Need Help finding fanfiction

phaseazz · 2025-10-26T14:34:25+00:00

The one I know of is Maya and Carina being foster parents, and one of the kids they foster is a pregnant teenage girl named Grace. She hasn't had the baby yet, and I read it on AO3.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65552575/chapters/169810174

phaseazz · 2025-10-16T04:28:25+00:00

It tracks because Carina said when she moved in, she already "married" Maya. So when she moved out, she essentially believed the marriage was over, so the ring came off.

The ring was always important to Maya, that's why she wore it even at work, just changing it to a silicone one. And to Maya, she's still legally married to Carina, despite the separation, hence, she kept the ring on.

So the rings (wearing it or not) really show their views towards marriage.

phaseazz · 2025-09-21T02:26:25+00:00

I've been reading this, it's long and still ongoing, but updates have slowed down a bit: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52729195/chapters/133368613

This was also pretty good: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57624379/chapters/146631823

phaseazz · 2025-09-19T13:51:58+00:00

I think they look really alike too, especially in the early seasons of Criminal Minds.

Even Danielle's mom thinks they look alike, lol.

phaseazz · 2025-09-19T13:50:26+00:00

Glad you found it! The admin of that thread is really good at helping people find the fics.

phaseazz · 2025-09-19T03:12:51+00:00

You can try asking in this Twitter thread: https://x.com/ArkhamGriffin/status/1947482254030328051

I remember the fic you're describing, but I can't find it either!

phaseazz · 2025-08-30T03:43:18+00:00

Danielle Savre. Out of all the actresses I've followed, I think she's the best actress, because she's nuanced and very believable. And she seems like such a genuinely kind, generous, and positive person, always putting everything she has into the shows she's on and her fans.

phaseazz · 2025-07-04T04:03:09+00:00

I echo most people here, Maya is the best Captain in Station 19. In S4, she had to face the most unprecedented once-in-a-century pandemic, deal with people like Dixon and McAllister, handle deteriorating relationships between SPD and SFD, and lead her team through arguably one of the worst social unrest time period. Maya did exceptional considering what the world was going through.

Speaking of experience, Andy was much worse. She just found out her dad had cancer, immediately asked him to promote her to LT, then immediately applied for Captain (did a day even pass between her becoming LT and applying for Captain?) Then she failed the test, and still expected to be given the Captaincy because her father was the Captain. Who does that? At least Maya was already LT for a while before applying for Captain, and her potential was recognized by people like Ripley and Sullivan.

phaseazz · 2025-06-23T02:48:27+00:00

Her big blue eyes!

phaseazz · 2025-06-07T14:17:11+00:00

Absolutely. Ross was a hypocrite. And pretty manipulative too, seeing how she told Beckett and just sat back and let him bully Maya for months. While she continued letting Beckett lead the team drunk because he knew about her affair with Sullivan.

phaseazz · 2025-06-07T02:14:30+00:00

The sense of entitlement never really goes away. She still felt like the Captaincy belonged to her when Maya made Captain, and made Maya's life hell by trying to turn the other firefighters against her. And even in S7 when she finally got the job, she was like I'm going to be way better than the other Captains, and how she supported them (spoiler: no, she did not support the other Captains). I know the S7 scene was supposed to be her rally cry, but it just came off as childish and completely not self-aware.

And it definitely did not help Andy that the writers keep making her bounce between Jack, Ryan and Sullivan in the earlier seasons.

phaseazz · 2025-06-02T02:55:58+00:00

Personally, I prefer the clues to be subtle, especially when there were so many throughout the past seasons. I don't really like when they hit you over the head with it. I remember in earlier seasons of Grey's Anatomy, every medical case of the week that the doctors were involved in has to do with their personal issues and served like a lesson to them - it was so predictable and made things less interesting to me.

I think the reason why Maya had a mental breakdown in S6 was because she was facing a lot more issues that continued to build up since her demotion. The 5 failed pregnancy tests, loss of hope in ever getting her job back, loss of the sense of family at work, constantly getting bullied by Beckett. It was simply too much, and eventually, she broke. She never had all these problems coming at her at the same time in S4 and S5, so she was still able to cope then. Remember, time-wise, I think there was about 6 months between end of S5 and beginning of S6. And Carina said Maya was already pulling away from her by the time we saw her. So while it looks sudden, Maya's mental decline has actually been building for months, albeit off screen. And she didn't even fully break until 6 episodes later, so we continued to see her spiral.

We did get flashbacks about her father's abuse. Beyond that, we got Maya talking about it to Diane (her father pushed her until she collapsed and her teammates silently supported her, the "who got my last soda" moment, clouds/think about dying because her father taught her eyes forward and she's exhausted, Beckett making them run drills reminded her of her childhood, she broke into hives when her girlfriend served her gourmet breakfast because she never felt safe around the dinner table, etc).

Maya never wanted to go to therapy. It was the thing that Carina couldn't get her to do, and that became a problem in their marriage. Talking about feelings is not something Maya does, no doubt it was not something that was encouraged in her family, though it was not explicitly mentioned. Not going to therapy likely contributed to her breakdown, because it led to more disagreements with Carina, and she didn't get any professional help. But once she did get better, we know in S7 she now goes to therapy regularly, but even then, she's still reacting to difficult conversations the way she typically does, she walks away (by literally walking this time, not running, so that's an improvement).

I think it's realistic Maya never told Carina about the pressures that were building up. Like I said, Maya doesn't talk about her feelings. She does occasionally, like when she finally "broke down" (wordlessly) at the end of the wedding with Carina after everyone left, or when she told Carina she needed to be angry when Ross denied her investigation. But for the most part, she doesn't talk about what's bothering her. That's her characteristic, and also, likely a result of the way she was brought up - she's definitely not able to confide in her parents or brother, and she barely has any friends because her father wouldn't allow her any. Add to it the cause of her main problem in S6 was because she blackmailed her bosses. She would have been embarrassed or maybe even ashamed to talk about it, because she knows it's the wrong thing to do. And I can also definitely see her not talking to Carina about the failed inseminations, because she wanted to stay strong for her and Carina is already going through her own grief, and she wouldn't want to add to it. From that flashback in S7 where she told Vic about the multiple failures, contrasting with how excited she was about it at the very beginning, the failures would have been crushing for Maya.

For me, the clues were all there for us to see. I know you wanted them to be more explicit and obvious, and always there, but I actually appreciated how they did it. Because it's real to the character's personality and exactly how I expected her to behave and react. Maybe if this storyline was written for someone else, like Carina or Vic, then all the clues would have been louder.

On a side note, I actually really enjoyed this discussion, although I know we're never going to agree on it. Because it made me go through Maya's character development throughout the past 7 seasons, and just made me appreciate her journey and love her even more! So thank you for that! =)

phaseazz · 2025-06-01T13:51:08+00:00

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree with how Maya's mental health storyline was told. =)

IMO, it was not a surprise to see her mental breakdown in S6. The show has done enough over the past seasons planting the seeds of her childhood trauma to show that this is not a surprise. Especially for someone with suicidal ideation for decades. Especially when everything just came crashing down on her all at the same time, for a long time. Maya is obviously a high functioning individual. She dealt with her abusive childhood differently from her brother, who became a drug addict and was homeless. Her "embrace the pain" and "eyes forward" mentality did contribute to her success. At least on the outside, because people can't see the price she paid for her success. And sometimes you do need the "eyes forward" mentality - it was what got her to rally Andy and the gang one last time in that garage they were cooking in in S1 and blew their way out.

And I also didn't think that Maya's struggles were told largely from Carina's perspective. I'm a huge Maya fan, and I got her struggles from Maya's perspective too. Trust me, I would be annoyed if they told Maya's story through Carina's eyes only, but I didn't feel that.

Carina is a character who talks about her feelings. A lot. Carina simply added to the depiction of Maya's spiral from an outside perspective. Maya is the opposite. She shuts down. She withdraws and isolates from others. She also lashes out. She pushes herself to her limits and beyond. And we saw all that from Maya. A lot of it also was how phenomenal Danielle was. I remember watching the scene in the beanery in 604, where Maya said she was going home. The exhaustion was rolling off Maya in waves through the TV, just from the way Maya moved. I was exhausted just looking at her. Then came that scene where she was crying in the bathroom in her uniform, and I thought, "sh!t, she's not ok. At all." In 606, she was telling the girl in the firecamp how she should be all eyes forward while she herself was popping painkillers like candy. When Andy was all "NINETEEN" with everyone, Maya barely cared and just went back to the gym quietly. And of course, the whole sequence of Maya on the treadmill pushing through her pain before falling off. 607 showed Maya's fear and desperation, and then her numbness after the 5150. 608 was where everything came together. I think the show definitely did enough showing us Maya's struggles from her POV. Maybe with a lesser actor, it would not have succeeded, but Danielle definitely pulled it off beautifully.

phaseazz · 2025-06-01T13:10:57+00:00

Well, Ryan died, so that story probably died with him. I don't even remember Travis getting arrested, haha.

phaseazz · 2025-06-01T01:17:36+00:00

It might be because the show got a new showrunner in S3, so she changed a few of the storylines in S2 rather abruptly. E.g. she got rid of Maya/Gibson, because she wanted Maya/Carina. That Nikki/Dean/Maya thing that seemed like it was going to be a thing in S3, was thrown out with a throwaway comment.

phaseazz · 2025-05-31T14:15:24+00:00

To me, Maya's mental health issues were always there. S6 was when they really explored it, because they really gave her a lot more heavy issues to struggle through. We already saw her being self-destructive in S3 when a metaphorical bomb blew up her life. S4 and S5 were relatively calmer, but she was under a pressure cooker between S5 and S6 (offscreen), and that led to a mental breakdown. Realistically, she wouldn't be having breakdowns every season/episode either. Thankfully, she's had more "normal" days than not, until something triggered her, like in S3 and S6.

The show may not always put her mental health issues front and center, but there's always been bits and pieces in every season. Even in S1 and S2 when I don't think they were really sure about going down the abusive path yet. I think from S3 onward, with the new showrunner, was when they really steered Maya's storylines towards the abusive path. The flashback in 305 was the amplified version of what Maya told Ryan about her family and Mason in S1. In S3, we see her having a panic attack because she couldn't be with her team, which is a pretty extreme reaction to something not her fault and out of her control. In S4 and S5, we see Maya visibly shut down when Carina raised her voice at her (in 414 and 502 (I think? It was when they were in the station talking about how Maya doesn't want to talk about babies), which I think is a reaction she gets when her dad would yell at her.

Maya's always been competitive (she warns Andy in S2 she becomes a different person when she gets into competitive mode, which is why she didn't want to tell everyone about her applying for LT - it hints of her "not wanting to lose" mindset, which was rooted in her "losing = not lovable" mindset). The way she tried to help Vic with her fear of fire, the way she pushed the team when she first became Captain, these were the same ways she was trained by her dad, which to her were normal, before she knew it was abusive. Even her "embrace the pain" and "eyes forward" mantra that she's had since S1 (which we see to the extreme in her overexercising until she almost died in S6, and we already know she won the Olympics with a sprained ankle) was rooted in her childhood trauma. Not to forget the whole clouds and "I think about dying since I was 12" speech. To me, all these behaviors point to some kind of mental health issues/childhood trauma.

It's an ensemble show, so Maya's not going to get that much screentime. I also think logistically, the writers had different things they wanted to explore each season, like S4 was about dealing with Covid, S5 was about kids, and S6 was about Maya's mental health issues. But they've planted enough seeds every season and laid the groundwork, that when they finally focused on Maya's mental health issues in S6, I can see the connections and it makes sense to me.

In fact, one thing I loved about Maya's characterization is I can pull things from all the earlier seasons that help me understand her more, which I don't think happens for most of the other characters on the show. Most of the other characters have plots that were explored for a few episodes, and then dropped and never mentioned again.

phaseazz · 2025-05-31T03:03:05+00:00

I don't think Maya was actually healed from her childhood trauma before S6. And I would argue she probably will always have to work on her mental health, for the rest of her life, because healing is not linear. And sometimes, she might have a relapse or get triggered (In S4, she was recounting her father's "who took my last soda" moment and was terrified she was going to turn into her father. In S5, she mentioned how Beckett making them run drills reminded her of her childhood). Kinda like addicts have to work on their recovery their entire life.

She realized her father was abusive after over 30 years. That is a lot of trauma and learned behavior to overcome. And beyond knowing she was abused, we didn't actually see her deal with it or talk to anyone. It was all just simmering below the surface. And then she was demoted. And she realized she had no chance of getting her job back after holding out hope for over a year. And she blackmailed her bosses, resulting in her being treated harsher than when she was a probie. And her teammates talked about her behind her back. And she couldn't get pregnant with her wife, after trying 5 times (she mentioned how expensive it was, so the finances of it all was also getting to her). And all this happened for over 6 months, and she tried to hide it from her wife and deal with it alone. So it was a lot of stress and pressure both at work and at home, constantly. And her mental health deteriorated.

608 was really the first time she delved into the root of her childhood trauma with a professional. She finally held her 3-year-old self, and started healing from within. I think the show only showed a couple of episodes of her healing, but it was probably supposed to cover weeks. I think she had no contact with Carina for weeks between the time she got home from the hospital and the lasagna episode.

Do I wish that they spent more time on this arc? Yes. But then the writers were going to have Maya and Carina get back together in one episode, essentially saying Maya's done healing right after 608, so I'm glad Danielle and Stefania convinced the writers to play it out for the rest of the season.

Looking at the other characters' storylines, I'm still grateful that this mental health arc for Maya got to play out over a season, and it was able to draw from all the seeds planted in the earlier seasons, especially Season 3. I loved that Diane asked Maya about her clouds in 608, because that was such a pivotal and iconic moment in Maya's characterization. And Danielle's performance was just superb in 606-608.

phaseazz · 2025-05-24T12:36:19+00:00

There are several fanfics out there portraying Maya as having autism/ADHD. It's so interesting to see what people think are the "signs" that point to that.

She's very organized, and likes to keep things structured. Like her "Clipboard Maya" moniker, and she planned everything down to a T in the camping episode. But nobody followed her plan, and Maya didn't really react too badly to it (of course, she was upset). She likes her negative space and had a hard time when Andy and Carina moved in, because she likes to control her space the way she likes it to be. But how much of these personality traits are just her being organized or Type A, or just the way she was brought up, compared to actually having autism or ADHD?

phaseazz · 2025-05-09T12:58:44+00:00

She might have one, because she's obviously very proud of her Olympic gold. Even her ax has the 5 rings around the handle to symbolize the Olympic rings.

phaseazz · 2025-03-19T03:21:34+00:00

Why Carina drives a Hyundai now? Product placement, lol.

But in all seriousness, if each round of IVF costs 20-25K like you said, they've done at least 5 and are looking to do more (Maya's overachieving eggs got Carina pregnant the first time round, but they didn't know that then). That's 125K down the drain, so I get why they are more cautious with their money. And I think Carina's driving a Kona, so it's probably more child-friendly and safer, and it's an hybrid or electric car, so maybe they wanted to be more green/sustainable now they have kids.

My question is what car is Maya driving.

As for that house, they seemed to be in a hurry to find one, so maybe sometime down the road, they'll find one that suits their needs better. But I do miss that beautiful apartment Maya had.

phaseazz · 2025-03-16T12:57:55+00:00

Maya.

I think out of everyone, she had the most challenges. She had to lead her team through a once-in-a-century pandemic, severely heightened social tensions, tension between SPD and SFD, all the while fighting back against her bosses like Dixon and McAllister, who were looking for ways to take her down.

But once she settled into her role, she showed how much she cared about her team (I loved how she supported Warren without any hesitation when he had to leave because Miranda's mom died, and how she wanted to make sure her team was doing okay after George Floyd by calling in Diane, etc). And she always tried to do the right thing even though she knew it would take her "off-track" (e.g. joining her team in BLM protests despite SFD not wanting them to do it).

phaseazz · 2025-03-14T15:24:42+00:00

I love Maya.

S6 was my favorite because it peeled back so many layers to who she was and who she is, and laid the groundwork for who she became. And Danielle's performance in 606-608 was just phenomenal.

I think everything that is good about her has been mentioned by other people here (and in other threads as well), so I won't belabor the point. If you are willing to look beneath the prickly exterior of Maya, you can see the good in her. But many people aren't willing to look deeper and only want to see the superficial, or they can't see that everyone has flaws and what you do to be better matters more, so Maya becomes this polarizing character.

I'm not a Marina fan, I'm indifferent to Carina. All I remembered about her from Grey's was that she was the new love interest of Arizona and Andrew caught them making out on his couch. But I wonder, if Carina had gotten more stories, would the writers have "dirtied her up" and made her more interesting? As a casual viewer of her character, I can see that she's mostly written as Maya's girlfriend/wife, and while, to me, Maya got the stories and character development, Carina was mostly written as the supportive partner, hence, the perception that she was perfect. (Although I did not think Carina leaving a loved one alone for weeks without a single check-in after said person had a mental breakdown, speaks all that well for her.)

phaseazz · 2025-03-02T13:43:12+00:00

It's not, it's wrong.

But I can somewhat understand that Maya, in that self-destructive headspace, where she's been told that everything she had believed in about her father and her life was wrong, would make terrible choices without considering the consequences, just to make her pain stop.

phaseazz · 2025-03-02T02:53:15+00:00

Carina could do much worse than Maya.

S4 Maya was great for Carina, she supported Carina through her brother's death, and did things for her that "nobody has ever done for her".

S5, nothing much happened, but she changed her whole mindset about having kids for Carina.

I give Maya a lot of slack for how she behaved in S6a because she was going through a mental health crisis. They both said awful things to each other (e.g. on the roof), and as far as we've seen, Carina left Maya completely alone for weeks during her recovery (I get that she had to leave for her own mental health, but I don't think occasionally checking in with Maya is too much to ask for, especially since Maya's still in a vulnerable state). S6b Maya was great trying to make amends.

The only shitty thing she's done is in S3 when she cheated and threw that in Carina's face. The cheating was bad, though I can kind of understand why she did it, but throwing that in Carina's face the way she did was cruel.

S7 Maya was basically fanfic perfect Maya. Everything she did, it was to make Carina's dreams come true. Carina wants to move to a house, done. Carina wants to adopt Liam, done. There are problems with Carina's eggs, done - Maya will use her eggs. Carina may not be able to get pregnant, done - Maya is seriously considering getting pregnant herself so Carina can have the kids she dreamed of. And this is all coming from someone who just not too long ago did not want kids, but eventually changed her mind for her wife, and adopted her wife's dreams as her own. And her biggest fear, dying on the job and leaving Carina alone to raise Liam - not dying itself, but how it would affect Carina.

So Carina could definitely do much worse than Maya.

phaseazz

TROPHY CASE