#it was a crime scene today in vegas

[darththrog]

The Mexico vs USA memes are endless

[hollygl125]

All I Ever Wanted Was to Stand Beside You: Costa Rica to the Ishmael, and Then Some: A How They Fell Apart & How They Came Back Together Story

[jencsi]

[alexander-arcturus-black-lupin]

Kidnapping

Spencer and the gang are called in for a case. Morgan and J.J are the last to enter Garcia’s office.

“Brief us baby girl” Morgan said as he sat down beside Reid.

“Right well, this girl was held at gunpoint” Penelope put up the girl's picture on the screen. “But then someone tried to defuse the situation when the gunman, now a kidnapper, took her, no reason as to why, and the reason we’re involved is because the kidnapper is our unsub,” Penelope finished.

“She’s pretty,” Morgan said. “Spencer what do you think” Morgan nugged Spence. Today Spencer was deep in thought; he was thinking of multiple different ideas permitting from one single thought.

How would I go about this

“Spence”

“Mmhm su-” He raised his head and looked at the screen and all colour drained from his face. Spencer took out his phone and started to dial. ”Something you’d like to share with the class Spencer?” Morgan asked but Spencer ignored him. The phone went off to voicemail.

“Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit” Spencer dialled again yet was only greeted with the same voicemail.

Hey its y/n i might be a little busy so either leave a message or call back later alright

The gang was stunned. Spencer never swore.

“Spencer, Spencer finally looked at Morgan, his eyes wide.

“That is my, that’s y/n she’s my girlfriend, I-” Spencer started to speak an entirely different language.

“Spencer we’ll find her” Hotch said, he’d never seen Reid like this.

Spencer’s phone starts ringing and it’s y/n. He immediately answers it and puts it on speaker. He sets it down on the table as he tries to calm himself down.

“Y/-” But he’s cut off by a man’s voice.

“SHUT UP I’M TALKING TO SOMEONE WHO MIGHT SAVE YOUR BITCH ASS LIFE” there’s a loud smack and someone shouts.

“UNTIE ME ASSHOLE AND LET’S SEE WHO'S THE BITCH HE-” Y/n is cut off by her kidnapper stuffing cloth in her mouth.

The team was shocked at what y/n said because most people would be a mess if they were kidnapped by y/n seemed not only agitated but in the right state of mind.

“Who is this?” Spencer demands his voice so sharp that Derek has to do a double take. “And what did you just do”

“Someone who has your wife at gunpoint” Morgan glances at Hotch. Wife? ”What I did to her, I just shut her up”

“What do you want” Spencer sounded calm but to his teammates, his erratic eye movement, how he keeps clenching and unclenching his fingers and how he briefly pulls his hair before going back to clenching his fingers.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this you know” the kidnapper completely ignored Spencer’s question. “It was a simple robbery, all she had to do was gimme her wallet, but nooo this little bitch had something to say” the kidnapper pulls y/n hair making her scream into the gag.

“AND I STILL HAVE SOMET-” another smack could be heard.

“Stop hitting her” Spencer could feel his self control slipping

“Oh don’t worry hubby she’s out cold, now I’m going to make her pay for her rudeness”

“Why did you call me,”

“To know if the contact name Hubby served what i think it does”

“And what do you think it serves”

“The person who’s going to bury this bitch” the kidnapper hangs up and Spencer all but reaches for his phone to toss it.

“What’s our game plan?” Penelope asks.

“Well,” Morgan starts. “I think Spence should start,”

Spencer looks at them, he sighs before he speaks.

“Y/n L/n is my girlfriend but technically by Las Vegas laws we're married”

Derek starts. “You had a girlfriend-wife and you never told us” Spencer keeps his eyes on the phone in front of him.

“I was going to tell you guys”

“When”

“When I got her to say yes” Spencer’s shoulders drooped.

“You were gonna re-propose?”

“Yes,” Spencer took out a black box from his coat pocket. “Tonight, I had everything planned”

“Spencer '' Morgan clasps Spencer’s shoulder. “We will find her, that’s what we do,”

They team except for Garcia go to the scene of the crime. It’s a fast food restaurant.

“She loves their burgers,” Spencer chuckles before looking at the building opposite.

“We’ll never know what she bought till we find her,”

“That’s where we start,” Aaron says as he points over to the tiny camera on its ceiling. Spencer and Derek go in as JJ calls Emily and Rossi over from interrogating a customer. Derek and Spencer meet a burly 30 something man.

“No I ayn’t geeving ya my CCTV, gyet lawst,”

“Derek, could you wait outside for a second,” Derek without question steps out. Hotch and the rest later notice.

“Why are you out here?”

“Spencer,” Derek shrugs.

“Wh-”

The door opens and Spencer is holding a tape.

“What did you do?”

“I asked him for it,” Spencer hands the tape to Derek. Derek looks at him skeptically, “I promise I didn’t hurt him,”

Find CCtv footage of the car y/n was kidnapped in

Track it down to somewhere in the middle of nowhere

Find it in front of a house

*They surround the house and get inside but the kidnapper dude already has y/n is his hands with a gun to her head.

Spencer comes from behind and shoots him in the hand holding the gun his shot being through and through

*Y/n tries to strangle the dude but Spencer grabs her from behind and pulls her away *

"LET ME GO, LET ME AT HIM," y/n yells as Reid holds her in. "LET. ME. AT. HIM."

"Calm down sunshine," Reid whispers in your ear. “He’s down,” he says as he rests hims face in your hair.

"Reid!? Reid,'' He spins you in his arms and hugs you bringing you close; he doesn't kiss you because you are surrounded by an audience.

"I thought I might have lost you" you nestle into his neck.

"You will never lose me Spence not if I have anything to say about it" You let go. “Can I atleast land one hit, I promise just one,” Spencer for the first time during this 3 day period, smiles.

"Spencer,” JJ called. "How about you do take care of this one, yeah"

Spencer nodded and took you home. Some of his clothes were at your place, so he didn’t bother stopping at his place.

He filled up your tub and undressed you. He wanted to let you be but you didn't let him. He slipped in behind you and he held you. For a long time.

"Tell me what you remember, sunshine, come on, let it out don't be all strong and brave, be weak and fragile, right here, right now,"

You leaned into him and before you knew it you were crying.

You never felt so helpless. You told him what happened. How it felt being held at gunpoint for the first time. How it felt being shoved into the car. The turns, right, left, left again.

The car stopping and him getting out and tossing her on the ground. Blacking out. Waking up in a wooden chair, tied down. Him slapping you twice for talking back at him.

Taking your phone.

Calling Spencer

His voice woke her up.

She wanted to cry then.

"Hey baby come on let it all out, studies show that the more you cry the more likely you'll recover from violent otherwise traumatic events an-"

"Sp-Spencer"

"Yeah sunshine"

"I love you okay"

"I love you more" Spencer takes the loofa and scrubs your feet, “If you want to stop we can”

“I- you- you need to know right?” I sob. “Your job”

“I don’t need to put down everything sometimes” Spencer stops what he’s doing and he comes back to you, “This is one of those times, okay?”

“O-okay” I sniff and sob. “I’m a mess,”

“I like everything about you about you even your mess”

“It’s sta-statistically proven th-that woman who show a sign of distress or a misery in a relationship tend to end up breaking the r-”

“Baby that’s rubbish, if you read that off a site it needs to be taken down” Spencer holds your head in his arms. “That’s a lie right there, this will never break, it’s actually the opposite see-” He stops when he notices the smile on my face.

“Spence”

“Yes sunshine”

“I’m joking” he rolls his eyes at you but you can see the smile tugging at his lips

He takes you out and cleans you before cleaning himself. He changes you into matching pyjamas. “Now as your doctor, I suggest bed rest with your boyfriend” you giggle.

“I like that treatment plan”

“So does your boyfriend”

Spencer stays by your side the entire night. The proposal can wait another day.

[verynormalaboutkinnporsche]

Kim's Investigation Storyline - Summary

I don't want to think about anything important today I guess, so here's the timeline of Kim's subplot.

E3 - Kim learns that Korn has hired Porsche to replace Big as Kinn's bodyguard.

E4 - Kim meets Porchay.

E4 - Big provides Kim with a dossier on Porsche, including a photo of Chay. First look at the murder board. Connection drawn between Porsche being hired and the suspected mole in the organization.

E5 - Kim looks for information in Korn's office, doesn't find anything, gets no answers from him on the "weird" decision to hire Porsche.

E5 - Kim offers to tutor Chay.

E5 - Kim searches Chay's phone and finds nothing suspicious.

E7 - Kim searches Chay and Porsche's house, ditto. Learns that their parents were killed in a car accident. Chay is cleared of suspicion.

E8 - Kim asks Big to find out who the driver was who killed Pat and Nampheung, suspecting that it was someone close to the family because the investigation was dropped. At this point he also says that if nothing comes out of this, they should drop it and look elsewhere.

E10 - Chay is kidnapped by minor family henchmen (working for Tawan).

E11 - Kim reviews the redacted accident report and implicitly connects it to a pattern (on the updated murder board) of minor family crime coverups. The mole issue has been resolved, but there's broader interest in the family's activities now.

E11 - Kim talks to the officer who dropped the investigation, and who was later paid off to retire to a temple and pretend to have Alzheimers. He says that it was Korn who pressured him to drop it.

E14 - Kim stands guard over Chay while he's at Hum Bar.

Despite the thin number of scenes devoted to this plot, most of this is pretty clear--up until that last step.

Kim starts out thinking that Porsche's hiring has something to do with the informant in the household, moves to a theory that Korn has an obligation to Porsche if his parents were killed by someone connected to the family (less useful/interesting). Chay's kidnapping seems to have provided a motive to keep looking into the situation, given all the minor family scheming going on, but then Kim finds out that this incident, at least, was not the minor but the main family.

That is the last we hear about it. Two possibilities:

There is not supposed to be a connection between the scene with Manop and anything that happens later on. (In that case, the scene is redundant because we find out in the scenes with Porsche and Korn that Korn covered up the "accident," and there is no real conclusion to this subplot.)

There is supposed to a connection between the Manop scene and Kim's later decision to be at the bar; that is the endpoint of the subplot, it just isn't clearly delineated.

Kim gives us one line of dialog to explain what he's doing there:

"Let me guess. You'll take Porsche's brother as leverage. This kind of stupid plan, I don't even have to ask who sent you."

------ 1

If 1 above is correct, I would be inclined toward the obvious reading of the line, that it was Gun or Vegas who sent them. Vegas knows where Chay is. Kim's decision is based purely on general suspicion of the minor family.

I have three problems with that. First, we have no reason to think that either Gun or Vegas wants leverage over Porsche; that simply hasn't been a thing for either of them all season. Both are focused on the rivalry with the main family. Porsche has been a proxy in that conflict, but he isn't central.

Second, the timing is bizarre; the time to grab Chay would have been before the attack. In the middle of everything there's no opportunity to use leverage even if they had it--no point at which they could even be told if the attempt on Chay was successful--and if the attack had succeeded they wouldn't need it.

Third, that kind of move doesn't appear to be in character for Gun. He's a direct violence kind of guy. Vegas *would* do it (nothing is out of bounds for Vegas) but again, why? Porsche doesn't have anything he wants.

------ 2

If 2 is correct, that feeds into a reading in which it was actually Korn who sent those men, and somehow Kim guessed that based solely on the knowledge that it was Korn who covered up the accident. Taking the same three points as above.

We have every reason to think that Korn wants leverage over Porsche. Leverage over Porsche has been the name of the game for the entire season; Korn has been using Chay against him since E1. And there's the chess game angle.

The timing makes a lot more sense if it was Korn. This is him setting things up for after the war with Gun, and it works very well for him if it happens while everyone else is distracted.

It is SO in character for Korn it doesn't even need to be spelled out.

------

As should be clear, I think 2 is the better interpretation. I just can't figure out how Kim got there. I don't know if the writers were leaving their options open by not nailing down either reading in the event of a second season happening, or if this was by way of a genuine error. He is such an isolated character, it would have been a challenge to show his train of thought here as anything other than an internal monologue.

[thinkingaboutbetterdays]

the boss's wife. ( d.b. russell x reader )

After getting married during your second year at college, you liked to believe you knew your husband more than he knew himself. Whenever he had doubts during cases, or questioned his dedication to his family, you were always there to remind him of the achievements he has made both personally and as a CSI, and how proud you were of him, even if you did worry that he stretched himself a little thin. But that was who Diebenkorn, affectionally called D.B, was to everyone - the person who looked after everyone else without concern for himself.

From experience, you knew that, despite his assurance that he would have dinner, he would become absorbed in the case and forget. One of the perks of moving to Las Vegas was you were closer to the lab than you had been in Seattle, so you decided to surprise the new night shift manager with dinner.

D.B. was surprised when Henry announced that his wife had arrived at the lab, and he could see the immediate intrigue on his team's faces as he stood up from the table where they had spent over an hour reviewing the evidence for what had proved to become a difficult case.

D.B. walked down the hallway to meet you and a smile formed on his lips when he saw the trays of lasagne you had made.

You greeted him with a smile, "I thought I'd bring you all something. I doubt any of you have eaten much today."

"You didn't have to do all this." He took the trays and lowered them before holding them higher again. "Oof, how much did you make?"

"Too much probably." You smiled when he kissed your cheek.

"Are they watching?"

You glanced over at the room he had exited from and hummed as he stepped back. "Come on, I'll introduce you before their heads explode." He nodded to the room and turned, smiling at you as you walked alongside him down the hallway. "So, how is your day goin'?"

"I finally unpacked the photographs. We have officially moved in."

"I thought we moved in a week ago?"

"Yeah, but it's not a home until everything is unpacked and has a place in the house."

D.B. shook his head with a smile, holding the trays higher as he entered the room. "We have food." He set the trays in the middle of the table and stood next to you, placing a hand on your back. "Provided by my lovely, thoughtful, and very, very patient wife. Y/N, this is Catherine, Nick, Greg, Sara, and Morgan."

"Thank you! You are a lifesaver!" Catherine grinned.

"Happy to." You smiled before looking at your husband when he spoke.

"Come on, I'll walk you back to your car."

You knew he would be grilled on you when he returned, so after saying goodbye, you both walked slowly, enjoying a moment alone. "They seem nice."

"Yeah, they're a good team."

You looked up at him as you looped your arm with his, "Tough case?"

He nodded, sighing, "Someone went to a lot of effort to make it look like an open and shut case. They left the crime scene too clean."

You rubbed his arm comfortingly, "They always mess up. You just need to find it. Remember that guy that cleaned a mirror with his own breath and left behind saliva?" A giggle left your lips, "That still cracks me up."

He put his arm around you as you walked, smiling down at you when you leaned into him. You turned when he suddenly stopped walking and your eyebrows furrowed when you saw his expression.

"What?"

A grin formed on his lips, "I love you," He cupped your cheeks and kissed your forehead. "Call me when you get home safe."

"I love you too but -" You watched as he rushed back into the lab and realized he was suddenly struck with inspiration and shook your head fondly, getting into your car, knowing when he got home you would hear all about it.

[addictedtostorytelling]

Greetings! You can call me the cheesy anonymous, after watching too many romantic movies today I have a question about GSR, do you think that if Sara had taken the leave of absence Grissom would eventually go after her, or do you think that Sara would simply end up married to someone else? Eugene Onegin style (I don't know if you know the book or the movie but I recommend both lol)

hi cheesy anon!

i love pushkin!

so my short answers to your questions are: a) i think grissom's willingness to go after sara if she left town would depend on whether or not he had reason to believe she, despite her hurt feelings, still ultimately wanted him in her life or not, and, b) i don't think sara would be likely to marry anyone besides grissom, even if she did leave town and he never chased after her.

my much longer (and more rambling) answers are after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

so the thing about sara’s request for the leave of absence in episode 02x15 “burden of proof” is it 1000% blindsides grissom.

ever since sara’s move to vegas, he has been under the impression they are on the same page regarding the reality of their situation—namely, he believes they both understand that for as long as he is her boss and she his subordinate, the feelings they both have for each other by necessity must go on the backburner, the consolation being they still get to work together and enjoy each other’s company professionally, even though they cannot share a private life outside of the lab.

because he believes they are both similarly resigned to (and even somewhat contented with) their status quo, until sara’s request shows up on his desk, grissom has no idea she is even contemplating leaving las vegas. then, even once he receives her request, until she comes into his office to talk with him, he has no notion of what might have caused her to want to leave.

the twin revelations she makes to him—i.e., she wants to leave and the reason why she feels the need to is because of him—deliver double blows to grissom’s entire understanding of his world.

not only is sara unhappy in vegas, but she is specifically unhappy because of him!

he had no clue.

as i talk about here,

[during the early seasons of the show, despite his desire to be with her in a more traditional way,] grissom contents himself with only having sara’s company at work and even treating their professional relationship like a quasi-dating situation while otherwise keeping her at arm’s length.  sara is, essentially, his work girlfriend, and that arrangement works for him.  he can flirt with her when he likes (as long as things don’t get too personal); he can occasionally walk arm-in-arm with her around their crime scenes; they can trade trivia and jokes; he can pay attention to her and make her smile; she can emotionally support him and calm him down when he’s upset (see episodes 01x19 “gentle, gentle” and 02x05 “scuba doobie-doo”); he can show her off to his superiors (see episode 03x02 “the accused is entitled”); they can share weirdly intimate moments (see episode 01x10 “sex, lies, & larvae”); etc.; etc. really, they can do everything short of going home together.  but whenever things get too intense, he can also shut their interactions down at a moment’s notice. he can maintain his space, go off by himself, even turn his attentions—fleetingly and superficially—to other women, like teri miller (see here).  nothing he’s willing to do with sara endangers his career. they toe that line between coworkers and significant others, and they keep everything relatively clean that way. furthermore, he’s able to (to some extent) “have her” without fear he will lose her. if he never lets her get too close to him, she won’t see his flaws, and she won’t reject him; she’ll stay with him, almost happily, forever.  sure, in his heart of hearts, grissom very much yearns to extend his and sara’s relationship to all spheres of his life (see his original scripted monologue from episode 04x12 “butterflied”), and, certainly, on a subconscious level, he realizes he is dissatisfied with the status quo between himself and sara, particularly when she dates hank peddigrew during s2 and s3.  in a better world, in a better life, where grissom could be sure sara would love him forever and he could know he was actually good enough for her, he would want to be the man she came home to after shift. he would want them to share everything. to be everything for each other. but in this world, their arrangement mostly works for him. it mostly meets his needs. —and, because it does, he remains generally oblivious to the fact that things aren’t working out this way for sara…  [before sara puts in her request for a leave of absence,] grissom thinks he and sara have a fine thing going on, but, apparently, she is unhappy. this realization affronts grissom and also heightens his insecurities. it never occurred to him sara might actively search out something more than what he was offering her; the fact she has scares him, because it means there is a possibility he might lose her.

—which is an assumption he’s not at all wrong in making.

as i talk about here, sara’s request for the leave of absence has little to actually do with her wanting to pursue other career opportunities, and it also is never intended to be a temporary thing, even for all her hedging to grissom about “six months” or “a year”:

honestly, when sara puts in the request for the leave of absence, it isn’t even really that she wants to work for the fbi*; it’s that she is upset by the current state of her and grissom’s relationship. * maybe at some point before she started working for the lvpd, she might have been interested in perhaps working in the federal system. but afterward, not really. she’s just saying that she is because she doesn’t know what else to do re: her impasse with grissom. she moved to vegas with the expectation they would be a couple, but after a year and a half living there and working under him, not only are they not in a romantic relationship but he is acting more aloof from her than ever. as i talk about here, for him, the hamburger is just hamburger, but for her, it’s more. he’s looking at their conflict, thinking, “okay, so i’m working on an experiment involving raw hamburger, and sara comes in when i’m already mostly done with it. i don’t have time to slow down because the case is hot, so i ask her to handle the clean-up so i can move on to the next thing, which is something 100% within my purview to do, as i am her supervisor, and she’s my subordinate. she gets upset about the assignment i’ve given her because it disagrees with her personal sensibilities, which—okay, whatever. i don’t really get it, because to me science is science, but not touching raw meat if she doesn’t want to is her prerogative, i guess, so i tell her she can have nick deal with the clean-up instead. to me, that’s the long and short of the matter, but to her, it must not be, because the next thing i know, she’s putting in a request for a leave of absence, accusing me of not respecting her. did the hamburger really offend her that badly? i don’t understand why she’s so upset.” meanwhile, she’s looking at it, thinking, “i moved to las vegas believing when i got here, grissom and i would be a couple. obviously, things haven’t panned out that way, though. since i’m a big girl, i’ve tried to deal with the disappointment—to play by grissom’s rules and respect his boundaries, holding out hope maybe someday he’ll change his mind, yes, but not pushing him into anything or giving voice to my heartache. i get why he has trepidations, of course. i get what’s at stake for him. and that’s why i don’t lobby for more than he’s willing to give. i feel like so far i’ve been pretty good about adapting to the reality of our situation. still. that’s not to say it doesn’t hurt when he’s callous with me—when he treats me like there was never anything between us, even though we both know that’s not true. for a year and a half now, i’ve stood by, making the best of his mood swings. some days, he treats me like i annoy the hell out of him, to the point where i wonder why he even keeps me on the team. but other days, he’s back to being prince charming, giving me all sorts of reasons to hope. honestly, the whole runaround is exhausting, and i wish he would come down one way or the other all of the time. this raw hamburger debacle is just the latest and worst in a string of slaps in the face from him. we shared that night watching over the pig carcass together last year, and i thought it was a big deal, that it meant something to both of us. but now he can’t even be assed to remember it, and he can’t be assed to even respect me as a person. i memorize and analyze and overanalyze and pore over every little exchange that passes between us. i live and die by how he treats me, weathering the bad days, living for the good. but obviously that’s not how things are for him. obviously, i’m not that important in his eyes. it’s probably time for me to recognize that discrepancy. i can’t keep waiting around for him to figure things out. i’ve got to do something to clear my head and get over him once and for all.”

so.

she originally claims she wants to get away for six months or a year, but, honestly, she only says so in the hopes of avoiding a confrontation.

the real truth comes out when grissom confronts her anyhow, pushing back against her stated reasons for her request. backed up into the proverbial corner, she reveals she isn’t actually leaving to pursue federal employment; she’s trying to run away from him because being in his presence is just too painful for her to handle anymore. eventually, she lets slip: it doesn’t matter if he either lets her go or doesn’t; she will leave either with his permission or without, and once she does so she has no intention of coming back.

she's trying to make a clean break here—which is exactly what she cannot do so long as she is “trapped in grissom’s gravity” in vegas.

for almost two years now, he’s refused to make a clear-cut decision on them, so she’s making it for him.

of course, the difficulty with this conversation—and, indeed, with all gsr communication pre-s5—is grissom and sara aren’t fully at liberty to come out and say exactly what they mean, on a practical level because they’re at work and can’t risk being overheard and on a personal one because they both fear giving voice to their deepest feelings, lest they be rejected.

instead, they have to hedge around the issue, avoiding any talk of their pre-vegas relationship (in whatever form it may have taken), their mutual feelings, their hopes and their fears regarding each other, etc., couching their every exchange in professional language. they cannot call a spade a spade—or in this case, a romantic connection a romantic connection. though they’re talking about deeply personal issues, they can’t directly refer to just how personal they are.

the number one rule is they can’t say the l-word.

even though sara is essentially trying to tell grissom his capricious behavior with her is tying her heart up in knots, she can’t use those exact words or even any words adjacent to them. rather, she is left to stammer and hem about how she needs a work environment with communication and respect and remind grissom (obliquely) the problem “isn’t just about [her].”

and in the wake of her revelation, grissom can’t beg her to stay because he needs her; instead, he is forced to substitute the safer but less emotionally honest “the lab.”

so without sara being able to come out and say directly how she feels grissom has been jerking her around by the heart for the last year and half, all she can do is vaguely gesture to her confusion and upset and hope grissom understands.

and he does, to some extent—obviously enough to later see the sense in catherine’s advice and send out the olive branch green plant.

but that’s not necessarily to say he understands the full nuance of sara’s feelings.

how could he, when she isn’t able to articulate them?

while he gets the gist, there is likely a lot still lost on him—especially because he is only now for the first time realizing what an untenable position he has put her in and how miserable she is.

all of the above so, i tend to believe in any situation where sara were to ask for a leave of absence, grissom, in his shock at her request, would try to ascertain her motivations for seeking such a leave.

and if he did so, she would always end up leveling the same (veiled) accusations at him she does in the canon episode—admitting she feels disrespected by him, the problem isn’t just some one-off thing but rather is indicative of a larger pattern of behavior over time, she needs to get away from him, etc.

as in canon, grissom would always be blindsided by these revelations and not know how to respond to sara in the moment, and she would always storm off, issuing her “either grant me the leave or i'll quit” ultimatum.

at that point, grissom would always understand he was in danger not just of losing her to the fbi for six months to a year but of losing her to his own romantic ineptitude forever.

in the canonical episode, within hours of his and sara’s confrontation in his office, catherine drunkenly nudges grissom into figuring out a way to show sara he cares. right away, he gifts sara the green plant, thereby proving to her he does pay attention to her and have feelings for her beyond just their working relationship. the gesture flies with her. she opts to remain at the lab. grissom then spends the rest of s2 doting on her (albeit still solely at work).

seriously, the tail end of s2 is like a full gsr romcom.

however, even if catherine hadn’t intervened, i still think grissom would’ve realized what hot water he was in and would have tried—however clumsily—to “win sara back,” if he could.

maybe he wouldn’t have sent her a green plant, but he would have tried to do something to convince her not to go.

i don’t think he would have full-on confessed his feelings to her—because at that point, he wasn’t ready to face the consequences for them, either professionally or personally—but he would have done something to show her he was not indifferent to her or their relationship, and in so doing, he would have continued what is a very common pattern of behavior for him during the early seasons of the show.

as i talk about here:

we see a situation during s1 and s2 where grissom perpetuates a kind of cycle with sara, over and over again:

1. first he gets close to her (because that’s what his heart and his instincts are telling him to do). 2. then once he becomes cognizant of how close he actually is to her—which is something that tends to happen when sara makes some kind of move or gesture in acknowledgment of and/or response to their closeness—he panics, realizing that he is coming up against a line he dares not cross. 3. at that point, he retracts from sara emotionally/socially, trying desperately to reassert professional boundaries between them. 4. however, seldom does he manage to do so gracefully, and so he typically ends up hurting her feelings in the process. 5. of course, since he’s still in love with her, once he realizes he’s hurt her feelings, he can’t stand to leave things that way, so then he attempts to make amends, acting very sweet and attentive to her to cheer her up and win back her affections. 6. from that point, one thing leads to another, and pretty soon, he’s getting close to her again (because that’s what his heart and his instincts tell him is right). 7. the cycle then repeats again from there.

now, whether or not sara would have ultimately forgiven grissom and chosen to remain in vegas due to whatever gesture he made toward her (see step #5 of the pattern) would largely depend on whatever that gesture were and how genuine she felt he was in making it.

in canon, the green plant gesture does the trick, not only because of what it signifies (i.e., grissom does actually pay close attention to her and her needs, despite occasional appearances to the contrary) but also because it is made so promptly, before sara can actually pack up her apartment and move to virginia.

so let’s say in this au grissom doesn’t send sara a plant just hours after she puts in her request but instead does something somewhat less demonstrative somewhat later.

maybe in such a case, a weaker gesture so late in coming might not soothe sara’s hurt feelings.

maybe then she might still feel the need to leave.

grissom would then be posed with a not-actually-a-choice choice, per sara’s ultimatum: to either grant her leave request, knowing despite its trappings of temporariness, it would nevertheless be a permanent development; or to have her flat-out quit, admitting the permanency of the situation from the get-go.

and, of course, for as socially obtuse as grissom may sometimes be, i don’t think the bottom line of the situation would be lost on him.

even without fully understanding all of the ins and outs of sara’s upset, he could infer well enough her leaving was never actually about pursuing other career opportunities; it was always about getting away from him.

now.

eventually, from the end of s4 to mid-s5, grissom finds himself facing a similar “either prove to sara you love her once and for all or risk losing her forever” type of situation—which begins when he recognizes her downward spiral during the events of episode 04x23 “bloodlines” and comes to a head in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” when he comes under pressure to fire her due to her insubordinate workplace behavior—and, in that case, he is able to finally summon his courage, make the grand gesture, and, in sara’s own words, “just be there for [her].”

so the question then becomes: could he do the same thing three seasons earlier, during the events of episode 02x15 “burden of proof,” were he faced with the prospect of sara leaving vegas permanently?

i mean, his love for her is the same in both circumstances, right?

however, one variable which differs considerably is his level of confidence in sara’s desire to have him.

in s5, the grissom who shows up at sara’s apartment, wearing his heart on his sleeve, ready to take on ecklie and catherine for her sake, in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls” is also a grissom who, one month earlier in show time, has sara more or less tell him (in so many words) she is still in love with him and open to a relationship with him in episode 05x12 “snakes.”

and the same is not true of the grissom in episode 02x15 “burden of proof.”

that grissom is one who has just had the love of his life confront him with accusations of poor communication and disrespect, to the point where she wants to move across the country to get away from him.

her words echo many of his deepest fears concerning himself: i.e., he is “insufficiently human,” harmful to the people he cares about due to his social ineptitudes, innately selfish, etc.

that so, i tend to think, in this situation, unlike in s5, grissom might be more inclined to just let sara go—not because he wanted to but because he felt he didn’t have the right to try to stop her.

while he might not have a full view of what exactly he had done to hurt her, he can sense he has hurt her—and because he can, he would be disposed to believe sara probably wants nothing to do with him going forward.

she's come into his office and told him she feels he has mistreated her and she needs to get away from him.

and his inclination in the absence of reassurance from her to the contrary would be to take her at her word—to let her go, because that’s obviously what she wants from him at this point (after he’s so wounded her), right?

of course, the irony is, sara doesn’t actually want to leave and never see grissom again.

what she would prefer is he simply change his behavior and embrace his love for her, becoming transparent in his feelings. she's only “running away” because she believes that possibility is off the table.

we can deduce as much from the fact that, in canon, the second grissom does something to prove he actually cares for her (i.e., sends her the green plant), she stops trying to leave vegas immediately—and, in fact, her leave of absence never gets mentioned again.

all she truly needs from grissom in order to feel secure is some sign from him that she’s not just imagining his feelings for her.

—it’s just in s2, in a situation where grissom would feel fairly certain he had already ruined everything with sara by disrespecting her and failing to communicate with her at work, i think grissom would be disinclined to call her bluff, again, not because he wanted to see her go, but because he was too scared to chase after her, fearing she would reject him.

in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” he is able to do the brave thing both because his care for sara’s needs supersedes his fears AND because he feels confident she does actually want him to pursue her (despite their to that point tumultuous history).

in mid-s2, the same might not be true.

so.

in all likelihood, if things got to the point where whatever initial gesture he had made had failed to pacify her and she really was ready to leave town, without some intervention—like drunken catherine telling him to get off his ass and do something, a la canon—grissom might just let sara quit after all.

and if he did?

it would probably take some kind of act of god to make him go to her after she left town—again, not because he wouldn’t miss her desperately, be heartbroken over his loss of her, want to be with her, etc., but because he would feel unwanted.

he would reason, “well, she wanted to leave and she left. she told me she didn’t want to be around me anymore. who am i to impose on her? she’s trying to make a clean break, and the least i can do is let her do so, given the way i've so obviously mistreated her.”

the only way he might wise up and change his mind is if something happened to make him realize sara did still want him after all—like with the classic romcom fourth act trope, he found some proof of her lingering feelings for him, which incontrovertibly established she had only ever skipped town because she felt rejected by him, not because she had been rejecting him herself.

think sara watching the exit interview tape at the end of “immortality,” but reversed.

then he might get on a plane.

then he might make the grand gesture.

and at that point, it would have to be grand—not just a green plant but an invitation to finally live “the beautiful life” they both had always dreamed of, to return to vegas not just as his employee but as his girlfriend.

now.

as for the second half of your question, with regards to sara, i don’t think she would likely be married to someone else, no matter how long it had been since she and grissom had parted ways.

to my mind, the only person sara sidle would ever even consider marrying is gil grissom.

otherwise, given her family history and views on the transactive nature of weddings, i don’t think she would ever be open to tying the knot with anyone else.

he is the one exception to what is otherwise a hard rule for her.

and once her "experiment" of opening her heart to him and considering a marital commitment had, in her eyes, failed, she would be disinclined to ever try again with someone else; not when making herself vulnerable that way had so badly backfired on her before.

that said, if enough time had passed since she had left vegas before grissom wised up and went after her, she could theoretically be in a relationship (and even a long-term one) with someone else.

i mean, after all, she does canonically date hank peddigrew—for over a year!—in an effort to get over grissom, so it stands to reason she might do the same in a scenario where she had moved away from vegas expressly to romantically “start anew.”

if she did end up with the fbi, maybe she might meet some nice hunky agent and hit it off with him.

and maybe if he were uninquisitive regarding her past—more on that point below—she might even stay with him for a long while.

even so.

i don’t think it’d be the kind of deal where she’d be at all torn about dumping her boyfriend to go back to nevada with grissom when and if he turned up, just given the way she tends to operate.

see, the thing about sara is she has intimacy issues of her own. prior to her confession to grissom in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” she has literally never told anyone about her family history, and she never really intends to. the fact that she doesn’t—and, moreover, won’t even discuss anything even remotely adjacent to her family history at all, including anything to do with the first 18+ years of her life—makes for some ~weirdness~ in her romantic relationships.

as i talk about here,

outside of with grissom, sara tends to form shallow—mostly physical—relationships with good-looking guys to whom she does not very deeply relate, either on an intellectual level or a personal one. her mo seems to be “find somebody who’s pretty to look at and not altogether intolerable. stay with him until he disappoints you, and then move on. wash, rinse, repeat.” one might look at this pattern and say that sara simply has poor relationship skills (or, as warrick quips in episode 07x17 “fallen idols,” bad taste in men), but while that observation isn’t untrue, i think there’s more to the issue than perhaps first meets the eye. in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” sara mentions that she tends to “choose men who are emotionally unavailable”—and my thought is that she does so in order to protect herself from having to be vulnerable with them, and specifically so she won’t have to talk about her past... not just with hank, but with her college boyfriend, doug wilson, and taylor wynard, as well, sara chooses men who are emotionally unavailable as a safeguard against having to become emotionally intimate and/or disclose her past. she so fears anyone who were to learn the truth about her childhood and family history would reject and think badly of her she preemptively prevents this from happening by choosing to partner with men who are only too happy to keep their relationships with her at the surface level and based mostly on sex. grissom is where sara deviates from this pattern—first of all, in that her relationship with him, for a long time, isn’t sexual and yet is almost weirdly emotionally intimate, even without the sex; secondly, in that she eventually comes to trust grissom enough she is willing to disclose to him and tell him all of her secrets in a way she never has with anyone else, even at a time before they are technically dating, when their relationship is still nebulous.

because outside of her relationship with grissom, sara tends to purposefully initiate romantic relationships which are inherently shallow and remains purposefully evasive with her romantic partners regarding her past, i tend to think it would be difficult for her to form a serious relationship of the kind she would be reluctant to part ways from, were grissom to suddenly become a viable romantic option for her.

she might be dating a guy she liked when grissom came to town.

but loved? doubtful.

and loved enough to choose over grissom? no way.

grissom is really the only person she ever feels compelled to tell her full life story to—and she only does so with him because they have such an instantaneous, soul-deep connection; i.e., because she falls in love with him so immediately and completely she feels compelled to break what are otherwise some very unbreakable rules for her.

just as sara is the one person who could ever motivate grissom to deviate from his comfortable patterns, placing his career and his heart on the line, grissom is the one person who could ever motivate sara to tell the truth about her past.

he's really her only exception.

her one in seven billion.

so the likelihood she would ever even consider staying with mr. virginia would just be incredibly low—not if gil grissom turned up at her door, apologizing for his past missteps and demonstrating he was really, truly ready to be with her in the way she had always dreamt of.

now.

if grissom never wised up and came looking for her, could she in theory stay with mr. virginia—or whatever state she ended up settling in—in the long term, even if she might not marry him?

honestly, it would depend on how much space he gave her within their relationship.

if he was content never to know any biographical details about her prior to when she was college-age and never pushed to meet her parents or got curious about some of her particular personality quirks (like why she gets so cagey after working domestic violence cases, say), then she could probably stay with him contented-ishly for quite some time, settling because why the hell not? as long as the sex was good and he wasn’t an ass, he’d be better than nothing, right? even if he weren’t grissom.

true, she would never likely love him, and she would have no intention to ever open up to him of her own volition. but she could make do for a long time, insofar as he made no attempts to “break down her walls” or catch glimpse of all those parts of her she would prefer to keep secret.

of course, few people—aside from manipulators like hank peddigrew—are willing to remain in long-term relationships with people they know next to nothing about, and especially not with the relationship itself remaining largely superficial, based more on sex and shared activities than actual emotional connections.

most booty calls (even glorified ones) come with expiration dates.

as grissom and sara themselves discuss in episode 09x02 “the happy place,” relationships in stasis wither.

at some point, there has to be forward motion.

so most likely, at some point, this boyfriend would start asking sara to tell him more about how she grew up or would push her to take him “home” to meet mom and dad or would realize how seriously traumatized she was and would want to know by what.

and, like i said, i just tend to think sara would only ever be disposed to unveil herself to someone she was already in love with.

and in a world where she had already met grissom, loved grissom, and lost him, well—

even in his absence, i don’t know she would ever have it in her to fall in love with anyone else again, no matter how nice the guy were or how genuine his feelings for her.

hell, i don't even think she would ever actually get over grissom; she would still be in love with him, even given how he had broken her heart.

so if her boyfriend tried to get her to talk, she’d probably break up with him or else do something to sabotage the relationship.

and that would be the end of things.

she might then move on to someone else.

but the same pattern would play out again and again; her refusal to share the intimate details of herself would limit the viability of her long-term romantic relationships.

so ultimately if grissom never came looking for her, i think she’d end up alone.

of course, the good news is, i tend to think the likelihood of things ever getting to this point—of grissom “allowing” sara to leave vegas and then never going after her—is incredibly low.

once he realized sara’s seriousness about leaving (and her reasons for wanting to do so), grissom was always going to at least make an attempt to keep her from leaving.

and just like in canon with the green plant, i think if he could just find it in himself to show care for her (even without an admission of love or entry into a committed relationship), he could earn her forgiveness and convince her to stay.

because that’s the thing: ultimately, sara never wants to leave.

she wants a reason to stay.

and all he has to do is give one to her.

anyway.

i'm rambling now.

i hope i at least somewhat answered your question.

please feel welcome to send another one any time!

[no-side-us]

Letters From Watson Liveblog - Apr. 23

The Boscombe Valley Mystery, Part 2 of 3

First "rat-faced," then "bulldog features," and now "ferret-like." I can't wait to see what animal Watson will use to describe Lestrade next.

The use of a "women's intuition" as an explanation gets funnier the more simple and obvious the action is. Last time, it was used to describe a woman being able to recognize her own brother, something men would obviously be unable to do.

Here, Miss Turner is already familiar with Lestrade, and since she probably knows he called for Sherlock, she's probably read about him and would have some knowledge of his appearance.

This is a funny line if you remember that in the first letter young McCarthy was going rabbit hunting. That's why he had a gun with him.

Sherlock Holmes giving a young, distressed woman hopes is an established motif throughout these stories, so take that Lestrade.

Poor Watson, but this is what you get for comparing Lestrade to an animal in almost every case he's involved in.

Look at that, Watson using his medical expertise to help in the case. Although he's only doing so because he has nothing else better to do, it's nice to see him apply his skillset to solving the mystery instead of just observing Sherlock's.

Is this the British equivalent of getting blackout drunk and waking up married in Las Vegas? If so, I like to think getting "into the clutches of a barmaid in Bristol" was as common a trope back then as it kind of is today.

There's a whole other British drama occurring in the background of this case. McCarthy gets married young and foolhardy, meaning he can't marry the woman he actually loves, only for it to turn out that his wife isn't his wife at all and was already married, so he can marry the woman he loves, but her father doesn't like him and doesn't want the marriage to happen.

And also his dad is dead and he's in jail.

Throw in some classism and period-accurate clothing, and you've got yourself a series on the BBC.

Damn, looks like Charles McCarthy isn't the only one getting killed tonight.

This reads less like Sherlock investigating the scene of the crime and more like he's turning into a werewolf. Has that ever been done before? Sherlock as a werewolf? Adaptations have made him a mouse, sent him to the future, be into women, but I don't think there's one where he's a werewolf, which is a shame considering how well it fits here.

Turning back to human, you mean.

So he was killed with a stone.

Now that I think about it, considering that the elder Turner and McCarthy came back to England from Australia, that the killing blow was to the back of the head, and the lack of any other weapon at the scene of the crime, you know what would have been a cool murder weapon?

A boomerang.

Or you could do your job and catch a murderer. The information Sherlock gave was so specific I can't imagine Lestrade would have that difficult a time catching the guilty party.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

[mrscmobsession]

This is where it all started. I had just moved to Las Vegas into a nice home; I was a crime scene investigator in Chicago. I wanted a fresh start. I loved my job but needed to get away from home. My dad was a drug dealer, and my mom... well, I’m not sure. I still don't know why I chose Las Vegas, but I saw there were a few openings for a level 3 investigator, so I filled out an application and got the job.

Today is my first day. As I walked into the lab, I was greeted by an older gentleman who was going to be my boss. His name was Gil Grissom; he was my level 6 supervisor. He walked me through the lab, showing me everything and introducing me to the staff. When his phone rang, he said, "One sec" and stepped away. He returned and told me, "Today is going to be an interesting first day for you."

[twistedtummies2]

Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes - Number 26

Welcome to A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes! During this month-long event, I’ll be counting my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more!

SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “Truth brings closure.”

Number 26 is…Gil Grissom, from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Perhaps it’s just me, but it feels like a lot of modern mystery shows today tend to veer more towards “crime drama” than your more classic “detective story.” These are shows that feature a more or less ensemble cast, rather than focusing primarily on a single chief investigator. Oh, there may be one or two characters more important than the rest, but at the end of the day, it’s less about one man or woman putting the pieces together, and more a group of people who all have different jobs, working together to stitch the greater puzzle into one solid whole. They try to focus more on “real” detective work (and I use the quotation marks because, even then, there’s usually some romanticization involved), rather than the old-fashioned ideal of the singular sleuth.

I’m not saying this as a complaint, by the way; there are many great shows that have come out of this, and lasted for long periods of time, because something about this formula is as appealing as any other. One of the most popular and long-running examples – as well as one of the first I remember seeing a lot growing up (perhaps more than was healthy, given the nightmares I remember occasionally having) – is “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” The series, as its title implies, focuses on the adventures (if that’s an appropriate choice of word for them) of the CSI operatives of the Las Vegas Police Department. The show had a revolving door of cast members over the course of fifteen seasons (and, fittingly, fifteen years). While many characters came and went, for the first eight-and-a-half seasons of the program, if there was a main character to be found, it was this one: team leader Gil Grissom, played by William Petersen.

My biggest problem with CSI, to be honest, has always been its characters: with only a few exceptions, a lot of the members in the cast I just don’t feel were very interesting. I remember their faces, but I can’t tell you much when it comes to a lot of their personalities, and some characters I probably wouldn’t even remember by name if you asked me. I say all this because this was NOT the case for Gil Grissom: he is genuinely a really interesting, fun, unique character, and probably one of the best leads any crime series of this nature has ever had.

Grissom is a certified genius, who is known for being highly intellectual, and slightly eccentric. He’s fascinated by insects, being a passionate entomologist, but also has many other interests: history, literature, theatre, and art, among others. He speaks in a frequently poetic fashion, making references to various bits of trivia and offering moments of philosophical wisdom here and there. Ironically, he’s not that well-versed in a lot of pop culture references, despite all this. (I can relate.) Throughout the show, Petersen creates a wonderful character that is both detached and sensitive at the same time. On the one hand, Grissom isn’t made of stone; he can be irritated or unsettled by things around him, and he does sympathize with people and feel sorrow about situations beyond his control. He’s even got a spiritual side to his personality. However, he’s also a very logical and practical person: he’s a scientist, before all else, and believes in hard facts and evidence above all. He also doesn’t have many social graces, and will do bizarre and seemingly deranged things for the sake of proving a theory or testing a hypothesis. In short, he’s a bit like a modern day Sherlock Holmes…except maybe a bit less rude.

Part of the way through Grissom’s tenure, it was revealed that he was starting to go deaf, which signaled a change in his character. While he eventually got surgery to save his hearing, this paved the way for the character’s departure about halfway through Season 9. Later lead investigators would enter the series: first came Laurence Fishburne as Ray Langston, who had probably one of the most wild departures from the series to his credit. Following him was Ted Danson as D.B. Russell, who to HIS credit got an episode with an “Alice in Wonderland” theme. (For me, that’s always a plus.) Neither were bad characters – all three leads were the most memorable ones in the show, for me – but I never felt as attached to them as I did Grissom, possibly at least partially because they just weren’t around for as long as he was. For me, whenever I think of this show, I always think of Petersen as Gil Grissom before anybody else.

Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 25!

CLUE: “How did people survive before there were pattern-recognizing sparse representation algorithms?”

[deepestbluesky]

[the not actual image description is that this is a very barebones powerpoint in which each slide has picture(s) of a kinnporsche character and bullet point text describing it. the full text is under the cut below the latter set of pictures.]

all text from @minnarr​!!! now, onwards

[title slide] minna explains kinnporsche without knowing it

[kinn] kinn ● eyebrows ● was written lowkey as RPF of actor who plays him and i would like to never think about that but people remind me constantly ● smiling imp emoji ● also this man has a lot of buttons open but if that coat is red i approve

[porsche] this IS porsche right? his bangs are actually covering his forehead ● he's kinn's bodyguard? which is the opposite casting to what I thought would be true before I figured out which was which. He just looks very mild. Protect him. ● something deeply wrong with him but i haven't absorbed enough to know if it's personal or systemic ● lol sometimes if you change anything about the hairline i do not recognize a person ● (porsche i think of as having like 90s heartthrob hair for some reason) ● [upon seeing bodyguard hairstyle] i must inflate my hair to look intimidating. like a bird.

[porchay] oh... i don't know ● he looks like he's 17 but also I'm trash at judging ages. DOES look like he's waiting until he can go back to his video game ● [would you like to make any guesses or nah?] at names? god no ● i know like 3 names that i can't match to anyone and i know them wholly disconnected from anything about them as people ● pete? is this Pete? ● i have no idea how anyone besides kinn and porsche even fit in the story

[tankhun] i think this might be tankhun ● REALLY loving this matching coat and cape in colorful floral ● do his pants have fun organic cutouts ● no wait those are shiny leather boots ● or pants. ok ● wow this is a look. ok. well this man is NOT doing the fighting. he is either very scary or very fun. or both. ● IS he the third crime brother or is my brain just insisting literally everyone has this surname ● one thing this show does is let men wear fun things

[pete] is THIS Pete ● i saw a vegaspete gifset either today or yesterday and the only thing i retained about pete's face is that he looked nice ● good laugh 10/10 what is he doing here ● bought a 10pk of white hanes tshirts and got invited to whatever This is ● (i don't know if this last is even remotely accurate to his vibe or if I'm judging on 1 picture and faint memory) ● either vegas is the sex dungeon haver or I'm hilariously wrong about Pete's vibe

[kim] kim (crime bros surname)???? ● the guy who would be besties with nie huaisang ● he looks like he's here to have fun and take pictures on his phone to save to his terrifyingly extensive blackmail folder ● again he has little brother energy ● i do like his face. i wanna see him in scenes ● like the way you distantly blorbo people from gifs. he's my favorite kp guy.

[vegas] vegas ● [within 1 second of seeing picture] sex dungeon ● please save his hedgehog ● he's one of the 3 people i can name

[korn] ...d..dad? ● i frankly did not know this show had anyone other than pretty 20-30 year old men ● [we talked about this and you went 'there are OLD PEOPLE?'] i have simply never seen them!!! ● ok he's either crime dad or the guy who's the reason kp are sleeping in like military-ass transports and getting helicoptered to safety ● (rival crime boss?)

[kun] also i think the first old man is the villain and the second older man is crime dad ● Oh No I Like Him ● otoh he could be crime dad and the fashion is genetic ● otoh. delightful dissipated uncle when ● i still think he should be the uncle who is no help at all but is very excited to hear about what dumb thing his nephews are getting up to now with vibes of kind of wanting to be on the young people's level. upside can be counted on for resources at odd moments but only if it's for a stupid purpose ● i don't think that's what he is but i want it for the crime bros

[slide with no picture] pause to recap ● ok so [for the first five] we have kinnporsche tanhkun fabulous crime brother flannelboy (tentatively porchay) and Pete ● if that's all the young people btw I'm locking in porchay? on flannelboy ● fuck if i know maybe one of the young dudes is the villain. maybe it's vegas. maybe it's brother vs brother.

[yok] my best friend ● i love her ● fashion is a little glitzy maybe to be porsche's friend even though i wanted that for him....does kinn have friends he seems like he probably mostly hangs out with family and people he pays to be around him ● lighting is very clubby tho so like ● just club clothes ● i have no clue how she fits in but i bet she has a nice laugh and takes no shit

[slide with multiple pictures - the first one is ken] ● trust fund brat ● i know they're not british but he has such POWERFUL unbearable character on Sherlock energy ● either that or like baby's first (very nice) suit

[big] ● oh!!!! it's a uniform!!!! ● these two are like lower level bodyguards. or kinn's actual family-hired bodyguards and kinn like hired porsche after a weird meet-ugly involving gunfire and now the vibe is awkward ● this one is anxious

[middle text] .... bad analogy probably need a better wording but to use cql again. first bodyguard is the sizhui and second bodyguard is the Jingyi the Calm One and the one you need to tell Calm Down

[slide with two pictures - the first one is tay] ● also omg this was dyed hair boy ● i was picturing BOTH kim(?) and this man. amalgam gossip friend. ● also the flowy pants/all white/heeled boot/"are you talking to me?" look ● extremely good

[chan] ● kim's bodyguard for the thousandth time telling him no, you need to stay where it's safe ● this is probably incorrect and I'm now just judging anyone with a lapel pin a bodyguard ● this is a very bouncer vibe tho

[macau] ● this one actually is a teenager, right? that looks like a school uniform shirt although maybe not bc idk what school with embroidered patch uniform shirts is also like sure boys can wear hoops [we give away my extremely usamerican Christian school experience] ● better caption What Is a Child Doing Here

[extra text for macau] have i miscalculated did i either misassign a crime boy or are there 4 crime boys. i feel like one of these children should be here for family reasons wait unless one is porsche's brother not this one flannelboy [a picture of the i’ve connected the dots meme]

[slide with two pictures - the first is arthee] ● :( ● give him a cup of tea and a bandaid ● he just looks sad for some reason! ● who are you woebegone man

[time] ● i would not have chosen the turtleneck ● i know the other shirt is also turtleneck but this is "shirt i wore in the 90s" mockneck and i cannot define why it makes me want to laugh ● he is doing bad cosplay of bleach mullet ● that NECKLACE is NOT HELPING

[slide with three pictures - the first is tawan] ● surprisingly the first shirtless boy ● i like his hair, he looks a little smarmy, the vanity mirror + shirtless is giving me either he's in showbiz or he has too many people in private rooms ● do love the noir blinds thing happening. maybe he's a femme fatale. ● i looked at him and literally thought "hair goals" lmaooo

[jom and tem] ● they look nice and also the set dressing is SO suburban ● if i had to assign them a fic trope it's accidental child acquisition fake (or real) marriage ● they are on the pta ● (i truly have no idea)

[arm] oh no i love his vibe and his glasses ● 'i know organized crime needs shady bookkeepers/lawyers/IT professionals but did it have to be me, with these particular criminals' ● my first thought was "cast him as Indiana Jones" bc hair and glasses so that's just send me back to first impression

[netflixandchillwream]

Now You See ME 2

Another week, Another movie review. And today I will be reviewing Now you see me 2. The first movie is one of the best magic films I've ever seen. It has character and originality, plot twists and many more. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for the second film. It feels like the film is trying to be something it’s not giving off a try hard look. Now you see me 2 still delivered a somewhat entertaining experience. One of my personal favorite experiences was the disappearing card trick.

The visual effects and misdirection screams magic. Which is what this movie is supposed to be all about. Really had me reminiscing about the first film as they manipulated the card containing the chip they were trying to steal. Even though that scene was way longer than it should've been, The more you watch on the more you see that the tricks felt like a step down from the ones they had in the first movie instead of upgrading. This movie also felt like an off brand crime film. I know it's a magic film and it's supposed to not be realistic, however I don't understand how in this movie they jump locations every 5 minutes. New Orleans, Las Vegas, China, England. The plot that has many twists and turns does keep you entertained but they feel rushed and cheap. In my honest opinion Now you see me 2 deserves a 3.5 out of 5 stars. This film is one of those sequels that just didn't need to happen. They should’ve ended on a good note with this first movie instead of getting greedy. It’s not as good as the first movie was but let's be honest most sequels aren't. This movie still managed to deliver a sense of wonder with a mix of suspense. I do recommend watching this movie for that card scene alone. It truly is a sight to see. That's it for this week's review. Catch me next week :)

[gloriousmonsters]

so i technically watched all but the last 20 minutes of kp like, four days ago, and then J and I had to stop because it was too insane and we ran out of energy, and then we just finished today. uh. thoughts?

J called it 'the puella madoka magica of BL' at one point and we both also repeatedly compared it to 365 Days, the insane terrible trilogy about a woman who gets kidnapped by a mafia guy and then marries him. EXCEPT actually 365 Days is better because she breaks up with the first mafia guy when he gets even more abusive than before and gets herself a nice boyfriend who treats her right. still in the mafia but we can't have it all. (this is partly a joke. I am not saying the 365 days books are good. this is about the specific plot point) but anyway. the 'oh this is x genre-oh no wait this is horrifying' of it all

i knew kinn and porsche had to end up together because. title :((( but god i was rooting SO hard for it to not happen somehow. PVP is still the realest they all have better chemistry. ending of the heart is that vegas and porsche and pete all like fake their deaths in an explosion or something and move to another country with chay and macau. they can get a house together and vegas can make a proper kink room instead of draping his bedroom with aesthetic chains and porsche can open a bar because by god it might not be the healthiest job for him but it's 100x better than the mafia

the way they spend the whole time showing how horrific the mafia is like not even on a 'killing and shaking down people and various other crimes etc' level but on a 'loyalty in this environment only gets you killed and everyone is super dysfunctional and relationships cannot flourish in this environment' level and then the end is. yaaaay everyone's happy in the mafia! porsche is the head of a mafia family now! yaaaaaay

i do not for a single millisecond believe anything that comes out of korn's mouth. genuinely one of the most rancid skin-crawling assholes i've seen in a while and he lives. the fuck

relatedly i actually wound up feeling really bad for gun in the last ep, like... he's a fucked up dude and abusive but he has SUCH glaring emotional problems (in a way that reminded me in places of vegas) and the way he reacts to korn is soso. 'dealing with bitch who's gaslighted you before', which made him way more sympathetic than korn. (I do not for a minute believe the whole 'oh uh he raped porche's mom and that made her take magic pills that conveniently made her into a docile doll for korn to keep as an atticwife')

relatedly! PORSCHE'S MOM IS A FUCKING ATTICWIFE

*takes porsche by the shoulder and points* honey that's you in five years. get the fuck out of here

but like wow!! the way even her sons just treat her as an object to have feelings at instead of a damaged person and the series literally ends with a focus on her dead-eyed face as she's hugged without her consent! awful! also feels thematic!

love how porsche gives chay a speech about how he totally loves him and is going to be there for him and then proceeds to risk his life recklessly and stay in the mafia, both things chay Specifically Asked Him Not To Do

moment of positivity; despite everything, the after-credits scene of vegas having survived and getting to cuddle with his two favorite people was so healing

but like.... porsche ends the series in a job he once swore he'd rather die than do, with a guy who after one time never apologizes for any of his shitty actions, surrounded by Kinn's friends instead of his own. but uh kinn made him a drink i'm sure that makes up for everything

Really wish we had a bit more closure for kim and chay - it kind of felt like they needed more scenes the whole way along and then it kind of closes out with a big ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ mostly I really wanted them to properly confront each other, but I would have settled for an indication that chay was going to continue to block him (probably healthy) or maybe be open to talking again (unwise for him probably, but i Do want the best for my dead-eyed boy so i'm conflicted)

so overall like. I really enjoyed the bits of porsche and pete and vegas interacting along the way, and how vegas and pete got to close the series (though I still think they should fake their deaths). the swerve from slightly more normal crime/family drama to EXTREME GOTHIC was. A Lot. justice for porsche's sexy lamp mom whose name i cannot remember i'm sorry ma'am. #freeporsche. overall i think i'm going to be digesting this for a bit and then probably move on, but I'm glad I watched it

[hannahssimblr]

Could we get a similar synopsis of Dustland Fairytale please?

hahaha YES!

It's the late 1980s in a trailer park in the southwest of the US. 21 year old Jolene Jones has decided that today, her birthday, is the day that she's had enough. She's had a tough upbringing, she never knew who her father was, her mother is a violent alcoholic and only gotten worse ever since things ended things with Dwayne, her used car salesman boyfriend, five years ago. Dwayne had a bit of a thing for teenage Jolene, enough that her mother got jealous of her, and since then things have been pretty messy at home.

Jolene has been saving money for a long time, and she has a plan of action.

She doesn't have a whole lot to her name, but she has a few thousand dollars, some brochures about Fabulous Las Vegas and a number she secured of a private investigator, Lou. The plan is straight forward. She'll meet with Lou in Vegas and he'll help her like he said he would. She's looking for her brother. Social services came and took him away years ago, and now she wants to be reunited.

She finds somewhere to stay and gets a job in the kitchen of a filthy diner. Dish duty! There she meets Caroline, the worst woman to ever walk the earth, and it's totally her fault that someone found a toenail in their salad. Caroline takes a shine to Jolene though, and soon they get up to all sorts together.

Including robbing a mans wallet and dividing out the cash, then trying to steal a car radio and failing, then getting arrested. Oops!

Jolene, who wasn't actually caught doing anything, is let off with a warning but Caroline, who has seen the inside of the police station more times than her own kitchen, has to be bailed out. Jolene ends up having to fork over her own money to help, meaning that her savings are already dwindling and she's been set back on her mission to find her brother.

Caroline and Jolene pivot away from the crime angle and try their hand at writing a hit song for some performer in town. It's a stupid idea, and they try to rhyme Stiletto with Spaghetti-O.

Jolene gets promoted to waitress, even though she's shit at her job, but it's only because one of the others is on leave for scandalous reasons. She' hears the whole story about how Candy got pregnant, but she's not sure that her boyfriend is the father. Apparently it's a guy called Nash Buckley who got her knocked up. What a name. She wears Candy's uniform and totally fucks up everything. She's a terrible waitress.

Jolene, armed with her shitty song, heads downtown to try and, like, sell it to someone or some shit! She quickly realises she doesn't know what she's doing, but then suddenly! Serendipity! Nash Buckley's name is there in lights! He's performing tonight at a country music dive on the outskirts of town. Jolene argues with the security at the stage door and claims to be Candy (even though she is clearly not 7 months pregnant). She wrangles her way in and meets Nash Buckley in the hallway.

You're not Candy, he says. No, Jolene says, but I have an opportunity for you. See I've written this song and maybe you could buy it from me! He's not that interested, but he placates her because he's a bit of a sleaze and he thinks she's pretty. He tells her she can come into his dressing room for a lil chat and maybe he'll think about looking at her little song.

There's another performer on stage, Jolene can hear him singing, and while Nash is trying to woo her or whatever Jolene is looking around the dressing room. She notices the other performer has left a jacket draped over a chair, and in the pocket is his wallet. She waits for Nash to be distracted by something and swiftly plucks the wallet out. She says that something has come up and she suddenly has to go. She flees the scene before Nash can figure out what's happened.

For some reason this mystery guy, J.V, as were the initials sewn into the collar of his velvet jacket, has two thousand fucking dollars on her person, and now Jolene has every cent of it on hers. She calls up Lou and arranges an appointment with him. She finally has enough money to get this private investigator thing going!

Except she doesn't. Lou changes his tune and says that for um... reasons, he suddenly needs four thousand dollars instead. Goddamn. Jolene goes back to the diner to try and scrounge up more tips.

A customer complains that there's a hair floating in his coffee, so Jolene goes to sort it out when she realises the complainer is Nash Buckley. Ugh! He convinces her to sit with him and then starts asking her about the missing money. You took that from my friend, he says. I know it was you.

He says his friend is going to get her for this, I guess he's just showing up to scare her. He tosses a few dimes at her as a tip and leaves.

Meanwhile a mystery man starts showing up around town.... He's totally creepy but he gives Jolene a big tip so she's fine with it. Unfortunately not sharing tips is a policy in this godforsaken restaurant, and Jolene's fellow waitresses kick up a fuss about it to the point that Jolene gets fired. Oops!

And then just when things can't get worse a man shows up asking for his money back. Nash said I'd find you here, he says, I think you have money that belongs to me. Jolene runs away as fast as she can.

For some reason Jolene thinks it will be a good idea to move in with Caroline, the worst woman on earth. Her apartment somehow isn't gross though! On her first night Jolene has a nightmare though, and it's that she's back home in the trailer park, it's a disturbing memory of Dwayne, her mothers boyfriend, assaulting her in the dark.

Anyway, Nash is somehow fucking Caroline now. I guess he just really likes waitresses from the diner that leaves hairs in his coffee.

While hanging out and smoking inside (it's the 80s) Nash tells Jolene that she better pay his friend back OR ELSE. He says his friend is called Jack, and he's super pissed off about getting robbed in that dressing room! She better cough it up.

Jolene confesses that she really can't afford to give it back, there are important life things at stake here! And her brother is missing! Nash tells her that he can get her a job at a cabaret in town, and that she's pretty enough to work there. The only catch is that she'll have to take her clothes off for gross men. Oh well.

He's a gross man too so maybe he's giving her a taste of the new life she could have, but he tries to kiss her while Caroline is passed out drunk in a chair beside them. Cool!

Jolene gets a job at the cabaret and becomes friends with another girl who works there - Nadine, a total beauty queen. She's street smart too, and wise. She warns Jolene that Nash might be trying to get into her pants, and that she should keep her wits about her because he's a slippery lil bastard. Trust no one in this town!

Doesn't matter though, Nash and Jolene get drunk on cocktails and make out, and nobody cares about what Caroline might say, because she defo won't find out. He tries to take things further and get romantic in the bathroom but Jolene is too drunk and she just ends up getting cosy with the toilet instead.

after a rude awakening from Caroline, Jolene showers quickly and heads in for her first day at her new job. The uniform is crazy. It's literally underwear lmao. She learns that Nash's friend Jack comes in sometimes, and begins to nervously wonder if this whole thing was a set up by Nash. Maybe he really is a slippery, sneaky bastard like Nadine said he was.

Jolene and Nadine go out to a club where they meet Nash. He talks to Jolene and decides to get offended when he learns that she doesn't remember much from the night before. He rants about how she doesn't actually like him and how she was just using him and it was the alcohol that made out with him, not her. She feels super bad, and he convinces her to go somewhere quiet to talk it out.

aaaand they go to his apartment and drink beers.

and kiss

and almost have sex but Jolene doesn't want to! Nash is totally uncool about this obviously lol!

Nash hangs out with his horrible friends, including Jack who is, spoiler alert, not actually horrible. Nash goes on and on about his pretty new girlfriend and how nice she is and then when Jack presses him on who she is he lies. I guess he's not trying to set Jolene up for failure after all.

Back home Jolene admits to Caroline that she's been seeing Nash. Caroline freaks out and gets super mad, not because they've been seeing the same man, but because Jolene is like, way too good for Nash! What was she thinking! She vows to go beat the shit out of him.

which she does!!! lmao go Cazza. Nash is furious with Jolene for telling Caroline, and basically twists everything so that she looks like the villain while he is an innocent victim who totally didn't manipulate a naive girl. He slams the door in her face.

Time moves on and summer ends and the creep starts showing up and Jolene's new work. Is he following her? (yes)

Anyway, on the same night the boys are out getting smashed. Nash, who is still hurt over Jolene, decides to become a rat bastard and tell Jack that he's going to get his money back tonight. The girl who took it works at the cabaret in town.

Too bad Nash get's alcohol poisoning before he can ruin her life. Jolene hauls him to a hotel across the street and tries to bring him to. He's unconscious. She calls an ambulance, convinced he's dead, but unfortunately he isn't.

At the hospital, once he's okay again, Jolene asks Nash why he tries to rat her out to Jack and ruin her life, to which he says "i was mad at you." O K. He manipulates her into going out with him again, and by the end of the chapter they are an item.

Two horrible creepy & ugly men have a boring meeting in the cabaret office. One, the owner of a magazine for men, wants to look for new models who are going to get butt naked for the new edition. Idk why he came to this musty dusty cabaret to look, but this is just what happens idk. They decide to send Jolene. Fun! She agrees to do it because she'll get a butt load of money to.

I'll have to make a part 2

[halestrom]

Untilted vegas!john

I've been noodling on this for awhile, and sat down and wrote the beginning today I love this fucking opening scene like 10/10 gold stars for me, and I wanted to share it.

TW for: a murdered child as the victim Detective Sheppard is investigating

John stared at the tiny body on the ground, half buried in the sand in the middle of nowhere ten miles outside of Las Vegas and wished he could believe that it was just a small adult, but he had been on the job for too long to allow himself that little bit of hope. He sighed and crouched down, scratching at his jaw and the stubble he had been too lazy to shave that morning and stared at the body. He was aware of the silence around him as people bustled about, the crime lab techs taking in everything they could, but he doubted they’d find anything.

People came to Vegas to forget, and the desert had a way of making people forgettable as sun and sand scoured away anything they could use. But they hoped, they would always hope for something.

“Detective Sheppard?”

John turned, tilting the brim of his hat back with one finger enough so he could see who approached. “Dr. Lam,” he said, nodding his head at the medical examiner. He turned to look back at the small body, the unnatural angle of the kids neck and shook his head. “Anything?”

“We won’t know for a while,” Lam said, crouching down next to him. “How many is this?”

“Five,” John murmured, rubbing a hand over his face again, feeling the familiar hate towards himself for asking for his job back. If he had left, if he had taken his second chance and account full of money and run then he wouldn’t be there, staring down at the fifth small body in as many weeks and he could be ignorant.

But he had taken his second chance and had decided he wanted to use it to try and help others get second chances. And some days, especially days like then, he hated himself for it.

“Anything?” Lam asked, sounding as desperate as John felt.

“A lot of things, just no direction, not yet” John said, wishing it was like the movies and he could solve it in a day.

“Fuck,” Lam said before she stood, squeezing his shoulder. “I’ll put a rush on it.”

“No need,” John said, standing up as well.

“I’m going to, I got a kid about her age,” Lam said by way of explanation.

John nodded his head once as he slipped his glasses back on and stared around the small area they were in. There was nothing except for the promise of civilization on the horizon, but it was the middle of the summer and John could feel his shirt sticking to his back, sweat rolling down the side of his neck and he had seen too much to pray to something he didn’t believe in, not anymore, but he could hope.

“Won’t say no,” he said, shooting Lam a half smile and nodding, tipping the brim of the hat that was doing it’s best to keep the sun off his face and moving out of her way as the rest of her people crowded in, murmuring to each other as they got to work.

He began to walk in circles, his eyes on the ground as he searched for anything out of the ordinary, but the sand was loose here, wild, not tamped down by the feet of tourists who were eager to see the search for beauty in the desolation around them. Something caught his eye and he stopped, crouching down and he felt the hope flair for a second before he tamped it down as he finally recognized a bottle cap, ubiquitous with it’s silver sheen but it was far enough from any road that John hoped that it was something more than a token left over by some kids out on a joyride at night.

He waved over one of the lingering crime scene techs to bag it up, hoping for at least a partial. He stepped away, his fingers tapping over the phone in his back pocket, debating if he should, before he slid it out and dialed a number he had been given, written on the underside of a pack of spearmint gum. It went straight to voice mail, like it always did, but the box was never full, no matter how many messages he left. He never expected an answer, but it was nice to talk to someone who didn’t want him to solve the problem.

“Got another alien for you,” John murmured into the phone as he kept circling, his eyes darting around, thankful that for all his issues his eyesight was still perfect. “Or I hope it’s an alien. The victim isn’t, but I hope the perp is. Because sometimes, some of the shit I see makes me wish that it was alien so I could pretend humanity isn’t capable of this.”

John stopped, his eyes caught on something else, and he stepped forward, tilting his head to the side before he sighed as the wind ruffled and the small scrap of paper blew over to reveal a sun-bleached image of a woman promising a good time. “But humanity is capable of this and so much more. Tell me, Doc. Do aliens kill each other because they enjoy it? Or is this a strictly human trait?”

“Detective!”

John turned to see one of the crime techs waving at him and he sighed again. “Sometimes, I don’t know if I want to know the answer or not,” he said before he hung up and made his way across the sand. “What do you have?” he asked, sliding his phone into his pocket.

[invisiblekatanaartwork]

Artist’s Blog #141 - Pulp Fiction (1994)

Discover the Hidden Depths of Pulp Fiction in the Tarantino Universe

You know how some movies reveal something new with every watch? Pulp Fiction is one of those for me. I just watched it again to collect my thoughts on this masterpiece. It’s arguably the best film in the Tarantino universe. Anyone familiar with Quentin Tarantino’s work knows that all his movies are interconnected, and Pulp Fiction is no exception. I’ve also written about Death Proof. If you’re a Tarantino fan, check out my blogs on Machete, Hobo with a Shotgun, Planet Terror, and Switchblade Sisters. These all tie back to the man himself, Quentin Tarantino, in some fashion. But now, let’s focus on Pulp Fiction. Grab your pistols, suits, and hop in the ‘74 Chevy Nova. We’re riding straight into this week’s blog.

Why Jack Rabbit Slim’s and Other Pulp Fiction Details Always Surprise

During this viewing, I was reminded of the vibrant café scene with Vega and Mia before her overdose. In the real world, I’ve always wondered about is how drugs like meth, heroin, or cocaine could be confused—especially since they’re all white powders. That kind of mistake could easily lead to an overdose. Narcan seems much easier than adrenaline straight to the blood pump, right? Anyway, I digress. Sadly, Jack Rabbit Slim’s doesn’t exist (you can read more here). Something I noticed this time was the Attack of the 50ft Woman poster hanging on the wall. I’ve blogged about this classic too (read here). There’s so much to talk about in Pulp Fiction, so let’s keep going.

A fun side thought: If I won the lottery, opening a restaurant like Jack Rabbit Slim’s would be a dream. Although, securing the rights might take more than my winnings! You know the memes that say, “If I won the lottery, there would be signs?” This would be one of mine.

Tarantino’s Genius: How Luck and Misfortune Shape Pulp Fiction

Tarantino’s genius shows in every part of his work. Each line, gesture, song, and backdrop is meticulously crafted, like Brad Pitt’s hand gesture in Inglorious Basterds. Nothing seems accidental in Tarantino’s films, and that attention to detail makes his movies stand out. As I watched, I noticed a recurring theme of luck and misfortune. Read on.

Let’s talk about Jules and Vincent Vega. Vega’s bad luck ultimately leads to his demise, which raises a curious question: Is he deaf in the bathroom? Meanwhile, Jules gets a lucky break, surviving what should have been a deadly gunfight. After the bullet holes reveal his miracle survival, he changes his ways and, as far as we know, survives both the movie and the life of crime. Marsellus Wallace, on the other hand, has terrible luck when Zed picks him first, making Butch much luckier. Butch, however, cares enough to help Marsellus, and that’s where Marsellus gets a little lucky. Butch’s luck continues when Marsellus lets him off with a warning: “There is no us, and leave town today.” It’s definitely a better deal than the alternative.

Breaking Down the Segments of Pulp Fiction: Tarantino’s Masterpiece

One of the best parts of Pulp Fiction is how it’s divided into sections. It’s a complex story, and the segmented structure helps you keep track of everything. Each part, like all of Tarantino’s movies, is filled with long, captivating dialogues that make you feel like you’ve known these characters forever. My favorite part must be the Jules and Vega scenes, from “the big brain on Brett” all the way to the final café confrontation. These segments make it easier to watch just your favorite parts, too. What’s your favorite segment? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Dialog and Accents: Adding Depth to the Characters of Pulp Fiction

The dialogue in Pulp Fiction hits different for me. In particular, the accents in the Bruce Willis (Butch) segment stand out. I’m not an expert on accents, but the two female characters sound French to me. The depth of these conversations feels like a real exchange you could overhear anywhere. Then there’s Butch’s partner, whom he lovingly calls “Blueberry Pie” or something. She talks about women having “pot bellies.” It makes me wonder if she’s hinting at pregnancy, but it’s never made clear. This type of dialogue is so intriguing because it feels so raw and real, especially with the added layer of the French accent.

Gangsters in Pulp Fiction: When Real Gangsters Enter the Room

There’s a famous quote by John Gotti: “Everyone is a gangster until a real gangster enters the room.” This perfectly describes Jules in the café scene. Jules and Vincent have been doing real gangster work all day—executing people, surviving a gunfight, and cleaning up a car covered in brains. When they walk into a café that is robbed by low-level criminals Honey Bunny and Ringo, it’s clear these wannabe gangsters are out of their depth. Jules’ calm demeanor, especially when Ringo holds him at gunpoint, is priceless. If someone looks you dead in the eyes and asks if this is the first time you’ve pointed a gun at someone, you need to let them keep their wallet – the one that says Bad M****** F***** on it.

The Dark Side of Marsellus Wallace’s Revenge in Pulp Fiction

Okay, this might be the darker side of me speaking, but I kind of wish Tarantino had included a scene showing Marsellus’s “hard piper hitters” exacting revenge. You know, the ones with pipe wrenches and blowtorches. I bet that hillbilly boy was wishing he’d been finished off with the katana like his accomplice. Going first in that situation wasn’t a winning move. It reminds me of the real-life tragedy where Waylon Jennings lost his plane tickets to The Big Bopper or Ritchie Valens—talk about a case of bad luck. I don’t remember the exact details of this story. If it’s even true.

Surf Music and Pulp Fiction: Why It Works So Well in Tarantino’s Films

Surf music fits so well in Pulp Fiction, don’t you think? Figuring out why Tarantino uses it so effectively would be fascinating. Is Pulp Fiction his best work? Personally, I’d rank it just behind Kill Bill, but that’s because I’m a sucker for Kung Fu theater. Kill Bill has a bit of an edge for me because of that. On a side note, I’ve painted a piece of Pulp Fiction fan art, and I’m working on more. I just need the right items to paint on, and the time to do it!

Why Pulp Fiction Is a Fan Favorite: My Thoughts as an Artist

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this artist’s thoughts on Pulp Fiction. I invite you to follow my art journey on social media, visit my website, and consider supporting and buying my work here. If you liked this blog or the movie, please share. Also, feel free to comment, especially if you are a Quinton Tarantino fan. Peace.