#einsteinsugly

"Look, I just realized you're about to leave for Africa, and I won't get a chance to say good-bye in person. That makes me sad. I mean, you've always been very special to me."

Jackie & Eric [That '70s Show]

that70sshowgoldencouple

Oh we would have SO much fun! 💛

We’d have to keep Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp as executive producers tho! Heard they gave lots of input on Red and Kitty and from what I’ve seen, it shows! They know their characters well 😊 imagine getting to collaborate with them on a story for Red/Kitty 😳 I don’t know if I’d be able to speak!

Of course KS and DJR would be EPs. That wouldn’t change. ❤️

But we’d prep you so that you could speak to them (I say as if us being in charge of T9S is actually going to be a thing 😂).

einsteinsugly

What would you change Leia's name to, out of curiosity? And would JH's kid still be named Jay (short for James, perhaps)? Would you push the show into the early 00s, so it makes character sense too?? What would T9S be called, then?

I'd be totally excited for such a verse, that is actually canon. *Coughs loudly* Like mine...

Because it is That ‘90s Show, I’d have to work within that fixed (i.e. unchangeable) framework. I probably would go a bit meta in the first episode and have the characters reference how time moves differently in Point Place (i.e. Point Place Time™).

Eric: It did take me over five years to turn eighteen after I turned seventeen.

Donna: And we once had three Christmases in one year.

Jackie: And I graduated two years after you two did, which makes no sense since I was only a year behind you in school, and I wasn’t held back.

Eric: Time works differently in this town, and you can take the Kid out of Point Place, but not Point Place out of the Kid. And that explains how all of us have children who are fourteen and fifteen!

Jackie: You’re still going with the Kid? I thought you dropped that after everyone made fun of you for it.

Eric: I look exactly the same as I did sixteen years ago. I learned to stop questioning certain things.

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Eric and Donna’s daughter would not be named Leia. I have a few ideas. One, she would have a name that could be shortened to a gender neutral nickname, which both Donna and Eric think is cool -- and Red and Kitty don’t get. Red and Kitty call her by her full first name while her new friends call her by her shortened one.

Or to continue the tradition of the kids calling each other by their last names, she’d be called Forman anyway. So she’d be named after a feminist icon (Donna’s wish), and Eric chooses her middle name (with the stipulation from Donna that it’s not a Star Wars or comic book name).

Jackie and Hyde’s son (or daughter) would not be named Jay. They would struggle with the naming because their ideas are incompatible. Then they’d be doing something together that’s unrelated to the baby-naming, and the right name would hit them at the same time -- and they’d shout the name at the same time, excited. And it would be a very sweet moment between them, yet again proving how similar they truly are deep down.

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Because the show is set in 1995, Kurt Cobain’s death would be a reference point for these kids. It was a major traumatic event for teens in ‘94. Maybe one of the kids in particular, for whom Nirvana and Kurt is an emotional touchstone (maybe J/H’s son), would still be dealing with the grief to some degree.

There could be a clash of musical tastes among the kids. The ‘90s had quite a few distinct and significant music scenes going on. I think these kids would be more at odds here than the ones in That ‘70s Show. Jackie’s musical taste was the only real outlier.

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Sexuality and gender identity would be explored in my version of That ‘90s Show. As I wrote in a previous post, “[w]riting within the limits of how people understood these things in the mid-'90s doesn’t mean writing the show as if those limits are the actual boundary to people’s sexuality and gender identity.”

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Ultimately, everything would arise from character. Character would drive the plot, which would affect character development, which would affect the plot, etc. The conflicts would be organic to who the characters are, not forced on the characters -- which would mean making them behave OOC so that those conflicts could happen. The jokes, too, would arise from who the characters actually are instead of writing the characters’ behavior to (or for) the joke.

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Jackie deserves so much better than the fate T9S has given her, which is the main reason T9S irks me. If the story was pushed to 1998-9, E/D's daughter wasn't named Leia, and Jackie and Kelso weren't a thing (maybe an offscreen J/H ending, with their daughter joining Lucy [not Leia] on her adventures?), I'd be legitimately excited. Alas, the premise is solid, but the details suck.

Anywho, since Eric and Donna's travel bug was cut short in my TWA verse in 1985 because of Kate, I can totally see them dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. Not in 1980-2, though. Because as I said in my reply to your essay on T9S's premise, I honestly see Donna having an abortion in most cases, since she and Eric are so far from being ready, it would be a disservice to their child. To go through the same turmoil she did.

The only times I see her not having one is if Eric (or Jackie, maybe) spilled the beans about her pregnancy before she could nip it in the bud (like in season 6, if she was pregnant), or if she and Eric were separated (for whatever reason). and her aching heart overruled her head (like in Drops of Jupiter). And Eric wouldn't even fathom naming his daughter Leia, because Leia was a sexual fantasy. Not someone he idolized, like Luke, per se.

To me, the unexpected pregnancy would have to realistically occur between 1983-7. After they're done with college, and are young, traveling professionals (they're working in Cape Town, South Africa in my verse), only for it to be unexpectedly cut short. Speaking of which, I have a bunch of chapters of Ebony and Ivory (the main E/D fic in my verse) written, but I only have three chapters posted. All of my stuff is on AO3 at this point (I only posted on FF in the very beginning), and I have a bunch of ficlets, moodboards, and essays within my verse in the Eric and Donna tag. And the Jackie and Hyde tag. And the Red and Kitty tag...

Yeah, I don’t blame anybody for not being interested in That 90′s Show. Different strokes for different folks, and all that. If Eric and Donna were treated the way Jackie and Hyde are being treated, I’d be effing pissed too.

I think circumstances outside the show/characters led to Jackie and Kelso being written as back together, and that’s really dumb, lol. I’m with you - Jackie could have appeared alone without mentioning any romantic partner, so it’s all left up to fans’ imaginations. Or sure, mention that she’s going home to Hyde off-screen. But the writers/producers have shown that they don’t have that kind of creativity, unfortunately. They were unwilling to do it when Topher left in season 8, too.

I have a lot of questions about That 90′s Show and skepticism too, but hey, I haven’t even seen it yet so what do I know? I’m going to reserve judgement until it comes out. Maybe it will suck. Maybe it will be great. Probably somewhere in between. I will take what I like and use it for inspiration, and I’ll ignore the rest, same as always with this show. It has disappointed me before and I’m sure it will again, but that’s why fanfic exists!

I don’t think Donna would get an abortion, but there are a lot of different ways to interpret the characters and of course we’re each entitled to our own. When she thought she was pregnant in the show, abortion wasn’t something that seemed to be on the table. The characters all sort of acted like it was inevitable that if Donna was pregnant, she’d be having the baby. Brooke and Kelso’s unexpected pregnancy was treated the same way. Roe v. Wade happened in 1973 so abortion was certainly legal and available (especially in cities probably, like Madison, Milwaukee or Chicago) but I don’t think it was by any means common. At least, not in Point Place. 

I think Donna would be well informed about her options, though, and I think she would think about them seriously if something like this happened. I also think that finishing college would be a deal-breaker for her. And she wouldn’t want to rush into marriage, just because she was being rushed into parenthood. Eric would have to react better than he did last time, too. I think he’s capable of acting more maturely, though, and I also think that fatherhood would be something Eric would take seriously and would be the catalyst for him to finally grow up. 

Donna + smiles with Eric (s2)

Emma met a boy with eyes like a man

Turns out her heart fits right in the palm of his hand

Now he'll be her shelter when it rains

Little does he know, his whole world's about to change