybe she has a tiny, itty bitty, little crush on you?"

"Who the shuck becomes meaner when they like someone?"I pointed out. He let out a long, exasperated sigh while shaking his head.

"So many people,"He drew out.

"Well neither of us do. We just don't like each other,"I promised.

"Are you sure though?"

"Yes. I am,"I nodded.

"I don't think you are."

"Well, I don't need your opinion,"I scowled.

"There's chemistry between you two. Just accept it."

"But there isn't."

"There is."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"I do not have a crush on Brenda!"I yelled, attracting several states. Feeling my face burn, I glared at Frypan, ignored the whispers, and stormed off.

Walking to absolutely nowhere, I headed towards the edge of the Safe Haven where nobody would be. I just needed to be alone. I just needed to think.

Taking a seat on the ground, I leaned against a random rock and closed my eyes. Reminding myself to breathe, I tried not to think about tomorrow, or even just when I walked back there. That was taken the wrong way, and she was definitely going to find out. After she did, she would realize that I had been talking about her. She was definitely going to have a field day with that one.

Taking in the silence, I suddenly heard a branch snap behind me. Turning around, through the dark I saw the figure of a girl with shoulder length hair. Please tell me it's not-

"Hey."

Brenda. Just my luck.

Ignoring her, I faced the front. Despite this she came even closer before taking a seat next to me. I dropped my head before taking another long breath.

"I already embarrassed myself enough tonight. Can you please just leave?"I quietly asked.

"Y/N-"

"Please? You can make fun of me tomorrow, but I really can't do this right now."

"Y/N-"

"I already look like a fool, okay? I don't need your snide remarks to make it worse."

"Y/N-"

"Just leave me alone. Hate me tomorrow but not tonight. I can't do it tonight,"I begged. She just remained where she was while turning dead silent. Realizing it was no use, I accepted defeat.

"Hate you?"She suddenly asked.

"Yeah. I know you hate me,"I shrugged, looking at her. In the moonlight I could see that her eyes had gone wide. Shifting in my spot, as I got up she grabbed my hand.

"What do you need?"I sighed, giving in. She didn't answer as she stood up extremely close to me. This was weirder than before, something that had once been impossible.

"I don't hate you, Y/N,"She whispered, inches from my face.

"Then, what do you feel about me?"I dared to ask. Somehow, she was even closer than before. Feeling my breath hitch in my throat, something took over in me as I followed her lead. Seeing her eyes travel to my lips, I just knew that I was doing the same.

Closing my eyes, I brushed my lips against hers, wrapping an arm around her waist. Right there, under the stars, I kissed her like it was all I had ever done. Fitting together so well, I felt my heart flutter in my chest.

Just as these thousands of unknown emotions flew through me she pulled away. I gazed at her to see that somehow her face had dropped even more than before as she pushed my arms away.

"I'm sorry,"She whispered, walking away. I didn't stop her as I thought about what just happened. Feeling frozen now, despite feeling electrical during the kiss, made me rethink everything.

I needed to figure this out, and I had to do it soon. Because I don't know what emotion we just shared, but it definitely wasn't hatred.

I'd never know what though, unless she would tell me if she felt the same.

[brendaonao3]

Omg, no worries!!!

I have many many MANY thoughts about Maverick & Rooster (platonic or romantic) - but honestly, the biggest thing I want the TG fandom as a whole to realize is my #1 comment above - the fallout was BOTH their fault. They BOTH fucked up. I’m just tired of fics that act like Bradley is Perfect Babygirl Who Did Nothing Wrong Ever and Mav is the Big Bad Meanie Who Needs To Be Yelled At By Everyone.

Mav may have pulled Bradley’s papers, but it didn’t ruin his life - he still got into the Navy and still became an elite pilot. And holding onto a grudge for 15+ years because you didn’t get to go to the college you wanted is SO petty and dumb, sorry Bradley, I love you, but grow up. And yes, Mav needed/needs to apologize for what he did, but so does Bradley for being a little bitch.

Super new to the fandom of Top Gun, but I've read your RoossMav stories and am officially in. May I ask to play that ship ask game with this paring, please? Thanks!

Helloooooooo there!!!

So happy you're here, welcome to the fandom, it's great to have you <3

For the Ship It/Don’t Ship It Ask Meme:

What made you ship it? Oddly enough, I came out of TGM the first time still shipping IceMav (okay, I'm always going to ship IceMav lbr :D), but Mav & Rooster clearly have THE biggest journey in the film & are the emotional core of the story & Rooster can't keep his hands off of Mav & Mav can't keep his eyes off of Rooster. Pretty easy to ship them. :D

What are your favorite things about the ship? All of that delicious history between them - it's just so rich. But I also love that there's still so much love between them, even during their fights, and I love that they still mean so much to each other, in spite of everything. And the easy way they fall into looking out for each other & being there for each other at the end is beautiful. (And, look, I'm as shallow as a kiddie pool, okay - they're HOT together.)

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? How long do you have, because I have SO many :D Okay, here are a few: 1) I think the fallout is JUST as much Bradley's fault as it is Mav's and I will die on that hill 2) I don't think Mav was around all that much when Bradley was growing up, so no, I don't buy into the whole "pseudo-incest" bit the antis keep ranting about (which, honestly, what does that even mean??? They're NOT related. So what if Mav knew Bradley as a kid? They haven't been part of each other's lives for YEARS & they're both very much adults now.) 3) I don't think Bradley is the center/end-all be-all of Mav's universe or that he's been sitting in some sad, lonely corner just waiting for Bradley to forgive him (I have more, but I'll spare everyone :D)

[yuki-boshi]

Kai no Kiseki - Act 2 Van Route 1 English Summary

Table of Contents

"Learn to sit back and observe. Not everything needs a reaction."

Act 2: Van 1

It begins with Van being teased for getting too “cozy” with Jorda. Van insists it was just a standard night patrol and expresses concern for Ixs. Agnes worries about Jorda, but Aaron tells her to drop the "-chan" honorific, given who Jorda is. Quatre agrees, mentioning she's the sister of “him” and that he hasn’t forgiven Ixs since the Nemeth Island incident.

Renne comments that it felt like a knock-off DG cult, except there was no desecration of Aidios’s name. Van adds that he couldn’t pick up any scent of it, and since he can usually detect DG-related events due to his past, it struck him as hollow, like a fake. Bergard asks if Van couldn’t feel anything and Van confirms, explaining it felt like an imitation.

The group then talks about the fake Genesis, noting how it looks similar to the real one but lacks the ornate features. It also allowed Ixs to teleport, and many of the missing people are from the Far East, explaining why the Heiyue clan has started to mobilize. They wonder why Kincaid didn’t involve the CID, and Van recalls Kincaid scoffing, implying Van should have figured things out by now.

Van then informs the group that he took Jeffrey home. When Jeffrey woke up, he had no recollection of the incident. Renne questions what “dawn in another dawn” means and how “SiN” is tied to it all. Van adds that he exchanged information with Elaine and Daswani.

Renne mentions she has a conference to attend but will be free later. If they need anything Grim Garten-related, she can easily slip away. Just as Van is about to head out for a 4SPG patrol, Shizuna casually walks into the office, remarking that it’s been a while since she last saw everyone—back when she dropped by with a cake from Andalusia, which she had sneaked in and stolen (Kuro 2).

Van laments that it was a rare, limited item he never got to taste. Shizuna asks to join the group without pay. The group questions her intentions, given she’s essentially the leader of Ikaruga and is working with MK and the CID. Shizuna doesn’t deny it but admits she only knows part of the truth. She offers to help if the Sword Maiden isn't available. Renne, amused, hints that Shizuna had been eavesdropping the entire time.

As Shizuna joins, the group steps outside, where it’s raining. Van asks if she brought an umbrella. Agnes points out that Shizuna's clothes are dry, and Shizuna explains she simply dodged all the raindrops, leaving Judith irritated.

Talking to Victor, he seems lost in thought, wondering what Paulette wants to discuss with him (from Act 1-3, if you've been reading the NPCs!). Meanwhile, Brenda, the shopkeeper at Newberry, tells players she lost her husband in an accident on a rainy day like this. She resented Aidios for it but now hopes that her husband is doing well in the heavens and worries for Eddy still.

At Central Marche, Rixia and Ashen can be found speaking on the rooftop. They notice Shizuna has joined the group, and Van clarifies it’s only temporary. Cao and Gaolang also show up, and everyone shares information about the missing Far East and Heiyue people. They briefly mention the "three days" (Kuro 2) and are provided a sketch of the White Genesis from Act 1. Gaolang plans to give the group a copy of the sketch and share it with the authorities.

The group receives an orb-mail from someone named CC, who informs them the White Genesis (or "White Mechanical Legacy" per Falcom’s Engrish) will be auctioned. Van loses his temper, seeing the name CC as a mockery of Dingo (whose alias was C).

Talking to Cao and Ashen again reveals that Cao still calls Ashen “Ashen-sama,” much to her annoyance. She asks him to drop it since they’re now equals. Cao flatters her, and Ashen looks around for confirmation, unsure if he’s serious.

The group believes Cao is being genuine, and even Rixia has a slightly higher opinion of him now.

Talking to Gaolang, he bluntly asks Rixia if she’s seeing anyone and if she’d consider being his wife. He mentions that he may eventually need to leave descendants and believes Rixia would be a strong candidate. Rixia thinks about it but respectfully declines, explaining that as a Crossbell citizen, her current path with Arc en Ciel is inseparable from her identity.

She adds that someone conflicted and unsure like her isn’t suitable for a person like him. Gaolang acknowledges that he only knows her as Yin, not as Rixia. He retracts his proposal but expresses a desire to see the Dancing Moon Princess of Arc en Ciel when he visits Crossbell to assess its worthiness. Rixia mentions that her answer likely won’t change even if he did come to see her perform.

Cao chuckles, noting that Gaolang’s rival is “him” (Lloyd Bannings), so it’s not surprising. Aaron figuring out the hint Cao said whispers to the group that Cao might be referring to Lloyd, the "key figure at the Crossbell Police who solved the last incident" (Reverie).

Talking to Rixia again, she mentions wanting to see someone’s face after a long time. It’s not explicitly said who she’s referring to, but based on earlier comments from Aaron and Cao, it seems she longs to see Lloyd again.

(God I hope they're not trying to have a rivalry of Lloyd and Gaolang over Rixia.)

----

4SPG: Childhood Friend's Note

Luke asks Van and the group to help him find Genie, his childhood friend. She left a note saying that Luke is "too dazzling" and that she needed to move out. Luke doesn’t understand why, especially after being friends for over 20 years. Aaron bluntly asks if he ever had romantic feelings for her. Luke replies no, that he sees her as family. Everyone catches on to the situation. Luke mentions she works at a café in Seiden District, but he hasn’t been able to contact her. They head to the café for information and learn about a man named Kirk, who might know more.

At Seiden District, Kirk directs them to Main Street, where they find Baselia and Eddy reunited. Eddy reveals the secret he's been hiding... he’s been planning to upgrade from a food stall to a food truck. They argue briefly, with Eddy admitting he thought he had to do it alone.

Baselia insists on helping him as a partner. Simon, another NPC, mentions how Eddy has changed since leaving the Desire gang, showing he genuinely cares now. At the hotel, Rumsfield and the staff say they’ll monitor Baselia from afar to ensure everything goes smoothly. Van and the others ask Simon if he's seen Genie, and he directs them to the sewers near the hotel. They find her hypnotized and surrounded by monsters.

After defeating the creatures, Luke snaps Genie out of her trance, and they both somewhat confess their feelings. Back in Old Town, Van notices something suspicious about the job search site Genie had used, hinting it may have affected her.

4SPG: Ultimate Taco In Central Marche, a taco stand vendor is searching for ingredients to create the ultimate taco. After speaking to nearly every NPC who has cooked food, she settles on the idea of making the Earth Blastacos.

(This was the biggest way of an hour of my life reading)

---

Grim Garten Door 3 The group speaks to Altina, who mentions they need three different teams to clear the domain. Shizuna joins, surprising everyone as they wonder how she got in. Altina coolly explains she had access from a previous login in Kuro 2. Agnes senses some one-sided bad blood between them.

After defeating the boss, they confirm they need one more group. Shizuna also decides to try and bail.

---- In Chardin District, they encounter Detective Nate and two guards struggling to gather information about a recent cult-related incident in the sewers. Nate asks Van if he’s seen the 4SPG and informs him that Daswani has requested him to clear out a dangerous monster. Surprisingly, Nate, usually mean, asks Van to handle something he personally posted about more monsters.

Kisara, found nearby, reflects on how Chardin reminds her of Messeldam from Kuro 2, lamenting how difficult it is to express her art.

At the club, Shizuna suggests she should bring the Ikaruga members here for a trip sometime, making Agnes worry about Kurogane dealing with her antics.

In Levre District, Odette, Chloe (Judith’s mom), and Nina meet at a café, where Nina reveals she knows Odette from Kuro 2. They’re finalizing details for the GLORIA Live Stage play. Nina recites a line, and Van identifies it as Sheena Dirke escaping the capital in despair. Talking to Nina prompts more Sheena Dirke quotes, while Chloe is honored to be in the presence of a Divine Blade, which impresses Shizuna.

At Agnes’s home, Nicole from the Liberl Report is present, trying to get a scoop with the President. At the church, Rahadd has enlisted Dr. Isabel from Blacklight District to run tests on Jeffrey.

In Tyrell District, Albert is overwhelmed with his part-time job at the bookstore and informs Curtis that he intends to quit today.

Paulette is found with a nurse friend, discussing Maxim. The nurse is disappointed that Paulette still keeps in touch with him but agrees to listen.

Zin and Kilika are found discussing the events of the previous day. Kilika explains why the CID is focused on space, though she can’t share details as it’s a national secret. Van mutters curses about Rene being upfront about pushing him away. Aaron laughs, teasing Van about being upset over his “Aniki” giving him the cold shoulder. Zin asks Kilika about matters unrelated to the space program, such as the Church, Society, and Heiyue. Judith then jokingly asks Shizuna if she knows anything, but Shizuna just shrugs, saying she follows orders without questioning them.

Elsewhere, Kasim and Mirabel are spotted on a date. Mirabel talks briefly about the Garten and teases Shizuna about not slacking off on her contract.

In Blacklight District, Daswani is talking to a Jaeger about the missing people. Elaine and Alvis are seen speaking with Gin, the Tobacco Lady. Elaine comments on Alvis’s growth now that he’s been working with Van.

4SPG: Creil Support Fund Kaina and Alison ask Van for help after over 5 million mira mysteriously vanished, suspecting embezzlement by Martin, a worker for the fund. Martin is found in Blacklight District, where he reveals he didn’t steal the money but was scammed by someone posing as a Ministry inspector. He was duped into handing over the funds for verification.

Van and the group track down the imposter, the third son of the Divanshi Family, in the sewers. The son is powered by a phenomenon similar to the Erosion from Kuro 2, but slightly different. After being defeated, he tries to escape but is cornered by Alvis, Elaine, Kaina, and Rakshar.

The son threatens suicide, claiming the Bracers prioritize human life and won't dare make a move. Kaina of the Creil Support Fund calls him out for running away from his responsibilities and being a coward.

Van catches up, given three choices.

I pick the third and Van asks Shizuna to use her ability from Kuro 2 to cut off the Erosion. A flashback shows Ixs using the White Genesis device on him. Afterward, the mira is returned to Kaina, Alison, and Martin. Alison urges Martin not to shoulder everything alone again.

----

Connect Event: Quatre Quatre asks Van to show Billy and friends that are from Basel around the Capital. Quatre also questions if Van is taking Agnes’s birthday seriously. Quatre asks that Van not take them to places that are just sweets and pastries. Van agrees...

But his first stop is still a department store that sells sweets, much to Quatre’s annoyance. They also visit the new Gloria movie, the Trion observatory, and a food stall.

Later, Quatre opens up to Van, expressing anxiety about everything that happened in Kuro 2 and his confusion about his identity as aperson.

He reveals that in his body, both male and female, he feels torn between wanting to impress girls and being attracted to men’s strength. He’s also flustered by his sisterly figure Esmeray, essentially questioning his sexuality and what which of the two genders he wants to be more in alignment with.

Quatre also feels out of place compared to his friends, which is when he began distancing himself.

Van reassures Quatre with a headpat, telling him he’s overthinking it. Van reminds Quatre that even after discovering the truth about Nemeth Island, he’s still himself. After spending time together, Quatre tries to confide in his friends, but they assure him that they’ll always be there for him. They even joke about his crossdressing streams, causing Quatre to freak out about how they knew.

---

Connect Event: Shizuna Kaede, Shizuna’s attendant, arrives at the ASO to pick her up. Van informs her that Shizuna just left. A flashback shows Shizuna anxiously running away as soon as she heard Kaede’s voice. Back in the present, Kaede asks Van to help find Shizuna. After several near escapes, Shizuna is cornered in Blacklight District. Kaede reveals she just came to deliver food from home—fresh onigiri made from rice harvested in the East.

Shizuna eats it and comments that Kaede hasn’t changed. Kaede thanks Van for his support with the “Princess.”

Connect Event: Risette Van takes Risette to Chardin District to view art. Risette explains that this is her first time seeing art in a physical form, having always viewed it through VR. She reflects on her earliest memories, which begin after she was uploaded into MK virtual space.

There, she met Mirabel, who was 17 at the time and encouraged Risette that she could experience things she’d lost. Risette mentions that her entire education was through VR, leaving her unsure of who she really is before all that. Despite this, she takes pride in being able to help Van now.

----

At Chardin District, the group arrives at Chardin but initially faces issues due to a lack of reservation. Judith, realizing she had a reservation, asks the guard to check her information. Shizuna also remembers she has a reservation and pulls out her card. Once inside, they meet Najie and Zita, exchanging greetings. Zita reveals she is there because she heard about an auction item, and the group suspects it might be related to the White Genesis.

One of the auctioned items is a high-end vehicle, prompting Van to ask how much Zita can afford before Agnes interrupts him.

The final item revealed is a prototype orbment called the Genesis. Van’s group quickly notes that it differs from theirs, looking more modern, likely created within the last 20 years. They inform the auctioneer about this.

Suddenly, the lights go out, and Grimcats appears, stealing the White Genesis and mocking its name. The thief is revealed to be Rosalie of Zecht Arms from Kuro 2, angering Judith. The group chases them into a corrupted version of Mishy Wonderland overlaid on existing space, filled with 'Mishy in the Dark' mobs. Confronting the fake Grimcats, they find her with CC and Simeon. After defeating Rosalie, Shizuna goes all out against Simeon, nearly destroying the entire labyrinth.

Van transforms into Grendel to stop the destruction and identifies CC as Campanella from previous games. Van, furious, accuses Campanella of mocking Dingo’s alias "C," but Campanella clarifies that "CC" stands for Clown Campanella, not a slight at Dingo.

Campanella explains that the Society had no involvement in creating the White Genesis and tosses it to Van, challenging him to figure it out. At that moment, Renne, Zin, Elaine, Walter, and Lucrezia storm the room, revealing that Campanella had invited a large crowd. Campanella begins the third phase of the Orpheus Final Plan, and the observation for the Eternal Recurrence Plan. As he prepares to teleport away, he leaves Van with a cryptic hint about the AD cult chant, saying that "Another Dawn" (もう一つの夜明け) refers to "Alter Dawn" and that's what the A-D stands for.

After teleporting away, everyone gathers to discuss (including the other Ouroboros members like Walter and Lucrezia) while Shizuna secretly leaves.

[blushingquincy]

The Complete Guide to Falling for the Freak

by: blushingquincy

Allison Campbell has it all: a big house, good grades, and popularity—but underneath all of that, behind the perfect girl next door facade, is truly where it gets interesting. When she gets stuck tutoring the notorious Freak of Hawkins High, Eddie Munson, her life takes unexpected turns as she battles her step dad, her awful friends and, most importantly, falling in love for the first time.

⚠️WARNING: smut, cussing, bullying, domestic violence, abuse, drug use, underage drinking. I’ll add more warnings as I update

This is my first fic! I’m fairly new to writing so please give your opinions! Not sure how many chapters this will be. I’m thinking 15-20 maybe more who knows ;) Without further ado let’s get into it.

Chapter 1: He’s just the worst.

November 17, 1986

Mornings are a mundane ordeal in the Campbell household, always the same. Brenda Campbell, the obedient little housewife she is, is always in the kitchen by the time Allison comes downstairs. Her step-father, Dan—Dan The Dictator, she likes to call him—sits at his usual spot at the dining room table, reading a newspaper and making snide comments about how the food smells, even though he's going to scarf it all down anyway.

Pig, Allison thinks. She slips into her seat silently, munching on a dry piece of toast as fast as she can without earning the wrath of her step-father.

She fails.

"Slow down, Ali, the food isn't going anywhere," he says. "People are gonna mistake you for a pig if you keep that up." He oinks, then chuckles to himself like this is the funniest joke he's ever heard.

Allison bites down both the toast and the sarcastic remark on the tip of her tongue. She looks back at him as she wipes crumbs from the side of her mouth, eyes flickering down to look at his—no, her actual dad's tie.

I hope you get hit by a bus, she thinks, and she really means it. "Sorry," she says instead. "Guess I'm just excited to get to school."

That was a goddamn lie.

High school is a similarly mundane ordeal. She falls into her usual routine, sitting with the cheer squad and feigning interest while they talk about things she really couldn't give less of a damn about. No, Heather, she does not want to hear about parties or Madonna or guess who bumped uglies with Steve Harrington at Skull Rock!

She almost gags at the thought. God, she would rather choke herself with a hot branding iron than hear about former King Steve Harrington's sex life— but she knew how important image was to her mother and Dan. Not that she gave a shit about pleasing Dan, he could go choke for all she cared. But it was important to her mother too, and unfortunately, Allison did give a damn about pleasing her.

The second she makes her way to the classroom with its painfully harsh fluorescent lights, Mrs. O' Donnell asks if she can speak to her after class.

Allison frowns. "Am I …?" she trails off, eyebrows furrowed, and Miss O' Donnel seems to understand the unspoken word without her having to actually say it.

"Oh, don't worry," she says. "You aren't in trouble. I just need to talk to you."

Still, anxiety pools in Allison's stomach through the entire class. The bell rings, and she looks back down at her notebook, completely blank except for the topic written across the top in big letters. Damn. She'd have to ask someone if she could borrow their notes later.

That was the least of her concerns, though. Her main concern was figuring out what Miss O' Donnel wanted from her. She made her way to the front desk, clearing her throat to make her presence known.

The woman peered up at her through thin-rimmed glasses. "Ah, yes. Allison, I'm looking for a tutor for Eddie Munson and I was wondering if you'd be interested."

The metaphorical record in Allison's brain scratches to a stop. She opens her mouth, closes it, and opens it again, gapping like a fashing out of water. "I'm sorry, what?" she eventually settles on.

Eddie 'The Freak' Munson, the resident drug dealer of Hawkins High. He definitely has a … reputation, to say the least. He was the leader of the Hellfire Club. Allison is pretty sure that it's just a bunch of nerds playing a tabletop fantasy game, but everyone else seems convinced that it's a bunch of satanists sacrificing virgins.

Either way, she doesn't really want to do it. Nonetheless, being the ass-kissing people pleaser she is, Allison says yes.

Mrs. O' Donnel smiles at her. "Thank you, Allison, I knew I could count on you." She hands her the paper with his address and contact information. Allison thanks her absentmindedly, them goes about the rest of her morning classes in a bit of a daze.

She just agreed to tutor Eddie Munson. Eddie fucking Munson.

Finally, it's lunch. She takes her tray with a weird meat mush—seriously, what is that stuff—and sits down at the table. This group is a little different than the ones she ate breakfast with. In addition to the snobby girls, there was the basketball team. She hates them and their weird suburban hair and the way they mock people. As she sits there, listening to Andy drag on about the new truck his daddy bought him, her attention is turned away by something more interesting.

Eddie Munson, who had been sitting with his Hellfire Club, is now on the table shouting about conforming and useless highschool cliques. Allison resists the urge to bury her face in her hands. God, he is totally embarrassing. He's absolutely right, but still. Embarrassing.

Jason Carver stands up. "You want something, freak?" he squares his shoulders as though he was doing something important, defending the basketball team's honor or whatever. He's embarrassing too.

Eddie responds by sticking his tongue out and making faux devil horns with his fingers. Allison hides a smile by shoving a forkful of food into her mouth.

Jason abruptly sits down “God I hate that freak," he scoffs. "Don’t you guys just hate him?”

The group nods and agrees— except Allison, who is too focused on staring at Eddie: his long curly hair, his beautiful brown eyes and the way his mouth forms a flirtatious smirk when she catches his eye.

“Allison!” Jason yells out. She quickly jolted back to reality. “I said don’t you just hate him?”

She gives a quick glance back at Eddie. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, he's just the worst."

Well this is going to be sooo much fun

[addictedtostorytelling]

Thank you for your thoughtful answer about Abby Fisher! You sort of answered this in your original response, but if you wouldn't mind elaborating, how would you have written an arc like that? In canon, we see Sara connect to so many victims/survivors in a way that impacts her own mental wellbeing, and I am wondering what it might look like if that connection was maybe drawn out longer than the arc of one episode, especially because the Abby plot has all the holes you pointed out.

hi, anon!

unsurprisingly, my answer got away from me here, so in case you don't want to read this whole monstrosity, the tl;dr version is:

i'd move the storyline up, making both sara and the kid older when it took place. i'd also show their relationship develop in real time as opposed to inserting it into previously established narrative as a retcon. from there, i'd change certain details to make it more feasible that sara and the kid could stay in contact. finally, i'd put different kinds of narrative pressure on sara to make her more willing and able to open up to the kid regarding her own past.

much, much longer version after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

so to start off here, let's discuss the background specs for this potential arc:

as mentioned in the previous post, i'm convinced this storyline would actually work better and be more viable if it were to take place with an older sara who had already "come out the other side" on her s4/s5 story arc and achieved some stability and healing in her life.

i just can't really see her being prepared to adopt a mentorship role for a vulnerable child probably any earlier than s6.

that said, i also think the most ideal time for the story to unfold would be sometime after her breakdown in s8/s9, as well.

for me, the real sweet spot with her would probably be in the s10/s11 range, when she is happy, settled, stable, and thriving (and also has some free time on her hands because grissom is living abroad).

i'm likewise of the opinion that the story itself would work better if we saw sara's bond with the kid in question develop in real time, as opposed to being told about its development long after the fact (and being asked to believe that sara has maintained this really significant and even life-changing relationship for the past ten years that we have nevertheless known nothing about until present).

along those same lines, i also think the storyline would work better if the kid in question were older than five years-old when sara actually bonded with them.

the kid can still be around early elementary school-age (between 5 and 8 years-old) during the commission of the original crime that puts them into contact with csi, but when sara finally gets to know them and adopts that mentorship role in their life, they should be older, between 15 and 18 years-old.

though i don't actually believe sara is bad with small children—again, i am the one writing a sprawling geek!baby au right now—i think the fact that she thinks she is bad with small children would make her reluctant to try to befriend one (see, for example, her protestations to grissom about taking care of brenda collins in episode 01x07 "blood drops").

that so, i tend to suppose she would have an easier time dropping her guard and bonding with a somewhat older foster child in the preteen to teen age group than she would with a literal kindergartener.

i also think that her dynamic with an older kid would just plain be more interesting than one with a younger kid (because older kids can be held morally and intellectually accountable in ways younger kids can't).

as for the kid's foster situation, i think that whereas episode 15x12 "dead woods" has abby fisher in a relatively new placement with foster parents who don't know her as well as sara supposedly does, in this scenario, it would work better to say that the kid had been in the current placement for several years and that their foster parents know them well.

since sara seemingly never experienced that kind of long-term stability in a single placement herself—according to her conversation with glynnis in episode 05x10 "no humans involved," she bounced around a lot—she might end up being a little bit weird and flighty about the kid's situation in an "i'm not quite sure how to relate" type of way that would make this whole scenario more interesting.

so then thinking of the scenario itself:

let's imagine this story as a three-episode arc (which i'm going to title the "memoriae sacrum" arc).

like i said in my other post, i'm not 100% married to the "foster kid realizes, ten years ex post facto, that their father was not in fact a murderer" storyline (particularly as i find it somewhat ham-fisted), but for the purposes of this thought exercise, we can more or less stick to those bare bones.

that said, one element from the original storyline we're definitely not going to retain is the part where they retconned the nature of sara's father's abuse from what we had always known it to be in earlier seasons.

episode 1

in real life, gary dourdan became a persona non grata at cbs after he left csi under unpleasant circumstances back in 2008—hence the reason why tptb at the show never brought warrick back even in flashback in any subsequent seasons.

that so, if these were "real episodes," there'd probably be no way to swing an appearance from him.

however, let's imagine this arc more like a fic, where we can play around with what characters we want.

so let's say that back in 2000 or 2001 or so, sara and warrick work an apparent murder-suicide case together wherein a father seemingly kills his wife and eldest child and severely wounds his youngest child, shooting them*, before dispatching of himself.

* i don't really think the gender of the kid would matter, so imagine what you like here. this kid can still be abby fisher or it could be anyone else. i'm going to use they/them pronouns in reference to the kid to leave the possibilities open.

whereas in the original case, the killings took place at a mountain campsite, let's say, in this one, they happen inside the family home (which makes them even more similar to sara's own family tragedy and also adds to the circumstantial evidence suggesting the father is the cuprit).

at this time, sara is still a csi level ii, so warrick, at csi level iii, is the actual lead on the case.

the youngest child's injuries are profound. however, when they do eventually come-to enough, warrick is able to interview them.

(sara plays no part in the interviews by her own choosing and never interacts with the kid herself at any point during the investigation.)

unfortunately, the kid is unable to provide any kind of useful information to warrick, as, at this time, they are very young and the situation is so traumatic that they simply can't recall much. they also may have sustained injuries during the attack which impact their cognitive abilities/memory*.

* whereas in episode 15x12 "dead woods," abby fisher is rather improbably shown to survive a close-range gunshot to the head with no long-term impact to her cognitive abilities, i think it'd be more realistic for injury to either be entirely noncerebral in nature or to result in some actual traumatic brain injury symptoms.

warrick being warrick bonds with the child pretty immediately—seriously: one of the joys of the early seasons is watching warrick interact with kids, like when he used to babysit lindsey willows or when he interviews suzy in episode 07x10 "loco motives"—and, as is often his wont with child victims of the crimes he investigates, gives his contact information to them and/or their new social worker, telling them to get in touch with him again in case they ever remember anything and/or even just want to talk about the case with him when they're older and interested in learning the facts.

however, in the absence of any testimony from the child which might suggest differently, the evidence in the case does seem to (more or less) indicate the father's guilt.

since the father is dead along with the rest of the family, there's no one to arrest, so, in consultation with grissom, warrick closes the case—a decision sara has no real reason to question at the time.

particularly as, even back then, as would be shown in the flashback scenes, the case does squeeg her out and somewhat trigger her, given its likeness to her own family history, and she feels like the sooner she can move on from it, the better.

fast forward to ten years later, to 2010 or 2011 (i.e., s10 or s11).

at this point, said surviving child, now an older teenager, appears in the lobby of the crime lab one morning at the tail end of the graveyard shift, requesting to see warrick.

of course, by this time, warrick is dead, so once it's determined what the kid wants—which is apparently to discuss their family's case—sara is summoned to meet with them, as she was the other investigator back in 2000/2001.

and let's say the detective on the case was ray o'riley, who is also, by 2010/2011, canonically deceased, so he's not available, either.

sara is, initially, shown to be uncomfortable at this prospect, citing the fact that she's not warrick and doesn't "have a way with kids" like he used to. however, since she is the only csi still working at the lab who has any direct knowledge of the case and its details—grissom signed off on it as supervisor back in the day, but of course he's no longer on staff—she's pushed into taking the meeting, never mind her objections.

here, i'm picturing ecklie being like, "come on, sidle, just deal with this. it was your case."

she initially tries to be very formal with the kid, but it should be clear to the audience that she's wildly uncomfortable and masking.

however, while her going line is that she's "just not good with kids," between the flashbacks and the real-time scenes, the true source of her discomfiture quickly becomes apparent: namely, the whole "orphan whose one parent killed the other in front of them" likeness between her and this kid in particular.

at first, she assumes the kid has come to the lab because, now that they are old enough, they want to hear the full details on their family's case, as per warrick's offer to them back in 2000/2001 (of which sara is aware because warrick wrote it on the business card he gave to the kid and/or their social worker back in the day).

however, to her great surprise, the kid corrects her: they've actually come to provide new testimony in their family's case, based on some newly retrieved memories of theirs.

much like in canon, they would explain that something had recently caused them to remember details about the murder they were unable to remember previously—and these details contradict the notion that their father was the murderer.

however, let's say that in this version of the story, this recollection on their part happens under even more dubious circumstances than the ones in abby fisher's case, like while the kid is under hypnosis or experimenting with hallucinogenic mushrooms or undergoing a controversial form of therapy or the like.

much as in canon, sara is skeptical, believing the kid simply wants to "rewrite their family history" (an impulse she understands but doesn't necessarily condone).

let's say unlike in canon: the thing that draws sara to this kid even more than just the similarities between their respective family histories is their personality.

honestly? the kid is whip-smart and well-spoken but also angry and rough around the edges; blunt and a little bit awkward, etc.

they match sara pretty much toe-to-toe during this interview, countering her every argument.

when sara tries to let them down gently and tell them that in the absence of any new physical evidence, there's no reason for the crime lab to reopen what seems to have been an open-and-shut case, they get in her face, citing (obviously researched) precedents re: the legitimacy of their chosen memory recovery techniques to her in an attempt to change her mind.

with all of their tenacity, it's hard not to be reminded of her younger self.

but in that resemblance, it's also hard for her not to think of how she operated as a young csi: that tendency she had to "chase rabbits" and let her feelings get in the way of her professional judgment.

she remembers how often she used to be disappointed back then; how she'd get her heart hung up on certain outcomes and then have it shattered when they didn't pan out.

let's say—again, since we're pretending we can get whatever "guest stars" we want here—that after sara goes home for the day, this dilemma is one she talks to grissom (on one of his visits to the states) about, explaining to him that for as much as this kid may want her to start digging, it's possible they may not like what she finds if she does, and she'd hate to cause them even more pain.

she opens up to him: she knows what it feels like to be this kid.

maybe she even admits that when she surreptitiously searched through her mom's legal files back in 2004 (see episode 05x10 "no humans involved"), she was hoping to find not "exonerating" information, per se—as her mother's guilt was never really in question—but at least some new context that might have helped her to better understand or come to terms with her mother's actions, or at least to fill in some of the blanks in her memories.

so she gets the impulse, you know?

(of course, she notes, she never did find any previously unknown information to contextualize her mother's crime. there's nothing that could ever really ameliorate "abused schizophrenic wife brutally stabs alcoholic abuser husband to death in his sleep," is there? the whole situation was just as awful and senseless as she always remembered.)

now, she wonders what her role is here as the adult: to play the realist and put her foot down, telling the kid there is no probative evidence to suggest their father's innocence; or to actually listen to the kid and reopen the investigation (because she understands how often kids—and especially foster kids—tend to have their thoughts and feelings discounted and she doesn't intend to be one of those grownups who just brushes off everything a kid says simply because they are a kid)?

at this point, grissom gives her a nudge: asks her when she looked through her mother's files what she felt when she discovered that there was no "hidden context" and things were always just as bleak and awful as she'd always known they were.

her realization: she accepted it.

was disappointed, but accepted it.

because at least then she knew for sure, you know?

and with that determination, sara decides to reopen the case, securing permission from catherine (who is at this time her supervisor) to do so, albeit perhaps more in a "well, i guess i can't really stop you" way than an "i fully support you in this endeavor" one.

she also enlists greg to help her—or rather, he volunteers because he remembers running dna on the original case back in the day, recalling some unknown exemplar collected from the crime scene he couldn't find a match to then and wanting to follow up on it now that codis is a more fully-developed technology.

the next morning, when the kid once again turns up at the lab, sara gives them the news that she's officially reopening the case, though she makes sure to stress: she's not promising them anything.

even with that caution, the kid still lights up.

for the first time, sara sees them smile—and on the one hand, it obviously terrifies her, having all this kid's hopes rest on her, but on the other, she also can't help but feel somewhat exhilarated, offering this kid at least a chance at an outcome she never had available to herself.

episode 2

this episode marks the beginning of sara's investigation in earnest.

the physical evidence in the original case is both limited and ambiguous in nature.

there were no signs of breaking and entering at the house.

the family members were shot with a gun belonging to the kid's father, and his prints were found on the weapon, which was recovered from next to his body, right where one would expect to find it had he dropped it after committing suicide.

however, there was also a pair of microfiber gloves found next to the father's body, which, while roughly the same size as his hands, were not ones the kid recognizes as belonging to their father.

sara and warrick's going theory at the time was that he had worn the gloves to shoot his family members but then taken them off to shoot himself, though they couldn't figure out why he would have done so, given that he didn't necessarily need to conceal his identity as the killer, his intention always being to commit suicide in the end.

inside the gloves, there is one unsmudged print. however, it is seemingly unrecoverable, due to the nature of the fabric.

the mystery dna greg couldn't match back in 2000/2001 comes from a sweaty handprint on a door handle to a part of the house seemingly out of the way of the murders; it doesn't belong to any of the family members, though it's unknown as of yet to whom it does belong or if it is even probative.

there is also circumstantial evidence to suggest that the kid's father may have been experiencing financial troubles at the time of the murders and that the kid's mother may have been having an affair back then, as well, of which her husband had perhaps recently become aware.

there was nothing at the scene to indicate anyone in the family struggled with assailants prior to their deaths, and both the mother and elder sibling were covered over with blankets, indicating remorse on the part of their killer.

meanwhile, the kid's "recovered memory" suggests that the man who came into their bedroom that night had some distinguishing physical characteristic that their father didn't have.

in episode 15x12 "dead woods," abby fisher's memory centers on a distinctive smell, and maybe the same thing could be the case here, though there might also be some other difference instead; i don't suppose this point really matters much, in terms of the overall story arc.

sara decides to run everything from the top, grissom-style (see episode 01x12 "fahrenheit 932").

of course, in this scenario, the added "warrick of it all" would throw a new wrinkle into the whole operation, as she would be sifting through his old work, potentially looking to overturn it.

imagine: once word gets out that sara is revisiting this case, nick becomes upset with her for distrusting warrick's original determination, feeling as if she is just being contrary and maybe even taking advantage of the fact that warrick isn't around to defend his own conclusions anymore.

and for what?

all because some weirdo (possibly drugged-up) teenager dreamt up a pseudo-memory ten years after the fact?

of course, given his ignorance of sara's past, nick doesn't understand sara's sense of personal connection with (and obligation to) this kid—and especially not because sara is trying with all her might to repress her own feelings and memories and "remain objective" on this case, not allowing her own trauma to color either her investigation OR her interactions with the kid.

—speaking of whom.

the kid turns up again at the lab for what is now a third morning in a row to check on sara's progress.

whereas in all of their previous encounters, the kid has had this somewhat surly attitude—think sara fending off grissom's inquiries about her "diversions" in episode 01x16 "too tough to die"—now, they are starting to come out of their shell.

while it's not a total transformation just yet (much like sara, this kid has been burned a lot and is fairly "slow to warm up"), they are becoming gradually more animated and expressing curiosity about sara and greg's investigative activities.

while it's clear they're trying not to get their hopes up too much—per sara's caution—it's also clear they're not fully succeeding in that trying.

more and more, they're becoming invested.

—and so is sara, who, despite her general trepidations about being "bad with kids," finds herself getting along with this one, especially as she starts to see their personality emerge out from behind that façade of jadedness, and especially as the kid starts to speak somewhat more freely about what their life in foster care has been like for the last ten years.

though sara lets on nothing to the kid regarding her own time in the system, we as the audience should be able to tell: the instability and uncertainty of "living with strangers," of always being the "odd kid out," is something she can very much relate to, and she feels for this kid.

deeply.

unfortunately, the gods of forensics don't seem to be on their side: it seems like whatever new investigative avenues sara and greg develop all eventually terminate in dead ends.

the mystery dna isn't in codis.

the details from the kid's memories are hard to get a fix on.

as the episode goes on, sara's stress grows.

she's still fielding passive-aggression from nick, who resents her taking on the case in the first place, and she is also starting to feel pressure from catherine and/or ecklie, who are annoyed with her for continually tying up department resources (including both herself and greg) as she pursues admittedly flimsy leads in a ten year-old solved case.

worse: the more time she spends with the kid, the harder she's finding it to keep her personal feelings out of the case AND out of her interactions with them.

despite her best efforts, she's getting her heartstrings tangled up in the investigation and in them.

she's also thinking about memories from her own past that she hasn't allowed herself to think about for a long time, and she's, frankly, worse for the wear for it.

after a hard shift fraught with disappointment for both her and the kid, she goes home to grissom, and we get a cuddling in bed scene where she admits, somewhat tearfully, to him that there is still so much she doesn't know about what happened between her parents; so much she can't remember either because it all happened when she was still so young or else because she's repressed it.

memory can be a fickle thing, grissom muses, and she agrees.

tells him she doesn't remember when her mom first got sick or why she (seemingly) never received treatment. doesn't remember when her father's abuse started. doesn't remember why her mother never tried to leave or if she perhaps did but maybe somehow failed. she can't recall what, if anything, precipitated the murder—if her dad's abuse of her mom had recently gotten worse or if her mom just finally after so many years snapped or if her mom's delusions perhaps had become stronger or more violent in nature.

she admits: there is so much about that night she has actively tried to forget and so much she is terrified she will someday be triggered to, against her will, remember.

worried about her, grissom wonders if maybe she should hand this case over to greg, but she tells him she feels she owes it to the kid to keep going, at least until she can definitively say whether or not their father was involved in the murders (regardless of if they ever identify any other potential suspects outside of him).

resolved, sara returns to work the next night.

however, as she starts to dig into the case again, she still isn't coming up with anything to challenge the original narrative.

at a team meeting, nick (who, remember, is the assistant supervisor on grave shift at this point) motions for her and greg to shelve the case, as active/current cases have been piling up in the meanwhile "and warrick already solved this one ten years ago anyway." sara pleads to be allowed to continue her investigation, and catherine compromises by pulling greg off the case while allowing sara to continue to work it solo. she also presents sara with a hard deadline: if she hasn't come up with anything probative by the end of the week, then she's got to drop the whole thing and move onto something new.

the kid appears—like clockwork—the next morning and, upon sara's dismal report, practically begs her to keep going, pushing her to dig deeper, to try just one more thing, please, please.

it's here where, overwhelmed by facing so much opposition on all sides, triggered, mixed-up, and half-defeated, sara finally snaps at the kid—says something harsh about how you can't rewrite history just because you want to; tells them that they have to learn to accept the fact that their father was a bad man, and there's nothing anyone can do to change that reality.

at this point, for the first time, the kid—who, until now, has been very tough and even recalcitrant—breaks.

starts crying.

and sara immediately feels awful.

apologizes—and, in an attempt to extend an olive branch—admits (in her awkward but heartfelt sara way) that she was maybe talking more about herself and her father than she was about them and theirs.

slowly, hesitantly, she tells the kid an abridged version of her story, enough that they also can see the similarities between their experience and sara's and know that she understands where they're coming from.

earnestly, she tells them: she wishes more than anything in the world that she could tell them for sure that their father was innocent and that she could find "the real killer" and lock them away.

but the truth, she says, is that that answer may not be the right one, however attractive it may seem.

she gets real with the kid: without more details, there's starting to be nowhere left to go in this case.

the kid offers to try more of the memory recovery technique—i.e., the hypnosis or the shrooms or the therapy—to help in the effort.

but sara tells them: memory is unreliable, and that technique is unproven.

better to stick to science.

she vows, for now, to keep going.

the kid is grateful to her, expressing that they feel like she "just gets it."

cut to the final shot of the episode: sara appearing super conflicted—honored, on the one hand, to have won this kid's trust, rare commodity that it is; but terrified, on the other, that she is still ultimately going to end up letting them down, which is the absolute last thing in the world she wants to do.

episode 3

insert sara wracking her brain to come up with one last avenue of potential investigation here.

eventually, she comes back to the latent print in the microfiber glove—one piece of evidence that was never run back in 2000/2001.

she thinks the print could be the key to unlocking this case now.

however, recovery will be nearly impossible using traditional collection methods.

even with mandy's help, there's no clear answer as to how to lift the print off of the microfiber without destroying it and while still maintaining all its ridge detail.

as the end of the work week is rapidly approaching, sara fears her time to investigate may well run out before she can derive a solution to her problem. not only does she feel like she's letting the kid down but also in a weird way warrick, who she knows would have done everything in his power to get to the truth, were he still around to run this investigation instead of her.

but just as she is about to succumb to total despair, who should approach her but nick, offering up a memory of his own?

—namely, a technique warrick taught him back in the day that might be applicable to her problem.

cue both nick and sara doing their best warrick impersonations: "i can pull a fingerprint off the air!"

of course, there's no guarantee warrick's technique will work, and it could still result in the destruction of the print. however, it is the best option sara has yet encountered.

so, when the foster kid appears at the lab the next morning, sara poses the choice to them: do they want her to take this one-in-a-million chance (knowing that it could well destroy the only remaining physical evidence that might possibly exonerate their father in the process of so doing) or do they perhaps want to hold off in the hopes that technology will eventually advance to the point where the print will be recoverable by some other, less invasive means sometime in the eventual future?

though they are nervous about the prospect, the kid ultimately decides to take the chance.

so sara pulls the print and is successful in so doing. however, she also destroys the surface from which she pulled the print as she collects it, meaning that the print now only exists in digital facsimile form.

mandy then runs the print, and eventually she determines: it doesn't belong to the kid's father.

its existence strongly suggests that another person was on scene during the commission of the murders and that they handled the murder weapon.

unfortunately, there are no hits on this mystery person's identity.

all of these determinations are made during the night, while the kid isn't at the lab, and sara knows that the next morning, she's going to have to tell the kid: while there's a possibility—and even a good one—that their father isn't to blame for the murders, as of yet, there is no empirical way to definitely prove as much, much less to find out who the real killer is.

and there may not ever be.

however, sara doesn't get the chance to tell the kid anything, because they don't turn up at the lab the next morning.

instead, their foster parent does.

come to find out, the kid had been lying to their foster parents, claiming they were going to early-morning "sat prep" and then beelining for the lab instead.

after one of the kid's friends accidentally let it slip to the foster parents that the kid had never actually attended any of the prep sessions, yesterday morning, the foster parents had trailed the kid to the lab. after the kid got home, they then confronted them.

now, upon discovering what the kid was up to, they have become concerned about the kid's level of investment in the case, fearing they are setting themselves up for a major letdown.

the foster parent explains the situation to sara.

apparently, after their family's murders, the kid bounced around in the system for years. during this time, they experienced all sorts of behavioral problems. earned a reputation with the dcfs as a "problem child."

the foster parent and their spouse were kind of a last-ditch solution; the only ones willing to take the kid in anymore.

it took them a while, but they were eventually able to earn the kid's trust and stabilize them.

now, after four or five years of living in their home, the kid is finally on an upswing: doing well in school, enjoying a social life, and just really thriving for the first time since the murders.

however, given the kid's obvious emotional investment in this case, their foster parent is worried that if they don't get the results they want, they might not be equipped to handle to the disappointment and could suffer a major backslide, right at a time when they're getting ready to "launch." the foster parent doesn't want to see them get derailed or "sacrifice their future for the past."

unaware that sara knows this fact all too well for herself, the foster parent explains: the stats on most "graduates" of the foster system are abysmal, so the best chance this foster kid has is to buckle down and study for the sat, get good grades, and attend college.

"that's their pathway out."

the foster parent has now come to sara in order to ascertain whether or not there is actually any hope that the kid will get the answer that they want, all said and done.

when sara explains the somewhat ambiguous outcome with the print, the foster parent decides not to tell the kid and asks sara for help in thinking up some way to "put the kid off the scent" for the time being, at least until they're emotionally prepared to hear potentially disappointing news.

though conflicted, sara suggests that the foster parent could perhaps tell the kid that she'd sent the print off to the fbi for further analysis and that it might be "in process" for a while (months or even years), and the foster parent thanks her for the idea, assuring her it's in the kid's best interest.

they also tell her: she shouldn't expect to see the kid back at the crime lab anytime soon, as it's probably not the best place for a teenager (and especially a traumatized teenager) to be hanging out before school everyday.

though sara outwardly expresses support for this decision, it's clear she's not 100% sold on the notion that concealing the truth is the best course of action here. she is also obviously devastated that she won't even get to say goodbye to this kid.

after her encounter with the foster parent, greg quickly sniffs out sara's upset, which she blames on the fact that she regrets not being able to get the kid a more straightforward answer.

however, he intuits: she's also sad because, despite all her protestations about not liking children, she's actually gotten attached to the kid, and now she's not going to see them again; she is going to miss them.

though he expects sara to resist this assertion, she surprises him by admitting he's right.

cut to a time jump.

the next morning.

and who should turn up at the lab but the kid, having snuck out on their foster parents yet again?

like sara, this kid has the uncanny ability to detect bullshit, and they're not buying the whole "fbi" story that their foster parents tried to sell them. they want to hear the truth from sara herself about her findings, even if it hurts, they say.

please.

at first, sara is reluctant to defy the kid's foster parents' wishes. she is also scared of sending the kid on a downward spiral and fucking up their life.

but then she realizes: she knows for herself how hard not knowing can be.

so she reaches deep inside herself, sits the kid down, and presents them with the truth in the best, most honest way she can think to, even though it's not altogether positive.

she admits: she can't tell them for certain that their father is innocent, though there's at least a chance he is. she also can't tell them who besides their father might potentially be to blame, though perhaps there is someone out there.

maybe, she conjectures, the databases will eventually kick out a match to that print or the dna that at the moment doesn't exist in their datasets; maybe technology will improve enough to someday fill in some of those blanks.

she'll absolutely keep trying, running the evidence periodically to see if anything turns up.

but in the meanwhile, there's no answer.

and there's also a chance that there will never be one.

on instinct, she confesses to the kid: she's never been certain if her mother habitually kept the knife she stabbed her father with under the pillow and pulled it out "in the heat of the moment" to defend herself OR if she had, in an act of premeditation, fetched it from downstairs after he fell asleep that night.

back when she was a kid, the detectives who worked her father's case had asked her, but she couldn't tell them.

and now she's never going to know.

"i keep trying to remember," she says, "the knife block in our kitchen. if there was an empty slot. if i heard her go back down the stairs and then up again. but i can't. that memory is just gone."

she's sorry, she says, she can't give the kid the answer they wanted.

but.

you can live with it.

there are ways to live with it.

someday, she promises, the kid will make other memories that their brain will allow them to retain; happy ones. they'll still carry the memories of their family with them, too. but they'll grow around the grief. have new experiences. give and receive love.

the kid ends up crying then, sobbing, totally unguarded and childlike, that they miss their family, and sara hugs them and says she knows, she knows.

cut to the end of the episode.

the kid's foster parents have come to pick them up from the lab.

they're apologetic to sara that the kid was "bothering her," but she tells them she doesn't mind. she also explains: she told the kid the truth, and they took it well.

"kids are more resilient than you think," she offers.

the foster parents agree.

they start to take the kid home, gently chastising them, on the way out the door, that now that they've skipped sat prep for a week, they're going to have to enroll in another session and take the course over again.

on hearing this statement, sara pipes up, "i could maybe help with that—if you want." stumblingly, she explains that she got a near-perfect score on the sat and attended harvard at age sixteen. "out of foster care," she adds.

and so it is that sara becomes this kid's tutor.

i imagine from this point, though the main storyline would be concluded, we (as the audience) would still see periodic evidence that sara was indeed keeping up with this kid and continuing to meet with them fairly regularly.

there could in time be other storylines for them.

if we want to go the tamer route:

maybe something to do with sara struggling to balance her work responsibilities with her new mentorship role.

alternatively or additionally, maybe her supporting the kid as they deal with some complicated feelings after their current foster parents propose adopting them.

on the one hand, they want to say yes, because they love their foster family and crave that sense of belonging. on the other hand, it feels like a betrayal to their bio family in some way, especially since they're so close to "aging out" anyhow.

maybe the kid meeting grissom and developing a relationship with him, too.

maybe the kid doing some kind of volunteer work or internship connected to the lab to help with their college applications, with sara supervising.

maybe them, with sara's help, starting a forensics club at their high school.

if we want to go the angstier route:

perhaps the kid still occasionally struggles. gets involved with substance abuse or has serious behavioral problems. ends up in trouble with the law, to the point that sara is obliged to confront them.

alternatively, maybe the kid has to unexpectedly move placements, and when they do, they confront sara: ask her why, if she supposedly cares so much, she doesn't offer to foster or adopt them herself. after all, aren't they close? doesn't she get it?

and who knows? maybe sara actually considers the possibility or even decides to go for it. has to broach the topic with grissom. reevaluate their lifestyle. could be an interesting development for both of them.

if we want to go the super angsty route:

turns out, the kid's dad didn't kill their family, and the real killer has somehow realized that the kid survived and the case has been reopened and that sara is periodically checking into it. maybe the killer then targets the kid, knowing they are the only person who could potentially identify them. maybe the kid is in real danger, and it's up to sara to catch the killer before they come to harm.

in any case, i'd definitely want to see more of sara interacting with this kid, building a real relationship with them over time—one that fit with her core characterization and didn't attempt to make her into something she wasn't.

excepting a scenario in which she did actually choose to foster or adopt this kid, i'd like her to toe that line, being a friend and supportive adult but not trying to fill the role of "mom."

i'd like to see her friendship with this kid challenge her in productive character ways and be consistently depicted, to the point where it was easy to believe that this bond was an important and regular part of her life.

anyway.

there would be other ways to write the whole thing than with this "memoriae sacrum" version, certainly.

but that's at least one way i could see the premise of "sara befriends a foster kid" working better than the option we're offered in canon.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

I have started watching the 1990s Doctor Finlay series recently, and it's been such an interesting experience. Such an odd mixture of interesting choices and trite writing, touching domesticity and horrors juxtaposed in the most jarring way imaginable, intentional stock characterization and accidental nuanced characterization, all at once.

The character of Doctor Finlay originally belongs to a series of stories written by family doctor turned novelist, A.J. Cronin. The difficulty of using them as source is that there's little to no continuity or consistency between the different sets of stories, and the quality of their writing also varies wildly. To complicate things further, the BBC had made an adaptation of sorts that had been very popular (getting to a run of seven seasons, most of it being lost media to us) in the late 60s and early 70s. The creators of this series managed this difficulty pretty cleverly: they picked up the most popular constants of its predecessors (Dr. Finlay, his older medical partner Dr. Cameron, their housekeeper Janet, the setting of the small Scottish town, Tannachbrae) and set this new series after wwii, loosely tying the continuity to the first compilation of stories through the standing engagement of Finlay and a local nurse (Peggy Angus in the stories, Brenda Meitland in the series).

This choice opens so many interesting directions for the series to explore. In the original setting, Finlay was still very much the youngish doctor under the wing of his older partner. Here we have a man who has spent the last 7 years of his life in the Army and is now in his early 40s. The NHS is about to be founded and turn upside down the practice of medicine as it had been known in Britain for a very, very long time. There's post war rationing and post war depression and post war just... grappling with life for so many people.

The writing has a general idea that these are ideas to take advantage of for engaging plots and nuanced characterization, and then it takes them in trite directions, and accidentally stumbles upon a good character bit through them.

So, for example, on the first episode, they set this cyclical aspect of the older-younger medical partner: Dr Cameron retires, tricking Finlay into taking in Dr Neil, a young, headstrong, cocky, irritating man as his partner, the same way Cameron took Finlay in before. But then, you see, Ian Bannen is such a star, and people like the character so much, so he keeps hanging around and butting in in the practice and giving his opinion in cases so much so that sometimes you are staring at the screen like "didn't this man retire on the first episode of the series?". But this pragmatic choice leads accidentally to more realistic characterization, because we all know the kind of person who rants about how much they want to retire, and then once they do they are itchy and become nosy and try to tell people how to do their former job.

The introduction of Dr Neil is another clever choice. You get ample space to develop an interesting dynamic between two people that begin very antagonistically, but that must assume mentor-mentoree roles and in the process warm up to each other and learn from each other. But don't worry! The series chooses to basically keep their storylines separate, succeeding into having Dr. Neil leave the series for good by the end of s2, his personal relationship with Finlay being not very different from the one they had at the very beginning, and having as character development that... apparently he's too sensitive for general practice (nevermind that his first pronounced character trait as shown in the series is... having a callous every man for himself attitude).

I'm not going to deny that he provides some emotional moments, and some chuckle worthy sense that he had more chemistry with nurse Maitland's actress, who was 10 years his senior, than she had with Finlay's, who was in turn 8 years older than her.

Nurse Maitland, though. What a mismanaged character. It's not an uncommon tale, that of people coming to the other side of war so changed that they are unrecognizable to those who were their close intimates. Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries manages this trope excellently in the character of Jack Robinson. This series does not.

Doctor Finlay and nurse Maitland were engaged before the beginning of the war. It's now the middle of 1946, and Finlay is finally being demobbed from the British occupied zone in Berlin. They have been engaged for 7 years. The series wants you to assume they somehow had no opportunity to marry or break up in all this time, as if Finlay would have always been abroad and never on leave home during all that time. But, reader, there's more. She's abandoned him for an American officer, down to being engaged to said officer, and has not told him.

Why, do you ask? well, on one hand to maximize the angst of Finlay coming home, expecting to see her at the train station to welcome him, and she's not there. Asking to people about her and looking for her and not finding her. Having to hear it in person from her, onscreen, when he's running towards her to hold her and kiss her. On the other hand it was a lazy attempt at a break-up-to-make-up plot, because we are not giving up on having that sweet sweet romance plot. Of course this creates a tiny little problem called "oh, wow, this character sucks and I'm not interested in seeing her get back together with him" in the audience. And then, what's this, "these two actors have no onscreen chemistry romantic or otherwise whatsoever" with a chair!

The series tries all through season one. It really tries. It even does the "Character must make a decision to either leave for their new life or stay on" routine, down to the last minute stay behind because she feels she cannot leave her people and the town that loves her so much. But it cannot be helped. It is not working. The first episode sets it up very tropely. He protests that they loved each other enough to want to spend their lives together. That there was love and passion. She insists that it was only inertia and convention. Conventional audience wisdom tells you that he'll be proven right in the end. He'll be miserable. She'll be reminded of all she loved about him and the flame will be rekindled. Reader, he's fine. He's devastated for 5 minutes on the first episode and then it never comes up again until pretty much the end of the second season when it is brought up as a provocation in a brawl. He's fine. She was right.

BUT what this accidentally does is provide depth of characterization for Finlay! He lacks emotional self awareness (he thinks of himself as very much in love and very heartbroken, but his everyday reactions moving forward prove otherwise), but he's a faithful, conscientious, devoted, generous and forgiving person! He's been writing to her for quite a while, taking time from his busy day while probably receiving no or very vague and tepid responses, because that's what a loving fiancé does. He's coming home and planning first and foremost on seeing her, because that's what a loving fiancé does. He's very sad and hurt at her betrayal, but he doesn't grow violent, or vengeful or spiteful towards her, and treats her with all professional respect when work brings them together, without special coldness or stiffness. Nevermind that the writers wrote it this way to smooth out their romance plot; they just accidentally gave him endearing virtues that are not dissonant with his real defects of character (lack of self awareness, professional pride, gruffness, being prone to getting himself on tight spots, laser focus on something to the detriment of everything else, black&white assessment of people's characters).

It doesn't always succeed upwards, though. On episode 5 of the first season, we get a subplot of Dr Cameron helping at the German POW outside the town. It would have been an excellent opportunity to contrast Dr Cameron's (likely a wwi veteran) thoughts and feelings about Germany and the Germans with how Finlay, a wwii veteran sees them, and develop some conflict out of it with the chosen subplot. Alas, Finlay cannot be reached by this plotline because he's having an affair with a patient. The butcher's wife. Affair he fell into after she became emotionally distressed at a consult. His own conscience aided by Janet and Dr Cameron helps breaking it off before it goes way too far, but not before the butcher catches wind of it. Somehow Finlay still has a practice at the end of it. Meanwhile during this episode Dr. Neil... *checks notes* hangs around and attends an NHS promotion thingy in Finlay's place.

Wouldn't... wouldn't it make much more sense for dr Neil to have an affair like the one in this episode? you know, a doctor who can pack and leave whenever he wants? A young man that we have started to see gets easily emotionally involved with his patients? One who wouldn't notice how far into the mess he is until it is too late? Wouldn't it make for better storytelling if we found Finlay pressed between the drama of Dr Cameron's POW plot and Dr Neil's affair, trying to mediate and manage both, and maybe exploding a little in the end?

It's not that it doesn't make sense for Finlay to have a moral and emotional fall at this point in his life: he's been horribly betrayed by the woman he hoped to marry -she loved him less than she loved her American man, and she loved her American man less than she loved her patients and neighbours, so where does that live poor Finlay in the love scale-; he's "lost" 7 years of his life. He's having to readjust to civilian life and the small scale of his new-old work. His mentor has "retired", his junior partner is of little help and in need of guidance. His housekeeper, several years older than him, is on the brink of marriage. What doesn't make sense is that the narrative doesn't use any of these motivations for that end, and relies on naiveté and distraction and pity to try and keep the character sympathetic. But it doesn't work because he's old enough and experienced enough to know better.

These are just some of the many fascinating things about the writing of the first two seasons of this peculiar series.

[musicaleaves]

Meet Robin, the hotheaded little brother of Brenda

Robin is the younger brother of Brenda clover, They have an 11 year age difference between each other. In the musical leaves universe, Brenda was 7 at that flashback, so Robin wouldn’t have been born yet.

few facts of Robin

He is the talented pika, he is talented in many areas but mainly signing

he is the lead signer of a jazz group that sings around the world

He got a bit of inspiration from Tybalt from Romeo and Juliet (the canon Romeo and Juliet may say otherwise, but I personally kind Headcanon on that Tybalt’s a short king(5’5)

He doesn’t normally warm up to people but he can if you are close enough to him

relationships (healthy to not so healthy

Brenda: he isn’t a siscon, but he is very close and affectionate to his big sister

His Parents: they have a good relationship, they did raise him after all

His bandmates: he can be a little harsh, but they can take it just fine

Dave: they get along pretty well

Mathew, Lucy and kel: No opinion

Finn: Finn always talks to him, isn’t interested in mechanics

Michelle: Robin really gets annoyed by Michelle’s sassiness and is in debt to her (she’s not a bad person, just has a complicated paying method)

Geroge: it’s complicated, they don’t have the most healthy relationship, for reasons that may spoil a big part of the story. But it’s complicated and I won’t say to much.

Sylvia: Robins ex, I won’t say too much of her though

Robin, won’t be appearing in the story for a while, but feel free to make your headcanons, fanart, theories and memes about him. I would love to see them.