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Don't worry, I know no one will read them, just wanted to make this post.

OFC isn't popular in the VB fandom, but if I always chose what was popular, we wouldn't be meet.

I watched the first two seasons of VB in January 2022 and was dissatisfied with the ending. It was a cheap ploy to raise money for a third season, in my opinion. But I liked the setting and the interactions between the main characters, so my imagination immediately started writing a continuation. The plot needed a new woman - one who was ironic in conversation, useful for the cases and interesting to study. And I created Elena Sokolova - a former Viennese prostitute with Russian roots. At the time of her meeting with Max and Oskar she was Strasser's freelance assistant. I came up with three standard episodes for the "third" season, in which Max and Elena's relationship rapidly developed and ended tragically. I held this story in my head until the premiere of the real third season and, of course, was extremely disappointed.

I hadn't read Tallis's books at the time. Later, after reading them, I realized the screenwriter had lost all the potential of Tallis's plot (in the first and second seasons, too). The themes explored in the books but omitted from the adaptation could have made the series more popular (with proper PR).

The third season added a lot of useless scenes to pad out the running time, and some questions were left unanswered. I took 10,000 screenshots from those three episodes and decided that Max lost my Elena between seasons 2 and 3, which is why he became so... dead inside.

In the summer of 2023, photos from the filming of the final season surfaced. This pushed me, and at the encouragement of a friend, I started writing my story. I wanted this version of events to exist somewhere. Over the course of two and a half months, I wrote

"Off-Season" ("Межсезонье")

and published it in November 2023 on a Russian website. Now this fanfic can be found on AO3 and Wattpad. With this work, I filled the gaps between the second and third seasons and (for me) integrated "Off-season" into the canon. These events were affected Max, so in the third season, he's still processing his trauma, deeply reflecting.

My soul temporarily calmed, I took up translating Tallis's books about Lieberman. Tallis is good at describing food and architecture, but he's poor at developing his characters. Oscar hasn't changed at all over the seven books, while Max froze in the middle of the third. Over the five months I spent translating six books, I became immersed in the atmosphere of this universe and didn't want to let it go. The book versions of the characters weren't interesting to me, but Vienna itself and this time inspired my imagination to create new scenes and plots once again. Then (spring 2024) I decided that Elena should live in this world, and began writing an AU.

"The kaleidoscope" ("Калейдоскоп")

— a branch from my first fanfic, in which Max and Elena stayed together. There are several investigations with Oscar (one of them was published on AO3), everyday life and a lot of heterosexual relationships scenes.

I existed in this universe for almost a year and finished this fanfic in early 2025. I knew what other cases I could have written, but at that point I didn't have the energy, so it was time for a happy ending. Besides, if you write and no one reads, interest wanes.

I hadn't written anything for several months, but the urge to get a new story out of my head and into text finally won out. I decided that Max and Elena deserved a series of works (four or five), and in the fall of 2025, I wrote a short investigation for them.

"The duo" ("Дуэт")

Its ending is ambiguous and calls for a continuation, which I'm currently writing. Elena's Russian roots allow me to bring in a character from my favorite book universe — the Russian detective Fandorin (first crush!), so I'm currently working on the crossover — "The ensemble" ("Ансамбль"). It's only for me, but I'm used to it.

While writing "The Kaleidoscope", I fell deeply in love with my original character. His name is Peter, and he's a very simple man. A real one. He died and I cried every time I reread those lines. At the end of 2025, my psyche was going through another crisis, so I started writing another version of the universe, new spinoff from the first fanfic — "The tandem" ("Тандем"). In this version, Elena chose Peter and made him happy, and he fulfilled her dream. Dr. Liebermann helped Elena solve several of her psychological problems and left for America, not daring to tell her about his feelings. There's zero demand for this short text because:

1) Who needs someone else's original characters?

2) To really feel this story, you need to know everything I've already written about these characters in my previous fanfics.

This is my favorite work at the moment, and I enjoy rereading it when I need an island of calm.

I write in Russian because:

1) it's my native language, and I think in Russian;

2) I can't express the characters' speech patterns in English, and in my head, they all speak differently;

3) free online translators exist.

Do I plan to give up this "useless" pursuit? Of course not! I need to finish the crossover, take Elena to Russia, raise Max as a father, move their family to America to survive both wars, and let them die peacefully on foreign soil. It's the best hobby I've ever tried; it's free and therapeutic. My kids are used to "Mommy writing letters" and consider it my job (I'm not going to try to dissuade them).

Today I'm 37, and (among other things) the desire to someday finish Elena's story keeps me going. I'm glad I was able to find this safe place for myself. Happy birthday to me!

Matthew Beard's work in "skylight" is interesting because he has to come in and make a big impression on the audience in a very specific way. Or the end of the play doesn't come together right. It's a tiny cast and a pivotal role. The ending is wonderful and he really needs to set it up in the brief time he has in the beginning. That must have been a lot of pressure.

(I read the play. I'm a nurse. I barely have time to eat, let alone go to the theater.)

Max had it fuckin' engraved.