#meta: grissom

[addictedtostorytelling]

hi aj! still on my rewatch (slowly but surely) and i reached 9.01. i noticed that when grissom hears on the police radio that warrick was shot he was actually buying a traveller magazine and wonder if he had been thinking of joining sara then. do you think that he would have reached that point even if they hadn’t lost warrick? i feel like his death is the first trigger to grissom deciding to retire. thanks so much for all your patience in answering these! have a great week 🤍

hi, rewatch anon!

good to hear from you again!

so i have a much longer, more detailed post outlining what i think grissom's state of mind re: following sara is between s8 and s9 which you can read here, if you're interested.

but the tl; dr version is that i think while the grissom of episode 09x01 "for warrick" may well have sara on the brain when he picks up the traveller magazine—he may be thinking of her travels and/or be considering going to visit her wherever she is and/or be mulling going on a vacation with her—for my money, he is not yet consciously considering leaving vegas to be with her (or at least not on a permanent basis) for two main reasons.

the first reason why he isn't ready to follow sara during s8 is because he feels that maybe her having some time away from him is "for the best."

as i talk about in this post,

remember: [in s8,] sara has just walked out on him, and for as much as her reasons for doing so have everything to do with her mental health and nothing to do with a lack of love for or desire to hurt him, the bottom line is that her decision isn’t one made in a vacuum; regardless of her intentions, her leaving (and especially so abruptly) does cause him pain and stoke his fears that he doesn’t fulfill her needs. he is left wondering if she could have stayed were he a better partner to her—more attentive, more experienced in love, less “in his own head.” those emotional wounds and self-doubts carry with him the whole time she’s gone, and they definitely figure in to why he doesn’t immediately go chasing after her.

his (flawed) inference is that if he had been providing sara with everything she needed from him emotionally, she wouldn't ever have left las vegas to begin with, so maybe it's best if he—and all of his emotional obtuseness—steer clear of her for the time being while she figures things out and seeks the support she needs elsewhere.

the last thing he wants in the world is to get in the way of her recovery, you know?

his second reason also ties in with the first:

he isn't prepared to follow sara yet because he is somewhat hopeful there ultimately is no need for him to do so.

because he and sara are still in regular phone contact at that time (see episodes 08x08 "you kill me" and 08x12 "grissom's divine comedy"), he has some sense that sara is not completely cut off from him and their life together in vegas; he feels as if that door is still open, at least a crack, and he is as optimistic as a realist/pessimist like him can be that she will eventually walk through it and return to him, once she has sufficiently recovered her mental health.

his plan is to honor her wishes by staying in vegas himself, giving her the time and space she needs to pursue healing, patiently waiting until she is ready to finally return home to him.

though of course he does have fears that maybe she might decide to stay away permanently—after all, it wouldn't be grissom if he didn't struggle to believe in his own lovability—between his own fears regarding his "unworthiness" and his cautious hopes that sara just needs to recalibrate before she is ready to come back to him, he remains firmly planted in vegas for the six months she is away (between november '07 and may '08).

the way i see things, it isn't until after sara's second departure from vegas in s9 that he really starts to consider following her into "the great unknown," not only because he has a sense that, at that point, her absence from sin city is more permanent but also because, as you mention, by then he is himself becoming burnt out on his job and bears some deep wounds from warrick's death which also contribute to his readiness to leave.

as i talk about here,

[by s9,] grissom is a man on the brink.  ever since sara left vegas in s8, grissom has missed her terribly and been struggling with depression. the lab, which was once his safe place, his “well-ordered kingdom” in an otherwise chaotic world, has become increasingly strange and unwelcoming to him, and particularly as the team has changed, with sara’s departure (which sparked the beginning of the end), warrick’s death (which has been, in itself, another huge and devastating blow), and riley’s addition (which has proven to grissom that things will never be the same again as they were before).   add in the extra heartbreak of sara returning briefly to vegas for warrick’s funeral, spending four months in town, and then suddenly leaving again without even saying goodbye—plus the fact that grissom feels as if he may have truly lost her this time around, given his unwillingness to follow her into the unknown—and you’ve got a grissom who is one step away from completely falling apart.  whereas he once took satisfaction and even comfort in his job, nowadays the cases he investigates horrify and disturb him. he’s lost his appetite. he’s having nightmares. he can barely sleep. barely think. one of the worst parts to all of this is that he is without his usual support system: normally, when he needs comfort, encouragement, and understanding, he turns to sara, but he can’t do that now, not with her gone. what’s more: he is almost haunted by sara’s absence. she was at the heart of both his work and his home life. she was his partner, his right hand, his roommate, his confidante, his support system,his best friend, his lover, his spouse, and his whole world. every place he goes reminds him of her in some way, from their condo (which now feels impossibly empty in her absence), to the lab, to different places around the city where they’ve investigated crimes. hell, he can’t even sleep without dreaming about her—about how he’s lost her. she’s everywhere to him and yet nowhere, and he can’t seem to focus on anything aside from the terrible ache in his chest from missing her so much. that’s the mental space that grissom is in going into episode 09x05 “leave out all the rest”—and then the episode starts with sara finally contacting him, after so many months of radio silence, only to break up with him via video email, telling him not to worry about her anymore and acting like what they’ve had is ~over, even though, for him, it very much isn’t. that is the final blow—the thing that pushes him to the absolute brink of his ability to cope.

so, ultimately, it isn't just one factor that brings grissom to the point where he is ready to leave town but rather a concatenation of them.

outside of missing sara, he is also becoming increasingly horrified by the human depravity he witnesses night in and night out on his job (see, for example, his reaction to the case in episode 09x06 "say uncle") and increasingly unsatisfied with the changes to his work life and team (including the losses of both sara and warrick and the addition of riley adams to the graveyard shift).

warrick's death likewise weighs on him.

heavily.

as i talk about here,

obviously, when warrick dies, it’s devastating for grissom, not only because he holds warrick in his arms as it happens but because he loved warrick so deeply. for as much as grissom’s s9 depression is a product of him missing and being heartbroken over sara, it also is a product of his grief over warrick—and i honestly think that had warrick not died at that time, grissom probably would have taken longer to decide to leave the lab than he does in canon; warrick’s death just shuts the door on that chapter of his life in a very final kind of way. he never truly gets over it.

between all of the above stressors, grissom eventually finds that not only is he willing to leave las vegas but he's ready to.

in the past, clinging to his job had always been "enough" for him, but now he finds he does not take the same pleasure in his work as he formerly did and he needs more—a change of scene and venue, new endeavors in which to invest himself, and, most importantly, human connection; specifically, with the love of his life, sara.

as stated above, i do think that had warrick not died at the start of s9, grissom may have taken longer to eventually reach that breaking point, not only because then sara would not have returned to vegas at the start of s9 only to leave again, shattering grissom's illusions that she might eventually come home for good in the process, but also because he wouldn't have been half as miserable at the lab in that case as he ultimately became in canon.

had warrick still been around, he could have probably mollified himself for somewhat longer; kept convincing himself, "i don't need to come to her. she'll eventually come back to me. everything'll be fine. i just need to keep my head down and do my work in the meanwhile—"

that said, i do believe that grissom still would have ultimately arrived at a point where the center could not hold—where it became apparent to him that he just couldn't be satisfied living his life without sara (even for the sake of his work).

even before grissom was ready to follow her in s8, he was still uncomfortable in her absence and longed to be near her again, and that discomfort and longing only would have grown the longer that she stayed away.

though i can't say exactly when, i am sure there would have someday (probably sooner rather than later) come a time when grissom couldn't stand to live apart from his one true love anymore, even if warrick hadn't died.

so if she hadn't been willing to come home to him*, then he would have eventually gone out to her.

* and who knows? maybe if warrick hadn't died, sara might have eventually come back to vegas of her own volition (to stay) once she was ready. after all, she does eventually move back there and even resume working at the lab come s10, so obviously that development isn't outside of the realm of possibility for her.

anyway.

those are my takes.

thanks for the questions! please feel welcome to send more any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #** #my meta #meta: csi #meta: grissom #season eight #season nine #hypothetical scenario #csiverse #let's talk shop

[buildinggsr]

I bumped into this moment some time ago. I never noticed it before, and some thoughts sprouted from it. I thought I’d write one of my rambling about my strange theories. I should have kept translating the rollercoaster fic but I wrote this instead (I’m at chapter 7 by the way)

Facts to be taken into consideration: we are at the end of episode 3.01 "Revenge is best served cold" now and Grissom gave the plant™ to Sara in episode 2.15 "Burden of proof". So, plants are already something to them, at the moment. Also keep in mind that "[i]n Roman mythology, Flora is the goddess of flowers: a symbol of beauty, youth and new beginnings. The word ‘flora’ identifies the natural realm of plants and flowers."

So -

We see Sara entering the office and being intrigued by the plant that Grissom is arranging on the table. No wonder, she likes vegetation. The moment she enters the room, Grissom raises his eyes from the plant and has the time to notice Sara's reaction. It's when their eyes meet. The camera lets us appreciate Grissom’s reaction: when Sara moves her look upwards from the plant and stares at him in a sort of inquiring way, Grissom's eyes widens a little, his look softens, his mouth moves in a restrained smile. His body seems to acquire a prouder posture. "Here my present for you, again," he seems to say.

They must have talked about the original plant™, at the time of "Burden of proof". One doesn't receive a plant from Grissom and just goes “oh, ok, great, let’s move on”. To say the least, they go to him and say "thank you", right? Even more so when the receiver of the plant is Sara. It must have been a very cute moment to see ― I imagine it happening in an isolated place (the locker room or the car while driving to a scene, maybe), they both trying to keep tenderness under control, unsure about the words to say, afraid at the same time to say too much and too little.

Now, months away from that moment, unexpectedly Grissom's "Here my present for you, again" is dropped. I like to think that Grissom decides to make such a scenographic presentation for his explanation of the case on purpose. To please her.

At the beginning of the episode, upon hearing Hank tell Warrick to say hello to Sara, we see Grissom turning to Hank in a sort of “feed someplace else, boor” way. He perceives, maybe for the very first time, that Sara is having something going on with that primitive. Because of that, on the crime scene that he, Warrick and Sara are working, we see him sharply tell her to take one of the chairs of the poker game to the lab ― so she'll stay away from Hank. For the first part of the episode, we see Grissom being kind of apart from Sara: despite her keeping invading his personal space, they works almost always separately, we see them in a scene together only few times and he almost never interacts with her (when he doesn’t shoot her meaningful and lost looks). At one moment, we see him working in solitude listening to an aria. Here, it seems to me, something changes in his mind.

The aria Grissom is listening to when Sara arrives in the room is not a casual one. It's from Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci", an opera revolving around jealousy. The piece of music of the scene, in particular, is “Vesti la giubba” (“Put on the costume”). It is sung at the end of Act I by Canio, who is preparing for the comedy as Pagliaccio despite having just discovered his wife Nedda's betrayal. This aria represents the concept of the "tragic clown," who sustains his comic role without showing any upset, but inwardly experiences a personal drama - which is exactly what Grissom is living at the moment. While he’s there in his melancholic solitude, Sara arrives and stops the music right when Canio is asking himself if he’s even a man, trying to muster courage and enter the stage (instead of just being just a clown  ― on the stage and in his personal life). Grissom has not seen her arrive, he’s focused on his papers, and it's only when the music stops that he sees Sara. It's now, I like to think, that something inside his mind changes, now that he's on the edge of facing his destiny, about to renounce to happiness once for all, brave like that part of Titanic's crew who in the bowels of the ship kept the machines working until the last moment before the sinking. 

Sara must have appeared beautiful in his eyes - I mean more beautiful than usual. Indeed, throughout the episode she looks really great, fresh, happy. Cheerful. And that makes Grissom's heart bleed. But, all of a sudden, he might have realized that the smile now adorning her face is a different smile. One of those shy smiles she shoots him when she feels embarrassed. Embarrassed because of the feeling that keeps them bound one to the other since they first met. 

Let's get back to the beginning of the episode for a moment, just before Grissom implicitly sends Sara to the lab. Warrick notices that one of the chairs he's examining with ALS is dirt with what he thinks is urine and asks confirmation of it to Grissom. He confirms that and explains, "Game like this (poker), leaving the table early could be perceived as a sign of weakness." It's possible that when he finds Sara in front of him more beautiful than it has ever been, Grissom applies this rule to his relationship with her: he decides to not leave the table too early, he decides to fight for her girl. He's indeed a man, not a clown. 

In this term, it's curious what he says to Sara when she, upon stopping the music, asks him what he's got. "Suspicious waitress," he replies. It's the reference to something suspicious, something like a "lie" that strikes me. The waitress is lying, if we're talking about the case; but if we render the sentence in a broader and general meaning, a woman is saying or acting falsely. These are the very first words Grissom says to Sara in that scene, "a woman is probably saying or acting falsely". Just like in the case of the statement about the game of poker, let's now apply this new sentence to GSR. The only woman that really is in Grissom's life is Sara. So we might say that Grissom says "the waitress is lying" but he means "you (Sara) are lying. All your cheerfulness is just a façade, the smiles you throw around are just the show of a clown. The very smile you just made now, in this room populated just by you and me, so sweetly and timidly happy ― this is your real smile. And you just made it to me."

It's as if the words of the Leoncavallo's song now shift "owner": they could be applied to Grissom at the beginning of the scene, but could be applied to Sara now. Sara is the one mustering courage to step away from Grissom, despite her feelings ― despite their feelings. She's mustering courage to establish a new relationship with another man, since the one with Grissom seems impossible to achieve. She, like in the opera, exemplifies the entire notion of the "tragic clown": smiling on the outside but crying on the inside.  

And we finally arrive at the "Here my present for you, again" moment. Given all that was said before, Grissom interprets this new plant as a means to make Sara remember the secret feeling they’re sharing for each other and make Hank vanish from her mind in any shape or form. As though this new plant could mark a new beginning. 

I like to think that it works, in some part ― at the moment, at least. I like to think that in front of the new plant they share a moment of secret intimacy and, at the memory of when they talked about the original plant™, their hearts melt a bit with tenderness. I like to think that when Grissom's explanation concludes, Warrick leaves and they are left alone with all their emotions cradling their hearts and minds. Maybe she tells him something about the plant he doesn't know. Maybe they talk about botany. Science has always kept them together and so now botany becomes the spark igniting a genuine and bright discussion. One of those discussions where they feel free: science is a neutral contest ground, personal matters are not directly involved and this makes them enjoy the discussion unhindered. 

Maybe, just like at their first meeting, during a discussion about anthropology, Sara was the one stalling trying to get the nerve to ask Grissom to dinner, now, during a discussion about botany, Grissom is the one stalling trying to get the nerve to ask her to dinner. 

I like to think that the plant finally ends in Sara's hands. Maybe she asks what it will be of it and Grissom says that she can keep it. "Here's my present to you again," he means.

Alas, we all know what follows in the evolution of the series, and the cold shower Grissoms receives in the following episode. But most importantly, we all know how the story finally ends.  🥰

I probaby missed a lot of points, but I hope you enjoyed the typos at least

#csi #csiedit #csi cbs #gil grissom #sara sidle #grissom x sara #csi 3x01 #william petersen #jorja fox #is this a real meta or is this just fantasy? #csi crime scene investigation

[hollygl125]

On taking a risk:

I love these two. Sara Sidle and Gil Grissom. Jorja Fox and William Petersen. I love them both. I love them all. (If you’re following this blog, this probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you.)

I love these two moments. I love these moments for Sara Sidle and Gil Grissom. I love these performances by Jorja Fox and William Petersen.

In discussing the new song for which she co-wrote the lyrics, Jorja Fox said (slightly cleaned up by me), “It’s worth taking a risk to get to love someone and be loved.” In “Girls Gone Wilder,” (CSI, 15x05), Sara Sidle says, “I mean, to be with somebody who really gets you, who loves you for who you are—I don’t know. I think it’s worth the risk.” In A History of My Brief Body, Billy Ray-Belcourt (a writer and academic from the Driftpile Cree Nation) writes, “To love someone is firstly to confess: I’m prepared to be devastated by you.”

And I love these two moments because, to me, they both really show that risk—the risk of devastation, of being devastated by someone.

Based on what we see in the first scene, I’ve always believed Sara didn’t know Grissom was coming to the rainforest for her. Maybe after his initial non-answer answer he believed she deserved such a sweeping gesture; maybe he believed she’d be less likely to reject him in person. But he goes after her. During his trek through the rainforest, he’s eager to find her. Then finally he does, and, in that moment when he stands there, before she turns around, I think there is anticipation but also clear awareness of that risk.

For years he feared he might put everything that was comfortable in his life at risk for Sara only to have her ultimately reject him. It’s a risk that, in “Butterflied” (CSI, 04x12), he initially described himself as having been unable to take. But now, here, he’s really done it: he has given up his job and everything comfortable and safe, and he still risks Sara’s rejection. But now he knows—he knows that the risk is worthwhile—it’s a risk he is willing to take, because he knows what it is to love and to be loved by Sara.

In the second scene, I also think Grissom does not know that Sara is coming after him. She looks a bit worried when she gets out of the cab and scans the marina for him, she hurries down the ramp, but then she looks pretty calm as she’s walking down the dock to him. He has, after all, just declared (albeit not directly to her) his love for her, that she’s been his best friend, that she’s restored his faith in the human being, that he’ll miss her for the rest of his life. So our girl should be pretty confident in her endeavour. But, then again, the man did divorce her, and she’s just 100% given up her new job (if you use the deleted scenes as your headcanon, which JF would have to have been doing at the time) to come after him.

So she looks pretty calm heading down the dock, but then there’s that moment where she’s standing in front of him, waiting for him to do something—your move, buddy. And she does this little intake of breath at the end, and I feel like that’s the moment where you really feel how much she is putting her heart out there; she is risking everything, like he has done before. It’s that little intake of breath that seems to jar him into movement. But it’s in that moment that I really feel how much she is willing to put herself at risk for this man, how she is willing to risk her heart—but, of course, this is Sara, so I think she has always been willing to risk everything for this man.

At different times in the series (Sara in “Girls Gone Wilder” and Grissom in “Immortality”), both Sara and Grissom speak of love and their relationship with the other in a manner that shows they both thought their relationship was worth the risk even when they thought it didn’t have a happy ending. (Cue the tears.)

@addictedtostorytelling has some relatively short meta on that subject, and you should probably go read it if you want to feel weepy for a bit.

In chapter 13 of my current fic, I let the characters themselves discuss the same. (I’ll probably leave you less weepy. I just went back to look at that chapter, and honestly I made myself a little weepy. I’m pretty much non-stop tears and anxiety, though, so you probably shouldn’t let me be your gauge.)

The events that necessitated the events of “Immortality” should never have happened; they were a complete betrayal, and I will never think otherwise. But I do love the parallels that were created in the end: both characters giving up what had become a very comfortable existence for a chance—a chance—at happiness—a chance (no guarantee, still the risk of rejection) to go off on an adventure with the one they love. They are both willing to risk that utter devastation, and I love it, and I love them.

So, yes, I love these two and their story, and I love these performances.

Also, GSR Day is tomorrow (except it’s actually today—February 9—because I always end up posting things after midnight). Since this is nothing but the first of my completely made-up GSR holidays, I will probably do nothing but reblog my first GSR Day post and post a completely unrelated GIF-set and maybe re-read my “how they met” fic. Actually, now that I think about that last one, I’m kind of excited for it. So happy almost-GSR Day. Did I mention I love these two? 😉

(I have to add that, according to Zuiker, they did not have much time or money to shoot “Immortality,” and it definitely shows in the lighting on Jorja Fox’s face in parts of that final scene. So, for the second gif: it’s not me doing odd things; it’s the source material.)

#gsr #otp: gsr #sara sidle #gil grissom #sara x grissom #grissom x sara #💛: survivors in the night #my thoughts and feelings on the two lovely science nerds

[coping-via-clint-eastwood]

For the characters thing

Gil Grissom

Richard Chance

Steve Walker

Cecil Cantrell

Will Graham

Whip Dalton

I HATE YOU

Push off a cliff - Will. If NBC did it, I might as well do it in that universe too.

Marry - WE ALL KNOW WHO THIS IS GONNA BE

Kiss - Whip. Honestly, he's the second most amazing Billy character. He's not booksmart the same way Gil is, but he's logical, has common sense, and really, is the only one who has brain cells. He's the one who goes around trying to caution everyone before it is too late. A perfect man, really.

Set on fire - Richard. So like...have you finished To Live and Die in LA yet? Because there's meta to this.

Wrap a blanket around - Stud, only because I don't wanna be roommates with him. I love him, but he's really noisy, and noise makes me physically uncomfortable.

Be roommates with - Steve

#thank you @mr-red-dead-yeehaw #billy crossover #billy petersen loving #billy petersen #william petersen

[tengomilpalabrasparati]

El Día Internacional del Jefe es una fecha con una historia interesante. Se celebra el 16 de octubre debido a un descuido de Patricia Bays Haroski, que ese día olvidó el cumpleaños de su jefe que resultaba ser también su padre.

La joven trabajaba como secretaria en la State Farm Insurance Company, en Deerfield, Illinois. Pero se encontraba tan saturada de trabajo que borró de su mente tan importante evento.

En compensación, al día siguiente registró el Día Internacional del Jefe, en la sede de la Cámara de Comercio de los Estados Unidos que se encontraba en su ciudad y cuatro años más tarde, el gobernador de Illinois, Otto Kerner, aprobó su petición y desde entonces se celebra este maravilloso día.

¿Cuál es el propósito del Día Internacional del Jefe?

En realidad, este día busca incentivar en nuestros jefes sus cualidades positivas y recordarles que todos los que están a su cargo siguen siendo personas. En ocasiones, muchos líderes terminan exigiendo demasiado a los grupos a su cargo, pero esto se debe principalmente al estrés, producto de los límites de tiempo para entregar resultados.

Las principales cualidades de un buen jefe

Comunicación clara y precisa.

Buena organización, para planificar objetivos y estrategias que sean alcanzables.

Confianza en sus propias capacidades y en las de su equipo.

Respetuoso y motivado, para lograr incentivar la propuesta de ideas por parte de sus subordinados.

Honesto, siempre habla claro y de forma abierta con los miembros de su equipo.

Sabe delegar tareas y confía en sus ayudantes.

Influyente, para inspirar y generar confianza en su grupo, para lograr alcanzar las metas pautadas.

Son facilitadores, es decir, buscan ayudar a entender a cada miembro del grupo cuál es su tarea y como alcanzarla en caso de que se presenten dudas.

Negociación, todo jefe es capaz de llegar a acuerdos positivos en momentos de conflictos.

Jefes memorables de todos los tiempos

El Sr. Burns de los Simpson: Es el jefe clásico de todos los tiempos, malo por naturaleza, avaro y cruel. Pero este personaje ha marcado nuestra memoria de por vida con su frase "Excelente".

Jean-LucPicard: El mítico capitán de la nave U.S.S Enterprise, en la saga viaje a las estrellas la nueva generación. Un líder nato, bastante afable y muy carismático. Otro jefe que estará en la memoria colectiva del mundo por mucho tiempo.

Gil Grissom: El jefe del laboratorio criminalística de las Vegas y quién nos sumergió en la ciencia de la muerte. Un hombre parco, muy culto y fascinante. Otro arquetipo de jefe que la mayoría logró admirar.

Daenerys Targaryen: Mejor conocida como la madre de los dragones y un largo etcétera. Fue una líder temible y benévola a la vez. Aunque al final de la serie se volviese loca.

PortiaLin: La capitana del raza en la serie de ciencia ficción DarkMatter (Materia Oscura), una líder fuerte, decidida y valiente. Toda una heroína que logra mantener unida a su tripulación a pesar de los giros extraños que toma su vida.

¿Qué hacer para celebrar el Día Internacional del Jefe?

Lo más lógico sería preparar una reunión en honor a tu jefe, pero si trabajas de forma independiente, pues el agasajado eres tú, así que date un pequeño gusto, ve a cenar a tu lugar favorito, sal temprano y comparte con tu familia o guarda la celebración para el fin de semana y sal de paseo.

Pero recuerda, felicitar al resto de los jefes del mundo compartiendo un mensaje en las redes sociales con el hashtag #DíaInternacionaldelJefe.

#Día Internacional del Jefe 16 octubre #Youtube

[smokedanced]

@asoulofstars​ said: Mass Effect for the fandom meme!

Favorite character.    is it terrible to say shepard when shepard is literally the player character and essentially an oc? but i’m going to say shepard anyway, specifically mine, lol. i just love her a lot. i like default femshep in general a lot, as well as a lot of people’s portrayal of her. Second favorite character.    garrus vakarian. Least favorite character.    motherfucking kai leng. i feel like i hate him as much as shep does in canon, and just. listen. i love a lot of villain characters. i even like the illusive man as a character. i adore saren. kai leng? just... nope. ridiculous. also this is for thane you son of a bitch -stabs- The character I’m most like.    edi!!!! i realise me comparing myself to a literal AI is a very textbook autism move, but this is literally stuff i like to talk about! Favorite pairing.    i’m very much a multishipper at heart. but shakarian, because they’re built on such a strong friendship. considering the “there’s no shepard without vakarian” line is included when they are platonic? but like i said, i’m very multishippy with mass effect and probably ship most things if i feel like it pffff. i have a lot of rarepairs for this fandom as well, like joker/shep and saren/shep. i’ve read aria/shep and even a really well written edi/shep (set in me2 timeline as well which made it extra interesting as edi literally has no body) fic. and my shipping of course is not limited to shepard ships either! aria/tevos, aria/nyreen, joker/edi, miranda/jack... i have like unlimited capacity to ship in these games lol. Least favorite pairing.    i don’t really waste energy focusing on ships i don’t like. Favorite moment.    ah shit, out of all the games?! hard-pressed to pick just one. tali’s loyalty mission on me2, playing as joker when the collectors attack the normandy on me2, the fucking prologue where shepard dies on me2 because deliciously painful, archangel mission/garrus reunion, i realise i am just listing second game things now.................... it is my fave out of the three XD ah fuck, me3: “does this unit have a soul?”, mordin’s death (i don’t want him to die but it was well written!) if curing the genophage, seeing the citadel in ruins towards the end of me1 is v powerful... grissom academy mission on me3 when you saved david & jack reunion, liara scenes throughout me3, generally interactions with the squad, hold on, hold on, wait, i got my one answer though: the entire citadel dlc. best fucking fourth wall breaks and happy meta in the middle of all the crying. ok done. Rating out of 10.    8/10 vanilla. 10/10 with appropriate mods, including modding the motherfucking ending. it’s mostly the ending that lowers it form 10/10 in general for me.

#asoulofstars #thank you i know you don't even go to this fandom XD #; outofsmoke

[deeplyridiculouslyinlove]

OMG THIS SHOW. WHAT IS HAPPENING. AM I HALLUCINATING THIS EPISODE.

#this isn't just a fanfic but like #a meta #THEY ARE REFLECTING ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP AND EACH OTHER VERBALLY ON SCREEN #TO OTHER PEOPLE #the fucking EVALUATION #I'm not okay #sorry #csi: vegas #spoilers #gil grissom #sara sidle #I love you I always will

[themidnightcircusshow]

In 3x9 there's a delightful little scene between Grissom and Greg. First Grissom comes in and makes a reference, then gets Greg to rattle off all the things that relates to. Which Greg does and then immediately says something that suggests they do this regularly. Then Grissom calms Greg down by telling him that Greg is in control of his own lab and doesn't have to listen to the demands of everyone else. The scene ends with Greg getting Grissom's reference. There are several great things about this scene but one of the first is that Grissom is quite jovial. Early season interactions between Grissom and Greg tend to involve Greg being a hyperactive puppy and Grissom being annoyed by it. However, in this scene Grissom seems to be enjoying Greg's company. Considering that "you make me nervous" was only a couple of episodes ago, it seems like Grissom is actively making an effort to connect with Greg and make him comfortable. The fact that he does this first by playing obscure reference games and then by showing Greg respect that he doesn't often get shows a lot about how Grissom's opinion of Greg has changed.

#CSI #Gil Grissom #Greg Sanders #Yes Griss is doing it to butter Greg up so his stuff gets processed first but it's still interesting #I love the way their relationship evolves #The 'you make me nervous' is definitely where their relationship changes from Greg being an annoyance to mentor/mentee #Because from that it goes to the coin episode to the explosion and then they have their new dynamic #And baby Cirque without realising found her first otp #Granders #Gregsom #Meta

[bisexualstokes-archive]

"let me do this”

who knows what could have been in that package? what if the sick bastard that kidnapped him cut off a finger or an ear or some other body part? what if there were photos, showing nick tied up and bound somewhere, with a ransom note? what if there was nothing in the package at all, just a dead end to taunt the team that there’s nothing they can do?

grissom feels responsible, after all, it was his actions that split the team up in the first place. maybe if they weren’t split, somebody else would have gotten that trash run. maybe warrick wouldn’t have let the cop get too far away. maybe sara wouldn’t have wandered off until the cop was around. maybe grissom himself would have been on that scene. 

shit like this is why he never liked to send nick off on his own, he’s a great CSI but a very reckless young man. he views nick as a colleague, a friend...a son, even.

so when that package comes in labeled “re: stokes” grissom has to be the one to open it, to process it better than any other lab tech would, to take responsibility and face all the potential horrors that await inside

#gil grissom #nick stokes #grave danger #A;LSDKJFA;LSDKJA;LSDKJF HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I LOVE NICK AND GRISSOM'S FATHER/SON DYNAMIC LATELY #csi meta #is this a meta? #idk i'm tagging it as such #nick and grissom

[wild-idle]

I finished S4 of my very slow CSI rewatch, and Sara and Warrick's friendship and growth is underrated. As a whole, the fandom seems to think that outside of Grissom Sara is closest to either Nick or Greg (and that may be true after, well, y'know), but I'm surprised on how often Warrick and Sara have more interesting and personal conversations. They also have quite a few parallels in opinions that are revealed outside of the cases they work together.

It just warms my heart how they grew beyond the rough start.

I may do a breakdown of this eventually, but I get the impression that Warrick and Sara crime-solving pair happens more than almost any other pair. From a meta standpoint, early on it provided some interesting tension for the writers to chew on. But in-universe, I like to think that this was Grissom's way of patching things between them. He was somewhat responsible for two of his favorite people disliking each other, but if they spent enough time around each other they'd come to see the things he liked and respected in them.

#Sara Sidle #Warrick Brown #CSI #Some Thoughts

[originalpinkranger]

In Sickness and in Health - GSR

So, this was kind of therapeutic for me. Inspired by this post by @addictedtostorytelling. I, um, my husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for a while and it’s been a struggle. So, after I read her little meta, I got inspired and it’s something that I NEEDED to write. So, here you go. Something that wouldn’t stop flowing today. Enjoy!

In Sickness and in Health

GSR - Rated G

“No man, like I legitimately think Grissom knocked her up.”

 Greg whispered loudly over the lab table, Nick narrowing his eyes at him from his position at the other side.

 “You can’t be starting rumors like that man. Especially about Grissom.”

 “Hodges told me!”

 Now Nick really didn’t believe him. “And you honestly believe what Hodges says?”

 “No, but I have proof!” Greg stood up and moved over closer to Nick so no-one could hear him.

 “This is the text I got from Sara,” Greg cleared his throat and read the text to him in his best ‘Sara’ voice, “Greg, please make sure to follow up with Brass on the Carson case. I’m not feeling quite right today so I won’t be in. Also, please tell Warrick to get with Hodges on the trace analysis from the Wilson DB. Thanks.”

 Nick looked at him unamused. “Nowhere in that text does it say, ‘Greg I’m pregnant’.”

 “Okay but hear me out. Sara never misses work. She came in with 102 fever once and didn’t blink an eye. AND I had to stop on the side of the road yesterday so she could puke. I’m telling you man. Grissom knocked her up.” Greg put his phone back in his pocket and stood next to Nick with his arms crossed, grinning at his potential discovery.

 “Alright boys, what have you got for me?” Catherine sauntered in, standing in between them. She surveyed the both of them and realized something was off.

 “Alright Greg, spill, what is it?” Catherine put her hand on her hip and leaned against the table, waiting for Greg to open like a can of biscuits.

 “Greg here thinks Sara’s pregnant.” Nick spoke for him, letting the air out of Greg’s balloon.

 Catherine stared at Greg like he grew another head.

 “You can’t be serious…”

 Greg threw up his hands in exasperation.

 “I swear no one believes anything I ever say! I’m taking my ball and going home.” Greg snatched the folders he was working on off the table and stormed out of the layout room.

 Catherine shook her head and turned her attention towards Nick.

 “You know Cath maybe he’s right.” Nick leaned forward on the lab table and Catherine followed behind him, putting her glasses on to look at a case he was working on.

 “I did see her eating crackers and drinking a 7UP the other day. I have my suspicions. A woman knows.” She spoke as she looked over the document, clearly unfazed by the whole thing. “I guess all the jokes about Grissom’s virility will be put to bed.” Catherine put down the folder and smiled, bemused at the idea of Grissom being a father.

 Nick pondered. Maybe Greg (ney Hodges) was right. A slow smile started to form on his face.

 Grissom. That old son of a gun. He took a mental note to stop and buy some cigars on the way home to congratulate him.

 The next day, Nick walked into Grissom’s office with a fancy box and a huge grin on his face.

 Grissom looked up at him over his glasses.

 “What is it, Nick?”

 “I just wanted to come in and congratulate you.”

 Grissom really looked at him now. “For what Nick?”

 “On being a proud papa!”

 Grissom took off his glasses and set them on this desk, threading his fingers together.

 “Excuse me?”

 “Yeah...”

 And so.

 “Hodges had told Greg that Sara was pregnant because she had to go out of the room quickly because her stomach was queasy, and Greg got a text that Sara wasn’t coming in because she and I quote ‘wasn’t feeling quite right’ and he had to pull over the other day for her to puke on the side of the road and Catherine said she saw her in the break room drinking 7UP and eating saltines so I put two and two together and just wanted to congratulate you.” He took a long breath and opened the shiny, wooden box he brought with him.

 “So, congratulations daddy.” He grinned at Grissom.

 Grissom looked down at the box full of cigars and then back up at Nick. He rubbed his eyes with his hand, then, pointedly

 “She has the flu, Nick.”

 “Just the flu?”

 “Just the flu.”

 “Oh.”

 “Also, smoking is bad for you.” Nick closed the box slowly. His face fell and got red with embarrassment.

 “I…” His mouth open and closed like a fish, not knowing what to say.

 Grissom helped him.

 “You can leave now Nick.”

 Nick stuttered an ‘I’m sorry’ and showed his way out of Grissom’s office.

 Grissom leaned back and sighed heavily, his mind drifting to Sara at home.

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

 Hearing the keys rattle in the door, startled the bundle of fur at the foot of the bed and leapt up from his position by human number 1. Barking his head off down the hall and to the door, tail wagging uncontrollably, waiting for what was to come next.

 “Hey buddy. Have you been taking care of mom?” Grissom bent down to give Hank a scratch behind his ear and Hank thanked him by licking his hand.

 Hank then turned around and ran back towards the bedroom where Sara laid.

 Grissom heard a loud sneeze.

 He sloughed off his jacket, hanging it up in the closet by the door and toed off his shoes.

 He made his way to the back bedroom but stopped at the fridge first to grab a water for Sara.

 He stopped at the doorway.

 “How are you feeling?”

 She blew her nose into a tissue and sniffed.

 “Like I got hit by a Mack truck. Although at this point, that may be more pleasant.”

 He chuckled and made his way towards her, handing the bottle to her. She took it from him and took a long swig.

 “Ugh. I haven’t felt this bad since I was a kid.”

 Grissom reached up and put his hand on her forehead. “Cool to the touch. Looks like your fever broke.” He slid his hand from her forehead to her cheek, stroking it softly with his thumb.

 Sara leaned into his touch and gave him a soft smile. “Mmm. Thank you for taking care of me.”

 “In sickness and in health, isn’t that how it goes?”

 Her smile got wider. “It is.”

 His mind drifted back to the events of the day. “So, um, today was interesting.”

 She quirked an eyebrow at him and brought the bottle to her lips to drink, “how so?”

 “Hodges started a rumor that you were pregnant.”

 She spit out her water and choked slightly, gasping for air as he rubbed her back.

 “Excuse me?! How in the world- “

 “Because of all the times that you needed to throw up. Everyone just assumed. I got an earful from Nick in my office. Standing there with a box of cigars.”

 She leaned back on her pillows and sniffed. “That’s…quite an assumption.”

 He nodded, “it is.”

 The silence was palpable.

 Sara picked at the lint on the bed sheet and didn’t look up at him. “What is it, Sara?”

 He knew when she got quiet, she was analyzing something and trying to figure out how to put it in words.

 “…would that be such a bad thing?” She looked up at him slowly, searching his face for an answer.

 Now he was the one that quirked a brow at her. “Sara…”

 “Gil..I…” She started and then took a deep breath and continued, “you know that I had a less than stellar childhood and I guess I never really thought about the idea of having a child because of the childhood that I had and thought that maybe I would be a terrible mother because I didn’t know how to nurture a child or how to take care of one but maybe…” She drifted off and looked down.

 He lifted her chin and searched her eyes, “Maybe what honey?” He said softly.

 “Maybe I’d want one with you.” She whispered with so much hope in her voice.

 He sighed. He knew that his answer had to be carefully chosen. It’s true he was never good with words, but this answer had to be worded oh so carefully and be the right one.

 He thought about what to say and straightened his gaze at her. “Sara, with my age and my hearing, are you sure that’s such a good idea?”

 She sniffed again, not sure if it’s her sickness or fighting back tears. She reached for his hand and held it.

 “Gil, I know that things have been complicated, but when I was in that desert, I had a lot to think about. Especially about us. And maybe, maybe I thought that I would never get the chance to be a mom. More of a what if. And now I have that chance and maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”

 He really looked at her then.

 “Sweetheart, is this something that you really want?”

 She squeezed his hand.

 She nodded, “yes, it’s something I really want.”

 “Okay.”

 “Okay?” Her eyes lit up.

 He nodded his assurance this time and squeezed her hand back.

 Then.

 “ACHOO!”

 He really belly laughed then. Her sneeze breaking the intense conversation and his silent relief.

 “Let’s focus on you getting better first and we’ll talk about babies. For now, hydrate and sleep.”

 She didn’t argue. Sara shimmied down the covers and he pulled the sheets over her shoulders.

 Hank circled next to her and laid back down, making sure that she was safe and sound, doing his natural duty.

 Grissom smiled and leaned down to kiss her forehead as she drifted back off to sleep.

 Closing the door to the bedroom, he walked to his office and fired up his laptop. He put on his glasses and Googled.

‘Men over 50 and being a first-time father.’

#CSI: Crime Scene Investigation #csi #Gil Grissom #Sara Sidle #GSR #CSI Vegas #addictedtostorytelling

[addictedtostorytelling]

Any thoughts on what would be the dark side of Grissom?

hi, anon!

so here's the thing:

gil grissom believes he has a "dark side."

heather kessler believes he has a "dark side."

but i don't really think he does.

—and neither does sara sidle.

more discussion after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

to me, the question of gil grissom's supposed "dark side" all comes down to definition.

gil grissom has one definition, which has to do with "having the capacity to be selfish and place one's needs ahead of others (even those one cares about)."

heather kessler has another that is close to his, though not necessarily identical, centered in "having the capacity to inflict pain on others (even those one cares about)."

however, i have another definition, which i think approximates sara's (which i'll explain later on).

suffice it so say, grissom doesn't fit it.

so let's take this thing piece by piece:

grissom's definition of "dark side"

the show directly links the term "dark side" to grissom in episode 09x05 "leave out all the rest," specifically when heather kessler reads both grissom and sara into the specs of the bdsm-related case grissom has invited her to consult on, i.e.,:

"he kept his dark side locked in a trunk, hidden away from her."

the idea of grissom's dark side (or at least his belief in his own dark side) is also strongly implied in episodes such as 04x12 "butterflied," 05x03 "harvest," 07x06 "burn out," and 09x02 "the happy place," where direct comparisons are made between grissom and violent criminals, both in dialogue and in the framing of the narratives.

as i talk about here,

throughout his time on the show, grissom frequently finds himself able to relate to the killers whose cases he processes. though he would never cross the same lines that they do, he feels he is in some ways like them: antisocial, obsessive, caught up in the details, frightened by his own mind. he sees pieces of himself in the paul millanders, vincent luries, kevin greers, and natalie davises of the world, and, when he does, it gives him pause.

though he never applies the term to himself directly, grissom seems to subscribe to the notion that he, like these criminals, has a dark side, as is evident from the disparaging way he sometimes speaks of himself and his own proclivities (such as in his monologue in episode 04x12 "butterflied"), as well as the way he passively accepts other people's assessments of him in that regard (i.e., he doesn't negate heather when she says he has a dark side, catherine when she accuses him of being antisocial/misanthropic, direct comparisons killers and rapists make between themselves and him, etc.).

for grissom, his belief that he has a dark side is seemingly predicated on his sense that he lacks some fundamental "human component."

his whole life, he's been told by various sources that he sucks at being a person—that he's too emotionally aloof, unempathetic, and analytical; doesn't relate to others well; stuck in his own head; overly obsessive, etc.—and he has very much internalized that criticism.

to his mind, his "dark side" is part and parcel of this "insufficient humanity" in him: i.e., he feels he has a tendency to use people to serve his own needs and also that he can do so relatively easily, experiencing little guilt for treating people around him like objects he can manipulate. he observes that he can and does keep people at arm's length, remain ignorant of their problems, put what is easiest for him ahead of what is best for them, derive pleasure from situations that cause them to suffer, behave in a generally selfish manner, etc. and keep things running smoothly this way for a very long time.

he believes he sees evidence to support this belief in his personal relationships—in the occasions when he's treated catherine or nick or other members of the team in this very utilitarian manner on a micro-level, certainly; however, nowhere more so than in his romantic dealings with sara, which, to his mind, is what offers the most damning indictment on him, considering she's the person he cares most about in the world.

for years, he keeps her in a kind of "emotional holding pattern" which serves his purposes but not hers, ignoring the damage he deals her along the way.

as i talk about here,

[for the first several seasons of the show,] sara is, essentially, grissom's 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; etc.; etc. really, they can do everything short of going home together. but when 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 that 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 the spheres in his life (see his original monologue from episode 04x12 “butterflied”), and, certainly, on a subconscious level, he realizes that 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 that sara would love him forever and that he could know that 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. worse yet, even on the occasions when he becomes passingly aware that this setup isn't actually copacetic for her and is in fact directly doing her harm (like in episodes 02x15 "burden of proof" or 03x03 "let the seller beware" or toward the tail end of s4), he still makes the active decision to continue subordinating her needs in favor of his own, which, as he sees things, suggests that he is more beholden to his own fears than he is mindful of her well-being—a major mark against him not only in terms of him being a potential lover for sara but in terms of him being a human being with a heart and compassion for others.

while someone less critical of grissom than himself might point out that his selfish behavior regarding sara, while not awesome™, is more in line with him having a fear of intimacy and poor interpersonal skills than it is with him being some kind of heartless and depraved "creature of the dark," grissom, who is hypercritical of himself, views these failings on his part as a condemnation of his overall person, drawing connections between his own "willingness" to mistreat sara and the way the criminals in the cases he investigates do violence to the people around them.

the fact that he also shares with these criminals a tendency toward obsession further compounds his sense that he is like them, as does his notion that he could perhaps find it within himself to be violent (and even kill) were someone he loved threatened.

he sees in himself a capacity to cause harm in order to serve his own purposes and consequently believes he is by nature a cruel and heartless being, particularly unworthy of sara and her "light."

this belief grissom has concerning himself (i.e., that he has a dark side) is one that, unfortunately, other characters around him frequently, albeit often inadvertently, reinforce.

almost every member of his team has, at some point, accused grissom of being unconcerned with the emotions and needs of others on some level: e.g., catherine disparages him for having no personal connections (see episode 01x04 "pledging mr. johnson"), warrick calls him a robot (see episode 03x13 "random acts of violence"), nick harps on him for not caring about the human element in their cases (see episode 04x11 "eleven angry jurors"), and even sara on one particularly fraught occasion despairs that he has no feelings (see episode 01x16 "too tough to die").

while all of these statements are ones that his team members make in moments of personal frustration and are inaccurate to their true views of him—not a single person on that team actually doubts grissom's capacity to care about others; to the contrary, they all emotionally rely on him and turn to him as a confidante at the times when it really counts—grissom nevertheless takes these outbursts from them at face value, internalizing the messaging, believing he is, just as they imply, on a fundamental level, "deficient" (see episode 01x04 "pledging mr. johnson").

though he receives a thousand evidences otherwise that his friends feel his love for them and that they acknowledge his humanity, those positive assurances don't stay in his mind the same way their momentary negativity does, largely due to confirmation bias.

for all that catherine will willingly kill for him, that warrick praises his magnanimity as a boss, nick obviously looks up to him and craves his approval, and sara loves him unconditionally and thinks more highly of him than anyone, he still can't help but see "proof" everywhere that he is a bad person given over to his dark side.

something, something "autism rejection sensitive dysphoria." ahem.

—and, unfortunately, this belief of his is only furthered by the one significant friendship he has outside of his work team, i.e., with heather kessler.

heather's definition of "dark side"

now.

while there are a great deal many good things about grissom and heather's friendship—not only are they well-suited to each other in terms of intelligence, temperament, interests, etc., but over the years they are incredibly loyal to each other and stand by each other in times of crisis time and time again—one area where they are perhaps not good influences on each other is in how they both conceive of themselves and each other as "belonging to the dark."

whereas when grissom's other friends call him out for being "insufficiently human," they do so in moments of anger, when they're purposefully trying to say hurtful things to him either because they are frustrated with the case of the day or with him or both, heather tends to make her claims much more calmly and without intention to wound.

she doesn't so much level accusations at grissom as she does simply make what she considers to be observations of him, impassive in nature, framed as fact.

these observations are ones she offers not out of malice or with intent to disparage him but because she feels kinship.

of course, her intentions notwithstanding, they still exacerbate his sense of "otherness" and "unworthiness" in himself all the same.

she sees them both as people who have dark sides, and she often reminds him of this point because (to her) it is a basis of their friendship.

grissom doesn't necessarily agree that heather is as "irredeemable" as he is—he thinks much more highly of her than he does of himself and doesn't believe she has as much claim to "human deficiency" as he does, her profession and occasional criminality notwithstanding—however, since a) she has always been able to read him like an open book from their very first meeting anyhow, and, b) she is at least familiar with darkness by way of her profession/lifestyle, he does seem to feel that he is safe to be himself, forgo masking, and make no attempts to hide his darkness in her presence.

because she is comfortable operating in proximity to darkness, his sense is that he doesn't have to fear her disgust and/or rejection in the same way he might from his more "towards the light"-oriented friends.

he can just trust that she knows he has a dark side but won't disparage him for it.

and that brings us to heather's definition of what a "dark side" even is.

to heather, who lives in a world that is rife with violence and runs on dynamics of dominance and submission, having a dark side entails being comfortable inflicting pain (both physical and emotional) on others.

she views herself as having a dark side not only because of her profession but also (and even more so) because she is possessed of a very brutal approach to human relationships: building and enforcing sharp walls between people, being cruel when doing so suits her, knowing how to needle others and using that skill to her advantage (having little regard for what damage she might cause in the long run).

as i talk about here,

like grissom, heather fears that she is a creature of the darkness, unfit for the light, and that she deserves many of the misfortunes that befall her. we don’t know exactly what brings about the end of her relationship with her ex-husband jerome kessler, but we do get hints that heather believes that she is a difficult person to love and be around—hence her comments to grissom that it must have been hard on zoë to have her for a mother. heather has carefully cultivated her “lady heather” dominatrix persona, becoming a person who is surprised by nothing, beholden to no one, totally autonomous and aloof. she’s this person whenever she’s in situations where she feels uncomfortable, such as when she has to interact with men who disrespect her, like jim brass (see episodes 03x15 “lady heather’s box” and 07x23 “the good the bad and the dominatrix”), or people who deride her for her profession and character, like sara sidle (see the interview scenes in “immortality”). she believes she is dark because she can push everyone away (including her husband and child) in order to make herself feel safer and more in control in an otherwise cruel and chaotic world and then go on living in this loneliness, almost as if nothing had ever happened; as if it were no loss. she can draw strength from making others feel weak. she can make herself an island and still function that way, devoid of any real ties. she can permit even those she loves to suffer if doing so gives her some advantage. she views herself as heartless. as lacking. as not having that crucial component that allows other people to connect.

when heather meets grissom, she very quickly surmises that he feels similarly about himself as she does about herself. she hones in on the fact that he withholds key parts of himself from even the people he's closest to emotionally ("[you fear more than anything] being known"), including sara.

she also suspects that because he lacks social and even sexual outlets, he may harbor some repressed tendencies toward relational violence (see episode 02x08 "slaves of las vegas").

the longer she knows grissom and the more she becomes aware of his relationship with sara, the more she starts to read what she views as his dark side into the relationship problems he and sara experience during s8 and s9.

as i talk about here,

heather believes that she and grissom are two of a kind: both creatures of the darkness, unsuited for domestic life.  in her view, sara is not like them. she is something different: a sweet soul who secretly longs for light—who, despite how she may protest to the contrary, very much wants for normalcy and the cookie-cutter life with the dog and the house and the husband.  though sara works the graveyard shift at a crime lab, she is, as heather sees it, vanilla, repulsed by that which is gruesome, violent, and twisted. she doesn’t share heather and grissom’s macabre side, and, by heather’s estimation, because she doesn’t, she can’t fully understand grissom, a man who lives in isolation, harbors misanthropic tendencies, and finds it easy to think like a serial killer. she’s too tame. too quaint. too afraid of the dark. honestly, heather is probably reading a little bit of her own history into grissom and sara’s current situation here: as we learn in episode 07x24 “the good, the bad, & the dominatrix,” heather’s ex-husband, jerome kessler, is shocked at and repulsed by heather’s involvement in the s&m business, and his attitude towards her lifestyle influences his decision to keep her away from their granddaughter, allison. since heather sees herself and grissom as being similar, she perhaps thinks of sara as being similar to jerome. just like jerome couldn’t handle heather’s darkness, sara perhaps can’t handle grissom’s. that side of him might be a deal-breaker for her. in making this assessment, heather isn’t necessarily disparaging sara; she’s just pointing out that sara isn’t built to wade endlessly through human evil in the way that grissom is. it goes back to what she said about the schism and grissom and sara having different roles and priorities: sara is persephone; grissom is hades. she was made for flowers and springtime; he was made for the underworld. they are fundamentally incompatible in this way, at least as heather sees things.

heather's views to this end only serve to echo fears grissom already has concerning himself and his and sara's relationship. he has always been secretly terrified that in addition to being too old for sara and too romantically inexperienced to be with her, he is also too dark for her; too much of a drain on her precious light.

he feels supremely unworthy of her, which is one of the major reasons why he not only holds back from being with her for so long during the early seasons of the show but also why, when she flees vegas in s8 and s9, he lets her go and does not (for the longest while) pursue her.

though he wants more than anything to be with sara, deep inside of him, he fears that he is ultimately too selfish for her, too cruel, too depraved, too macabre, too dark.

my definition of "dark side"—and sara's

but.

but.

but.

for all grissom and heather believe he has a dark side, here's the thing:

i don't really think he does.

and i don't think sara thinks he does, either.

not to get too philosophical, but here's my take:

all people have the capacity to take harmful actions, so just having that capacity is not enough to make someone a "creature of the dark."

neither is even taking harmful actions in itself.

that's another thing everyone occasionally does.

as social creatures, causing occasional harm is unavoidable—we all from time to time hurt other people, sometimes accidentally, sometimes purposefully; physically and emotionally.

it's just part of living together, of interacting.

of having competing needs.

that so, just occasionally causing others pain doesn't mean someone has a "dark side"—at least not in my book; not that way that grissom and heather mean it, anyway.

it's not a sign of criminality or depravity.

it's just humanity.

having a dark side has to go beyond just being capable of causing harm to others or even sometimes causing it.

to me, at least—and everyone is welcome to disagree—there has to be something more to it.

there has to be an orientation toward hurting others regularly, consistently, and even with impunity; toward harming the people around you and not caring (or even to taking delight in doing so); toward having no inclination to change or better oneself; toward inflicting pain and suffering without regard for others, never looking back.

and i don't think that's grissom at all.

don't get me wrong: the man makes mistakes.

sometimes big ones.

for example, his jealous, petty behavior toward sara at the beginning of s3 when she is dating hank is not great™.

that said, i think that, in general, grissom orients more toward taking beneficial actions than he does toward taking harmful ones.

he exists more in the light.

much—if not most—of the harm he causes, especially in regards to his conduct toward other people, is inadvertent on his part; a product of him flailing and not knowing how to satisfy his competing needs and wants as opposed to him purposefully lashing out or trying to assert himself over others.

while of course he can—and does sometimes—still cause harm even when he does not intend to do so (see, for example, how his mismanagement of sara contributes to her downward spiral in s4), his character is such that he almost never sets out to hurt anyone and is eager to change and do better once he realizes that he has.

he isn't inclined to be malicious at all.

he has occasional blind spots, yes. is sometimes selfish and makes mistakes, sure. he from time to time prioritizes his needs over those of his loved ones. every once in a while underestimates the effect his actions might have on the people around him. now and then behaves hypocritically because he is so deep inside his own head that he can rationalize behavior from himself that he condemns in others. at times makes poor judgment calls, the outcomes of which impact not just him but everyone on his team.

but gil grissom is not someone who goes about attempting to hurt others, much less someone who hurts others regularly, much less someone who does so with impunity.

flawed though he is, by and large, he is goodhearted, earnest, and willing and able to admit his mistakes. for the most part, his desire is to help and not to hurt, and he succeeds in enacting that desire.

contrary to what he believes about himself and even what heather believes about him, he is incapable of hurting others without feeling immense guilt for doing so if he is aware of the effect his actions have had.

in fact, i would argue that one of the primary emotions he experiences throughout the early seasons of the show is guilt, oftentimes of the undue variety.

while it does still sometimes take him time to change course even after he recognizes he has misbehaved, he always does change course eventually.

he never sits comfortably in the wrong.

he always strives to treat others compassionately and fairly, even often at the expense of his own interests.

that so, to me, there is nothing exceptional in his misconduct; nothing depraved in it; nothing to indicate it is his preferred or even habitual mode of action.

though he is able to think like a serial killer for the sake of his job, just the ability to profile does not a "dark heart" make. he could never bring himself to behave like these violent criminals do. he is far too concerned with others' feelings, far too compassionate and just, far too much of a humanist, etc. he holds life and personhood too much as sacred.

and contrary to what he thinks, even the fact that he could potentially kill to protect someone he loves isn't some grand indictment of his soul; that just shows the depth of his love. many parents would say the same for their children. lovers for their lovers. friends for their friends. (hell, catherine kills to save his life at one point, and he doesn't think less of her for doing so!) it doesn't make him a coldblooded killer by any means to have those instincts. it's not like he'd be violent without provocation or in any other circumstances; just to save the people he cares about. that's not a flaw! that's a sign of devotion.

he's just a guy trying to get by in life, and occasionally he futzes things up and ends up hurting other people.

but he is also someone who immediately apologizes when he is called out (see, for example, how quick he is to recant the inadvertently misogynistic statement he makes in episode 02x23 "the hunger artist" once catherine confronts him on it); who forgives others of their mistakes immediately and wholeheartedly (such as when he lets warrick keep his job in episode 01x02 "cool change"); who is a pacifist at heart; a poet's soul; someone who, despite working a job that puts him into contact with some of the worst elements of his society, still believes in truth, justice, and love.

he learns from his mistakes as he goes.

and over time, becomes far more open.

far less selfish.

far more willing to place the needs of his loved ones ahead of his own.

he is not some "creature of the darkness"—or at least no more so than most people are.

fwiw, i don't think heather is actually a "creature of the darkness," either.

even where sara and his past mistreatment of her is concerned, he isn't even half as terrible as he imagines himself to be.

for as much as he does give her the runaround during the early seasons of the show and oftentimes fuck up with her very badly, he is not "all awful to her all the time." he is oftentimes very supportive of and gentle with her. frequently a very good friend (albeit not a boyfriend in the way that she would want).

he isn't 100% some negative force in her life, some black hole draining her of light.

that's why she never ultimately "gets over him," you know?

because for as complicated and messed up as things sometimes get between them, there is enough that's positive between them to continue to attract her.

there's goodness and beauty mixed in with the confusion and heartache; in greater part, even.

he also seldom consciously intends to treat sara badly and never is comfortable doing so when he is conscious of the outcomes of his actions.

as i talk about here,

though grissom may sometimes appear callous, in truth, he very much isn’t. he doesn’t like hurting sara’s feelings. he doesn’t like making her sad. though he is sometimes possessed of a very strong impulse to save his own skin and to do what is best for him, he also isn’t without empathy for her plight. when he fucks up, he feels bad about doing so. he kicks himself for being such a jerk every time he disappoints her. (look at his face after he declines her dinner invitation in episode 03x22 “play with fire;” that is not the expression of a man who feels good about what he’s just done.) he wants to make up for his inability to give her what she wants. he wholeheartedly desires to do better—to be better—though he may not know exactly how to overcome his more selfish impulses in order to meet that end.

but the thing is, he eventually sorts himself out.

his desire to do better does translate into action.

into improvement.

he changes his mo with her over time.

by s5, he makes the conscientious decision to prioritize sara's needs. he starts to be more transparent in his dealings with her, even though doing so scares him. he even puts himself and his job on the line in order to do what's best for her (see episode 05x13 "nesting dolls").

like sara says in the reboot, after he learns her story, he's consistently "just there for her."

though of course he doesn't do everything 100% perfectly with her going forward, the grissom of s5 on is so much more open about his feelings for her, so much gentler in his dealings, and so concerned with promoting her happiness.

and this willingness to change how he deals not only with sara but with all of his loved ones—see, for example, how he validates nick's emotionality by recommending him for the promotion in s4 and how supportive he is of greg throughout s7 after sara draws his attention to greg's struggles in episode 07x06 "burn out"—proves that, contrary to his misconceptions about himself, he is not some fundamentally evil person who always treats the others around him selfishly.

he is far more capable of compassion, empathy, and even evolution than he gives himself credit for—a notion which might come as a shock to him but which is no surprise to the one person who knows him better than everyone.

sara.

sara was raised the darkness. she saw extreme selfishness in practice every day while she was growing up. was both a witness to and victim of harm inflicted with impunity for years.

she knows what can happen when people orient towards harming others and don't seek to change.

and don't get me wrong: she doesn't think that grissom is perfect, and particularly not as someone he has at times done emotional damage to.

she knows he is capable of causing pain, just like anyone else is.

she's felt it.

but she also doesn't think for one moment that he has a dark side.

i'll go as far as to say: she wouldn't be with him if she did.

as i talk about here,

[sara] doesn’t just love [grissom] for his mind, you know—she also loves his heart and his humanity, two features which others often claim he doesn’t possess; two features which he often doubts in himself. listening to him rhapsodize about the plight of the victim in [episode 01x09 "unfriendly skies"] and empathize with the man, refusing to entertain the question of whether or not his murder was justified and instead arguing that he was owed a basic level of compassion, she is struck by what a good person he is. that genuine kindness in him is part of what attracts her. she loves that he is nonviolent. she loves that he is humane. she loves that his tendency is always to look for whom he can help, not hurt. he is the most intelligent person she’s ever met, but he also has one of the best hearts, and she adores him for it. for as much as he will later say in the series finale that she restores his faith in the human being, he does the same for her. he is so much of the softness and light she needs to believe still exists in the world.

to continue on from this post,

though he doubts his own goodness, she doesn’t for a second. in fact, she believes in it more than anything. she loves how compassionate, humane, and just he is; how much he cares about the people in the cases they work and his deep capacity for empathy. she adores that he is a champion of persons who are vulnerable, that he speaks for the dead, that he honors and protects women and children, that he allies with the marginalized, etc. though of course she never likes for him to feel sad, she finds herself deeply touched whenever she sees his sorrow for someone he couldn’t save or an investigation that ended badly. while he often thinks the worst of himself, she knows he is the best—that he has this deep-seated and unfailing desire in him to help others and to right wrongs; that he is compelled by his nature to try to better the society he lives in and to show kindness to the individuals he encounters. that he can’t see in himself the virtues that seem so obvious to her honestly breaks her heart, which is why she never misses the opportunity to remind him that he is so much better than he gives himself credit for. just knowing that someone like him exists helps her have faith in the world. he’s such a good man, and the fact that he is is so important to her. to that same end, she also loves how inherently gentle he is. as i talk about here, “to my mind, part of the reason why she is attracted to grissom is because he’s generally very soft-spoken; is a committed pacifist; he’s not domineering; and even when he’s mad at her, he doesn’t yell at her.” coming from the background she does, she only ever could have loved a man who was soft, who seldom raised his voice (and when he did, only did so in defense of others or in the expression of righteous outrage over injustices), who treated others kindly, and who didn’t misuse power at times when he held it. that grissom is so fundamentally mild and never wants to hurt anyone or cause anyone to be afraid of him makes her feel 100% safe in his presence.

for a long time, grissom thinks of himself as a selfish, heartless monster, but sara never sees him that way, and, over the years, she slowly helps him to shed this poor opinion of himself, too.

scenes like the ones in episode 02x05 "scuba doobie-doo," where she encourages him not to be hard on himself, and episode 09x01 "for warrick," where she reminds him of how deeply warrick loved him at a time when she knows he is (unduly) blaming himself for warrick's death, speak to her unfailing belief in him and her desire for him to be able to see himself as she sees him, not as some creature of the darkness, unworthy of the light, but as a light to her and others.

grissom doesn't come around to this notion right away and suffers more than a few setbacks over the years (particularly at times when he feels as if he lets sara down); however, grissom does eventually start to trust in his own humanity.

the grissom we see in csi: vegas s1 is one who doesn't suffer from the same kind of extreme self-loathing and self-distrust as he did in his earlier years. he doesn't have those same doubts concerning his humanity and worthiness, as is evident by the way he allows himself to be comforted in times when he is in distress, accepting love in a way he previously could not bear to.

twenty years on, that grissom is one who has become very comfortable operating in the light, and it's a beautiful thing to see.

anyway.

rambling now.

sorry to go all philosophical here.

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

#answered #anon #asks: csi #** #my meta #meta: csi #meta: grissom #csiverse #let's talk shop

[buildinggsr]

So, there is this pond of mud of an episode. An episode where everything you see is distilled sadness, basically. The plot, the development of the characters…everything. The very end, too, is heart-wrenchingly sad.

Yet -

Throughout all this sadness and “I’ll never watch this again”, is a gem. A very little gem, but shining as pure poetry, where you are enabled to enter and see the very heart of a relationship between a woman and a man.

(This had to accompany the gifset on 8.07, but I didn’t feel to publish it at the time. A few days ago I found this again among my writings and I thought it could be of some interest, maybe? Keep in mind that this was not proofread and I’m the strange dude of the fandom with strange ideas.)

She is shy; he is happy. Her "Hi" is feeble, uncertain; his "Hi" is joyful and a bit surprised. She is shy because she feels she has something to make up for – she had behaved not rightly towards him; he is happy, elated almost, because he has already forgiven her – there's nothing to forgive in the first place, in his eyes. 

She wavers, her look low, not knowing where to start. It's him, the one who’s usually quieter, the one who usually doesn't know where to start, to spur her to speak – whatever she says will be fine, she can trust him.

"Ok, what's up?" He spurs her in a friendly and loving way, a permanent open smile always on his face, because he's curious to know what's going on, curious to know more about the multitudinous emotions dwelling in her deep soul. 

She waits a moment. Then, "I'm sorry," she says. She almost spits out that sorry, because it’s the most urgent thing she has to tell him, but also because it’s the easiest thing to say for her right now. And also, it is the clearest thing to both of them. She says I'm sorry, in fact, as though she knows he already knows she is – but it’s important to say it out loud.

And he already knows it, indeed. Sure enough, he just gives a little nod, like saying, I know that, but for what precisely?

This is a very precious GSR moment to me. 

I always found the choice to film the scene the way it's filmed curious. Before this moment, we had other "intimate" moments between them, but in the other situations we had almost frontal close-ups, or at least we were in the same room where the action was developing – we were close to them (e.g. 4.23 Bloodlines, 5.12 Snakes, 5.13 Nesting Dolls, 6.24 Way to Go, 7.08 Happenstance, etc.). Now, instead, we're kept at a certain distance, and we see them only in profile as if we were watching them through the keyhole. There are people passing by between us and them, and we can see the frame of something in Grissom's framing. 

Also, the moment is a waiting one: here, we feel, must come some big revelation or something that, alas, only will arrive dramatically at the end of the episode. Yet, the framing change is pretty fast, each framing lasting just a few seconds. All this together leaves you with the feeling of kind of chasing them, and you crave to see more of this moment, more of the expressions on their faces, more of the feelings they're feeling. More of their hearts. More of them. 

In this confusing tension of wanting to know, wanting to see, wanting to feel, we see a man who's usually quiet and shy and submissive showing to be the stronger one, to be ready to "fight" for her to be fine (and consequently for them to be fine), while she, usually the fighter, is the weaker one. She's feeble as her initial "Hi”. We have seen her looking for support in him many times throughout the years (1.10 Sex, Lies and Larvae, 1.16 Too tough to die, 2.11 Organ Grinder, etc.), but now, although the dynamic is the same, the action develops with a different feeling, to me.

Before, when asked for help, he looked somehow detached from her. Even the times he holds her hand, in 4.23 Bloodlines e 5.13 Nesting Dolls, for example, it still feels like, although he deeply participates in Sara's suffering or discomfort, he's something separated from her, another person, physically and mentally. Depending on the stage the development of their relationship had reached, over the years in this kind of situation he had behaved like a boss, or like a friend, or even an intimate friend. Yet, there still wasn't, in those past moments, the intimacy typical of the engaged couples, I think. Now, instead, that intimacy shines like a diamond. It's brilliant and beautiful, and as simple as their relationship has been difficult in the past. While before Sara was looking for help in Grissom because he was someone she trusted, now she does so because he is her partner – in the boyfriend-future-husband meaning. He’s her family. 

It's the first time, I think, we see the intellectual intimacy that has characterized the whole first season of CSI:Vegas so clearly. By now, we have seen them behaving like a couple numerous times. Through little details, we have seen them grow as a couple. Since the beginning of their intimate relationship we have seen them playing like kids with their cameras on a crime scene, shaving, watching movies, facing a “little” crisis during the case involving Heather in 7.23 The Good, the Bad and the Dominatrix. But even in this last case, we were not given to see how things developed to fix the crisis – as much as we were not given to see the very beginning of their relationship (in San Francisco or Vegas). Now, instead, we actually see them, in front of our very eyes, talk openly - or at least trying to do so damn phones. 

At this point, he has already made the proposal, and she said yes (yeah!). It is decided, they will get married. The relationship has hopped to another level. So, probably, it’s like they kind of feel as though they are already married and behave as such. Yes, they were already married since season 1, but I think this shines through this scene in such a clear way that always leaves me on the verge of crying. 

And, although the moment in 8.07 is not a happy one, it's so moving to see the embryo of what we know they are now, of the intimacy they have now, of the happy couple they are now, almost 20 years ahead.

I’m not sure if I was able to express all the feelings this very short moment gives me. To sum it up, I just wanted to say that it drives me crazy.

#csi #gsr #gil grissom #sara sidle #grissom x sara #sara x grissom #csi 8x07 #is this a real meta or is this just fantasy?

[hollygl125]

On that “Gruesome” Grissom:

“You’re not good with people.”

I wrote the following back in March 2023 but never posted it (for various reasons, including the Tumblr walruses eating my tags when I attempted it).  It’s back now with just a little revision.

@addictedtostorytelling’s somewhat recent (yes, that’s relative to March 2023) meta on Grissom just wanting Sara to be happy reminded me of something I had been pondering recently.  (Of course, @addictedtostorytelling’s recent meta—that’s now relative to April 2024—on Grissom’s supposed “dark side” also brought this unposted ramble of mine to mind.)

Over the last several weeks (yup, March 2023), I’ve been rewatching select scenes and storylines from the early seasons of CSI.  I was again struck by the scene in “Face Lift” (01x17) where, after Grissom fails to realize a glass wall isn’t going to keep the Marlowes from their long-lost daughter, Catherine tells Grissom, “You’re not good with people.”

This isn’t the first time Catherine tells Grissom he’s not good with people (not that I’ve been doing an exhaustive tally).  At the beginning of the first season, in “Pledging Mr. Johnson” (01x04), she sarcastically tells him, “I should be just like you.  Alone in my hermetically sealed condo watching discovery on the big screen working genius-level crossword puzzles, but no relationships.  No chance any will slop over into a case.  Right.  I want to be just like you.”  It won’t be the last time, either.

Of course, in “Pledging Mr. Johnson” (01x04), Catherine also fails to comprehend the potential repercussions of disclosing information to the deceased’s husband and—in addition to compromising the investigation—ultimately gets the deceased’s lover killed by said husband, thereby ruining two lives.  But I guess we’ll forget about that.

(Much more discussion under the cut—and it gets decidedly GSR-focused by the end—and the middle, for that matter. 💕)

In contrast, Grissom clearly thinks Catherine is the best with people.  He comments on it at least twice in the first season:

In “Unfriendly Skies” (01x09), he asks Catherine to get the passengers’ shoes, telling her, “You’re the ‘people’ person, right?”

In “$35K O.B.O.” (01x18), he tells her, “Catherine, there's a reason I assigned you this case. You're good with people, both the dead and the living.”

Of course, in “Unfriendly Skies” (01x09) Grissom is the one who manages to give his “‘people’ person” his puppy-dog eyes to get her to do what he wants.  He also manages to swoop in to be pretty darn (almost unbelievably) smooth with the school director, Dr. Gilbert, in “Sounds of Silence” (01x20).  He certainly doesn’t seem bad with people there.  But it’s the first season.  We know we can’t expect consistency.

Then there’s Sara.  Sara is Grissom’s heart; Sara restores his faith in the human being.  Okay, again, it’s the first season, so those things are probably still a work in progress.  But I would hazard that at this point he already (either implicitly or explicitly) sees her as the best, most caring person he knows.  And, in “Too Tough to Die” (01x16), this best, most caring person tells him he “[doesn’t] feel anything.”

Of course, by “Too Tough to Die” (01x16) Grissom has already proven that he too cares about things—or, more significantly, people.  He’s the only one who thinks about the victim’s perspective in “Unfriendly Skies” (01x09), for example (turning Ms. Sidle into heart eyes in the process).  And, above all else, he certainly cares for Sara; he’s already shown that on several occasions, at least: “Crate ’n’ Burial” (01x03), “Sex, Lies, and Larvae” (01x10), and “Too Tough to Die” (01x16).  I don’t think she really believes he doesn’t feel anything.  But it still must sting for him that she says it.

As @figsr noted, Grissom has also already been visibly hurt by Sara’s “Gruesome, Grissom” comment, in “Crate ’n’ Burial” (01x03).  Sara’s surely not the first person to make that alliterative connection, but I suspect it especially smarts coming from someone he must view as a kindred spirit.  (I doubt, for example, that (m)any other TV characters have ever expressed quite such high levels of enthusiasm about the prospect of visiting a body farm as Sara (in “Burden of Proof,” 02x15) and Grissom (in “Let the Chips Fall,” CSI: Vegas, 1x05).)

Now, I don’t know how Grissom originally became the man with the shell around his heart.  (I theorized a bit on this in the third chapter of my first story.)  But here we are in the first season, and we have two of the most important women in his life—one the best “people” person he knows and one just the best person he knows—telling him how he’s just not good with people, how he doesn’t feel anything—I mean, the poor guy!

This doesn’t end with the first season, and it doesn’t end with Catherine and Sara, either.  Everyone from the coroners on up take jabs at Grissom’s people skills.  In “Friends & Lovers” (01x05), for example, Dr. Jenna Williams calls him “Gruesome Grissom” and expresses surprise that the “tin man” (her words) has a heart.  In “Bang Bang” (06x23), Doc Robbins’s question about whether Grissom has “ever been close to getting married” also impugns Grissom’s people skills.

Sara teases Grissom about not liking people in “You’ve Got Male” (02x12).  She’s being playful, flirty even, but it’s plain from his expression that it hurts him.  (William Petersen, you are a delight!)  By “Burden of Proof” (02x15), though, she’s seriously angry, claiming he doesn’t respect her, while he hadn’t even been aware there was a problem.  Catherine provides some constructive criticism at the end of the episode, but it’s still implicitly criticism.

I’m not blaming Sara here.  I love both the lovely science nerds, roughly equally.  (I love them most as the matched set.)  But they each underestimate the other’s anxiety and doubts regarding their worthiness for love.  So she’s aiming for playful or flirty in “You’ve Got Male” (02x12), but she doesn’t get that her words are having an effect opposite to the one she would desire; she’s making a romantic relationship between her and Grissom even more unlikely, as she’s reinforcing his belief that he’s not good enough for her.

(I don’t think Sara makes these comments in an attempt at misdirection.  She just loves him so much and esteems him so highly that she assumes her affection for him can’t be questioned and she can’t comprehend how poorly he thinks of himself in many respects.)

The jibes continue through early season three:

Grissom’s “favourite CSI,” Warrick, expresses surprise that Grissom “sat at a table with actual living beings” (“Revenge Is Best Served Cold,” 03x01).

Catherine tells him that, if good fences make good neighbours (as he says), then he’d “make a great neighbour” (“High and Low,” 03x10).

Okay, that’s about where I am in my rewatch right now (again, as of March 2023), and I’m not about to do a methodical accounting of every time someone in the series insults Grissom’s people skills over the course of almost nine seasons.

Of course, I’m not going to do a methodical accounting of all the times Grissom is good with people, either, but I just watched “Blood Lust” (03x09), and I have to note a couple:

In “Gentle, Gentle” (01x19), Grissom uses an out-of-character (in other words, season one) outburst to get his DNA moved to the front of Greg’s queue.  In contrast, in “Blood Lust” (03x09), he gets his evidence moved to the top of the pile by—unlike everyone else—showing respect for Greg as master of the DNA lab.

In “Burden of Proof” (02x15), Grissom tells Sara that “the lab” needs her, and she’s not impressed.  Meanwhile, in “Blood Lust” (03x09), he finally manages to tell her what she wants to hear—“I need you”—and he can’t help but win her over; he completely charms her, and she can’t stop smiling at him the whole episode.

Each of Grissom’s team members loves him in their own way, so they’re not generally trying to be cruel or callous, but I suspect they underestimate the effect their words have on him.

Sara, who loves Grissom the most, continues her teasing of him even when they’re dating (and likely living together).  In “Toe Tags” (07x03), she tells him she’d heard he was “a little dull as a speaker” back before she met him at the AAFS conference in San Francisco.  In “Happenstance” (07x08), she implies he’s a misanthrope.

Sara’s teasing comes from a place of affection, and at that point she probably assumes any negative vibes are cancelled out by the fact that they are going home for nightly sexy good times, but I suspect her words still have more (negative) effect on him than she realizes.

Still, I think the comments from the early seasons (especially the first), have the most effect.  The first season sees a lot of disruption in Grissom’s life.  He’s suddenly thrust into a new position (although how exactly the various roles work is, as it always will be, somewhat ambiguous), a position with more authority, a position requiring more people skills than he likely wants to exercise.  He must retain some general sense of guilt for the fact that the team didn’t pay enough attention to poor Holly Gribbs.  He’s also starting to develop problems with his hearing (although I can’t recall which episode first raises them), which he sees as threatening the stable and comfortable life he’s built for himself.

Most significantly, for the first time, he has this beautiful young woman (this woman he loves, whether he’s acknowledged that to himself yet or not) in front of him, day in and day out.  However close they may have been before her move to Vegas (and I’m sure we each have our own different theories on that), I suspect—and I think “Sex, Lies, and Larvae” (01x10) confirms—he has not previously been witness to the full range of emotions and peculiarities of our absolute BAMF, Sara Sidle.  In short encounters and at a distance, Sara and Grissom were undoubtedly both able to present portraits of themselves that concealed some of their rougher edges.

Of course, the fact that, outside the world of the show, the writers and William Petersen were still working on developing the character we would come to know and to love contributes to the ultimate sense that this is a man in a time of transition.

So, in the end, is it any surprise that Grissom winds up believing he’d never be good enough for the best person he knows, that she wouldn’t want him in the long term, that he could never truly make her happy?  Honestly, no, not really—not at all, I’d say.  And he carries this belief with him throughout the original series—through his angst with Sara, through his romantic relationship with Sara, always.

Even at the pinnacle of his character development in the ninth season, when he’s standing there in the rain forest looking at her, Grissom still seems initially uncertain about whether Sara will want him.

Grissom carries this with him to the unseen events of season 13.  He ends up the de facto bad guy in that situation.  Even though he originally gives up his whole life for Sara and she leaves him alone in Paris to come back to Vegas (if you want to put the spin on it that I imagine our Gilbert does when he’s at his worst), he ends up seeming like the one who left.  He is offscreen, whereas Sara is onscreen with us in Vegas, visibly heartbroken.

Obviously this stems from who was and wasn’t on the show at this point, which is what dictated these—admittedly ridiculous, because why would they have spent seven years recycling each other’s air only to go their separate ways for years almost immediately upon getting married—events.

But, if you actually think about what Grissom would be feeling at this time, it’s devastating, because he, like Sara, would be absolutely heartbroken.  I believe that, however much he breaks Sara’s heart throughout the course of the series, he must break his own just as much.  (I have a chapter on that, too!)  But, whereas both Sara and Grissom try to suppress their emotions, Sara (despite all her “I’m fine” statements—the lady doth protest too much) more commonly wears hers.

Grissom is so convinced he’s failed Sara—that he just isn’t good enough to make her happy—that he literally sends himself out to sea in penance.  You can’t tell me that he isn’t enduring a pretty miserable existence at this point.  It’s enough to break my heart, too.

This is (in part) why I love so much what we got to see of them in CSI: Vegas.  When Grissom jokes about Sara liking silver fox Robert Gomez “as a suspect, I hope” (“Under the Skin,” CSI: Vegas, 1x03) or she implies he’s mellowed (“Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” CSI: Vegas, 1x10), there’s no longer any real insecurity or self-doubt on his side (or hers, for that matter).  By CSI: Vegas, finally, he knows he makes her happy.  He knows he can make her laugh and make her smile.  On her side, he does make her happy.  He does make her laugh and make her smile.  And making her happy is what makes him happy.  They’re both happy.

Grissom doesn’t really care about anything else.  He doesn’t (in my opinion) really care about preserving their legacy.  He cares about Sara and doing what will make her happy, so he can go back to living his best life with her somewhere on a boat out in the Pacific (or, as it turns out, the Arctic).

This former misanthrope is, among other things, still eye f***ing his beloved when she shows up in a robe, talking about how she’s his only teammate (aside from doubt), being affectionate with her in public, singing to her, flirting with her, telling her how magical she is, holding her hand and massaging her shoulders in the lab, searching through goo for her wedding ring, and kissing her on a roller coaster—all the while still being very respectful of her and appreciative of her awesomeness.  (I’m censoring this post because I’m still not sure what exactly makes Tumblr break my tags.)

Meanwhile she is still making heart eyes at him at every turn and assuring him she’ll never go away, plotting to seduce him, going over the moon when he finds her wedding ring, and otherwise generally participating in all the above activities.

They are exactly who I would want them to be in their happily-ever-after.  They are mystical, luminescent sea creatures.  I just love that they are so happy.

Of course, that’s just my viewpoint; yours may differ!  (I may very well be writing nonsense, in which case: please, carry on!)

#csi #gsr #otp: gsr #sara x grissom #grissom x sara #sara sidle #gil grissom #💛: survivors in the night #my thoughts and feelings on the two lovely science nerds

[coping-via-clint-eastwood]

Gil Grissom's Sadness (9x05, 4x12 and 16x02)

Can I talk about the sad things I was thinking about/observed when I watched Leave Out All the Rest?

Okay, so um, the first thing I noticed is his voice.  Of course, I knew he sounded sad.

But I realised that he sounds like this on another occasion:

It's when he says this ^

Take a listen to that particular part, and compare it to how he sounds in the whole of 9x05

They sound the same.

It's heartbreaking...you can hear his regret...and that especially rings true in 16x02

For Leave Out, aside from being acutely depressed, he is also exhausted from not having gotten any sleep.

But there is a difference - 4x12 is another episode where he is practically deadbeat. But in that episode, he doesn't sound like this. In Butterflied, his voice becomes lighter, and you can hear that it takes him effort to speak, and he slurs his words.

But for Leave Out and that moment in Immortality, you don't hear that. As sleepless as he has been, his voice doesn't change like that. Rather, his voice is rougher due to the deep emotion that is practically tormenting him.

(Way to kill me, Billy. You did great {not sarcastic}.)

The second thing I noticed is his appearance. Again, I'm gonna compare this to Butterflied.

(I noticed his sound before his sight because...ah...there was something in my eyes. No clue what they were...)

Okay, this is also probably due to the fact that he's five years older by the time, but still. He looks so much more haggard than he does in Butterflied. There is an obvious difference between the way he looks when he hasn't slept in four shifts, and when he is feeling Not GoodTM

I think that's all I have to say.

#csi #gsr #gil grissom #william petersen #billy petersen #billy petersen loving #gil grissom loving #c-v-c-e meta #16x02 #9x05 #4x12 #Youtube

[clonerightsagenda]

Key takeaways from the first episode of Greater Boston season four:

I’m going to have to read the script later because the voice distortions made it hard for me to understand everything.

I’m finding the implication that Gemma does not fall under Leon’s narrative control... ominous. Especially when they invoke her history of being a cop (yes you were a cop Gemma) and her concerns about taking things too far. That being said it’s also possible that her status as ‘true owner’ of the crystal ball interferes with Leon’s powers.

The indiegogo ad promised more narrators. I hope that means we’re going to continue to have characters seize the means of production like a few started to last season. Speaking of which, shame we didn’t hear from Isaiah and Isabelle in this episode. Wonder what they’re up to. Isaiah said he was going to help Gemma with the revolution; Maybe he’s one of the codenames referenced?

Also, where is Mallory. I miss her

The narrator who is voiced by one of the writers bitching about all the new characters is a fun meta gag. You brought this upon yourself my man.

We’re rooting for you Phil; we’re all rooting for you. Grow a spine

Wonder how far Emily’s mental breakdown has progressed at this point

If Matt Damon is played by Zach Valenti, does that mean the in universe Wolf 359 show stars Matt Damon in which case Matt Damon just has a terrible track record in space huh. And Ben Affleck is voiced by Briggon Snow and there’s an in universe version of the Bright Sessions, so did Ben Affleck play Caleb? I’d think he’d be too old, but then, I am thinking of our world’s Ben Affleck’s age, not Greater Boston!Briggon Snow!Ben Affleck. Coils upon coils. Still insisting Fake Nica played GB!Sally Grissom.

Speaking of which, I had totally forgotten that in Nica’s rambling letters to Michael she compared herself to Ben Affleck as someone living in someone else’s shadow always aspiring to greatness but perpetually overlooked. I should probably reread those monologues so I get the Subtleties going on in their interaction. I also need to figure out what Subtleties are going on with ‘fuck Mark Wahlberg’.

#greater boston// #Fake Nica Emily now literally Ben Affleck... #Nica cannot stop accumulating foils and shadowselves huh #which just adds to the irony of the whole thing #kat listens to greater boston