Cine-Phile

This Dante's Inferno AU #eo #svu fic is still killing it with both the writing and the design!

Cannot wait for what's coming next.

Love it when fic writers make these pretty things to add to the beauty of their story.

Queen of awkward on-screen kisses and the king of insanely hot on-screen kisses (tongue use guaranteed every time #respect)

Will we ever find out how they will kiss each other?

Cant stop watching this edit by Multifandom Mashup on YouTube. So well done, perfect song, perfect edit, perfect graphics 🤩

Credits: YouTube Channel - https://youtube.com/@multifandommashup?si=Mv3HkkBg0ol_M5G9

tumblr - @jxpper

Crying my eyes out. These two are my kryptonite.

Is this a parallel universe I am looking at? OC has 77 episodes, while other have 300-500 + and it's still ahead.

This is a win of crazy proportions 🌟🔥🔥🙌

Neal Baer, the former showrunner and executive producer for my favourite seasons of Law & Order: SVU (Season 3-12), is currently the Co-director of M.S. in Media, Medicine and Health Program at Harvard Medical School. His conversation with Jerome and and Julienne from narrativ.com podcasts was a delight. Sharing some of my favourite quotes from the podcast.

First, Baer reflects on how personal experience, his own identity and his time as a medical student during the AIDS crisis informed his creative decisions. His portrayal of HIV-positive characters in the shows where he was a writer and producer, wasn’t just a plot choice; it was a reflection of a shifting medical reality and the deep emotional terrain it carried.

“Lot of storylines I did (on ER, SVU etc.) were influenced by me being in the closet and my medical interest in HIV from a medical perspective as he was in the medical school at Harvard from 1991-1996, which was at the height of AIDS epidemic where not much could be done to suddenly we could do a lot. So when in 1994, when ER started, we couldn't do very much but in 1995 we could do a lot. It influenced the storyline we did with Gloria Reuben, Gene Boulin as someone who lived a fulfilling life after taking Antiretrovirals"

He talks about a philosophy shift from empathy to compassion and mentions that stories, for him, are not about pretending to be someone else, but about walking beside them. This distinction matters in both medicine and media as it calls for humility, and imagination.

“I did an address at Harvard Medical School where I said curiosity is the gateway to empathy but I have changed that now to curiosity is the gateway to compassion, because I feel that empathy is an overused word now. But what does it really mean? Can we walk in someone else's shoes and the answer is no. We can only imagine what their lives are like and that can be done through storytelling so I like the word compassion because I am accompanying you in your journey. I am not being you, I am not walking in your shoes and I can imagine what it's like.”

Baer talks about storytelling as a deeply human instinct, one that allows viewers to project their own experiences, beliefs, and uncertainties onto characters, fostering a more intimate and open-ended kind of learning. This was so relatable having seen it play out in multiple episodes of SVU in his tenure.

“I did some years ago, called 'Mercy' for SVU, an episode about a mother who euthanizes her baby with Tay-Sacs. I chose as a writer, a genetic syndrome that's always fatal and horrible and the child will die quite young. Then brought into through my characters, different positions that they took, given what she had done. So Meloni's character, who is a father of four says "if my child was suffering, I would do the same thing". Belzer's character who is from Jewish faith in the show, says "no it's up to God". Here is this a conversation that the member of the audience can bring their own experience to. Sometimes it’s dangerous, because they'll bring their experience which is very different from what they are watching is different. But that's what stories do, they bring us together but they also differentiate us. That’s why I like doing SVU because there were different opinions and we learned about our characters through their own personal journeys(....)Entertain is kind of funny word so I wonder if it means 'you don’t think'. For me, if I tell a great story that has that Oh My God moment, then I have done my job.”

First must have been his older brother. From what we know he thought that Randall just left. Elliot didn't learn that he was kicked out until recently. How was it back then for him to suddenly find an older sibling missing.

After his father passed away, which must have been sudden as well since he committed suicide - Elliot's mother left the city. Elliot tells her later in 'Swing' that he always needed her but she left. As a child he must have found his mother mentally 'missing' due for certain periods due to bipolar. How did he learn to cope with that? Did he ever cope with it?

Then Kathy left him. I am not debating on the reasons but from what it appears, Elliot was shocked about the sudden-ness of it. His children and his family was his whole world and his behaviour seemed to suggest that it wasn't what he expected. He spent a long time in disbelief about the separation.

Then Olivia left SVU without notice, twice. It was temporary but again unexpected, leaving him with confusion and fury. Interesting how he says "all these women keep leaving me" in Series 8 Episode 9.

Later he leaves, famously and uncharacteristically, without a word. Very interesting how that played out...

I think the earliest we hear of Elliot Stabler's nightmares is SVU Season 2 episode - Victims. He mentions how a case with kids went south and he had nightmares, and headaches for two years after that. That falls within the ambit of PTSD and I wonder how come his spouse or co-workers didn't see the impact of a two-year long stint of disturbed sleep on him and force him to get help.

At many points in SVU, we saw Elliot lie in the bed, unable to sleep. My BFF and I used to joke back then that it's just an excuse to show Chris shirtless, haha. But there was something more to those scenes obviously, but never dwelled upon in depth. We see the PTSD though - manifesting in rage, belligerence, cycles of emotional suppression and hyper-arousal and, the inability to stray from established expectations from self.

By the time Organized Crime rolled around, we actually got a peek into Elliot's mental state along with the recurring nightmares. We also learnt that he shouts in his sleep when he gets these bad dreams (Season 1 - witnessed by Eli, Season 5 - witnessed by Bernie). That past mistakes and losses come back to haunt him like flashbacks (post Albanian arc, Season 2). Season 4 also opens with him getting a flashback/nightmare about Jamie's death from season 3. Then there is the lingering trauma from the military service which wakes him up at night (Season 4). Of course, the man has actually seen the ghost of his wife in a sleep deprived state (Season 3).

I love EO as any other fan but I know it's going to be one step forward and then one mention of Kathy; one tiny hope and then Catholic guilt rising. We will be back where we were in May 2023, endlessly waiting for EO on screen and dealing with radio silence about Elliot on SVU Series 27. At this point if they just acknowledge that they are important to each other as friends, I would be glad. It's been too long and the baiting a couple pushing 60 is getting absurd.