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Am I the only one who thought a DNA scanner was a perfectly feasible thing for the Kromaggs to have, given the setup?

I'm only going off the podcast here - like everyone else here, one watch of "Requiem" is enough for me for a lifetime - but what if the Kromaggs are searching for genetic anomalies? Errors in the code, abnormalities that might express themselves in a future Humagg? Your DNA isn't just your species, it's also your genetic makeup, and it's extremely plausible that the Kromaggs want to screen out anything that might cause weakness in future generations.

(Standard disclaimer: Requiem is still awful and irredeemable. I like a lot of episodes of Sliders that many people hate. I think "The Breeder" was an awesome deconstruction of what Sliders had become: Maggie as monster and invasive succubus, death all around. "Sole Survivors" is, I think, the best damn episode in season 3. Even "State of the ART" had some good stuff. "Requiem" is like a festering wound on the series.

I'm glad people wanted to resolve Wade's story. I hate that this was what they ended up with.)

All good things must end... but you guys've been amazing. And still will be amazing, I'm sure, going forward.

Thank you in advance, for being there with us through all of it, again.

((She pulls up a chair, studying Colin with fierce curiosity. Beneath a brow furrowed in confusion, her dark eyes are intense, hanging on every word.))

...Different worlds? But... Quinn invented sliding. When he was an adult. How did you get from his world - your world - to someplace else?

((She can't hide a small smile as Colin mentions he's heard about her.)) Good things, I hope. But yeah - sorry, I totally forgot to introduce myself. Yeah, I'm Wade, Wade Wells. And your name is...?

The whole thing with Diana experiencing combat stress makes me really wish they'd been able to continue the Kromagg war plot with Wade on the team.

We know Rembrandt got captured by the Kromaggs and it made him want violent revenge. We also know that Wade is a gun-hating pacifist, and Rembrandt is, at least if you take season 3 seriously, an ex-military officer. Rembrandt's response is about what you'd expect. But what would Wade's response have been to having to fight in a war?

On the one hand, like I said, Wade hates violence and warfare. She's a hippie at heart, and she was always very critical of Maggie's military persona and trigger-happiness. We're pretty sure she's never seen combat, and would probably find it very distressing.

On the other hand, we've seen that it's possible for an alternate Wade to be a military commander. How would being in a Kromagg camp change our Wade's feelings? Would she hold onto her pacifism, or would the trauma stir her to fight? Or would it be a mix of the two - a deep hatred of the Kromaggs and desire to see them wiped out combined with an utter inability to handle the harshness of war?

And how would this changed Wade play off Rembrandt's sudden thirst for vengeance? By the time season 3 ends, we're seeing a Wade and Rembrandt who have become very close friends - possibly even closer than Wade and Quinn at this point. How would Wade react to one of her best friends turning vengeful? How would Rembrandt react if Wade was reluctant to fight?

So much missed opportunity for character development...

Yay! We've missed you!

Alternatively: they always were that small. Only as seen through the distorted, deranged vision of Barnette and Peckinpah were they ever anything else; a folie a deux, if you will.

One suspects that a military sort such as Maggie would opt for a compressing sports bra anyway.

I'd like to see this JRD interview. And for that matter, I'm really curious about Jerry's sudden Sliders fixation.

I've seen a phone app for the timer. For Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta … &hl=en

There's one for iPhone as well apparently.

I do like that very AU model timer! Also the Pip Boy style one. That'd work really well in some of the grittier sci-fi scenarios of season 4... or maybe on a Commander Wade Wells.

Sorry, I just can't get over that awesome idea from ireactions.

So I hope you guys don't mind me using this thread as a sort of confessional-slash-diary. I don't really know where else to get all this out, and since you guys kinda know me... well, it's nice to have someone to talk to who might care.

Not that Quinn doesn't care. But... well, you'll see why I wouldn't wanna bring this up to Quinn.

I passed this guy in the parking lot today - I just caught a glimpse of him, but he reminded me of Wilkins for a moment. When the moment had passed, I caught myself thinking, "you know, that Wilkins was a pretty attractive guy. Why didn't I sleep with him when I had the chance, anyway?"

And - the more I thought about it, the more the answer wasn't so clear. I always told myself it was because of Quinn, and that was part of it, I guess, but it wasn't the whole thing.

I think part of it was like... well, it's deceitful. To pretend to be someone else's lover, when you know you're not really that person, just to get laid? Sure she was my double, but that doesn't make her the Wade he knew any more than if she were my identical twin. And sleeping with someone, when the situation they consented to is a completely different one from the one they're actually in... that's effectively rape. (And yes - I am one of those people who believes a woman can rape a man. Feminism's awesome, isn't it?)

But even that isn't the whole thing. Deep down, what I really felt was... I was afraid. Not of Wilkins - he was a lovely guy and a perfect gentleman - but of the whole situation. Here I was, a literal world away from home in "Soviet America" in the middle of a resistance hideout that could be smoked out, blown up, or otherwise taken over at any time. And sure, I won't deny that it was a rush - that part of me was really excited to see this alternate history playing out in front of my eyes! But another part of me was terrified... that we were all going to die, that I'd never get back home.

I didn't show that very much, not to the others. I didn't want to make them even more afraid than they already were by piling my emotions on them too. But I think it must have shown to Wilkins, and like the reasonable man he is, he didn't push anything on me after that. Even though he made up that little innuendo to cover for me after the fact, I think that was really when he must have realized that I wasn't his Wade. Because his Wade already knew the score. She might've been scared of the situation she was in, but she clearly wasn't letting it get in the way of their relationship.

...There's that little part of me that still says it was a shame. He was a very nice guy... and like I said, he was a great kisser. But on so many levels it wasn't right. I never did fully explain why, though. I wish I had. I hope I didn't leave him feeling like he did something wrong.

((Wade straightens the collar on her rather rumpled, evidently slept-in business shirt. Seeming to have sobered up a little after last night's method-acting-induced caffeine bender, she now has further thoughts to add on the topic of "Net Worth".))

Ahem. So... I've been thinking some more about "Net Worth."

I like the story, particularly as a story about Quinn and I. It is kind of unrealistic, admittedly... but then, I've seen dinosaurs in the flesh. Who am I to talk about what's likely or possible in the multiverse?

But I do think it's a nice metaphor for something that I have seen happen, and that's online romance. Especially back in the Nineties, when meeting people "from the Internet" was seen as much more fraught and unusual, falling for someone you've only ever met online might as well have been falling for a prince or princess locked up in an ivory tower. Not that that's ever happened to me or anything.

Text hides a lot of good things, like smiles, or the warmth of someone's jacket as they place it around your shoulders. But in a sense, it also strips things down to what's really important. You're not confined by your name or your face, by the reputation you have in your home town. Your popularity can only come from your words and your thoughts. And especially in the geek-dominated world that was the Internet in the Nineties, interesting thoughts, deep thoughts, whimsical thoughts, were a powerful currency. For someone whose thoughts had never been respected, that was intoxicating. Suddenly people listened to you, cared about what you had to say. You weren't just some loser more into reading books than balancing them, dreaming away your life. You were worth something to somebody.

You don't really need a fantasy of Onliners and Offliners to write a story that taps into that, though it's one way to do it. The gulf, often of states or even continents, between online soul and online soul is enough of a barrier, especially when you're young. Countless Juliets over these past 20 years have stood at their balconies, lamenting a world where two like souls can meet yet be kept so far apart by chance and circumstance, by the position - in this case geographical - into which they have been born. And sometimes - rarely, thankfully - it ends in suicide. Young love is always painful, but young geek love - the love of misfits destined not to follow the traditions laid out for them by their families - even more so.

So yeah, I can relate to the story. I guess I wish it had been a little more low-key - of course I love sci-fi, but there's already so much drama in the world of geeks in online love that it hardly needs anything else. Two lonely souls, locked up in their own distant towers of isolation and friendlessness, reaching out through lines of glowing text across a data network - yeah, that could have been me and Quinn. I'm glad it wasn't. But it would make a really strong story.

Yeah, I was thinking, "you kissed Wade's nameswapped double?"

A superhero episode of Sliders would've been pretty fun. In a San Francisco where comic books have become the most popular form of media, and a rash of teenage vigilantes have decided to emulate their heroes and take crimefighting into their own hands, for better or worse... the Sliders must go literally undercover as costumed crusaders to get back the timer from a notorious supervillain... okay, that would actually have been pretty silly. But no sillier than "The Fire Within". And they would've got to make the Wade/Deadpool and Quinn/Wolverine quips.

Loved this week's episode - I was definitely curious to hear the exclusive scoop information on "Net Worth", and you three didn't disappoint! The episode would've been so much better that way, I think we can all agree.

I hope you'll be sharing your script with us all soon. What might have been... as Cory and Tom said, that does seem like such a popular Sliders-fan refrain, doesn't it?

That is really sad and awful.

And yeah, I'd in no way meant to imply that Kari was trading sex. Just that the wording was (deliberately, I thought) slightly amusing.

But yeah, I have to agree. Like I've said before, I can hardly blame Kari; the pressures of the media and the abuses of the entertainment industry, among other things, are to blame for what she went through, all of which should never have happened.

I don't think there are many - if any - talentless bimbos in the world, really. Just an awful lot of people who want to see them, and people desperate enough or naive enough or lacking in self-esteem enough to fill the role.

((She nods, listening with some interest. It's about all she could expect out of a Quinn so withdrawn into himself, and if she reads between the lines, it answers her question well enough.))

...That's - actually surprisingly insightful of him. I mean, not that Quinn isn't insightful in other ways, but... in interpersonal matters, you know? But to notice the way I fall into connectedness without trying, that connecting is what I do... and to call it that, rather than calling it - blind trust, or stupidity, or any of the other things people have called it in the past... I didn't know he'd seen into me that deeply, not back then. I'm touched.

Let me tell you guys a little story. I know you've all got your own speculations about what my childhood was like - I saw an interesting one in another thread on here recently, I think it was by Temporal Flux, about how I'd struggled to develop socially as a child due to illness. Not true in my timeline, but I thought it was a pretty smart conclusion to draw, given that what did happen to me basically had the same effect. He even got the timing right too - it was around senior year of high school when things turned around for me.

But no, at least in my timeline, I didn't get sick - I was bullied. I think you'll see a little mention of that in the show somewhere, but it never really gets into how bad it was. Up until my senior year, I can't really remember a time in childhood when I was liked at school, or had friends. Not real friends, anyway... not ones that didn't tolerate me for a few weeks at best, then turn on me like everyone else.

Why? I'm not really sure myself... it was probably a mix of things. I was a loud kid, someone who said what I felt and didn't know the meaning of "tact." I was sensitive to cruelty, especially to animals. I was smart, geeky - I mean, I was no Quinn Mallory, but I read way ahead of my grade level and actually enjoyed learning, when everyone else seemed to treat it like a chore. And on top of all that, my hobbies and interests weren't typical "girl" things... I liked getting out in nature, hiking, camping, that sort of thing. Climbing trees, digging in the dirt... I was a real tomboy. As a result, I was always drawn more to the boys than the girls when it came time to pick friends. Of course, the boys looked down on me because I was a "wimpy girl"... and the girls just laughed at the clueless girl who didn't know her social "place."

Even my sister... well, I could talk all day about my relationship with Kelly and how it's complicated. Let's just say she was popular, and I was anything but. She was embarrassed by me; I was resentful of her; it culminated in the Great Narnia War of 1982, during which we drove my parents nuts and ended up getting the books banned from the house for a time... yeah.

Anyway. I didn't have friends. And that was hard on someone like me, because - I'm not an introvert, not naturally. I need people. Yes, I genuinely love computers and fantasy, but I also love company. Being isolated and ignored, even at home, took a real toll on me emotionally. By the time I was fourteen or so, I was a withdrawn, moody, anxious kid.

But part of me never stopped trying. I didn't want to be isolated; I just didn't know how to get people to like me. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. And every time I tried it seemed like I got hurt. But I kept trying, because I couldn't not... and eventually, I don't know, something clicked, and things weren't so bad any more. The bitter feminist in me wants to say that I just grew up and got pretty. I didn't learn anything new, but suddenly I wasn't mousy and geeky-looking any more, and people - guys - wanted to get close to me more than they wanted to ignore me. One of my former tormentors actually tried to invite me to senior prom with him, can you imagine? And so where the male attention went, the female admiration followed. ((She shrugs.))

I guess what I'm trying to say in all of this is that Quinn's more right than he knows. I never learnt to connect with people, never "honed" how to do it... I never got the chance to practice. I don't even know that I'm good with people, honestly. I like people, I like talking to people, and maybe now I'm older and better-looking that's enough to make people smile. But I've never had many social graces, for all that I've tried to learn. I'm just... I'm just me.

And I need connection, and that part of me instinctively reaches out, every time. Even if I know it's stupid, even if I know it's going to get me hurt... like on some world where we don't have time. I just need people. And I guess part of me always wants them to like me, too.

---

...Well, that got long. Sorry! omnimercurial, to your question... man, that's a tricky one. I mean, the timer wasn't really my thing, it was Quinn's... I never really got to play with it. And around the third year of sliding things got pretty fuzzy for me, so... I'm not sure, but I want to say there were two.

I only really remember the one well, though. It was the first one, the one that Quinn made himself. I guess it always looked like a TV remote control to me, but I think it was actually made out of an old cellular phone. It had those red LED numbers on the display like an alarm clock, and a bunch of weird labels that I never really knew what they did. I asked Quinn, but he didn't really explain very well. Like - Tau, Delta, Zeta. I think they were frequencies? Frequency waves, measuring the strength of some kind of signal - I guess the quantum overlap between worlds. Anyway, at times, like when we got to a new world, those lights would go on and off, and the bars would oscillate... kind of like the signal bars on a cell phone. It seemed like the timer was trying to lock on to a frequency.

I didn't really have a favorite, but I can tell you that the feeling of sliding was different betwen different devices. When the Kromaggs were transporting us between worlds, their kind of sliding felt different. It was smoother, but also more... mechanical-feeling? I don't know how to describe it exactly, but sliding with Quinn's device... something about it was almost supernatural. I felt like I was leaving my body, mingling with the atoms of everything and everyone around me. I could feel Quinn, Remmy, the Professor there with me, and I could feel their emotions, their excitement... their minds were brushing against mine. It was a real rush.

With the Kromaggs, I didn't feel any of that connection. I guess I'm glad. I wouldn't wanna feel merged with a Kromagg. Being around them is bad enough.

I hope that answers your question somewhat!

---

Oh, ireactions. One more thing.

I guess I wanted to shed some light on just what I was feeling back on Lottery World. I mean - it's not that I never thought about the possibility of whether it was all a setup. I did. I just - I so badly wanted a world that wasn't going to put us all through Hell again, you know?

((She lets out a short, sardonic laugh.)) Not that I wouldn't trade a million spiderwasp worlds for the Kromaggs. But back then, it all felt like the worst thing I'd ever been through in my life. The most beautiful, too, and the most expansive, the most enlightening... but also, we'd been through so much. The spiderwasps, the tsunami... the possible end of days... Quinn being beaten on by those Mafia thugs, and almost getting shot... When I thought we'd arrived on a world where everyone was happy and everything was perfect, I wanted to cling to that illusion. It was the kind of world I'd always imagined for myself... the kind of world I'd want to settled down in, raise children in. If we weren't going to make it home, I wanted to at least stay somewhere peaceful, before we ended up on some world where Nazis ruled or something.

So I forced myself not to think of the alternative. Because I wanted to believe. In a future for myself, but also - in humanity. I wanted to believe that such a perfect world could be possible if we only tried, and worked together.

I still do.

Heh... That's about an hour away.

I may just have to go see him.

Yeah, I think the massive gaping hole in that episode might have been overshadowed for me by the massive gaping hole in season 4 period. It seriously feels like half of those episodes were written with Wade/Sabrina in mind and they just sort of pasted Maggie in there. (Although I can see where you're coming from with "Net Worth", given it's such a hacker-focused story.)

I will admit that I feel a cringing sense of betrayal every time Quinn acts romantic towards Maggie. Not even just as a Quinn/Wade supporter, though there's that too of course - but it feels like a betrayal of Quinn's character. Sure, he's had flirtations on multiple worlds, but I can't believe that the ease and familiarity that he shows with Maggie could really exist. It's like he's forgotten all about Wade.

I mean, season 4 is like that on many levels. But I would have liked to see some grieving, some hesitation before starting a relationship because, wow, the last woman I was this close to just got abducted by the Kromaggs, I don't think I'm ready to be over that yet.

I can believe in his falling for Maggie, even if Jerry doesn't make it believable. I can't believe in him accepting her so seamlessly as a replacement for Wade.

And yeah, I know Quinn and Wade aren't a canonical "couple". It's not just that. It's the way he behaves towards her almost as if she were Wade specifically, and the way they changed her character so radically that it's practically like she is.

Anyway, looking forward to the discussions, in whatever format.

To be fair, I used to hate stories that jumped in with no explanation and left you to figure them out for yourself. Now I've come to appreciate them.

I mean, none of us liked the Exposition Guys in Sliders, right? There's something to be said for discovering why you should care about these people along the way, and letting the backstory get filled in later.

Of course, you do have to fill it in, or else people will just be confused. But I think this plot could work for new fans as well as old, if it was done right. Set it up like a mystery - who is this woman? How do these people know each other? Then let the details come together slowly. That's a pretty cool story.

...that said, I completely agree that you'd have to deal with Wade and Remmy's PTSD. After 20 years in a Kromagg camp Wade would be barely fit to socialise, let alone slide. You'd essentially be hauling around an older River Tam. Rembrandt would likely have hardened a lot, becoming single-minded and almost neurotic in his search for Wade and desire for revenge - he'd finally be the military man that season 3 clumsily tried to make him. Finding Wade again would reawaken his compassion, but that would come with a lot of pain and dissonance. When you've been searching for someone for 20 years, how do you deal with finally finding them again? Especially when they're not the same as before? And how do you relearn how to care when all you've done for 20 years is hunt and kill?

That would make a great story, and I'd love to see it. But it'd be a very different cast from the one we started with.

I did hear about this one a while back... sad it didn't pan out. It could have been a lot of fun.

Also, that is a surprisingly accurate Jerry O'Connell face given the five or so heads they must have had to pick from.

You've probably all seen this already, but I just found it - and laughed my head off. http://www.theonion.com/article/sliders … -me--17765

Hope those who celebrate it had a good Thanksgiving - and those in the UK had a good "why the hell do these people from across the pond eat Christmas dinner a month early" day. (I've been both.)

For my part, I entertained my chosen family - all of whom are at least somewhat familiar with Sliders - by holding up a candy eyeball (left over from Halloween) and proclaiming it to be a "Kromagg after-dinner mint".

Oh wow. ireactions, care to share that dissection with the rest of us at some point? I'd love to read it.

((She laughs a little.)) You're a Babylon 5 fan too, huh?

((She pulls out her feminist cred here.)) Well, I wasn't there for getting read the rights, or not read them as the case may be for my friends - but you'd be surprised how ignorant cops can be. They're the same on my world. Deaf people, for example... they're pretty common, but they're often treated badly by police for not following verbal instructions. Heck, a lot of prison guards don't seem to understand that women menstruate, and we're half the population. I'm sure there's an official procedure for non-telepaths, but most people don't think about it.

Prejudice isn't always something that's built into the institution. It can be subtle, like just forgetting that you're not the only kind of person in existence. Even if the rules say otherwise.

As for their idea of privacy being non-existent... I'm not sure if that was all of them, or just Derek. Honestly, it seemed like he had some personal issues of his own. And no, I didn't ask him. I was kind of too busy trying to convince him not to psychically rape people. ((She snorts a little.)) Maybe if I'd had more time.

I don't know if the people of that world figured out sliding. But whether they're a danger to people or not... I think that has more to do with what their cultural prejudices are like than whether they're telepathic.

((She taps the side of her head, and smiles lopsidedly.)) I'm a "teep" now too, remember? So of course I don't think it makes a person hostile to people's privacy by default. I'm not that way. If their culture has those prejudices built in, and they spread them to other worlds, then of course that would be harmful - same as if racists or sexists were to spread their ideas to worlds that were predominantly Black or female. You could even end up with a situation like the Kromaggs, where their belief in their genetic superiority causes them to want to exterminate other sentient life... ((She shudders.))

But I also wouldn't treat that as the default just because they're telepathic. ((She taps her own head again.)) After all, that'd be a little prejudiced too, don'tcha think?

That's a sad place to be at. To feel like - retroactively, any happiness these characters could have had is stripped from you. This is the extent of the devastation Fox and Peckinpah visited upon the series.

I guess that's why I have a headcanon for Wade and the others after that point. To redress that feeling of inevitable hopelessness, to have life go on. Wade and Remmy escape, scarred but not broken. They found the "real" Arturo back in Azure Gate World. And as for all the stuff with Quinn and Remmy's origins - Kromagg tricks.

And nice catch on Universal Signs! It's a great movie - just watched it recently. A very thought-provoking insight into Deaf culture and sign language, which is an incredibly beautiful and intimate language. Dopamine is a great movie too, as is Hello Lonesome - that one'll make you laugh and cry in equal amounts.

Sabrina's in her element in these little indie movies, I think. She gets to work with people who are passionate about their project, and who are directly involved in seeing it happen, and she gives her all. I imagine that's what Sliders must've been like at the beginning, before everything.

((After thinking a little...))

I've been trying to imagine an alternate universe me who was interested in Scully. I think I can almost see it, though not for the same reasons.

I have a habit of... going for the unavailable ones. The mysterious, the remote. I can imagine if we spent enough time together, assuming I was a lesbian or at least bisexual, I'd be drawn to her in that way. She's got a very cool, defiant exterior - even Mulder had to take time to warm up to her. But over time I think she'd start to intrigue me more than her aloofness repelled me, like Quinn did.

I can also imagine being fascinated by her mind. She's an incredibly smart and incisive woman. I like that - I like strong women and active, curious minds. This is where she might lose me a little because honestly, she's not as curious as Quinn is - she's more someone who's already decided what she thinks and holds to it, like the Professor. And, well, you saw how the two of us got along. ((Laughter.)) So, like Mulder, I'd probably spend a lot of time trying to get her to see the alternatives. I don't know if that would annoy me more than it intrigued me, though.

And - like I said, she is a very beautiful woman. I can appreciate that in an abstract way, even if I don't wanna get in her pants. I don't know if that kind of attraction would translate? I've never been gay, so I don't know what I'd look for in that situation.

But hey, if anyone wants to write it, that's where I'd start.

Just keep me out of bed with Maggie, please.

Oh yay, this finally went up!

I haven't read it yet, but I'll get around to it soon. Looking forward to it.

((She laughs, heartily.)) Oh gosh. Where'd that come from? ((She touches her head.)) Is it the hair? It's the hair, isn't it.

Well, sure, I can settle that one right now. I'll be frank (and you can be ireactions) - I experimented in college, just like I'm pretty sure everyone with an open mind and a very feminist social circle did... it was often a political choice for people, in my world. "Down with the patriarchy," female self-sufficiency, you know? But it never clicked for me.

So yeah, straight as the proverbial arrow. intangirble laughs that I must be the straightest woman he's ever known if I wouldn't even get it on with Gillian Anderson... I mean, she's absolutely beautiful, don't get me wrong, and I love her character as Scully, but - nah, dip me in chocolate and throw me to Mulder any day.

((She laughs, looks around with a smile on her face. Spreads her hands wide, questioning.)) ...I'm serious. I don't see any of you getting the chocolate. Do I have to do everything myself around here?

And heh - ireactions, you're more right than you know, in many ways. Suffice to say it - you're not insane.

I guess if we were a team, you know, like Captain Planet but with four people, I could be the heart. I've always tried to - hold us together, keep us going, remind everyone that we need to look at things with sensitivity and compassion. And I always thought Ma-Ti was the best character anyway. I mean, who wouldn't wanna talk to animals?

But I always thought - well, that's fine in a group of friends, but being heartfelt isn't unique. It's not something you can base a relationship on. But then again, maybe it is. Too many people - in my world, in this world, in so many of the worlds I've been to - don't seem to see the value of it. Even as a child I never understood why people didn't care the way I did about things that were so obviously important... how they could think nothing of doing violence or being cruel, how they could watch an animal or another child suffer and not only not wince, but laugh. I didn't understand how it didn't set off something very deep inside them, a stomach-churning sense of wrongness. Maybe that's a gift I have that people need.

And I'll think about what you said, as well. Thank you.

But yeah. Quinn and I in a better place now than we were last time you and I talked. You shook me up for a moment there, saying things that were too close to things I was already feeling and trying to deny, but... I've talked to him some and I think we worked some things out. And we're still going ahead.

((Huh. That's an interesting deconstruction. I'm not really good at reading between the lines of people's words like that, but - I can see it, given the background I know. -Which is pretty much exclusively thanks to you and Temporal Flux, so thanks to you guys again for that.

One vibe I get very strongly from Sabrina is that she knows how to be professional. That means being diplomatic. She won't say anything on the record that would incriminate anyone, even if she feels it. I can see why she wouldn't have wanted to say all that stuff.

Btw, edited the topic name in case Cory and Tom didn't notice there was some commentary on their episodes too. Even though it's mostly us chattering now. :) ))

((Wade looks a little - stopped in her tracks. Like you hit something very close to home. A sliver of doubt.))

I- well. ((She seems for a moment like she might almost clam shut on this one, change the subject. But she takes a deep breath and rolls with it.)) I guess some part of me was surprised too. The part that was like - "this is so sudden," and "does he really mean it? Why is he saying this now?"

But - I couldn't say no. Not after all this time, all this dancing around, never admitting, never confessing. It was the first time he'd ever shown me commitment. ((She laughs softly.)) I guess that's probably not a good sign, huh? But...

((She lets the words trail off, shakes her head slowly. She's done with this conversation. Anything else she could say would just make her sound needy, overly raw.))

--People with interdimensional issues, huh. ((She forces a little smile, pushes her hair back off her face. Tries to brighten up.)) Yeah, that - that doesn't surprise me. It's been hard on all of us. The things you see, you experience, that you can't tell anyone... it gets very isolating. I mean, I assume you saw how it went with Remmy. You can't just go see a regular psychiatrist and start talking about these things, they'd say you were nuts.

It actually - means a lot to me, you talking to me like this. ((She lets out a small laugh.)) Strange pair, huh? Here you are, writing about my double's life from a universe where it was all a television show. And here's me. Being me. ((She gives a little shrug and makes a goofy face.)) Either way, I don't get to talk to many people any more. It's nice.

A stepmother specifically, huh? I mean, I do want children. I'm guessing Quinn plays a particular role in this.

Hey, so ireactions - heh, calling people by their username reminds me of my days on hacker BBSes - mind if I turn it around and ask you a question?

Nothing too personal or rude, honest. Just - I keep thinking, about what you said before.

"Let's face it; if he's not with you, he's with nobody. That's the curse of being Quinn Mallory. Wade Welles has plenty of options."

I guess I wanted to ask - do you really think that? I guess I can see how you would, and - maybe it's accurate. It's just funny, because for the longest time I always felt like it was the other way round.

The blindness of falling in love, maybe. I feel like Quinn was always charming the women, even when he didn't mean to, but me? I got people's attention, but it never felt like it was for the right reasons. And it always ended in some kind of disaster. Other than with Quinn, I feel like I've never had a date that didn't crash and burn horribly... whether it was getting charmed by a psychic psychopath or falling for a guy who's secretly undead.

I guess it looks like I get around, and in some ways I do, but it's never satisfying. No, don't worry, I'm not oversharing about my sex life, I mean - people like me, but they don't like me for me. They like me for how I look or what they can get out of me, or who I could be if they had control over me. It's like no one sees through to who I really am. Except Quinn, and Remmy, and maybe the Professor. They're the only ones who get me.

And yet - this is me being honest now, in a way my feminist friends would kill me for. But I've always had trouble feeling like I was good enough for Quinn. The way he thinks, the way his mind works - it's something I can only watch in awe. He doesn't know it, but he has so much. He could do anything he put his mind to... he could win anyone he wants, if he just let himself. And then there's me, trying to keep up. Trying to do something, or be something, that stands out, that's more than average. And I never feel like I'm enough.

So it's funny when you say that - I guess it looks like that from the outside, heh. That he's the shy loner nerd who'd always be alone, and I'm the - what do you guys call it? The manic pixie dream girl, who's got it all. But that's not how I feel on the inside. In many ways, I'm still the awkward nerd I was back in middle school. On the outside I look like I have it together, but I don't trust myself at all.

Just musing.

I agree with ireactions about Quinn's depression, to a point. There are some very good points there, and I definitely thought he was out of character in late S3 and what I've seen of S4. That said, there's a difference, too, between how a person would face horror the first few times and how they face it after they've been traumatised over, and over, and over again.

As Wade puts it so aptly in The Breeder (one of the reasons I can't bring myself to hate that episode),

After a certain point, you can't keep reacting the same way to the trauma being piled on top of you. I think the main thing Quinn lost in late S3 was a sense of purpose, a reason to keep caring. In The Exodus Part 2, he says to Arturo, coldly, brutally, "You're assuming that I care."

That was... quite out of character for the Quinn we know, but it also makes sense for someone who's been pushed and pushed and pushed until they just shut down. With Arturo terminally ill, he's being pushed even further into the leadership role, and it's too much responsibility. Remmy blames him and won't let up about how much. Wade is distant. Quinn's failing. This isn't fun any more.

And I think it reflects, rather brutally but poetically, the state of the show at that point. The cast weren't having fun either. In the beginning this was an adventure; now they just see loss and the death of a show they once loved. They're going through the motions. The atmosphere is grim. A person can only take so much.

I hate that that happened to the show, I really do. But in a purely poetic, literary sense, I like that art reflected life. Wade got off some brutally honest comments about the whole thing before she had to go, and they speak far too well to what was happening at the time. Quinn doesn't care because he doesn't care. Remmy, dear Remmy, sucks it up and soldiers on, determined to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear; his courage is beautiful. Rarely are shows so raw and so true to life.

Yeah, late S3 and early S4 were a mess. But life sometimes is. They were a mess made out of something real, and I kind of admire them for that.