#i'm always a day late posting about the sabbats here

[deadlyashesart]

Alastor's disappearance (Part 3)

I'm so sorry I was late to post this, I went through writers block and couldn't write anything for hours LOL. I hope you like this part, even if Alastor is a bit of an ass. The comfort comes soon, I swear. I didn't have enough time to look this over, so if there are any mistakes I do apologize.

Part 2

-----

7 years. It had been 7 years since she last saw him. What was she to say now that he was back? Rosie spent hours, days, weeks, worrying herself to sickness, and now he just sat next to her like he hadn't been gone at all. When did he return? Why didn't he come to her? Why didn't he talk to her before he left all those years ago?

Rosie turned her head to him, hoping he’d look back at her when her gaze was caught by a cute little egg boy on the ground. Out of habit, she smiled widely at him, and the egg scurried off in fear. Rosie had always been known for having a friendly and inviting smile, so this took her by surprise.

When she looked back up from the ground, her eyes locked with Alastor’s, who was smiling brightly at her. Rosie didn't know how to feel. She was beyond overjoyed that Alastor had returned safe and alive, but she couldn't help but feel anger and resentment towards him for leaving without so much as a goodbye.

Rosie smiled back anyway, although incredibly strained— at least to Rosie standards. Alastor seemed to take notice of this, as his permanent smile faltered ever so slightly. This isn't how she wanted their reunion to go.

“...Alast—”

“Welcome, Hell’s sovereign overlords.” Carmilla Carmine walked up to the front of the table, elegant as always. “I’ve invited you all here because you represent the controlling powers of our city. Together, you own millions of souls. Souls at risk with the new Extermination schedule.” She pounded the table with her fist. “We need to discuss what can be done to minimize the impact to our interest.”

Rosie was glad to see the other overlords wanting to do something about the extermination as she'd hoped, but she would be lying if she said that was what she was focused on right now. Despite her better judgment, she could only stare at Alastor as her feelings continued to fester.

“Alastor?” Camilla called out in slight surprise.

“Yes, I know I've been absent for quite some time, I’m sure you've all been wondering!” Alastor replied. Rosie’s eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly. Yeah, no kidding.

“Not really…” Camilla paused. “But welcome back in any case.”

-----

The meeting was ended abruptly by Carmilla, and the rest of the overlords began to leave. Rosie noticed Alastor fall behind, staying in the office for an extra moment to talk to the little egg boy she saw earlier. She waited for him by the elevators, and by the time he left, the rest of the overlords were gone.

“Rosie! What a pleasure to see you!” He exclaimed happily, making his way towards her with open arms. “It's been quite a while, hasn't it, old friend?”

Rosie crossed her arms. “Quite,” she mumbled coldly. What was she doing? She had rehearsed this a thousand times in her head; This isn't how she wanted it to go at all. Her emotions were too much to contain now that they were finally talking face to face.

Alastor looked taken aback, his eyes widening. That was not the greeting he had expected from her. “Is something the matter, my dear?”

Rosie struggled to find the words, she wasn't sure how to lay it down gently, so she didn't. “I- You… Where were you, Alastor..?” she asked, her breath quivering. “You were gone for so long! Where were you?”

Alastor chuckled dismissively, obviously not wanting to speak of this subject. “Ahh, well, I just took a well-deserved sabbatical! It's truly no big deal.”

Rosie uncrossed her arms, clenching her fists as her emotions became harder and harder to contain. “No big deal..? Y-you left without a word! Not to me, not to anyone! Alastor, I was worried sick!”

Rosie was usually a very calm, friendly, and patient person, she was rarely—if ever—upset. Seeing her lost in a sea of emotions was something unfamiliar to her, and to Alastor.

“My dear Rosie, I do not understand why you are so emotional. I’m here now! Isn't that what matters?” His cheery tone made Rosie want to rip that smile off his face, is that really all he had to say to her?

Rosie took a few breaths, fighting back tears as they threatened to spill. “How long have you been back?”

Alastor hummed in thought. “Well, I’ve been back for a few weeks now!” He smiled, trying to bring the mood up.

“A… A few weeks? How come I only see you now, then?! You disappear for years and you can't even be bothered to tell me you came back? I thought you were dead!” Rosie yelled, resting a hand on her chest.

“I’ve been preoccupied with something important, my dear,” he answered. Seeing Rosie in this state made him uncomfortable, he didn't know what to say to her. “I've been… Helping with a project.”

Her anger slowly faded, being replaced with an intense sadness. “You couldn't have visited at all..? Not even a letter..?”

Alastor’s ears flattened against his head. “It— It seemed to have slipped my mind.” Alastor took a step closer; Rosie took two steps back. “Don't be like that, my dear…”

Rosie took a deep, shaky breath, bringing herself back to a calm expression, but refusing to look at Alastor. “I should've expected this from you,” she mumbled. “You've never been remorseful for your actions, no matter who you hurt.” She paused, gently hugging herself in search of comfort.

“I just thought that maybe…” Rosie stopped herself from saying any more. “Have a good day.” She turned on her heel and entered the elevator. Alastor watched in a confused daze as she left.

The filter on his voice crackled as he felt the guilt start to set in. “Shit…”

-----

#radiorose #platonic radiorose #alastor and rosie #rosie and alastor #hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin rosie #hurt/comfort #angst

[backjustforberena]

I have like a hundred ideas about songs for song fics, but right now: How about Welcome Home by Radical Face?

so... I actually wrote something. I've not had anyone else read it or edit it and it doesn't even really fit the song much, except maybe the energy of it and I wanted to do Serena, not Bernie (for once) so... here you go and I'm already sorry:

Serena hadn’t had a home in months. There had been an apartment in Paris for a couple of weeks; before that, there had been a cottage in Cornwall that she’d rented before the summer months had started to encroach. The house before that had been home, once upon a time. A leafy detached in the upper market area of Holby City Hospital. Her home for a good long time. But since leaving Holby, spurred on by a future unwritten and unburdened, she’d caught a wanderlust. Ironic, wasn’t it? That her bravery had only come too late. What she’d thought was too late…

She’d lived in the villa on the hill for two months, on the outskirts of a little Spanish village whose principal employer was a close-by vineyard. It was quiet, it was restful, and it was utterly lonesome. White-washed walls and a large, expansive and bare garden in the back. Before October had come around, she’d already started to think of where to go next, how to leave. Africa, perhaps. She’d never spent enough time in Africa. There was always a feeling of potential, but it never got satisfied. Maybe for a little while, when the novelty of a new setting could be wrapped around her soul and she could convince herself her scars were rubbed clean. But then her skin would itch again and she’d forge on, trying to find her future all over again. Serena hadn’t been cross at it. She’d embraced the feeling of being a nomad (video calls to Jason and family notwithstanding). She’d never had anything like that before. Even on her sabbatical, she’d had purpose and a feeling that one day, she’d turn around and head back the other way. But Holby didn’t need her. Jason didn’t need her. No one really, truly needed her. She was free to see what she needed. Then, now, there was only the horizon.

There were no adrenaline rushes anymore. No schemes, no plots or politics in her life. There was very little, actually. There was serenity. But no home. Then October had come, and she’d signed on for another six months in this place without hesitation. Now she’d been at the villa on the hill for four months. Longer than Cornwall had lasted. She’d actually managed to unpack now which was something she’d struggled with in France. The wanderlust had been strange whilst it had lasted. Like a bout of insomnia, making a nest in her bones till even those feelings flew away.

The hot sun was streaming on her back. She’s in short sleeves. Shorts. Sandals. Serena feels her age and the nights she hasn’t been sleeping. It wasn’t insomnia now. It wasn’t fear keeping her awake or exhaustion buzzing in her veins. It wasn’t a fear of dreams. It was a fear of losing her reality. Of this being the dream. This villa on the hill had become very important to her now. She doesn’t want to miss a blade of grass. 

She bent at her waist, talking the next cover from the basket. It’s still slightly damp, cooler than the air around her, but it won’t be long till it’s dry as a bone. The sun will work its magic. Serena hooks it over the line and begins to straighten it out. There’s something rustic to this contraption. A line hung between two wooden posts with nothing around but a blue sky. She had rarely hung out her washing in Holby. She’d had a plastic contraption that folded out when needed, and staked into her old, dead grass. It had got mildew eventually. This feels more wholesome, cleaner and simpler. Or maybe that’s her romantic mind. Or her exhausted one.

It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. She pegs the sheet to the line to stop it from blowing away and reaches down for the last one at her feet. Laundry had doubled recently. Some of it is new. Only been used once so far and ordered online - decadent and as far from thin blankets or hospital wholesale. Egyptian cotton, Serena would have been jealous if she hadn’t bought herself a set for her own bed. She holds the sheets to her nose and inhales. It’s soft still. The washing has done the trick, removing all traces of sweat and embedding the scent of florals back into the fabric. 

A smile crosses her face as she lets it hang on the line. Serena feels the breeze change direction. It ruffles her gunmetal hair and blows through her clothes. It turns the sheets she’s hung into sails, not ghosts, ready to sail on into that horizon. A hand goes to her hip, her thumb runs across the place below her rib as she takes in the moment. They cast shadows across the green lawn. Serena turns her head to the sun, closes her eyes, and feels the light against the back of her eyes.

There’s a sound from behind her and Serena turns her head, eyes snapping open. She’s quick now. Adrenaline is a part of her days again. She doesn’t sleep. Can’t, for fear of missing anything. This reality is now her dream, even as things are broken and imperfect. The back doors are open and a figure, stick-thin and blinking, enters the garden. Bare feet onto warm grass. Serena sees the toes flex, before her gaze goes up to see Bernie Wolfe, tired and wrapped in a knitted throw Serena had made.

But she’s smiling. A quick quirk of her lips as their eyes meet. Yes, Serena thinks, as she takes a deep breath and smiles. She moves towards Bernie. This could quickly be called home.

#my fic #forgive bad writing #berena

[theghostpinesmusic]

Sabbatical Project Preface Draft (1/4)

So, I know I haven't been posting any trip reports or jam write-ups lately, and while I sincerely doubt the lack of my words is leaving a significant hole in your life, I wanted to explain why and share something slightly different in this post.

Basically, I've switched tacks within the last month from the "reading" phase of my sabbatical project to the "writing" phase, and while taking an hour of my day to write about something fun online after reading dense theory books for 4-6 hours became a welcome diversion over the last few months, taking an hour of my day to write about something fun online after already writing for 4-6 hours that day is...less welcome.

So, while I have lots of thoughts on my recent trips to the Deschutes River canyon and to the snowy rim of the Mountain Lakes caldera, and there are always more Goose jams to write about, all that stuff's been sitting in my Drafts folder for awhile because once I write for work all day I kind of just don't want to look at screens anymore.

That said, I thought it might be fun to share a bit of what I have been writing lately. I don't have a publisher for this project yet (and may never, who knows?) so there's no legal issue with sharing it for free...and it's just a first draft anyway. I have no idea if there will be a finished project (i.e., a full book) or if it will ever be published, but what I proposed for my sabbatical was that I finish a book proposal by the end of the year, and that typically includes an introduction and two example chapters. So I am writing at least that much, and hopefully carrying on beyond that from there.

For now, what I have is a sort of preface, laying out a little about me and where I'm coming from, including a few gestures toward what the book is going to be about. Again, this is a first draft, and it may well be that none of it will end up anywhere. But for now I'm happy with it and have moved on to working on the first chapter, which is about halfway done. I suppose I'll share that too once it's fit to be read.

I'm breaking the preface into four parts here, just in case anyone actually reads it and doesn't necessarily want to have to deal with one monster post containing all the text. So, here's the first part!

As I sit here at my desk, beginning to write the first draft of a preface for this book about summits and circumnavigations, lines and circles, I can’t help but be aware of one particular circle: Earth’s circle around the sun. My home office – a luxury born of necessity, back when COVID-19 shut down campuses but not classes – has one west-facing window, and there is a brief period of time every clear-weather day – longest in summer, nearly non-existent in winter – when the sun lifts itself above the roof of my neighbor’s house and shines through the maze of coleus standing rapt on my side of the window to heat the northwest corner of this room to an almost intolerable temperature. The air temperature on the bottom floor of my house is currently sixty-eight degrees, and the outside temperature is fifty-five. Out of curiosity, I put a small thermometer on the window sill, directly in the sunlight, and the mercury immediately jumps to almost ninety degrees.

Suffice to say that it’s difficult to sit here at four o’clock in the afternoon on a clear April day and not think about the sun. I am that seemingly rare person who would always rather be a little too cold than a little too hot, but I didn’t put my desk in this corner of the room as some idiosyncratic form of self-flagellation. I put it here initially, during COVID-19 lockdown, out of a conscious desire to be able to see the birds as they sang to welcome another spring, unknowingly, blessedly immune. Post-lockdown, I resumed doing most of my work on campus, but on the occasional day that I do work from home, I find that I enjoy having the sun to remind me of the Earth’s rhythms from the other side of the pane of glass that keeps me sealed in this human-made, climate-controlled room – a room that ostensibly exists to distract and protect me from those very same rhythms.

Today, as the sun shines in through the window, it heats up the wet dirt that my recently-watered coleus are growing in, and, briefly – until my nose becomes accustomed to it – the smell of humus fills the room. It’s a smell that has brought me comfort for as long as I can remember, dating back to my early childhood days in Ohio, playing in the backyard after summer rainstorms that you could almost set your watch by. I’d always imagined this to be an idiosyncratic reaction until I read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful book Braiding Sweetgrass thirty-five years after those first memories of rain and dirt and learned that the smell of humus releases oxytocin, “the same chemical that promotes bonding between mother and child, between lovers” (236). This is one of those wonderful facts that science can “teach” us but is really just reminding us of something we’ve known all along: of course we’re bonded to the Earth as we’re bonded to our mothers, our partners, our children: it’s the dirt that will embrace all of us last, and most finally, after all.

The very word “human” even reflects this truth, as it originates from the Proto-Indo-European root word “*dhghem-,” meaning “earth.” Thus, we literally call ourselves “earthlings,” people “of the earth,” and yet we still so easily forget the truth of something so elemental, so foundational to our existence on this planet as our relationship to dirt. And, as this corner of my office falls back into shade for another day, the Earth spinning me away from the sun, the sun spinning the Earth toward another Oregon spring – circles within circles – I find myself wondering, not for the first time: why?

#writing #research

[vanillacup-cakes]

It's been a while since I've done this. And by that I mean it's been a while since I finished one of these. I always end up drafting and never publishing.

I kinda forgot what happened in 2023 until I started writing my appraisal at work, and then it started to trickle back in. In short, 2023 was one hell of a stressful year.

Work wise, we started the year wherein a major project that we've been working on for literal years, and then finally got pushed through in 2022, and was centimetres away from the finish line, was pulled. It was too expensive they said, so all the work we did was not only redundant, but also had to be reversed. Everything.

Speaking of redundant... We also had to go through a redundancy process, and boy was that a rollercoaster. Did I think I had a good chance of keeping my job? Yes, I mean I had been working for the company for nearly 6 years and had been keeping team afloat for all those 6 years with roughly 1 manager a year, for probably about 6-9 months of that year. I wasn't 100% sure, you never know with these things, but I thought it was going to be okay.

I got to keep my job but shit only got started, I take one sick day off and suddenly I'm being flung in different directions that doesn't make sense. On top of all of that, we also moved offices, meaning I was getting up at 5:30am to make sure I beat the traffic and got to the office around 7:45am.

I was stressed, and tired, and people I liked at work started disappearing, and then suddenly my job is no longer what I thought it would be, and, honestly, I've never felt that miserable in my whole entire working life.

Sure there's been peaks and troughs at work but this was a whole new level.

Here's the thing. After spending time thinking about it, I think I never really recovered from the pandemic situation. Pre-covid I had a full-on calendar but I felt like I managed. Post-covid, I think I was feeling overwhelmed all the time but I kept insisting to myself that it was fine and I'll get back into the swing of things soon.

Then I read articles about how people felt that their life foundations went down when the pandemic happened and it finally made sense. For years and years I built a steady foundation for the life I was leading, slowly putting in routines and habits to help with the persistence of events, and chores, and things I wanted and needed to do. And then that all came crashing down when the pandemic happened. Life was different and so things were different, my routine and habits were different, and trying to get back into a post-covid era was not easy.

I was overwhelmed and didn't know how to get back into the high-speed train that was my pre-covid schedule. And so in 2023, I found myself just about getting through.

That's not to say nothing was good in 2023.

On the contrary, January started with a weekend away to A's place. It might have been cold and dreary sometimes, but we had fun at the boardgames cafe, chatting til the late hours, and eating the best damn pie I've ever had.

We went back to ballet, and the monthly dinners were back on track again! In fact, it might be a record? We went from January to May, on a 5-month streak, only broken up by Singing on the river (June), and birthday celebration (July), then back again in August. Then it was S's birthday (September), and one final dine out (October) before I went on my sabbatical (November), and then it was Christmas.

I also always nearly forget I went to Japan in March, just before everything went on lockdown (not that lockdown) at work, then no more travelling for work after that.

The only travel now was personal, to the Lake District in wet April, to sunny Italy for B's wedding, and the Cotswolds in October for our anniversary, and annual weekend away.

There were AmDram evenings with raffles, comedy shows with our favourite comediennes (some booked almost a year in advance), Harry Styles, Hozier, and a couple of West End musicals scattered around the year.

The Eras Tour Ticket Debacle.

Turning 30.

I deferred my chance for a big birthday bash to 2024 in hopes that H would be able to come to the UK. C deferred too but for different reasons. S planned a wonderfully relaxing spa weekend, and K planned a delicious trip to Hungary.

Turning 30 is not so bad when you use it as an excuse to be a little frivolous and enjoy the money you make sitting at a desk 37.5 hours a week. Or 40+ if you're S.

I changed jobs, same company, different departments. Just as my hope to get out of then current predicament was dashed, another opportunity arose.

I also moved houses, moved in.

So, as September closed, just over a month before my big trip, I moved house, and started a new job all at once. Why make one big life change at a time when you can do almost three things at once!

Speaking of which, 2023 was also a year of vaccines, so many goddamned vaccines. Well, at least the 2nd half was full of vaccines. Finally, after a turbulent year at work, I was getting close to my years-hoped sabbatical trip, 3 weeks in Thailand; 2 weeks at an elephant sanctuary, and then a few days at a dog shelter. From August to October, I had various vaccine appointments. So much money spent!

And November came and went in a strange time flux that felt slow but quick all at the same time, like life in Thailand was always going to be the way, but also like it was all a dream.

Then it was December. Going from days walking around Thailand in 30 degree heat, to coming home to -6 in the UK, barely two weeks back at work and then it was suddenly Christmas.

And of course there are the date nights, Christmas in February, and the evenings of laughing at the most mundane things in our little flat. Walking for hours and just missing the lunch hours at the pub, saying he won't share food but not caring if I steal a chip or two, and stocking up the fridge with his and hers desserts. Paper cranes, post-it notes, and bringing two winter coats when he came to pick me up from the airport because he knew I'd need an extra one to keep warm.

Boxes, and boxes, and even more boxes at every corner of the flat. Constantly trying to think of ways we can make more space.

There's starting a new routine of yoga before bedtime and starting immediately after we came back from his parents'. We followed the routine even on New Year's Eve, in bed before it was even 10pm.

And just like that 2023 was over.

2023 was chaotic.

I think that's really the best way to describe it.

I've never felt so out of my depth in my own life, but also such a happy year in many other ways.

2024 will hopefully be the year of new routines and habits and maybe less overwhelm and just more fun.

Here goes nothing!

#personal #end of the year #end of the year 2023 #ffr

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hi! I have just recently found your tumbler and have been obsessed reading your metas. I wanted to know your thoughts on the GSR cohabitation circa season 6-8/9. Who do think proposed living together?

Personally, the fanfic girl in me like to think they officially started living together-together after Grissom came back from his sabbatical and it was Grissom who brought up the idea because the time apart made him realize the importance of Sara in his life (I have another Q related to this subject that I’ve been itching to ask but I won’t bother you right now LOL). I like to think that the Way to Go bedroom scene was Sara’s apartment meaning that although they probably spent (most) every ‘night’ together in s6 (or even late s5 if they were together then) they took turns staying over at each other’s place (although if we factor in Hank the dog, which we don’t know when he entered the picture, maybe they spend more time at Grissom’s?). I think that the Fallen Idols’ shaving scene and Leapin’ Lizards’ bedroom scene were at Grissom’s place that Sara moved into … which is the same place we see in Grissom’s Divine Comedy and in Happy Place. I don't think they bought the place together since Land Titles are public record which would have outed them (I do, however think the house in Forget Me Not was their matrimonial home).

On a somewhat related note, I do think the 'suffocating' conversation Sara and Grissom had in Bite Me had a double entendre regarding their then current living arrangements. I think Grissom had casually (in his own Grissom way) suggested the idea to Sara that she should just leave her everyday things at his place so she doesn't have to lounge around an overnight bag. But Sara, in fear of jinxing things, was a little hesitant and maybe said something along the lines of not wanting to 'suffocate' him by having a lot of her things in his place. Grissom took this as Sara not being on the same page as him in terms of the status of their relationship. To Grissom his suggestion was rooted in practicality where else with Sara, although the relationship is something she wants very much, she's worried the floor underneath her can collapse if given too much weight so her take on the matter was more about self-preservation. I also read your take on this and enjoyed reading it very much!

Sorry for the long post and I apologize if the Q has been asked. I absolutely love, love, love reading your take on anything GSR/CSI and I hope you never stop!

hi, @renb80s!

thank you for your kind words! i'm glad you enjoy my metas.

as preface to my answer here, i'll direct you to this previous meta (which talks about my favored timeline for the gsr get-together) and this one (which talks about their living situation in s6).

then:

my short answer is that i think they start living together just before the start of s6 and that grissom is the one to propose it (though they’d basically been living together unofficially already, with sara staying over at grissom’s place pretty much every day, even prior to that point).

my longer answer is:

talking about the characters' living arrangements on csi is always difficult because the show is so wildly inconsistent in how it depicts them.

in general, glimpses into the characters’ homes on csi are a rarity.

we will maybe visit a character in their home once or twice per season at most, and usually only for one scene at a time.

and some characters, like greg, never have their homes shown at all.

with the exception of maybe episode 02x19 “stalker,” where a considerable portion of the episode takes place in nick's home, there are almost no “home-centric” episodes, at least during the early seasons of the series; more just a scene here, a scene there, spread out over the course of multiple seasons.

accordingly, whereas on many other, less work-centric shows, we see enough of the characters' living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, etc. that there are regular sets for them that are used both repeatedly and consistently over the seasons (and so become familiar to us), on csi, the characters are almost always either in the lab or in the field, which means that on the exceedingly rare occasions when we do actually “follow our favorite criminalists home,” their homes are most often just random cbs sets/filming locations made up to suit the needs of a particular scene and are seldom consistent over time.

if two home scenes do occur in short succession from each other within a single season (like, say, the shots of grissom and sara's bedroom we get in episodes 09x02 “the happy place” and 09x04 “let it bleed”), then maybe they'll both be filmed on the same set. however, across seasons, the characters' homes almost never remain the same (see, for example, sara's studio apartment in episode 02x12 “you've got male” vs. her one-bedroom apartment in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls”).

moreover, since typically most csi home scenes are “one-offs,” meaning that only one scene per episode takes place in the home, and during these scenes (most often) the characters tend to remain in a single room, we're seldom given much insight into home layouts (i.e., we don’t typically see the characters walk from room to room with the camera following them), which makes it difficult and even sometimes impossible for us to say if a particular room we see in one episode (such as grissom and sara's bathroom from episode 07x17 "fallen idols") is supposed to be part of the same apartment/house as a room that we see in another episode (such as grissom and sara's s8/s9 living room and kitchen), particularly across seasons.

this turnover creates problems of interpretation for us as fans, because we either have to majorly suspend our disbelief in order to accept the idea that homes that appear completely different from each other in layout/configuration are supposed to (within the universe of the show) actually be the same property—see, for example, grissom's open-floor plan, warehouse-like condo with the centralized kitchen in episode 01x23 “the strip stangler” vs. his closed-floor plan, cozier condo with the nook-like kitchen in episode 02x15 “burden of proof”—OR we have to accept that the characters all apparently move house approximately every six to eight months, which seems excessive/unrealistic.

and particularly as they're all so chronically busy that one has to wonder where they would find the time.

obviously, neither option is entirely satisfactory for us.

while i go back and forth on how to deal with this particular problem of verisimilitude, at present, my favored approach is to believe that any two home spaces that appear significantly different from each other are in fact two different properties—i.e., to go with the “the characters must move a lot” theory.

per this approach, between s1 and mid-s5, both grissom and sara have two different living spaces that we're shown: grissom's single-level, open-floor plan, warehouse-like condo from episode 01x23 “the strip stangler” and his closed-floor plan, cozier condo (number of levels unknown) from episode 02x15 “burden of proof;” and sara's studio apartment from episode 02x12 “you've got male” and her one-bedroom apartment from episode 05x13 “nesting dolls” (which, admittedly, look very similar to each other due to the walls being painted in the same eggplant hue but are just different enough in layout that i can't force myself to believe that they're actually one-and-the-same place).

note the shelving between the front door and the kitchen, which seems to be a built-in fixture; the kitchen cupboards, which are all on one level; the white countertops; and the lack of a bathroom off to sara's right.

note the lack of shelving between the door and the kitchen, plus the bathroom off to sara's right. the kitchen cupboards (which are visible behind grissom when he talks to sara about rationalizations) are also multi-level and have different moldings. plus, the countertops are gray. overall, the front entryway seems smaller/more cramped than the s2 apartment’s, as well.

meanwhile, from mid-s5 to s9, depending on how one calls some of the ambiguities, they may live in anywhere from one (if we make an incredibly conservative estimate) to five (if we make an incredibly liberal estimate) different locations together, depending on if one believes that the bedrooms from episodes 06x24 “way to go,” 07x22 “leapin' lizards,” and 09x02 “the happy place” are the same/different, and how one sees the bathroom from episode 07x17 “fallen idols” and the living room/kitchen area from episode 08x12 “grissom's divine comedy” as fitting into the picture.

all of the above is to say that with so much ambiguity surrounding the issue—and especially given that the show never clarifies anything with regards to grissom and sara's living arrangements, and particularly not concerning the timeline, specifically—everything is really open to interpretation, so your call is just as valid as mine or anyone else's.

my thoughts are after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

my headcanon, which is have no real way to substantiate, goes as follows:

so as discussed in the first meta i linked up top, i think that grissom and sara get together in mid-s5, between the events of episodes 05x19 “4 x 4” and 05x20 “hollywood brass.”

when they first get together, sara is living in the one-bedroom apartment from episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” while grissom is (most likely) living in the same condo he was in in episode 02x15 “burden of proof.”

my headcanon is that when grissom and sara finally get together, they spend the first few weeks of their relationship meeting up exclusively at sara's place. their routine is that grissom shows up on sara's doorstep after shift, they spend their “alone time” together (i.e., a few hours at a time), and then he leaves shortly afterward, never actually sleeping over.

initially, sara is all right with this arrangement, as she's swept up in the happiness of just being with grissom in itself. however, as time goes on, some insecurity starts to creep in, as she begins to wonder why it is he always seems to run off so quickly after they have sex and how come they never go over to his place.

were he any other man, she'd suspect that he were cheating on her, a la hank peddigrew, but because it's him, she's just kind of bewildered. she can’t figure out what his deal is.

eventually, unable to help herself, she confronts him about his aloof behavior.

it is at this point that he tells her about his dog, hank (who, per my headcanon, he had adopted after rejecting sara's romantic overtures at the end of s3 in a misguided and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to distract himself from his heartache)—i.e., the reason why he always has to rush off after he's with sara and never sleeps over with her. he also starts inviting her over to his place (where she gets to meet hank and quickly starts sleeping over herself).

of course, on grissom's end of things, in typical grissom fashion, he is completely oblivious to the fact that his "run out the door immediately after the romancing is done" routine is freaking sara out. in his mind, as a gentleman, it is always his job to come to her, so that’s why he never invites her over to his place. meanwhile, his responsibilities as a dog owner are just so separate in his mind from his relationship with her that he doesn't think to explain what his reasons for leaving so abruptly every afternoon actually are. it's only when she calls him out on how he's acting that it even occurs to him to inform her about that part of his life. of course, once they actually have that conversation, he’s mortified that he ever gave her the wrong impression about his desire to be with her.

to my mind, once sara starts staying over at grissom's, it very quickly becomes an “every day” kind of situation, where by the time they've been dating for just a couple of months, she's for all intents and purposes living with him anyhow.

i think they then officially decide to move in together during the summer between s5 and s6, which, in my favored timeline, is about three or four months after they start dating.

when they do so, i think grissom is the one who does the asking, and he does so much in the same manner that he later proposes to her in s8—i.e., in a very, impromptu, off-the-cuff, “just because in the moment i'm so overcome with love for you” kind of way.

while you and a couple of other people i've heard from think that sara might be hesitant to take that “next step” with grissom and especially so soon, i personally don't read her that way. 

to me, even though she may be scared of losing out, sara's approach to her relationship with grissom has from the get-go been to jump in with both feet, and the only thing that's ever held the relationship back has been his reluctance to take action, not hers.

if it were her call, they would have started living together when she first moved to las vegas back in 2000.

the way i see things, the girl who has always, since day #1, been the one pushing for them to take their relationship further is not going to suddenly get cold feet when the guy she's been in love with for the better part of a decade finally shows her that he's ready to commit (and especially not since they’ve already practically been living together anyhow).

that's cause for rejoicing, not pumping the brakes.

she's eager to enjoy every second with him, when it comes to them sharing a life together, so when grissom floats the “let's move in together” idea, i think her response isn't, “eh, let's hold off—” but rather “awesome! what do we need to do to make this arrangement work?”

that’s just more in keeping with her characterization to me.

to my mind, once the decision to officially move in together is made, grissom and sara opt to “start fresh” by going to a new condo, largely because, by this point, certain members of the team have already visited grissom's place in the past (during the earlier seasons of the show), and grissom and sara want to “close that door” again, cutting down on the likelihood that catherine or whomever else will just show up on their doorstep unannounced. it's a kind of hard reset for them—an opportunity to go somewhere that none of their friends has ever been to, redrawing that boundary, pulling down that curtain.

of course, finagling the whole “living together without letting anyone know we're living together” deal takes some careful planning on their parts.

i’ve written fic about it, if you’re interested.

like you, i believe that sara doesn't initially put her name on any titles or deeds, in order to avoid there being public records of the cohabitation.

i also think she likely has to keep up her lease on her old apartment in order to have an address to give to hr at work and to fill in on her taxes.

how grissom and sara work out the financials of this move is difficult to say. the fact is that grissom is much more “economically established” than sara is overall (just observe the differences between his s1 condo and her s5 apartment in terms of their general "standards of living"), so especially if sara still has to pay rent on her apartment, then it's unlikely that she would be able to contribute as much as he does to the down payment, mortgage, and condo fees on their new place as he would. however, i also can't imagine that she'd be entirely comfortable not paying for anything. i'd be fascinated to know how they divvy everything up. (do they ever combine bank accounts, i wonder?)

as i talk about in the second meta linked up top, i tend to believe there's (subtle) canonical evidence showing that they're already living together by the end of s6, mainly in the form of the furniture configuration in the room (i.e., two nightstands, both fully stocked with personal items).

that said, i also don’t think that the room we see in episode 06x24 “way to go” (with the bathroom to the right of the bed if you’re looking at it from the foot) is the same one we see in episode 07x22 “leapin’ lizards” (with the window to the right of the bed if you’re looking at it from the foot), so i personally headcanon that grissom and sara move again sometime between s6 and s7, maybe just because they don’t like the management at the place they move to initially or because they realize they are living relatively close to another one of their teammates and don’t want to risk running into them at the grocery store or something.

maybe there’s even some kind of situation where they almost get caught, and they figure it’s best to relocate after their close call.

in any case, i think the place they live in starting in s7 is the same condo we see throughout s8/s9—so the bathroom with the green plant/butterfly décor from episode 07x17 “fallen idols” is part of that place; as is the bedroom seen in episodes 07x22 “leapin’ lizards,” 09x02 “the happy place,” and 09x04 “let it bleed;” and the kitchen/living area visible throughout episode 08x12 “grissom’s divine comedy.”

once grissom and sara’s relationship becomes public knowledge, i think sara’s name goes on the title to the condo, as well (and certainly by the time they get engaged).

in episode 09x11 “the grave shift,” catherine mentions that after grissom goes to costa rica to reunite with sara, he doesn’t immediately sell the condo (as the housing market at the time is horrible) and instead uses it for storage.

for how long grissom and sara hang onto the place once they’re married is difficult to say, but i imagine they retain it for the first little while that they’re globetrotting at least, possibly even keeping it as a “home base” while they’re living in paris.

it is perhaps to this home that sara returns when she first comes back to vegas in s10.

—though, eventually, i do think (as you do) that she and grissom purchase the house we later see in episode 13x15 “forget me not” as their matrimonial home, where sara lives between s11-s13 at least and grissom whenever he comes to visit her from france and/or peru.

sara then seemingly “gets the house” in the divorce, though whether grissom officially deeds it over to her or just moves out and lets her have it in a more unofficial capacity, we can’t say.

and i don’t care enough about the later seasons of the show to have my own headcanon on the matter; i just prefer to ignore that the divorce ever happened.

whether or not sara ever sells this house in the wake of the divorce is likewise unknown. while we don’t ever see the house again post-s13, that’s mainly because we never follow sara home again, so it’s really “dealer’s choice” on what one thinks there. 

if she doesn’t sell it at any point prior to “immortality,” then what becomes of it after she moves onto the ishmael with grissom is also indeterminate.

since it would seem that they don’t still own the house when they make their extended visit to vegas during the reboot—or else why would they need to live in catherine’s hotel?—they do seemingly at some point sell it. however, whether they do so immediately after their reunion in marina del rey or wait a while afterward is uncertain.

as the reboot tells us next to nothing about what they get up to between 2015-2021, we have no idea how much or how little time they spend in vegas during those years.

as i talk about here, i imagine that they do have to go back to vegas for at least a while before they fuck off to live on the ocean for the rest of their lives, as “while the idea of sara immediately and permanently quitting her job, flying to california, hopping on grissom’s boat, and sailing off into the sunset with him FOREVER is supremely romantic, that idea ignores a lot of logistical realities, [including that] sara still owns a house in vegas. while she could sell said house or rent it out, she would have to return to land at some point in order to do so... [and] she would also, undoubtedly, have loose ends she had to tie up at the lab.” however, for how long they remain in vegas surrounding the selling of the house and quitting of the job, i can’t even hazard a guess.

as stated up top, since the show never broaches this subject directly, no one headcanon is more valid than the others here.

mine is that grissom in sara move in together in early s6, move to a new condo circa the start of s7, and then live together in that condo between s7-s9, but your mileage may—and from the sounds of things does—vary considerably.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another (including your s7 sabbatical question!) at any time.      

#answered #renb80s #asks: csi #** #my headcanons #let's talk shop #csiverse #meta: production

[dandystones]

New habits

Recently I've been reading a book by Gretchen Rubins called The Happiness Project. So far, it's a pretty great book and even though I'm barely a quarter into it, I've learnt developing new habits can make or break the journey to a happier life.

In my own time, I've also been treating 2019 as a test bed. Having started the year in absolute peace in Bali, I learnt the importance of being silent, being aware both in motion and in stillness, and being in communion with God. Spending a good 6 days there taught me how to slow down and that it's possible to live a life free of anxiety and stress. Of course, my body felt so calm & free that my mind wasn't used to it and true to my anxiety-ridden nature, I ended up looking for things to stress about; the tiniest things that on hindsight didn't matter.

I loved doing yoga in nature, surrounded by nothing but fresh air and the sounds of flowing water, trees rustling, heck I didn't even care that there were insects joining us on the mat. It just felt like the world had opened its arms to welcome me home 🖤

I spent the better part of my days relaxing by our pool, reading and eating amazing food.

One of the better habits I'd picked up from this trip was the habit of reading and doing yoga more regularly. Prior to this trip, I did zero reading and the occasional Sunday yoga. I'd decided that since 2019 was going to be my testbed to lead a better, healthier lifestyle, I started adding more habits to the list.

Here's a whole bunch of other habits that I've been testing out:

1. Going to bed early at 10.30pm (so far so good)

2. Getting up early 6.30am - 7am (so far so good too)

3. Start a peaceful morning routine (like writing this post, studying Korean, pray, do stretching exercises etc. I'm still trying to figure out what's the best thing to do in the morning...)

4. Take better care of my health (for starters, drinking 2litres of water everyday & doing yoga once every alternate day)

5. Read often.

6. React less, but respond with love.

On point 3, I realise I started looking forward to mornings. Successful people often say they start their day early before the world gets their gears grinding; I never used to understand why but I'm starting to see the appeal. There's a sense of peace that comes with simply just being able to take a slow breath at that time of the day.

Point 6 might sound a little odd but I do have a theory. Part of the reason anxiety sets in is the idea that the world around has full control over us instead of the other way round. We worry about all the things we can't change that will hurt us. Life then becomes a series of chain reactions where we spend our time simply cleaning up mess after mess. By submitting to a mere reaction of "cleaning up" as our way to deal with the situation, that sometimes makes thinga worst because we end up complaining instead of being in the moment or being productive. By reacting less, we can detach from our emotions, let the moment pass and come back to it when our heart and mind is in a better place.

Lately I've also been giving much thought to the idea of taking a sabbatical in the second half of the year. Motivated by the fast-paced, high-stress job that I'm currently in & the fact that I'd finally gotten out of debt last December (hell fucking yeah!), I wanted to get out of the confines of a life that I'd built for the sake of financial stability.

Work travel is very much still a viable option, with Korea being top of mind as a bid to "enhance my skills" - learning a new language in a place that I've always wanted to live in. I can't really explain why I love Korea as a country so much, the culture of growing up with one standard of beauty and success is the least exciting thing, neither is the close-mindedness of the general population. But part of me still believes there's beauty in a place unknown no matter its reality.

I've recently signed up for the TOPIK test, a Korean language proficiency exam happening in April in an attempt to get my brain juices grinding like a student again. Whether or not I can pass is up to fate 😂

Man, the test seems harder than I thought it would be. But either way I'm happy with the way things seem to be progressing for now. It's the future of possibly moving overseas that gets me antsy, but what's new right?

Giving up control is the hardest thing to do, but I know life has it's way of working itself out. As I end of this post, I'm heading into office to start hump day, hopefully a happy one. I'll check back.

#wfth