In Tortured, way back in season four, Elliot's on about how -- unlike a victim's husband -- he'd be out looking for his spouse if she didn't come home. It's not normal to be unbothered.

Olivia's like, dude, there are lots of nights you don't go home and don't even call.

Part of the reason I'm writing this down is it sort of puts Kathy's reaction in Wildlife into perspective, but mostly I'm writing it down because... well. Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #9.

What are your top five fandoms for 2021 based on the amount of time you interacted with them?

1. Hamilton/Turn/American Revolution RPF
2. Law & Order: SVU/Law & Order: OC
3. The Closer/Major Crimes
4. Good Omens RPF

What are your top five fandom spaces in terms of time spent? (AO3, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Dreamwidth, and others)

1. OTW volunteer workspaces
2. Twitter
3. Tumblr
4. Dreamwidth
5. AO3

What are the top five ways you interacted in these fandoms? (Reading fanfic, writing, commenting, watching videos, chatting with friends, making art, or anything else you can think of).

1. Tweeting
2. Reading fic
3. Writing

What are the top five things you did to contribute to fandom in terms of time? Did you write? Comment? Send positive energy into the universe? Create art?

1. General AD&T co-chair stuff, e.g. cross-committee liaising, pointing folks at tasks, documenting things, writing news posts
2. Testing, coding, and code review
3. Database tickets
4. Tweeting
5. Writing

What things did you create that took the most time?

1. Chapter 3 of Dying in L.A.
2. A bunch of unfinished Hamilton/American Revolution RPF fic
3. Updated tester documentation, still in progress
4. A pull request related to gifts that was way more involved than I expected
5. The Elliot/Olivia/Kathy A/B/O fic I didn't get done for the challenge deadline

Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

Paternity enjoyed a nice 11 day run as my favorite SVU episode, but it's over now; my new favorite is Lunacy.

IMDb was like, "Stabler runs into an old friend when the team investigates the rape and murder of an astronaut," and I was like, "Boring, I have already seen the X-Files episode Space and do not need to do that again, ever," but it turns out it was an episode about how Olivia and Elliot and Elliot's older astronaut friend Dick were going to have a threesome until the guy turned out to be a murderer.

Definitely better than Space.

This episode had it all, though: giggling Elliot telling the story of how he met Dick, Olivia in two dresses (one with a blonde wig), the reveal that Elliot and Kathy have been lying to their kids about when they got married, Olivia and Elliot and Dick killing what appears to be half a bottle of whiskey at work... everything.

Definitely a solid 9.8 out of 10. Could've been a 9.9 if Olivia had gotten to sleep with Dick before the murderer reveal, or a 10 if both Elliot and Olivia had slept with him. (Legit, Dick was asking Olivia out and she was like, "Can I bring Elliot?" but alas, Elliot had already pulled the "I'm married" card while he and Dick were tipsily checking out Olivia's ass, so Dick had to tell her no. I am not making up a single word of this.) Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

Meanwhile, on Organized Crime... ( OC spoilers for this week and next.Collapse ) Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

( SVU spoilers, this week and last week.Collapse ) Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

If I fixate on a different detail of ROTPS, Kathy's last moments annoy me less.

She makes that comment about how Olivia and Elliot were still so in sync, just like the old days, and then is like, "You two really haven't spoken in ten years?"

When Olivia says she hadn't even known Elliot was back on the job, Kathy says Elliot had told her that and she hadn't believed him.

Oh. Oh. Okay. Insisting they go to Olivia's award ceremony and then making a comment about how in sync they still are makes so much sense if Kathy thought Elliot had been lying to her and pointedly not mentioning communication with Liv. Maybe it's not her being weirdly invested in them; it's her being suspicious of them and trying to catch them in a lie.

And god damn if that doesn't explain the contents of the fucking letter. (Especially if you combine it with my firm belief "you would've loved it" implies Elliot spent no small amount of time in a fantasy land -- excuse me, he prefers the term "parallel universe" -- where Olivia was with him in Rome.) What we were too each other wasn't real. I hope you have a nice man like you deserve. Oh.

It's not a particularly kind reading of her, but at least it's coherent. Or maybe it isn't unkind: if you think your husband is having a long distance emotional affair, it's not unreasonable to try to find the truth and end it. Sure, Elliot said they'd been happy, but Elliot has a long track record of being Mr. Denial O. Blivious about their marital issues.

Anyway, for now, I am into this theory. Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

Note to self: AU where Elliot stops wistfully thinking about Olivia and picks up a damn phone and the result is Liv flying to Italy every other month to get absolutely railed by both Stablers. Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

I have seen it! Finally! Paternity! The best episode of SVU!

The thing is, sometimes when you're trying to up the drama on your show by throwing ridiculous shit at the wall -- hello, guy in the previous episode who jumped off a building and got crushed in a garbage truck -- you hit something brilliant. Something like "What if Elliot isn't there for the birth of his child, so Olivia takes over his role?"

And the way they did this was by having Olivia and Kathy get in a car accident while Olivia was taking Kathy to a doctor's appointment (because Elliot got so invested in a case he forgot the appointment until Olivia said something, which I find a bit hard to swallow in terms of plausibility, but I'll give them a pass).

The really great thing is that it wasn't about Elliot at all. Killing Kathy in season 23 was all about the Elliot angst, but T-boning his pregnant wife and the one true love of his life? Nope. All you're getting is Fin coming to get him, telling him to get in the car, and absolutely none of Elliot being told and reacting to what happened. Meanwhile, please enjoy like 15 or 20 minutes of Olivia petting Kathy's hair and calling her honey and sweetheart and Kathy begging Olivia not to leave her and Olivia holding baby Eli before Elliot ever gets to. (I really want tearful Olivia saying, "She's my partner's wife," to ring in my ears forever, or at least alternate between that and Kathy telling Elliot, "Olivia's taking really good care of me." And they definitely stuck Elliot's speakerphone voice thanking Olivia in there because "I love you, too" sounded like "I love you two," change my mind.)

In theory, this would've been great commentary on how close partners are and how integrated into the Stabler family Olivia is. In theory. In reality, for that to have worked, we'd have needed to have seen Olivia being a fixture in Stabler family life. What do we have before this, though? Olivia mentioning in season one or two that she bought Kathy's birthday present, and then perhaps season eight with Kathy asking Olivia to get Elliot to sign the divorce papers. I guess you could also cite Elliot almost immediately telling Olivia that Kathy was pregnant.

It feels more like the beginning of something than a natural extension of or commentary on something that already existed (especially since Eli's birth was all about a new beginning for Elliot and Kathy). A pity given the state of the follow-through, but whatever, I'll be over here writing the Elliot/Kathy/Olivia that canon didn't give me. Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

Fandom: Law & Order: SVU
Relationship: Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler
Summary:

"I don't want to be here," Elliot says, head still down, but looking into her eyes.

"Yeah, well. That's what the Jameson's is for."

Elliot, Olivia, and a party to celebrate Kathy's pregnancy.

Title: Something to Get Through
Author: Sarken
Rating: R

Author's note: Oh, boy, do I have some things to say about this. Might be time to revisit the old days of DVD commentary for fic.

Also available on the Archive of Our Own.

( ***Collapse )

Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

Hey, quick question about season eight of SVU: what the fuck?

I feel like we'd all be better off if we placed this season directly in the bin and set it on fire. No Simon, no Stabler marriage reconciliation, no Olivia whimpering Elliot's name in her sleep, none of it. Just -- garbage, fire, scatter the ashes. When Dallas did that, they lost some important character development, but SVU? Nah, just douse it with kerosene, strike a match, and try again.

I don't even know what to tell you is wrong with it. It's a different show than the first seven seasons (and this is glaringly obvious because I just went back and finished S1), but it hasn't hit the so-ridiculous-it's-enjoyable mark that my favorite season 11 episodes hit. It's like they didn't know what to do, so they just did stuff for the hell of it? Or someone told them to make the show more character-driven, but they didn't really like the characters they were stuck with?

Actually, yeah, that's exactly it: it's got Major Crimes season six vibes and I'm bouncing off them hard. At least I've only got a couple more to go. Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

I'm writing a fic (I am writing many fics) and it is starting to come together! So I'm going to ruin that by talking about it.

( It gets a bit NSFW under here.Collapse ) Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

Ilene Chaiken has indeed ruined Christmas forever, just as she promised. There is no gift that can ever compete with The Christmas Episode.

But let's back the truck up. ( Spoilers for SVU 23 x whatever The People vs Richard Wheatley and OC 2 x whatever The Christmas Episode.Collapse )

I'm about to hit season eight in my 1.0 viewing, and I super don't want to. I think I have to take a break and just roll around in the season 23 joy. Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

Booster achieved!

I... forgot my vaccine card. I looked next to the stove, it wasn't there, I forgot about it. Dumbass. But they gave me a new one and that's now in my wallet, which it doesn't fit in, as I'm sure you've heard.

I would complain about how long the experience took, but I'm the dumbass who forgot the card and I'm sure that contributed to it being a 40 minute experience, so.

The pharmacist was about 12 years old and pushed the needle into my arm as slowly as humanly possible -- I had time for multiple full-sentence thoughts -- but it didn't feel like anything, and I didn't get dizzy or hot or faint or anything afterwards.

Anyway, that was 7:00 last night. I did not fucking sleep at all. I have lost three hours of sleep a night every day since... Sunday? Monday? I no longer know. I was figuring the vaccine would hit me like a train and knock me out, but no. No fever, tiredness, muscle aches, headache. I feel as good as a person who hasn't slept can feel. Just a slightly sore arm, and by slightly sore, I mean I spent a bunch of sleepless hours lying on it and it was fine, but it's a little hard to reach up and put my contacts in or my hoodie on. So maybe more "stiff" than "sore."

(ngl, I blame pretty much most of last night's sleeplessness on the Supreme Court. I'm attempting to cope with the impending death of Roe by writing SVU 28th Amendment fic. That's bleak.) Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

( Spoilers for L&O: OC 02x08 Ashes to Ashes, plus speculation.Collapse )

Of course, everything depends on how The Christmas Episode shakes out; Elliot might have a complete breakdown and need to go live in a yurt somewhere off the grid for another ten years. Regardless, I suspect there won't be a lot of developments with the Kilbride storyline until next year. Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

( Cut for mentions of sexual assault.Collapse )

I'm sure it'll come as a shock when I say canon did nothing with that.

But now I have a mighty need for fic that does actually explore that. Not necessarily this instance in particular, but.

I assume someone at some point in this fandom's 23-year existence has written the fic -- someone wrote one for Third Watch -- but it definitely didn't make it onto AO3. It might be buried in the 17,000 fics on FFN, but I'm not going to click through like 700 pages to find out. (We won't talk about the SVU archive that lost all of its fic or LJ or how there were probably Geocities pages, too.)

I don't have a particular point other than sometimes an unsearchable pile of fic spanning almost a quarter of a century is just as bad as virtually no fic. Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

Ah-ha! I am indeed where I am supposed to be with the Kilbride story. Ayanna saw Nova in Kilbride's office, met up with her, and asked what was up. Nova says he got her into the Marcy Killers because he knows... someone whose position in the gang I'm not perfectly clear on... from way back, but other than that, it's above her pay grade, and now Ayanna wants to keep it quiet while she works out what's going on.

Which I'm sure is going to go great and not backfire at all.

However, now I have a new question. Nova wanted to know who Ayanna was with at Kilbride's office, and then she got kind of funny when Ayanna said it was her wife. Is Nova just sad because it reminded her the woman she wanted to marry got killed? Or is there going to be something between Nova and Ayanna? Considering this was shortly after Ayanna asked if she could keep Nova on the task force, I'm sort of thinking the second one. Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

I watched the first two William Lewis episodes! What the fuck! Why did I do that!

Her Negotiation was like one giant pacing issue? It was the kind of thing that should've been woven in as a subplot over several episodes. But "one giant pacing issue" is a good descriptor of almost every episode of SVU I have seen so far. The show constantly rushes things. I did enjoy the attempt to show everyone having a slow day off, though.

Surrender Benson was not an episode with a pacing issue. It was actually less graphic than I was expecting, and it's not like I was expecting it to be very graphic: it is, after all, a network show. You could probably almost put it in the psychological thriller category?

( Cut for violence.Collapse )

I'm not sure if I'll watch the rest. Trial stuff bores the hell out of me and Russian roulette is... not generally my favorite thing to watch on TV, actually. But I might skip the trial episode and do the Russian roulette one anyway; who knows! Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

Ilene Chaiken -- yes, she of The L Word, did I neglect to mention that? -- is out here joking about the SVU/OC crossover ruining Christmas for all time and I, a person for whom Christmas really was a little bit ruined by Major Crimes season six, do not need this!!

However, I guess my next move is definitely watching the Lewis arc. I've had this vague feeling for a few days that I should watch it on the off chance it comes up, because I would be very annoyed if it did before I actually saw it. Now that I know we're doing kidnapping, I assume the odds of it coming up in the near future have increased dramatically. I mean, mid-investigation would be an entirely inappropriate time for them to have this conversation, but that seems to be their thing. Your wife got exploded so let's talk about you how much you hurt me when you left; I am drugged out of my gourd so let's talk about how we're together in a parallel universe.

Anyway, kudos on the promo that managed to break the fandom without even revealing this plot, and many thanks for holding onto it until now so we only have like sixteen days to work ourselves up.

So help me baby Jesus in the manger if they kill a Stabler child in something entitled "The Christmas Episode." Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

I've seen the season two episodes I missed, but still need to rewatch one or two of the ones I've seen. ( Spoilers for most of season two of Law & Order: Organized Crime.Collapse ) Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments

Okay, I have watched the first season of OC. I was hoping it would enlighten me about the Congressman Kilbride stuff Ayanna is into, but I guess that's more season two. At least now I have seen the Wheatley stuff and am ready for the trial.

But also: I have seen the Wheatley stuff.

And, okay. Elliot almost sleeps with Cam from Bones Wheatley's ex-wife Angela, who is in love with Elliot, but who also inspired, but didn't technically order, Kathy's murder. This is really a Law & Order series? I'm not sure I buy Elliot as the kind of guy to jump into bed with someone else like six episodes after his wife of 40 years has been murdered, but okay, grief and PTSD, and also Elliot is not a man in possession of any chill whatsoever, so I guess.

Except. Except this is so Wheatley can tell Angela that when Elliot was looking into her brown eyes, he was thinking about someone else's. Not about her, or about his dead wife, but about the one true love of his life. And just in case you didn't understand who Elliot's brown-eyed one true love is, we're going to stick a shot of Olivia in the recap at the start of the next episode and have this as a voiceover. And if you missed that, Dylan McWheatley is going to see Olivia and tell Elliot he understands because she is a knockout.

Poor dead Kathy.

But! That wasn't the worst of it. The worst was much earlier, when Mr. No Chill was telling Olivia about his life with Kathy in Rome and he thought it was somehow appropriate to say to Olivia, "You would have loved it." Elliot! No! She does not want to hear about how you take out your memories of her, swap her in for your now-dead wife, and play house in your head. Jesus, what is wrong with you, Mr. In A Parallel Universe It Will Always Be You And I.

In conclusion: this is terrible and I love every minute of it! I came out here to be attacked and I am honestly having a good time right now!

Also, unrelated and twenty years ago, but I'd really like to know more about the whole thing where Elliot gave Olivia his credit card to buy Kathy's birthday present. Like. What was being purchased and why did Olivia need to be involved. Dreamwidth: Comment | Read Comments