A History of Roswell Fanfic

[killjoy]

What cracks me up is going back and reading stories people did during first season where they have Kyle a total bastard I was like 'boy did you ever get that character wrong!!'

[April]

What cracks me up is going back and reading stories people did during first season where they have Kyle a total bastard I was like 'boy did you ever get that character wrong!!'

I feel like one of the smartest things the show ever did was to make Kyle more likable. He probably ended up being the most lovable character on the show.

[Sin]

Wow. Thanks for posting this. It brought a whole ton of insight. Even two years later. I actually started watching Roswell in August of 08' and finished up the entire season later that month so it's great to see how active this community still is and see how everyone felt and how the fan community has progressed.

Part 1
Probably the defining fic of this period would be "Us Six Against the World" series by LindaCrazy4Jason. You can find it at Crashdown in the NC-17 section if you're looking for it. This fic is particularly significant because it kicked off the "teenage pregnant" Liz, which has been a recurring theme. Some of the iconic fanon moments that Linda introduced were Liz craving Tabasco while pregnant and Liz giving birth to twins.

Wow. This is so interesting. I always thought that the reason a lot of dreamers were obsessed with getting Liz pregnant had to do with the animosity they felt that Tess had Max's child. It's nice to see that this wasn't the case and that this has always been a part of the dreamer fandom.

It was during this period that a rivalry seemed to emerge between Dreamers and Candies over on Fanforum, mainly because of arguments about which couple was better, and who deserved more screen time. Ah! Those innocent days! lol This was sometimes reflected in fanfic by the more virulent writers: ie deliberate attempts to portray Liz as an out of character bitch, or Maria as an out of character ditz. Max and Michael seemed to mostly survive this intact. Very few of the "shipper" writers disliked the other male character. Most of it was centered on Maria and Liz. This seemed to disappear for a long while in the middle period of fanfic, mainly because I think the Dreamers had Tess to focus their hate on after a while, while the Candies had Courtney (and I have discovered recently that the Candies really, REALLY hate Courtney lol).

This is depressing to see. I always felt that Dreamers and Candies would be friends considering the close bond that Maria and Liz always shared. That's kind of sad to see that Dreamers and Candie fans don't get along when I think they actually should get along quite well considering that they seemed to have similar problems and they were always the two flag ships of Roswell. I hope that still doesn't go on today. From what I can tell most of the dreamer fics I read always have Michael and Maria together in some way and I think that's just the way they should be. M/M and M/L are a unit and I don't really get how you can despise either of them if you like the other. It just kind of seems that those two pairings go together and always had good relationships.

GZOne other thing: an interesting NON trend. There has been a very small number of post-Graduation fics, when you really think about it. Considering where the show left off, this is surprising. The ones that do exist, tend to either be future fics (quite considerably in the future), or just "happily ever after fics," or UC fics that change almost everything. There does seem to be a shortage of "the gang on the road" fics. I've often wondered why this is. Perhaps because people were mostly happy where the show ended? I'm not sure if that's true.

I have a theory for this, I think it kind of stems back to what you were saying before. Season three is seen by all Roswell fans to be the worst season and pretty much everyone that I have seen hates it because they feel the characters were written simply to create plot. From what I can tell everyone hates the way things happened in season three. All of the most popular three canon couples hit rough roads in that season. The Dreamers were still fraction by the effects of season two, the Candy's had to deal with Maria being written out of character after finally having their reunion and they're break up had to have isolated them from the series and of course the Gazers were hurt by Isabel's complete dismissal of Alex when he was barely a few months dead. The show isolated all of it's fans so I can see why the fandom threw in the towel so to speak in response of following canon. I am a dreamer so most of the fics I have read and seen have been trying to fix what occurred in seasons two and three. It really doesn't shock me that there aren't any post season three fics, the fans at that point were so disappointed in the series that they just opted to forget about it all together and either pretend it didn't exist or create their own season three that fixed it.

Anyway, because Isabel became generally less liked as the series progressed, this, of course, reared its head in fanfic, where representations of the character were less positive. This seems to have settled down now though, particularly thanks to the strong Gazer contingent now on our board. The thing with most of the Roswell characters is that they have always been three-dimensional. There are certainly portrayals where their negative characteristics are highlighted, over their positive. When Katie and Jason were dating, I think this proved to be the case with the character of Isabel in some fanfic.

This is an interesting point as well. Thanks for writing all of this out. It's been extremely informative. I always thought it was odd that Isabel ended up getting all this airtime all of the sudden when she usually was not the character that was usually at the forefront. So I do understand where the suspicion comes from, but I actually think it had more to do with the fact that the writers didn't know what else to fill the show with so they ended up giving Isabel this storyline that seemingly no one liked with Jesse and the wedding. It was completely filler it seemed.

At this point, Dreamer fic, in my opinion, became Liz fic. There was, again in my estimation, an over-emphasis on Liz and no emphasis at all on Max. It seemed to be all about Liz and how badly she was treated and how Max broke her heart. While Liz's side was explored to death and beyond, there was almost a complete lack of exploration of Max's side that exists to this day and still astounds me.

I can only tell you what I have experienced two years in the fandom since I wasn't active until mid/late 2008, but I never got the impression that people devalued Max's feelings. From what I always got from the canon fic from dreamers were lots of fix-it fics which take place before the Tess sex and then I have also read stories where they try to comeback from the Tess sex.

I think the reason why most of the things Liz did are glossed over are mostly because of her reasons for doing them. I mean I personally can't think of anything Max could argue back from the "I did it to save the world" argument. I always found what Liz did to be easily swept away more or less because as soon as they sit down and talk everything can be understood and talked out. Yeah Max could still be angry I guess, but really how can he be angry at wanting to save the world considering he (or a part of himself) forced her to do it in the first place? I think that at the end it just seems unreasonable to fault Liz for the events that happened at TEOTW because she didn't have a choice.

I think fans see that up until Max slept with Tess everything could have been put back to the way things originally were more or less - so they see that moment as the jump shark moment of their ship. I also think another main reason why Dreamers are so stricken about the Tess sex is because they know that the canon Max who they love/loved and who was written the way he was in seasons one and two would never have slept with Tess, and the fact that he did was something that was so out of character and would have never happened, because the real canon Max would never have slept with her especially considering the circumstances.

Max never even dated other women because all he saw was Liz, so you are telling the audience that Max only sees Liz, only wants her and wants no one else from the very beginning and then retconning what you wrote to be ingrained in his character since 3rd grade for a plot point. To be honest I can't really blame the dreamers for being upset. The character that they loved was completely torn to pieces for a storyline none of them wanted. People were angry because they knew that Max wasn't in character.

The fact that the writers completely ruined the core of who Max was as a character I think really tears the dreamers apart. Because they know that this isn't their Max and the writers had to change his very foundation of his character to make a storyline that no one was interested in for season three. Max after this point doesn't even seem to be Max anymore, and now Liz is turned into a stepford-ized version of herself just to make her compatible to him, I think this understandably rubbed people the wrong way.

I don't think the dreamer division really has anything to do with hating Max (from what I have noticed from the boards and the past debates, posts and other talks I have seen on discussion boards). From what I get from them is that they feel a profound loss of who Max is or was from that storyline. I think it deals with the trauma that the writers inflicted by irrevocably changing Max's character and changing the very thing about Max that made people fall in love with his character. It's not that they hate Max - but they hate what the writers did to him and they hate the way that he was damaged to simply create a plot that no one wanted for season three anyway. Because after that part of the story he wasn't Max anymore.

I think you may have something to your theory about people loving Liz. I feel she is a very admirable heroine. My bias again. I think she is second to my favorite teen heroine Buffy in terms of heroism just because I admire her so immensely for what she does in season two. I think of her as pretty much the long suffering heroine of the second season because she self-sacrifices everything for the greater good. I think this is something people admire, that she is that good of a person that she is willing to give up her happiness to save the world, save the pod squad, save her friends and to save Max. That she loved Max so much that she was willing to do anything to make his life better and to prevent Future Max's prediction from happening.

I think it's only understandable that the fans were angered by the way her sacrifices were honored when Max slept with Tess. Add the fact that she stayed true to him and saved herself because she only wanted him and that only raised the ire of the dreamers. Liz didn't deserve this - for all of her sacrifices, and it only made people angrier on top of the fact that Max was completely changed for plot purposes. So I can see why some fans want better for Liz.

Should she really have to deal with the pain of going through what Max did to her every single day of her life? Should she have to play house with his indiscretion? Should she have to mother the child and have further insult to injury? Enough is just enough.

Her heroism is probably one of the reasons why she is probably the most pimped out female lead of Roswell. She has the most crossover fics, the most canon fics, the most UC fics, etc. I think for this reason. People want Liz to be happy which is why there is so much fiction about her.

So I can completely understand why the fracture happened. The writers put people through that much after everything in season two and there is going to be a break. People can only take so much injury until they cry uncle and when they devalue one of the things that was most sacred about the ship you feel what's the point in continuing on. I still love the dreamer ship because I only feel that Liz and Max can be truly happy with eachother no matter what. They are the only ship that I ship in Roswell Fiction but it still doesn't take away the hurt that was caused at the end of season two. But I also get that people wanted a happy ending and they didn't get one in season two and after that point the writers simply ignored their problems and that obvious turned even more fans off.

The White Room, Liz's decision to leave him, Liz's normal speech ... probably the most devastating thing that ever came out of her mouth and something that was never taken back ... the set up, her follow-up speech at Prom, none of these things are even alluded to in fic anymore.

Perhaps it's my bias but I feel like most of this could be pushed away with just pure discussion. I don't feel in general like those situations are make and break deals for them as much as the Tess sex and the child thing was considering everything. I would feel the same if the situations were reversed, I imagine. I just feel like the baby and the sex just trumped all. It was the breaking point for the ship. I mean I don't think Max really could have hurt Liz anymore then he did when he did that. I mean he could have shot her and I think that would have hurt less than him sleeping with Tess.

She expected Max to take her side with little or no effort on her own part after Alex's death. There is soo much more that went on during that time, yet absolutely no exploration of what Max was thinking and feeling. It's been almost completely dumbed-down (sorry, I can't think of any other way to call it) to Max being the bad guy for not "having faith" in Liz.

I've read several fics that take place during CYN where Max goes to comfort Liz and tries to resolve things with her after their fight at Alex's house and I think that makes sense considering what we know of Max's character. That is a Max like action to do. I think the main reason why people are angry with Max are because the dreamers find him to be unrecognizable during the time period of ITBAITL. He was doing things to people that Max would have never done. He was cruel and malicious to Isabel and Liz at that point and Max was never that cruel to them, not even to Liz in Harvest and Meet The Dupes/Max In The City where he felt even more betrayed by her. So I don't think people can really be faulted for having the outlook that Max as a character would never have acted the way he did in the show. He was being written like a cartoon version of himself to create a situation that according to his character would never happen. Max has been bossy and demanding (i.e. Toy House) but this was a perversion of that to a comical state. It's ridiculous. Max was never cruel or malicious in his intentions like he was to Isabel. Max always tried to understand where Liz was coming from. He would never have just dismissed what Liz had said (look at what happened when Liz mentions the Granolith to Max right before he leaves for NY). Again I think this is less of a problem of Max being Liz's servant so much as fans being upset that Max wasn't Max and knowing that the character they fell in love with would never have acted this way. The writers changed his entire constitution as a character and as a result fans got angry and some wanted to either wash their hands of this new Max that no one recognized or they wanted to return him to the person they knew and loved of season one.

Max the bad guy was pretty much set in stone by this point. Liz seemed to become superwoman, Max the guy who couldn't find the loo without her help.

LOL. It may be my bias but I haven't seen this from what I read. But from what I get I think it's that Max is lost without Liz (we saw that from the way he acts in season two) and even the writers seemed to have implied that in the episodes later on. As to Liz leaving and her note, I feel like that's just taken out of context. She had a physical and mental breakdown there due to the fact that she loved Max to the extent in which her health and her feelings were neglected, she had to take care of herself first of there would be no her and Max. I don't even think this is about love or selfishness so much as about survival when she left Max at that point. Being with Max, around Max was killing her at that point in the story and it just seems wrong to blame her for that. She couldn't control that.

The over-exploration of the distaff side, coupled with nearly no exploration of the male side, leaves me hanging with too many unresolved issues. After all these years, I've accepted the fact that this is the way it's going to be.

I don't know if I would say that Max has no say in fiction. There are of Max stories where he is his separate identity from Liz and he doesn't apologize for what happened with Tess. I have read at least three of them recently where Max isn't sorry for the ITBAITL stuff. There was even a fic where it seems to be implied that Liz was in the wrong and Max is the innocent bystander that got mowed down by Liz's choices and it seems as if Max had no choice at all in sleeping with Tess and Liz is the one who is wronged for putting him in that position. I personally don't think that works but they do exist.

[rein08]

You got so much stories to tell here.
I enjoyed you piece.
Thanks for sharing them.

[maipigen]

This was very interesting to read for me. Being a long time viewer of Roswell (still remember as a wee teen girl sitting glued to the screen, taping each episode on my VCR) but a very new Roswell fanfiction reader and an even newer writer of this world, it was nice to see what went on when I was way uninlightened to care.

I just have one little thing to ask in regards to your "essay" - you state that there was a lot of fixing things fics - were there a lot of time traveling stories? I myself am writing one and since I'm newish on this Roswell Fanfic world, I have barely scratched the surface when it comes to reading and I want to be as original as possible in my own story hehe.

Well, I guess you shouldn't really answer that question in the first place. Wouldn't want to risk reading those there is and "borrowing" from them. That's something I'd never consciesly do, but one can never know what will happen...

Anyway, loved this and it was very interesting to read!

[Realistic Dreamer]

I think the reason why most of the things Liz did are glossed over are mostly because of her reasons for doing them. I mean I personally can't think of anything Max could argue back from the "I did it to save the world" argument.

This actually fits in very well with my argument that it's all about Liz.

If this were the only thing that Liz did, I would have no problem with it. Unfortunately, this lets Liz off the hook for the 5 previous months where she abandoned the man she loved because she heard some bad news. She made her decision and walked away (this is what I mean about LIz being the controller of the relationship as well). She stayed away all summer, had her own life all planned out by the time she got back, and went to great pains to avoid Max. She had her new life all figured out. That's fine, she can do that. But that doesn't make me overly sympathetic when FutureMax comes back and stops her from rectifying the mistake she made five months ago, and now she's all about her and Max again.

And, it's interesting that FutureMax was the one who was having second thoughts, and FutureLiz was the one who is telling him that he has to do this.

My point is that Liz gets a pass on every other thing that happened, every other decision she made, every other crappy thing that she said to Max, all because of this one moment, and how bad we all feel for her as she sabotages the future. It's become her get out of jail free card for everything.

That's hardly fair to Max.

Max never even dated other women because all he saw was Liz ... People were angry because they knew that Max wasn't in character.

From a purely realistic standpoint, I have to disagree. Again, this goes along with my point that it really is all about Liz.

Because of the end of the world moment, Max was now supposed to absorb the fact that Liz deserted him after he was captured and tortured. He was supposed to remain faithful all summer (which he did), absorb the fact that Liz had come back with a new life all planned, one that didn't include him at all. He was supposed to remain faithful, still, while she avoided him every chance she could get. Even though all this happened in the five months before FutureMax ever landed on her balcony.

He was supposed to gloss over the fact that her normal speech hit every single vulnerability he had (and she never took it back, either, instead letting him know that she had to move to Vermont to get away from him and find normal ... can Max look forward to that every time Liz gets overwhelmed?), see her sleep with Kyle, watch her move on with Sean (oh, look at Sean on the couch while Liz straddles him, Max), listen to Liz tell him that it was okay with him that Sean got stabbed (way to understand your ex-boyfriend's motivations, Liz), invite him to prom only to dash his last hopes, and then let him see her dancing like she doesn't have a care in the world afterward ... Good Lord, what is it exactly that we expect from Max, anyway? The EotW moment now excuses all of it? It would seem so.

I'd have dumped Liz a long time ago. I actually don't blame Max at all, and think he should get tons of credit for lasting as long as he did in the face of getting absolutely nothing from Liz.

And let's face it, if the situation was reversed, and Max had treated Liz this way (not talking about the EotW, but everything that happened before it), the clamor for her to move on by episode 3 of season 2 would have been deafening. It never would have gotten to the EotW , lol.

I don't think the dreamer division really has anything to do with hating Max (from what I have noticed from the boards and the past debates, posts and other talks I have seen on discussion boards). From what I get from them is that they feel a profound loss of who Max is or was from that storyline.

Exactly ... and there is a wealth of dreamer fic that all seem to begin with Liz going on and on about how Max hurt her (this is that lack of self-awareness of her own choices that I see) that quickly move on to Max spending the better part of the fic atoning for his sins before being redeemed at the end.

It's not that they hate Max - but they hate what the writers did to him.

My problem with this stems from the fact, again, that while Liz's issues are explored to death and beyond, there is no real attempt (that I can see) to get into Max's head. At all.

I would really love to read a fic that explores Max's summer after Liz left him. Beyond the one that I started awhile back, I can't even think of one. Not Liz, just Max.

How about a fic that goes into how Max felt after Liz came back and avoided him, and then he finds out that she had a whole new life planned without him? Watch the episode again, watch his face when he realizes that she's been back for two days and is avoiding him like the plague. Just a Max pov.

How about a fic that explores how Max felt when he had to come up with a plan to get Michael out of jail, and he took the risk of being put back in the White Room again if he got caught? Think the guy wasn't scared out of his mind?

Or one where Max talks to someone, anyone, about how he thinks about the White Room? I found one, and it breaks my heart:

http://denlibrary.envy.nu/Fanfiction/Ro ... tories.txt

What about a fic where Max has doubts and fears after he finds Liz straddling normal boy Sean on Amy's couch? Think he didn't have them?

Or one that goes into what Max thinks after Liz accuses him of thinking it's okay that Sean was stabbed? I finally wrote one. It's in the completed CC thread.

Or, how about really, really going into what Max felt when Liz invited him to prom and then told him that she was suffocating ... suffocating! ... because of him and then later he sees her dancing with abandon on the dance floor with Maria, now that this millstone is no longer around her neck.

I know, almost ad nauseum, how Liz feels about everything. I want to know how Max feels about anything. How does he feel as a guy who was dumped by his girlfriend and hangs on in the face of absolutely no encouragement from her, as he deals with otherworldly issues as well. How he slowly but surely loses hope. Fic that come from his pov, not knowing the things that we as an audience know, but as someone who is struggling with so many things and doesn't understand what's going on.

Should she really have to deal with the pain of going through what Max did to her every single day of her life?

This is, unfortunately, exactly what I mean. There are two sides to this, and as long as Liz's side gets represented so well, while Max's side is pretty much never even looked into, I'll find most dreamer fic to be Liz-fic.

Her heroism is probably one of the reasons why she is probably the most pimped out female lead of Roswell. She has the most crossover fics, the most canon fics, the most UC fics, etc. I think for this reason. People want Liz to be happy which is why there is so much fiction about her.

Yes, I've seen this as well. They all pretty much begin the same. Max is either hung out to dry for what he "did" to her, how he "hurt" her (her lack of taking even a modicum of responsibility for her own choices is staggering), or he's now a stalker, unable to let her go, and she must needs find some other male to saaave her from him.

This, again, never takes into account that much of what Liz went through stems from decisions she made and the way she acted.

I find it interesting, though, that in what I've read in UC fics, Liz never does to these other males what she did to Max ... make the decision to break it off because she knows best, completely abandon the guy right after the most horrible experience of his life, find out that she has to save the world (which now excuses her for everything she's done before and after said event), and then treat the guy in question like crap ... yes, she did ... all while never taking one moment of responsibility. Funny ... Dean, Michael, Zan, Alec, Rath, et al, never seem to have that happen to them by way of Liz.

I admit, too, that I'm still waiting for it to dawn on Liz that the woman she kept pushing Max to was the very last person he should have been pushed towards. It would seem that Mom, FutureMax, FutureLiz, and she herself got it wrong, and Max (and FutureMax to a degree) was right after all.

CYN ... another fic I would love to see. A Max that goes to Valenti (the only person he trusts by now), gets the sheriff's version of what happened, and Max is conflicted between this man who has been nothing but supportive of him in season 2 (to the point of losing his job), and LIz, who has been basically treating him like he doesn't even exist in her world anymore.

I don't honestly think I've ever read one. Not one.

There are of Max stories where he is his separate identity from Liz and he doesn't apologize for what happened with Tess. I have read at least three of them recently where Max isn't sorry for the ITBAITL stuff. There was even a fic where it seems to be implied that Liz was in the wrong and Max is the innocent bystander that got mowed down by Liz's choices and it seems as if Max had no choice at all in sleeping with Tess and Liz is the one who is wronged for putting him in that position. I personally don't think that works but they do exist.

Again, this is my point. Liz did make the choices in their relationship. She made almost all of them. What I'm looking for is fic that goes into it from a strictly Max pov ... one that doesn't have a Liz slant, just Max trying to make sense of the things that are thrown at him from Liz, starting from the moment she left for Florida without a word, and not starting at the EotW. Ones that don't take into account what we know about Liz's motiviations, just what Max sees and feels and doesn't understand as he copes with all the things that are thrown at him from the moment he escaped the White Room.

Unfortunately, I don't know of many of them.

[Misha]

You do inspire to write like that. Honestly. And I also agree with everything you say about Max always left in the dark, always blamed for everything, always expected to be perfect. And no matter what, in some twisted way, he always gets blamed for everything. Not saying he didn't have blame to shoulder some times, but really... he's just a guy.

[Cocogurl]

I think both Sin and Realistic Dreamer have some very valid points. I do have to agree that in a lot of canon fics there tends to be a Liz slant to them. I also have to agree that I don't like fics where Max is suddenly turned into the villian for every single thing that happened in season two. It's the same with stories where Liz becomes the total bad guys. They both made decisions that led them to where they were. Now, I can openly admit that I tend to side with Liz a bit more, but I also acknowledge Max's POV as well and I wish more fics recognized his side as well. I think one my favorites still to this day is Epiphany by Tanya7496. I felt like she expressed both Max and Liz's povs honestly and clearly.

At this point, Dreamer fic, in my opinion, became Liz fic. There was, again in my estimation, an over-emphasis on Liz and no emphasis at all on Max. It seemed to be all about Liz and how badly she was treated and how Max broke her heart. While Liz's side was explored to death and beyond, there was almost a complete lack of exploration of Max's side that exists to this day and still astounds me. The White Room, Liz's decision to leave him, Liz's normal speech ... probably the most devastating thing that ever came out of her mouth and something that was never taken back ... the set up, her follow-up speech at Prom, none of these things are even alluded to in fic anymore.

I definitely agree with this and think those are things that should be brought up more. I would definitely like to see Max's POV on those things. But I do have to disagree with a couple of things though.

Max was many times written as "controlling," though Liz, in my opinion, was the controlling one. She was the one who decided that their relationship was over, because she knew best how he had to follow his destiny. She (and Future Max and Future Liz) controlled all that Max saw and heard after TEOTW. Max was reduced to reacting to what he was being fed, and then often written to be held accountable for all the mistakes he made even though he didn't know what was going on.

Now I think I could definitely call Liz controlling in season 2 since she made the ultimate decision that broke her and Max up and continued to push him away. But I think Max was written as controlling he WAS controlling a lot of times. And I don't think either one of them fully realized the effect their actions had on the other. I think if Max did, he wouldn't played back and forth games with Liz throughout season one and he wouldn't have treated her like a doormat in season 3. So I think they could both be controlling a little oblivious to certain things. But I feel like when authors write Max as controlling, it's usually pretty accurate.

She expected Max to take her side with little or no effort on her own part after Alex's death. There is soo much more that went on during that time, yet absolutely no exploration of what Max was thinking and feeling. It's been almost completely dumbed-down (sorry, I can't think of any other way to call it) to Max being the bad guy for not "having faith" in Liz.

Well, why wouldn't she expect that of Max? It's what's been expected of her and all of the humans throughout the entire series. Liz, Maria, Alex, Kyle and Valenti have all put their lives on the line on many occasions for the aliens. And Liz has done tons of crazy things for Max because of her faith in him. This isn't really my bias towards Liz or anything it's more just what I've witnessed the humans do and sacrifice for their alien friends. And I just don't see any reason why Liz shouldn't expect that same kind of faith from Max. But that's just me.

Plus Liz had already given him evidence fishy enough. Why would a suicidal person buy concert tickets for a future date with his girlfriend? That doesn't make any sense. And he had no reason to commit suicide. He had the girl of his dreams and was happier than ever about that. I think Liz had given the aliens plenty of evidence there to be suspicious about.

Season 3 was a disaster all the way around. I ignore it, although there are parts that stick out to me. One of them was Liz leaving to go to Vermont. In the note she left him, she told Max "what's so great about normal," and then proceeded to tell him that normal was what she needed, and that she had to get away from him to find it. Well. Shades of the normal speech. She just completely validated the horrific speech she gave Max back in season 2. But, this wound to Max's soul is just a distant memory, if that. I have yet to read a fanfic that even mentions this event, or what Max felt about the normal speech, part deux. I'm more than willing to be led to such a fic if it exists. And Liz is again supremely unaware

It would be interesting to see Max's POV on this, but out of all of Liz speeches to Max, this is one where I don't think she needed to apologize or that she was in the wrong for. She was just being honest with Max.

CYN ... another fic I would love to see. A Max that goes to Valenti (the only person he trusts by now), gets the sheriff's version of what happened, and Max is conflicted between this man who has been nothing but supportive of him in season 2 (to the point of losing his job), and LIz, who has been basically treating him like he doesn't even exist in her world anymore

Now I don't feel that this is where Max's POV was in CYN. I don't think it was about who'd been there for and who hadn't. I think it just all boiled down to the fact he didn't want to believe that Alex's death was alien related. He'd always been scared that his alien identity would hurt the people he cared about and now Liz was basically bringing that horrible fear to life and he didn't want to believe. I think it was just easier to believe suicide than think it had to do with aliens.

Also, I have disagree that Valenti was the only person that Max could trust at that point. He still had Michael and Isabel. And it was his bad decisions that drove them away. And even though Liz had made it clear that they weren't going to be together, she done plenty of other things in season 2 to show Max that if he really needed her, she'd be there.

And I can promise it's not Liz biasness that's driving these opinions. It's just how I interpreted the show and a few of the fics out there.

I think fans see that up until Max slept with Tess everything could have been put back to the way things originally were more or less - so they see that moment as the jump shark moment of their ship. I also think another main reason why Dreamers are so stricken about the Tess sex is because they know that the canon Max who they love/loved and who was written the way he was in seasons one and two would never have slept with Tess, and the fact that he did was something that was so out of character and would have never happened, because the real canon Max would never have slept with her especially considering the circumstances.

I'm actually in the minority of fans that don't think that was the jump the shark moment for the dreamer couple. And I actually enjoy reading fics that talk about that night from his point of view. Ignoring the fact that he slept with Tess (Ewww!), his emotions come through very raw and real in a lot of the fics I read and I enjoy that.

And yes, it was out of character for him, but I think that was the whole point. For someone like Max, who is very honorable and values the idea having sex with someone you love, for him to give in like that, you had to imagine the kind of pain he must have been in and how alone he must have felt. And while I feel that Liz is allowed to be hurt by that, I don't think she can act like he cheated on her when she'd been pushing him away throughout all of season two.

To me, the jump the shark thing was pretty much all of season three. The writers worked so hard to break the couple up in season 2 and than just tried to gloss over it all in season 3 and that bugged me big time. They turned Max into inconsiderate and selfish boyfriend and almost completely oblivious to Liz and they turned Liz into a clingy, needy character and that's so far from who they actually are. I'd actually like to see more fix it fics for season 3 because there was A LOT to fix there and not just with the dreamers. The writers messed with a lot of the characters in season 3.

Rambling done now. I promise. Lol. Thanks to people who read my crazy rant all the way through. I can't and I wrote it.

[valentinebaby]

She expected Max to take her side with little or no effort on her own part after Alex's death. There is soo much more that went on during that time, yet absolutely no exploration of what Max was thinking and feeling. It's been almost completely dumbed-down (sorry, I can't think of any other way to call it) to Max being the bad guy for not "having faith" in Liz.

Well, why wouldn't she expect that of Max? It's what's been expected of her and all of the humans throughout the entire series. Liz, Maria, Alex, Kyle and Valenti have all put their lives on the line on many occasions for the aliens. And Liz has done tons of crazy things for Max because of her faith in him. This isn't really my bias towards Liz or anything it's more just what I've witnessed the humans do and sacrifice for their alien friends. And I just don't see any reason why Liz shouldn't expect that same kind of faith from Max. But that's just me.

Plus Liz had already given him evidence fishy enough. Why would a suicidal person buy concert tickets for a future date with his girlfriend? That doesn't make any sense. And he had no reason to commit suicide. He had the girl of his dreams and was happier than ever about that. I think Liz had given the aliens plenty of evidence there to be suspicious about.

The thing is though Liz had no basis to believe that whatever happened to Alex was alien. There are so many normal things that could've happened here. Alex could've fallen asleep at the wheel, something could have been in the road and he swerved to avoid it, he might not have been paying attention. It urked me that it was ruled as a suicide from the beginning but there was no reason to jump to the conclusion of murder except that Alex was a member of the I Know An Alien Club.

And as far as him having faith in her...at a time where he was doing everything he could think of to win her back she made him believe that she had slept with Kyle, crushing whatever faith he had in her, yet despite that when Alex died he was still there for her, gave her a shoulder to cry on. It wasn't until she started making assumptions and investigating something that could've exposed all of them and would've have killed not only herself but Maria too if Michael hadn't shown up. It was dangerous.

Although I think the reason why Liz get's a lot of sympathy here is one she did turn out to be right, and two, right after this point Max turns into King Max, expecting everyone just to fall in line and using whatever means necessary to make them if they don't. It's hard to feel any sympathy towards him at all at that point.

[Misha]

I would also like to point out that Max did try to find out what Liz was seeing. He did go to Valenti -Liz even sees him arguing with Valenti after the funeral.

It was Valenti who ultimately convinced Max that Alex had committed suicide. Not only a very credible source, but someone Max respects.

And of course he wouldn't want to believe it was alien related. It would mean that yes, indirectly, it was his fault. It's only natural that, in the face of so many other very plausible explanations, he would want to choose that way. He also admits to Liz that, okay, if she's right, that's the more reason to stop searching the way she is. It was dangerous, and by this point, Max's safety bubble has been burst in the worst possible way. He knows the people he cares about can die, will die, and he has no means to stop it. No wonder he turns into King Max.

I'm not saying half the things he did weren't stupid, just that he was very justified to deal with the whole thing the only way he knew how.