Discover Top Posts Tagged with #16: immortality

For the headcanon asks, if you're so inclined:

Grissom: 10, 13, 19

Sara: 11, 18, 20

Headcanon ask game: Send a character and a number and I'll tell you a headcanon or perception that I have about this character’s . . .

10. posture/physicality/movement (grissom) 13. ideals or philosophies (grissom) 19. favourite food and eating habits (grissom) 11. hobbies and interests (sara) 18. beloved or important items or property (sara) 20. love language/way they show affection (sara)

Thank you so much for the delightful ask! I am repeating myself from this ask response yesterday, but my sincere apologies for being so slow to respond; my mind doesn’t always cooperate with my intentions and desires (or, in other words, executive dysfunction won out over my attempts to do just about anything last year).

Also, I tend to write too much, so I tried to restrict myself to *a* headcanon or perception for each of these. (I still wrote too much.)

10. posture/physicality/movement (grissom)

I’m interested in the way Grissom seems to express (or want to express) himself through his hands.

In “Leaving Las Vegas” (07x12) and “Immortality” (16), for example (I’m drawing a blank on other examples right now), when he’s struggling with what to say to Sara, he seems to want to call on his hands. There’s probably been research done on this, and I have not made any efforts to look into it, so apologies for that, but I tend to figure that it has something to do with the fact that he would have communicated a lot with his hands when he was young (to communicate with his mom generally, but also reinforced by his dad having died when he was young and him having been a ghost at school) and that his most personal communications would have been with his hands (his mom, in my mind, having been the most important person in his life as a whole, until he met Sara).

To be honest, though, the hand motions I’m really obsessed with are the ones he demonstrates in “Immortality” (16) and “In the Blood” (1x07). (See this post (and above and below).) I love the way he fidgets with his wedding ring finger while watching/admiring his wife—even, as in “Immortality,” when she is not actually his wife and he believes there is no hope of her ever again being his wife. If I were ever to meet WP and to get to ask him about any of his acting choices, this would be at the top of my list. (I mean, did he remember having done this in “Immortality”? Or was it just something instinctual he did both times? Either way, I love it.)

13. ideals or philosophies (grissom)

I previously skipped ahead in preparing this, so is the last question to which I’m writing the response. I feel like I should have something really wise or philosophical to say here. (I don’t.)

He believes in science. He believes in the evidence. He doesn’t believe in organized religion. He believes in the beauty of baseball and the words of William Shakespeare. He is in awe of the universe. He is the most wonderfully non-judgmental individual when it comes to those who transgress society’s norms (as long as they do no harm to others). He believes in the pursuit of truth and justice. He does not believe in human testimony; he believes, thanks to Sara, in the human being.

Sara.

He believes in Sara.

Whatever else he may believe, he believes in Sara above all else.

If she is wrong, he doesn’t want to be right. He would call into question everything else in the world before he would call into question her. If there were a conflict between Sara and the supposed evidence, he would believe Sara. He would flee for Sara. He would flee with Sara. He would go to the ends of the earth and beyond for Sara. He would do anything for Sara. She is his heart.

Sara.

He believes in Sara.

19. favourite food and eating habits (grissom)

I have headcanons that Grissom’s parents are from Chicago, that his mother would take him to visit relatives there in the summer, and that his dad would take him to see the Cubs play whenever they swung through L.A. (I mean, WP needs a Chicago/Cubs connection, right?) His dad liked his dogs served Chicago-style, “dragged through the garden” (i.e., topped with yellow mustard, chopped white onions, bright green sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, pickled sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt), and this became a special treat of which Grissom too was (and is) quite fond. After Grissom starts dating Sara, he’s okay with them being veggie dogs, just as long as they have all those toppings on them.

More generally, I think Grissom’s a pretty decent cook (that soup in “Grissom’s Divine Comedy” (08x12) looks like he’s made it from scratch, right?) and has pretty decent eating habits (occasional tendency to skip meals while hyperfocused on a case—as in “Butterflied” (04x12), for example—notwithstanding). I imagine he started to cook when he was still a kid/teenager with a single (widowed) working mom; he continues cooking for himself as an adult. He’s a pretty decent cook, and I can see him finding it kind of relaxing.

I think that, after he and Sara get together, he likes cooking for her and does more than half the cooking (although I think he also gets her to enjoy cooking with him). I have a very specific headcanon (part of a fic) about him practicing and perfecting cooking her favourite pancakes for her. I can also see him enjoying learning different veggie recipes for her (a really mean eggplant parm, for example), even if he adds some meat to his own.

But, as time goes by (after they get married the first and then certainly the second time), I think he becomes more and more functionally pescatarian. (Further to the previous paragraph, I also think he probably eats more salads and veggies.) I mean, is it really worth eating steak if he has to brush his teeth before Sara will kiss him again? Once in a while, maybe, but not regularly. I say pescetarian because he maybe doesn’t enjoy tofu as much as Sara or I do, and fish may be available as a source of fresh protein when they’re out on the boat or travelling the coast. (I imagine Sara being a bit less bothered by this as it’s very sustainably caught.)

11. hobbies and interests (sara)

In this response, I discussed my headcanon about Sara and surfing, so now I’m going to talk a bit about Sara and the arts/pop culture (namely, TV, movies, books, and music).

TV:

I think Sara’s pretty literate when it comes to pop culture and the arts. Her literal first line is a reference to the 1970s-1980s sitcom Three’s Company. (See here.) She knows who Jordan Catalano is.

I see Sara as quite a loner, and I can imagine her maybe having had a lot of random TV shows on in the background when she was studying or relaxing after work. I can also imagine her maybe previously having gotten attached to some random TV show while she was in foster care and never had proper control of the TV to ensure she could watch to it; maybe there was even an older show that depicted the kind of nice, supposedly happy family Sara wished she’d had (although I simultaneously can see her thinking all those shows were b.s.). But I have a hard time seeing CSI-era Sara getting attached to specific TV shows the way we all do.

That said, I can see her possibly getting into The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report (pulling from my own love of the former and JF’s love of the latter, as well as my view of Sara as someone with progressive politics); I think those used to be (maybe still are?) repeated a couple of times throughout the day (or at least they were where I live), which would be helpful with her schedule. I also headcanon Sara and Grissom watching The West Wing together one or more times because I think Grissom would have an uncharacteristic partiality for the young secret service agent in the first season and that amuses me.

Movies:

I read an interview with JF in which she said that she would watch romcoms after work as a way of relaxing and distancing herself from all the serious subject matter of the show. I think maybe after a few years in Vegas Sara realizes she can’t just read crime books and listen to her police scanner and starts to do the same. I don’t think she’d be into newer romcoms, though; it’d all be stuff from the 1980s and older (you know, everything from City Lights and It Happened One Night to The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally). (She’s got to be a bit of an old soul to vibe with Grissom, right?)

Books:

In addition to her fondness for crime books, she must have some literary tastes. She read Moby-Dick, presumably of her own initiative from the way she speaks of it, when she was in the fifth grade (and that is not an insubstantial book). I don’t know what Harvard required of its science undergrads at the time, but she read Thoreau in college. She’s familiar with The Turn of the Screw. She knows her Poe. She’s able to finish Milton’s recitation of Longfellow’s “The Arrow and the Song.” She seems to get Grissom’s references.

I also have a really specific headcanon (the really specific headcanons come from things I’ve incorporated into stories) that Sara read the Anne of Green Gables books as a kid and looked up to Anne (and had a crush on Gilbert, obviously). I mean, I think there are some fun parallels there: orphan Anne Shirley and her beloved Dr. Gilbert Blythe, pseudo-orphan Sara Ann Sidle and her beloved Dr. Gilbert Grissom.

Music:

Sara shows, by my estimation, possibly the most diverse musical knowledge and appreciation of anyone in the series. The girl could reference the Grateful Dead, understand Grissom’s operatic brooding, serenade herself with Blondie, sing Meshell Ndegeocello lyrics along with Archie, correct Greg’s pronunciation of Tupac, call on her knowledge of satanists from her summer spent loving Black Sabbath, enjoy (and maybe—or maybe not—put on) Beck’s “The Information” shortly after it was released, and seemingly listen to Iron & Wine’s The Shepherd’s Dog not long after its release. (According to the DVD commentaries, the Tupac pronunciation correction was based on JF correcting ES’s pronunciation of Tupac in rehearsal, a piece of trivia I love. We know JF loves music.) I happen to have a very salty (with respect to the later seasons) post on Sara Sidle + music appreciation here.

I also have some extremely specific headcanons about Sara and music (again, from stories I’ve written):

Her mom loved Linda Ronstadt, and she took Sara to see Ronstadt perform at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley when Ronstadt was touring for Simple Dreams. This was Sara’s first concert; it was the day after her sixth birthday, and they spent the day in San Francisco first. (Yes, this is based on real tour dates.)

Sara attended Lilith Fair at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California (part of the Bay Area) on July 8, 1997. She went with some casual friends from work or on her own. While there, she bought a Lilith Fair t-shirt, which (due to her having been unexpectedly called into work late on February 8, 1998) she was wearing when she first met Dr. Gil Grissom. (Yes, this too is based on real tour dates.)

Consistent with the previous point, Sara is a fan of Sarah McLachlan (and a lot of the other artists who performed at Lilith Fair). On more than one occasion, when crying over (or trying not to cry over) Gil Grissom, Sara puts on McLachlan’s album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy.

18. beloved or important items or property (sara)

I think that, first growing up (and moving around a lot) in the foster care system, and then making the most of whatever resources she has as she complete her undergrad degree and then her Master’s, Sara generally learns not to become too attached to physical things.

After she started working an adult job with a regular pay cheque, she could have gone the other way, but I think, well, basically everything we see and know about her tells us she didn’t—her choice of a public sector career, her first two apartments on the show, the way she dresses.

I have a lot of thoughts on Sara Sidle’s sartorial choices, but I’ll save most of those for another post. I know her wardrobe has been described as kind of on the gender-neutral side, and it is, but I also always want to point out that that this is also pretty consistent with what the style was at the time. (See, for example, LFO, “Summer Girls”: “I like girls who wear Abercrombie & Fitch,” which was a lot of cargo pants and track pants and the like. See, you know, the aftereffects of the grunge movement.) I also think she is very practical in this respect and would be wearing stuff for work that is (1) comfortable and (2) inexpensive and somewhat disposable to her. In this fictional world where CSIs don’t just wear coveralls for everything, at least she’s not going to care if she contaminates or otherwise ruins any of this stuff with her messy job, you know? Additionally, she goes through a variety of sunglasses, which tells me she’s not choosing expensive ones but rather pairs she can lose or break without being too upset about it.

(I’m really getting away from the point here, but I think that when she was in San Francisco she probably dressed in a way that was a bit more polished for work, because that would be the expectation in that kind of city, and that you can still see that a bit when she first starts in Vegas.)

Okay, so that’s what’s not important to her. What is important to her? I think she has nice clothes for nice purposes: court (as we see in canon), maybe going out on a nice date (as we see in later seasons, but that stuff is at most like pseudo-canon to me), etc. I don’t know if she she’s managed to keep hold of anything that might remind her of any more positive times in her childhood. Unsurprisingly, the things I imagine being important to her are things she may have received from Grissom—plants, books, small mementos, possibly even personal notes or letters, as well as (later) clothing and jewelry. I have a half-formed headcanon that he gave her the robe she wears in “Way to Go” (06x24) and a fully formed headcanon that he continues buying her nice robes, scarves, lingerie, necklaces, etc. for the rest of their lives together. (The man may not have gone into “Swap Meet” (05x05) knowing what La Perla was, but he was taking notes; he 100% knew by the end.) I also think the two of them collect photos and mementos from their travels together.

(Side note, but cortecks/cortexx has a really fun take on Sara and her vegetation here.)

The objects on which I should have some sort of headcanon are Sara’s necklaces, and I just don’t, really? When and why did she start collecting them? (You’d think I’d have at least read a fic that suggested an origin story, but I really don’t remember one?) Did she perhaps decide to buy herself one with her first pay cheque from her first proper job? Did she like having something pretty to wear even when she didn’t want to spend a lot of money on clothes, something that would be less likely to become damaged? Did that become her go-to reward, something special that wouldn’t cost too much and wouldn’t take up too much space in whatever small apartment she was renting because she could never see the point in paying for anything bigger?

Okay, I inevitably had some more thoughts on this subject, so I am adding in my own words from the comments:

I was thinking more about the necklace thing, and I was like … maybe it starts at Harvard. She has basically no money to spare and her wardrobe is so, so basic, but she puts together the cash to buy some pretty but inexpensive necklace—something classic-looking—at some local vintage/thrift shop, so she can have at least one thing with which to accessorize that very basic wardrobe. Maybe the next semester she manages another. She buys 2-3 per year? She wears them on a rotating basis, so whenever she gets another she just adds it to the rotation. Once the collection gets a bit larger, she’s able to choose a few that are on the more trendy side. But they basically all always stay in the rotation. And then by the time we get to 2000 and Sara Sidle’s arrival in Vegas, she’s got a pretty decent collection, but she still just always keeps them in rotation. It’s kind of become her thing. And it’s why she never really seems to expand into any other jewellery (like earrings, for example).

I don’t think any of the necklaces are very expensive, aside from a small collection of very nice ones that Grissom buys her. I don’t know that any of them are particularly special to her, aside of course from any—expensive or otherwise—that Grissom buys her. I have a very specific headcanon that, in honour of their second wedding/marriage, he does eventually buy her that bracelet with her birthstone in it (as he imagined in the original “Butterflied” (04x12) monologue)/a diamond bracelet (as we see him contemplating near the end of “Time of Your Death” (06x22)); specifically, it’s a vintage sapphire and diamond bracelet with a matching necklace. I also headcanon that, in honour of their second wedding/marriage, Betty finally gives Grissom his grandmother’s ring (the one he gave Nicole Daley in the second grand) to give to Sara and that Sara is very moved by this and really feels likes she’s been made part of their family; that would then become one of her most prized possessions.

Oh, wait, scratch all that. Her wedding ring. She cares about her wedding ring.

20. love language/way they show affection (sara)

So I’m going to approach this a little bit differently. I did a search to remind myself what the love languages were, and I came across this journal article, which explains how there is little empirical support for the original love languages theory and suggests an alternative that the authors believe “more accurately reflects a large body of empirical research on relationships”:

Love is not akin to a language one needs to learn to speak but can be more appropriately understood as a balanced diet in which people need a full range of essential nutrients to cultivate lasting love.

(Sorry, I’m not trying to take the fun out of this question, but I thought this was interesting!)

So does Sara provide Grissom with a balanced diet for love?

Pre-relationship:

(I’m going to adapt my answers to what is possible given the parameters of their relationship at the time.)

(a) words of affirmation (verbal expressions of appreciation, compliments, or encouragement): “Yes, sir,” “You’re too hard on yourself,” repeating his own words back to him as if she recorded everything he said, etc. There are limits to how open she can be in her affection for him, yet she does the best she can within the limits of their professional relationship.

(b) quality time (intentional time spent together with undivided attention): It doesn’t technically meet the requirements set out here, but the way they relish working together 100% counts to me (and, I think, them!) under the circumstances. I mean, she literally moves to Vegas for that.

(c) receiving [giving, here] gifts (visual tokens of appreciation): She likes presenting him with information, like stuff she’s learned from her reading (e.g., change of recovery of DNA off different surfaces) or developments in the case.

(d) acts of service (practical support through actions): Obviously it’s quite literally her job, as his employee, to serve him, but even for being a natural keener she has a particular enthusiasm for doing everything she can to please him. I don’t think she’d have been quite that gung-ho with anyone else.

(e) physical touch (from holding hands to sexual interactions): Personal space? What is personal space? They can’t touch, but they still get as close as they possibly can.

Post-“Immortality”:

(a) words of affirmation (verbal expressions of appreciation, compliments, or encouragement): “We'll figure it out, okay? I'll never go away. If you need to hold on to something, hold on to me.” A+++ I think that, during their first marriage, they always held a little something back. But the way they are with each other in CSIV tells me they finally learned how to be completely open and honest with each other, and I think neither of them is shy about telling the other how much they care.

(b) quality time (intentional time spent together with undivided attention): They choose to live alone together on a small boat at sea, so A+++++.

(c) receiving [giving, here] gifts (visual tokens of appreciation): I don’t think she’d be big on giving big gifts, but I think she still delivers him the gift of knowledge (interesting information she picks up in her reading, etc.) and, say, brings home his favourite treats from the market, or a rare or unusual book she thinks he might like, that kind of thing.

(d) acts of service (practical support through actions): I think they are always working together and working to support each other out on the boat. They like doing things for each other and share/work together on domestic tasks (cooking, cleaning, etc.), too.

(e) physical touch (from holding hands to sexual interactions): All the touch. They engage in all the touch. Hugging in the lab. Handholding in the lab (canon to me). Kissing on the roller coaster. They are 100% making good on all that sexual chemistry on the regular. They are 100% making use of all that alone time at sea. My personal belief is that she literally can never be close enough to her man; she would crawl under his skin if she could.

I tend to think of physical touch and quality time as being Sara’s strongest methods of communicating love, followed by words of affirmation, then acts of service and gifts, but, breaking it down like this, I feel like this is a pretty well-rounded diet?

(I will add the same disclaimer that I did at the end of my last post: This is a bit more rambling and less cohesive than I would like, but I really am just trying to get some thoughts out of my head this year without being all perfectionist about it. 😭😭😭)

Thank you again so much for the delightful ask! 💛

#16: immortality

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#16: immortality