Those of you who remember back a while to my initial exposure to The Pretender will perhaps recall the somewhat embarrassing mental and emotional reactions I experienced at the time, including a longish period during which good ol' Jarod would sit in the back on my brain commenting on various other pieces of fiction as I encountered them, occasionally insisting on writing himself into crossover scenarios.
He hasn't done that for quite a while now, but I have apparently stumbled on the recipe for getting him to show up again. First, you read the first fifty or so pages of Oliver Twist. (AARGH, CHILD-ABUSING VICTORIANS! JAROD SMASH! AND IF HE HAS TO INVENT A TIME MACHINE TO DO IT, DON'T THINK HE WON'T!) Then you follow it up with DS9's "The Alternate." (For those of who who aren't up on your Deep Space 9 episode titles, that's the one with Odo and his lab-daddy, Dr. Mora. Actual quote: "I am not going back to the Center with you!")
Hello, Jarod. Have some Pez.
(And that reminds me... I still need to watch last week's episode for the
rebuilding_sl27 rewatch.)