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addictedtostorytelling · 8 days

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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

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poolboyservice · 3 months

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imagine:

You are home alone, and thus you are wide awake at around 1:45 in the morning, you were doing your usual activity until you heard a tap outside your window, and a voice you don't recognize calling out to you, begging you to let them in...

Btw this poll is majorly for trans people and people who do not go by their legal name, but I don't really care who votes because what am i gonna do? Witch hunt your account??

#idk what to tag L #trans #transgender #deadname #preferred name #legal name #horror #?? I guess it's horror #imaginary situation #hypothetical scenario #fear #poll #polls #I've been thinking this idea for a while and am curious what is scarier for ygs #For me personally it's if someone was calling out my preferred name

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absentia-if · 1 year

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Please do a snippet where the Kidnapper realises he cares for MC!!! (even if it's just hypothetical 😥)

Sure… I hope it meets your expectations!

This is quite the nuisance, he muses, situated on the edge of a building, legs haphazardly thrown over the edge without a care in the world. I’m not the one that’s supposed to be trapped…

His fingers flex against the rough concrete underneath his hands, a wave of annoyance crashing through him like a tsunami; wrecking havoc on his meticulously thought out plans. Plans that he had spent so long going over, perfecting in such a way that it was almost manic, but he had made one fatal mistake.

A mistake that could destroy the entire premise of his game…

He could account for everything. Plan for everything…

But he could have never anticipated you. Namely the affect you had on him. He wasn’t naive, or idiotic, enough to believe that your mere presence would cure him, that it would relieve him of everything that had made him what he is, but he also couldn’t lie to himself when he thought about his hesitation when it came to unleashing the killing blow; ending your measly existence once and for all.

Being alone didn’t necessarily bother him, it was something he had grown used to out of necessity, but something about being alone with the knowledge you weren’t out there somewhere? It twisted his chest in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.

It wasn’t love, he wasn’t sure if he had ever felt the emotion, but it was horrifyingly close to being something similar. Something that would definitely put a wrench into his plans.

With a soft sigh, he angles his head to look at the night sky.

I just need to come up with a new plan… Maybe then this feeling will disappear.

#absentia #anonymous #asks #ask #the kidnapper #snippet #hypothetical scenario #red flags galore

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tmarshconnors · 7 months

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What US Would Be Like if America Lost the Revolution

Imagining an alternate reality where the American Revolution was lost and the United States did not gain independence is a fascinating exercise in historical speculation. While it is impossible to predict with certainty how events would have unfolded, we can explore some possible scenarios.

Continued British Rule: If the American Revolution failed, the American colonies would have remained under British rule. This would have meant that the British Crown would have continued to govern the American territories, and the American colonists would have been subject to British laws, taxes, and regulations.

Limited Autonomy: It is possible that the British government, recognizing the discontent among the colonists, might have granted them some limited autonomy or representation in the British Parliament. However, it is unlikely that the colonies would have enjoyed the same degree of self-governance as they eventually achieved through independence.

Economic Implications: Without independence, the American colonies would have remained part of the British mercantile system. This system placed restrictions on colonial trade and favored British interests. As a result, the American economy may have been more dependent on British trade, limiting opportunities for domestic industrialization and economic growth.

Slavery: The issue of slavery, which played a significant role in the lead-up to the American Revolution, would have likely continued. The British Empire abolished slavery in 1833, so it is possible that slavery may have been abolished earlier in the American colonies under British rule. However, this would have varied depending on the specific circumstances and pressures within each colony.

Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion: The idea of Manifest Destiny, which drove westward expansion and the growth of the United States throughout the 19th century, would not have emerged in the same way. The British Empire had a different approach to territorial expansion, and it is uncertain how it would have shaped the development of the American territories.

International Relations: The geopolitical landscape would have been vastly different. Without the United States as a separate nation, the balance of power in North America and the world would have shifted. Other European powers, such as France and Spain, may have had a greater influence in the American territories.

Alternative Paths: It is important to note that the desire for independence was not limited to the American colonies alone. Other regions of the world, inspired by the American Revolution, also sought self-governance and independence. The success or failure of the American Revolution may have influenced these movements in different ways.

Remember, these scenarios are purely speculative, and countless factors could have shaped the course of history in the absence of an American victory in the Revolution. The development of the United States and the world as we know it today would have been dramatically different.

#Alternate History #American Revolution #Historical Speculation #What If #Hypothetical Scenario #British Rule #Independence #Geopolitics #Colonial America #Manifest Destiny #Slavery #International Relations #Counterfactual History #British Empire #Impact of Defeat #today on tumblr #deep thoughts #deep thinking

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mzoyagon · 11 months

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Hypothetical question: What would/could happen if someone cocoons with Uzi when she transforms into her solver form?

Logically, I think it would make the most sense for the cocoon to kill them. The AbsoluteSolver's primary focus while she's transforming or transformed seems to be feeding, so its most likely response to someone getting caught in with her would be to eat them. However, in terms of what I think would be cool, it would be interesting to see the program respond to someone getting caught in with her by transforming them too. I'm a little obsessed with the concept of there being more than one killer in Solver Uzi scenarios (Overwritten, Plot Twist!, and the unnamed mama j AU all have multiple killers/antagonists in Cabin Fever) and that's definitely why I think this way, but imagine. Imagine the chaos if the solver transformed multiple drones at once.

#murder drones #murder drones absolute solver #murder drones uzi #uzi murder drones #hypothetical #hypothetical scenario #hypothetical question

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yonderghostshistories · 11 months

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BBC Ghosts/Alternative universe Monty Python fancast

In an alternative universe, BBC Ghosts was made in the late 70s/early-to-mid 80s, starring Monty Python and Co, of course. Here's my personal fancast of who would play who:

Robin - Terry Gilliam

Pat Butcher - Terry Jones

The Captain - Graham Chapman

Humphrey Bone - Eric Idle

Julian Fawcett MP - John Cleese

Thomas Thorne - Michael Palin

Kitty - also Eric Idle

Lady Fanny Button - Carol Cleveland

Mary - Connie Booth

(**Extra fan casting for the Coopers:**)

Alison - Kate Bush (maybe?)

Mike - Lenny Henry

Hope you like this post! Let me know about this hypothetical fancast in the comments! Thank you!

#bbc ghosts #monty python #alternative universe #six idiots #hypothetical scenario #fancast #made for fun

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melishade · 1 year

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In your AOP alternate timeline, it says that Optimus keeps his mask on to ensure that the humans don't fear him as much. Does that mean he's going to have his mask on at all time like in G1? If so, how would that pan out for him since he needs to eat and Megatron might say something about it when he shows up?

What if Optimus arrived in the 1st Episode:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

I mean, Optimus refuels in private a lot just so he doesn't scare the humans. Although, it lasts a little bit too long to the point where it causes people to bet whether or not Optimus has a mouth. When Megatron does show up via any scenario listed in part 3, the ex-con asks why the hell he's keeping his battlemask on all the time. Optimus explains why and Megatron just calls him a coward, earning a visible eye roll from the Prime.

See, because Optimus and Megatron's interactions wouldn't be so negatively charged, due to the fact that Megatron didn't jump into the story at the worst possible time, the two are able to have more civil talks. They still sass each other and reference shit that no one else knows what they're talking about.

Optimus does deactivate the mask once in front of the Survey Corps, but some have made comments that he looks weird without it, because he's been wearing it around them for so long.

#asks #send me asks #attack on prime #hypothetical scenario #what if optimus appeared in the first episode of aot instead of episode 5 #tfp #transformers prime #tfp optimus #tfp megatron #megatron #optimus prime #attack on titan #aot #snk #shingeki no kyojin

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silly-shady · 6 months

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So, I've got some scenarios for future digital drawings of the fusions:

Dalgona biting Andres out of fondness

Harvest Leaves taking flight

Dropped-it Delphine accidentally breaking something

Calen Talichio popping candy in their mouth

Toni Crumblecomb going window shopping

Norah Potablette doing chores (with some magic here and there)

Malice Barbshard's head getting clouded with what they hate (Mercy hates bugs and Nala hates Bls and Bo)

And that's all I got so far.

@dib-thing-wannabe

Oooooooh!

These are fun scenarios! I shall add these to my list!

Meanwhile, the previous scenario ideas I have yet to digitize: [I swear, I will!!!]

#fusion collab #fusions #answered #inbox commentary #hypothetical scenario #drawing ideas

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shepherds-of-haven · 6 months

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How would each RO's fan base react if MC dates their idols? And what would MC's fan base think if they date some RO? 😅

Blade's fanbase: I think reactions from his fanbase are mixed, ranging from either envious and salty (like "nooo I was supposed to be the special one who unlocked his ice-cold heart, this isn't fair!!") to resigned acceptance because the special treatment was obvious to anyone watching closely enough, so it's not exactly a surprise

Trouble: completely non-surprise, it was sooo obvious for so long, they'd most likely "adopt" MC as part of their fandom and ship/worship them from afar as a couple... except for Rovyn, if you've read Trouble's latest day off 😭

Tallys: I think it would mostly be mystification, like "HUHHHH since when were they interested in each other?? what made Tallys break down her walls and go after MC, who's not even another Elf??" I think they'd be more rabid for details and consumed with curiosity than anything!

Shery: there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, it'd be like watching a much-beloved daughter go off on her own and marry into a different household, the mourning and loss would be intense 😭

Riel: honestly I feel like 90% of his fanbase would be very happy that Riel can actually find romantic happiness with somebody, I think his fans worry about him and his health and want him to find someone because they mostly entertain no fantasies that that person would ever be them, lol, if they're fans of his then they're already well aware of his impossible standards 😂 So they would be very pleased for him and likely approving of the relationship!

Chase: there would be much salt from his fanbase and many mutual reassurances along the lines of "don't worry, we know his pattern, it's just a hookup, this won't last, no one panic!!" and the longer it went on and the more committed and in-love Chase acted, the more the confidence would die down to a sour 'we all agreed not to talk about it' lol

Red: I think there would be much salt and bitterness, I'm guessing that in the case of fuckboys and players that the fans accept/love/embrace that aspect of them (believing that they'll never settle down and will be perpetual bachelors), and then when that changes, there's probably a sense of betrayed outrage, like they're not the same person or something anymore, lol. I imagine that the salt would be increased even more if Red and MC are exes!

Ayla: I think there would be a sense of noble acceptance and acknowledgement about it, like, "ah.... my fair Ayla... if that is your path to happiness, I can only step aside and wish you well from afar......" So generally they would just be happy that she'd found someone and could only wistfully observe her changes in demeanor as a result of finding love with MC from a distance, and with a faint sense of pride and approval, like

Briony: gnashing and writhing, tearing out of the hair and sobbing into pillows and etc. There are probably angry muttered discussions of challenging MC to a group (?) duel that never actually come to fruition

Lavinet: melodramatic theatrics and public declarations and fervent letters sent to Lavinet along the lines of "My dearest Lavinet, I thought what we had was special! How could you betray me thus? 🥺 What have I done to deserve such scorn from thee???" It's not personal to MC, it's just that Lavinet had a LOT of admirers sending her love letters and they all thought they were the only one lol

MC: I think this would depend on who MC was dating! If it was someone higher up in the ranks, like Blade or Riel (aka a co-Commander) or someone like Lavinet, Trouble, or Tallys (old guard, noble, etc.), it would be like "yeah I guess that makes sense... :/" but if it was someone less obviously "deserving" or "equal" to MC, there would be some "make it make sense!!!" feelings of shock. After all, MC is the Hero of Haven, they deserve someone who can equal their greatness!!

#Shepherds of Haven #hypothetical scenario #fanbase #popularity #admirer #admirers #romance options #MC

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marvelquestioneer19 · 3 months

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What would an encounter between Rocket Raccoon and Hiro Hamada be like? What would either of them say to each other?

#rocket raccoon #marvel #big hero 6 #hiro hamada #Hypothetical Scenario #crossover #guardians of the galaxy #marvel mcu

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addictedtostorytelling · 1 month

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I’ve been doing a bit of a csi watch lately and i’ve just finished blood drops. It really is such a close parallel to sara’s own past. I think at the time, they perhaps didnt know quite what was going on with sara’s past or maybe hadn’t narrowed down details - i don’t know writer decisions! But watching back, i think its a shame that this ep was done so early because itcould have provided such a fantastic thing for sara once her background was more well established - or perhaps, as the gateway for her bg to be told. Either could have worked well. Not that i want to see her suffer more, but from a storytelling pov i think it could have been interesting for this ep to play out in a later season and really affect sara, have her experience flashbacks or panic and back out of the scene. Basically for it to be clear that something about this scene is really getting to her. It could be we already know as the details of her situation have already been said, so we can draw an obvious connection, or that we don’t and upon asking why she’s so affected, she explains. Either way it also would have been prime gsr material, as gil could comfort her. It also might have been a good oppertunity for someone other than gil to do so, perhaps catherine or greg, since most of sara’s show of /healing of trauma is gil related. It would have been nice to see support (knowing support) come from somewhere else.

Bit of a ramble, sorry! Hope it made sense aaaa! Suppose i was just wondering if you felt the same in that the episode was so perfect that it might have been better used further down the line, rather than at the start of season 1? <3

hi, anon!

i can definitely see where you’re coming from and think that experimenting with the premises you put forward in your ask—i.e., moving the events of the episode back in the timeline and/or using them as an inroad to explore sara’s trauma in more detail—could be really fun in a fic setting.

that said, in canon, i'm pretty okay with episode 01x07 “blood drops” occurring both when and how it does.

i don’t consider it a wasted opportunity.

if you're interested in my reasoning, i've got it after the "keep reading."

so.

every story has to start somewhere, and, the way i see things, episode 01x07 “blood drops” provides the right start to sara’s trauma arc.

to me, the point of that episode (sara-wise) is to introduce the sense that there is something going on with her beneath the surface but not to fully elucidate what that something is as of yet.

to that point in s1, the sara we’ve seen has been ambitious about her cases and somewhat brusque with her new colleagues, with the exception of grissom, whom she softens around. while she hasn’t been dispassionate by any means and has even at times shown some emotional vulnerability—like in episode 01x03 “crate n’ burial,” when finding the “victim” buried alive causes her to despair the cruelty of people—there hasn’t, until now, been any sense that her reactions have been anything more than just the normal kinds of beats for a compassionate, justice-minded investigator.

episode 01x07 “blood drops” is where we see that assumption challenged.

a first crack in the armor.

it is the initial leg in a narrative that is meant to be a marathon, not a sprint, and it succeeds in its objective of kicking off that distance race, showing that what is happening to brenda clearly strikes a personal chord with sara, provoking an emotional response beyond even what the tragedy of the case might be expected to elicit from her, though not explaining wherefore, leaving that explanation off to be expounded on later, in subsequent episodes and seasons.

i think the episode does its job when you watch it through the first time: it makes you (along with grissom) go, “what’s going on here? what's driving sara's behavior?”

but then the real beauty of the thing is when you rewatch it again after having seen episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” and you can see, in retrospect, all of those parallels and connections, the way the one story informs the other.

imo, the episode isn’t any less significant to sara’s arc or any less revealing of her because it happens early on in the timeline. the parallel isn’t less effective because it works reaching backward from episode 05x13 “nesting dolls” to episode 01x07 “blood drops” as opposed to going in the other direction.

it still exists. it's still recognizable. it still informs our understanding of sara’s story.

the necessary information is all there; it’s just sublimated.

like a fossil buried beneath the surface of the earth, with only just one tiny fragment of bone sticking out, the shape and size of what’s there will become more apparent upon further excavation.

while the writers didn’t know sara's full story at that point—according to ann donahue and josh berman, they first started to piece together what would eventually become sara’s canonical backstory circa the writing of episode 01x10 “sex, lies, & larvae”—they did know enough to show that her reaction to the case (and, specifically, to brenda) wasn’t just the normal compassion of an investigator but rather something more deeply personal, pressing up against some very raw nerves for her. they also knew enough to make grissom her touchpoint—the character who is on the receiving end of her belligerent, aloof weirdness at the crime scene and who most noticeably reacts to her uncomfortable jokes at the team meeting.

and in doing so, they set a precedent, laying the foundations for both sara’s character and the gsr relationship.

though neither grissom as a character in the story nor we as the audience outside of it yet realize as much at the time when the events of episode 01x07 "blood drops" are taking place, with repeated exposure, both he and we come to recognize that that abrasiveness in sara, that in-your-faceness, that poke-the-bear behavior, is actually what a trauma response looks like from her.

we’ll see it time and time again with her in subsequent episodes such as 01x10 “sex, lies, & larvae,” 01x16 “too tough to die,” 01x23 “the strip strangler,” 03x14 “one hit wonder,” 04x03 “homebodies,” and 04x23 “bloodlines,” until finally we get to its most blatant example, episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” which serves as the climax to the storyline—and the point at which grissom has finally accumulated enough evidence to draw a conclusion about sara and approach her with it, showing up on her doorstep to say, "here's what i know, now please tell me the rest. i promise i'll be gentle with it."

by then, that moment of revelation is a thoroughly earned one, both for sara as an individual character—because after so long spent desperately trying to keep this huge, painful secret, to the point of alienating everyone she cares about from her, she is finally at a place where she just can’t anymore; she doesn’t want to; she needs to give voice to those memories and name the terrible thing; to confide in someone—and for grissom and sara as a couple—because for all of his many missteps over the years, something grissom has always done right is that he has consistently shown up for sara, proving to her through his patience, persistence, and refusal to allow her to push him away that he cares about her unconditionally and that he wants to be there for her, come what may.

the fact that episode 05x13 “nesting dolls” brings not only that moment of catharsis for sara but also paves the way for grissom and sara’s romantic relationship in vegas is so narratively satisfying; a culmination of so many plot threads, finally woven together.

and the way i see things, we might not have gotten to the moment of sara tearfully telling the story of her family tragedy to grissom as he sits across from her on her living room sofa in 2005 had he not first witnessed her acting ~off~ about the child survivor of a domestic homicide case back in 2000, you know?

episode 01x07 “blood drops” was that first domino to topple over.

and as for the issue of the sara never letting more people than just grissom in on her trauma of her own volition, honestly? i don’t necessarily see that part of the story needing to change, either.

we can discuss the healthiness or unhealthiness of sara’s decision to only ever (of her own volition) confide in just one person about her trauma elsewise, but at the end of the day it’s true to her character that she would never choose to open up about her childhood to her wider circle of friends.

given her private nature, her deep-seated fears of rejection, the way she trusts, what intimacy really means for her, how she wants to portray herself in public, how close to the surface her emotions run, how deep the pain of her trauma really is, how she attempts to cope, what her aspirations are for herself, etc., etc., that behavior on her part just tracks.

i likewise don't regret the fact we never get any flashbacks to sara's childhood (barring the audio ones in episode 05x13 "nesting dolls") or see her having the "classic tv panic attack" because i think her trauma is clearly articulated as is; what is implied is implied well enough.

i actually appreciate that her trauma responses are different (and even less straightforwardly "sympathetic") than the ones more frequently portrayed in media, as not all ptsd looks the same and some responses are quieter and harder to clock—more on the level of changes to the demeanor, isolation from others, engaging in risk-taking behaviors, etc.

so.

like i said up front: i could imagine some really interesting fics that might involve moving the events of episode 01x07 “blood drops” to occur later on sara’s timeline, using them either to directly precipitate her first confession regarding her past or to follow up on it (a la episode 05x21 “committed” in canon). i can likewise imagine some really interesting fics that made the episode more sara and/or gsr-centric and/or where other characters than grissom became involved in responding to sara’s behavior. there could be lots of cool storytelling avenues to explore along those lines.

@bartramcat used to wish we could have gotten an episode 01x07 "blood drops" callback featuring a teenage or young adult brenda collins in the later seasons of the show, maybe in place of the storyline we got in episode 15x12 "dead woods," and i can see how that option could be a very intriguing one to fic, as well.

but ultimately i'm glad to have the episode as is in canon.

of all of the complaints i have about writing decisions on csi, the way sara’s s1-s5 trauma arc plays out isn’t generally one of them. i think both its pacing and the way sara is characterized as behaving throughout works. ditto for the gsr aspect.

your mileage may—and from the sounds of things, probably does—vary, but, personally, i'm satisfied leaving episode 01x07 “blood drops” as is.

anyway.

i'm rambling now.

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

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: sara #hypothetical scenario #01x07 #csiverse #let's talk shop

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