Haven Timeline: Chronology of Events and People

by The Cat's Whiskers

This is a "back story" timeline of events and people in the Haven "universe". Any writer wishing to use this to make life easier is welcome to. The timeline has a lot of explanation so I have also done a Short Dates Only Timeline. It is designed to dip in/out of as needed for your own story writing. It covers the distant past founding/origin of Haven up to Season 4.

8. Chapter 8: 2009 to 2011

This is a timeline/chronology of characters and events for the TV show: Haven

For Disclaimer and information see Chapter 1…

Chapter 8

9th March 2009:

Annie Fresnel commits suicide, for reasons that at the time are unknown, and is buried in Eastside Cemetery (formerly Potters Field); as her grave was dug by Kyle Hopkins, her ghost returns in S2:12 and she visits her older brother Bruce, and reveals her rape by her schoolmate "Kurt" precipitated her suicide, leading Bruce to literally beat a confession out of Kurt which results in Kurt dying of his injuries.

June 2009:

The Woman returns* to Haven in the manhunt for Jonas Lester as FBI Special Agent Audrey Parker having been sent by her boss Assistant Director 'Agent' Howard from her apartment in Boston. In the opening scenes we see the book, Unstake My Heart by Nikki Wile on Audrey's coffee table, which she is embarrassed about Howard seeing she has. At this stage, The Woman believes herself to be Audrey Parker, meaning that at some point as Howard escorts The Woman out of the Barn her memory of leaving the Barn is erased and she has no memory of exiting it.

* It seems that when The Woman arrives in Haven, and how long she stays there until THMS is flexible, or indeed may be random. For example, Sarah Vernon was in Haven for 14 months, arriving 16th August 1955 until 20th October 1956. Lucy Ripley was only there for 6 months, arriving about 21st April 1983 until 22nd October 1983, quite a short period of time. Audrey Parker was in Haven for 16 months, from mid-June 2009 to 23rd October 2010, and then again** from about May 2011 to the present.

The Troubles last 3½ years each time, which (although I am surely this probably coincidental) was also the duration of the early preaching ministry of Jesus Christ from his water baptism as the Messiah in 29 AD to his death in Spring 33 AD at the age of 33½ years. However, as we have seen, the presence of The Woman in Haven seems to vary considerably – on the other hand, this may be a new factor resulting from The Breaking of the Pattern on 16th August 1955 with Nathan Wuornos and Duke Crocker giving Sarah Vernon, respectively, a baby son, and, equally as cherished, allies in the persons of Vincent and David Teagues.

** We see that The Woman is copied from a woman who is contemporaneous – the real Sarah Vernon, Lucy Ripley and Audrey Parker were all of the same age as The Woman in terms of chronological age. It would seem the Barn "copying" Lexie de Witt was some sort of back-up failsafe mechanism to prevent The Woman remembering being Mara. If the Barn had disappeared for another 24 years, and the Troubles had stopped as intended, the real Lexie de Witt would be about 53 years old in 2034 when the Troubles began again, meaning that probably the reason Lexie didn't "take" and The Woman reverted back to being Audrey – but able to remember being Lexie, unlike previous Incarnations - from S4:4 when Jennifer let her back through the Door was because of course The Woman was never meant to be Lexie de Witt. This may also be the reason why William is able to break through the layers and trigger recall of Mara, because the Lexie de Witt "patch job" had cracks or holes in it – like the damaged Barn.

Spring (June) 2009 to Spring (April) 2010:

Duration of Seasons 1 and 2 from S1:1 to S2:12 (but not S2:13). This is proven in S2:11 set in spring 2010, wherein Nathan specifically talks to Audrey about 'everything' that 'we've seen this past year'. Since at that point it is Spring 2010, the "past year" that they have just lived through must have been from Spring 2009 onwards.

In S2:12, ghost Simon tells Duke about Mrs Holloway's Third Grade class, which happened '26 years ago last May.' To be honest, that scene was probably filmed during 2009 (-26 years = May 1983) although not broadcast until 2010, however, that is not permitted as in-universe excuse, because the Universe is treated as really existing in all facets as far as is possible – if you don't believe in the "universe" you have created, how can you expect readers and/or viewers to believe in it?

So, here goes. 2010 – 26 years = 1984. This cannot be the case because Simon was killed in May 1983 and Lucy entered the Barn in October 1983. However, Duke said, '26 years ago last May.' If you take S2:12 as happening in April 2010, and Duke's phrasing of 'last May' to mean 26 full years (April 1984) plus the months previous to April 1984 back to the preceding May, then you get back to the 'last May' prior to April 1984, which was May 1983.

Spring (May) 2010 – 23rd October 2010:

Events of Season 3:1 to S3:13 take place, including S2:13, Silent Night, which takes place in July 2010. In actual fact, S2:13 neatly slots into the early third of S3, around S3:2 to S3:4 – it would ideally be viewed as episode S3:2a or S3:3a.

Special Credit:99 percent of Seasons 1 to 3. Having gone through every episode several times and in freeze frame to construct this timeline, I can honestly say that there is very little in the way of continuity "oops" moments that can't be made into canonical events or into the timeline chronology as "not a mistake after all", even if you occasionally have to squint a bit or do some minor additional exposition.

This is very good given the way some TV shows force you to "fix" some continuity epic fails: for example, Spike [James Marsters] joined Season 5 of Angel, being taken in by the "fake" Allen Francis Doyle/Lindsey MacDonald [Christian Kane], except that everyone from the cast and crew apparently forgot that Spike guest-starred in Season 2 of Angel and met the real Allen Francis Doyle at that time. It took me a bit to find a fix to write into my The Blood Will Tell series set in the Angel fandom for that.

Then there was Stargate: Atlantis, where everyone forgot Teyla had named her father Tagan in S1:1 and she named her baby son Torren in Season 5:1. It's not always TV shows either; in her book The Rowan, the late sci-fi authoress Anne McCaffrey gave orphaned telepath the Rowan two different sets of parents and entirely different family details five pages apart.

In the early editions of her Dragonriders of Pern series the proofreading (particularly of Dragonflight the second in the initial trilogy) was diabolical. Pernese dragons come in both sexes and five colours and three sizes: gold and green are female, bronze, brown and blue are male. Gold, bronze and brown are large, green, brown and blue are medium to small. Eating "firestone" (an ore that means the dragons can ignite it into flame from a redundant stomach) causes sterility in female dragons and is thus a natural contraceptive for the species.

Yet, despite all the excellent scientific research McCaffrey did for the books – e.g., like birds, dragons have hollow boron skeletons not solid calcium skeletons as these are far lighter and enable flight – the reader was often jarred when dragons changed colour (and therefore size) and sometimes even sex – one dragon was variously described as brown, then went to bronze, then to green (female) and then back to brown again.

Special Mention:the one percent exception is Real Estate from Season 3. (Clears throat: aaaagh! Aaarrrrrrrgh!) Seriously people: what were you thinking?!

Now as an episode in of itself, I liked Real Estate. There was the nice in-joke at the start in Haven PD when Claire Callahan came as a vampire-slaying cheerleader and encountered Duke at the punch bowl who snarked, 'nice outfit' before clearing off. In Welcome to the Hellmouth, S1:1 of Joss Whedon's TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Eric Balfour played Jesse Nally, the original third member of the Sunnydale BFFs trio; the other two being Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon [Schultz]).

In the series, of course, Buffy Summers the Vampire Slayer (Sarah Michelle Gellar) had to become one of the three. Since the girl/emotional sister BFF could not die – and some idiot would no doubt have started squawking drivel about inequality to redheads – Hannigan was safe and one of the two males would have to "buy it". Nicholas Brendon had the edge in that he was an identical twin, and his brother Kelly Donovan Schultz could be roped in as necessary, saving a fortune on close-up stand-in/stunt-shots for a start. This actually happened initially on one occasion when Nicholas Brendon was ill with a respiratory infection, and in the fifth season the producers saved a fortune on the episode The Replacement where the character is split in two, and Kelly played the other "Xander" with no need to recourse to prosthetics or split-screen/mirror shots and so on. So Jesse Nally (Eric Balfour) was expendable and duly got killed off.

But it wasn't cliché either – props to Adam Copeland for appearing as a hot-like-fire cowboy in his Halloween costume rather than a wrestler! Especially one from the gaudy spandex and Randy Savage/Ultimate Warrior era or even the Dudes with 'Tudes era which had some eye-watering fashion faux pas.

And even though Real Estate was a bottle show designed to save money in the budget, it was so well done that you forgot that fact about two scenes in – the house was genuinely creepy; the claustrophobic despair of poor Mrs Holloway was tangible 27 years later; Iain Glen as Roland Holloway – outstanding even before he opened his mouth, and the regular cast did an amazing job of walking around a confined, cramped set and making it appear as if they really were trapped in a sentient but psychotic living house. Props to all involved.

"Quelle horreur?" You therefore ask. Easy: in the opening teaser, we see poor dumb Chad and Tina tripping up to the dilapidated Holloway House, scaredy-cat Tina getting teased, because it's "Halloween."

But it cannot be Halloween.

I mean it – cannot. Why not, you challenge? Because the entire mythology of Season 3 – of the show itself, is that The Woman, in this incarnation Audrey, enters the Barn on the peak night of The Hunter Meteor Storm visible over Haven, after which the Troubles fade away for another 24 years. The peak 24 hours of THMS always takes place around the beginning of the third week of October – in 2010, 23rd October. Halloween takes place annually on 31st October, meaning that if it were Halloween 2010, Audrey would have entered the Barn the week before!

Nor can it be Halloween 2009, because Tommy Bowen (really Arla Cogan) is present, and in 2009 the real Tommy and Arla (living as someone else) were both still in Boston. Nor can it be Halloween 2008 because Audrey is there and she didn't get to Haven until June 2009.

I admit when it comes to writing fan-fiction I do try, and advise my students to try – to incorporate canonical facts as much as possible – not only does it give your stories the unbeatable flavour of authenticity, it shows that you have put in the time and work that deserves attention and respect and above all – you are writing fan-fiction about a TV show or book or "universe" that you love, so is it really any hardship to bolster the characters and the setting by trying to interweave as much as their reality into it as possible? But I admit there are some "fixes" of in-universe continuity cock-ups that faze even me and Real Estate looked like being one of them. It was a humdinger, a three cuppa problem minimum.

But as I cogitated on the conundrum – inspiration struck! In Silent Night, which canonically takes place in July 2010 prior to Real Estate, Hadley Chambers has inherited her great-grandfather's Trouble of making people disappear from reality, but a side effect of her Trouble is that she inadvertently makes everyone believe it's Christmas – in July. Roland Holloway is obsessed with revenge on Lucy Ripley and is determined to lure "her" and her friends to his house.

We see in the episode that he has some ability to extend his influence over distance, as Nathan is some distance away sat on a park bench with Jordan McKee when he gets a fake call on his cellphone from Roland pretending to be Audrey that lures him to the house. Therefore, like Hadley Chambers, an effect of his Trouble could be that everyone in Haven believes it is Halloween because what is the one time of year that people do tremendously stupid things like visit dilapidated, abandoned buildings in the dark in non-protective clothing despite it being obvious the place has the structural stability of jelly in an earthquake?

Sorted – it wasn't really Halloween in August, Roland Holloway made everyone think it was. Ah – not so fast lady! At this point I realised le grand mal – the fatal flaw. The Woman, in this incarnation Audrey Parker, is immune from The Troubles. She knew it wasn't Christmas in July, so why doesn't she know that it isn't Halloween in August? In the immortal words of Sir Terry Pratchett, that was an embuggerance I hadn't factored in.

But yet again, I rose above: the reason that Audrey didn't realise it wasn't really Halloween (until after the end credits in an OSE) was because she didn't want to. What I mean is that from S3:1, Audrey has been trying to recall memories of herself as Lucy and memories of the "Colorado Kid", and has been getting nowhere fast. But deep down, she knew that herself-as-Lucy had been to the Holloway House with the Colorado Kid (James Cogan) and that returning could jog her memories. So her subconscious mind did not allow her to consciously realise that Halloween in August was a Trouble rather than being genuine. At the end of the episode in an OSE, after the Holloway House has blown up, etc., everyone realises it couldn't really be Halloween.

Okay, phew. Tricky, but done – Real Estate can be slotted back into S3 canon now we have plausible explanations as to why they had an impossible Halloween episode, but, SOAP BOX MOMENT: Why!? Where is the Continuity Gremlin lady in all this? Having taught Creative Writing for some time, what I tell my students is that no matter what you write, you need three things: to know where your characters are, to know where your characters were, and to know where your characters are going. The "were" informs how they have developed into the character we meet in the pilot episode/chapter one, and the "going" informs how they become the character they will be.

You do not have to do a forensically detailed dot every "t" and cross every "i" account of each character, but you do have to have a flexible but robust framework that allows you to take detours and side paths if you need to, but still continue forward in the original direction. Perhaps a good example is Season 4 of police procedural The District, which continued after hugely popular actress Lynne Thigpen (Ella Farmer) died suddenly of a heart attack partway through the Season. Adjustments were made, the Season continued.

As part of this Framework you need to get the Big Picture right – do not despise the God of Small Things, nor forget that the Devil is in the Details. Having a pivotal character turn out to be the birth mother or biological father of another character can lead you into all sorts of problems when a fan/invested viewer or reader does a bit of basic Math and realises that X was only 11 when she/he gave birth/fathered Ye Very Important Sprog. An example from Haven itself as I have previously mentioned is that the newspaper article clipping form 1902 talks about "cytokine storms" 57 years before they were actually discovered by scientists – there's rigorous investigative journalism, sure, but it does have its limits.

My point is that it is obvious the cast and producers of Haven care about the show. They wouldn't make the effort to shoot it properly – on film – if they didn't. So how did a clanger the size of the Titanic and the iceberg put together drift past? How come not a soul noticed that Real Estate was incompatible with the Key Fact of the Series – that The Woman always disappears on the night of the Hunter Meteor Storm's peak over Haven, which same always happens the week before Halloween. Only twice – 31st October 1955 (Sarah Vernon) and 31st October 2009 (Audrey Parker) has The Woman verifiably been in Haven over Halloween.

Admittedly the Hunter Meteor Storm time limit has been null and void since S4:1, which is set from mid-April 2011 (see below) but that level of oops justifiably irritates. Where is the show's Bible, or at the very least a nice lady called the Continuity Editor who points out that A cannot happen because it flatly contradicts B, or if it has to happen to service the Big Picture then it needs to happen in a different way.

2009 to 2010:

July 2009:

Duke fathers his daughter, Jean Mitchell – whether she genuinely is his firstborn child or the only child he knows he has is unknown at this point. Jean is a variant of a succubus, like her half-brother is a variant of an incubus, in that she drains the life energy of her father the closer in proximity she is to him; if Duke touches her, he will die. Her mother Beatrice Mitchell's accomplice Abby arranges for all three babies to be adopted – Jean's half-uncle, Wade Crocker, commits suicide by forcing Duke to kill him, which cures all of his genetic relatives of their Trouble in 2011, including, logically, Jean – although Audrey is forced to re-Trouble Duke in 2011, he is Patient Zero, meaning that those genetic relatives of his that are already alive (like his other, unnamed half-brother, and his daughter Jean) will not be affected and will remain cured as Wade Crocker intended.

It may or may not be of significance that both Duke and Nathan both fathered children they could not be real dads to – through no fault of their own: Nathan fathered James in 1955, 20 years before he was born and was an oblivious 8-year-old in 1983 when James was 27; in 2009 he got to interact with James only for a few minutes. Duke didn't even get that – he only glimpsed Jean as she was taken away to save his life and even though Wade cured her she is now a happily adopted little girl of two with no disruption or trauma in her life.

July 2009:

Vanessa Stanley is killed.

I am not going to details the events of Seasons 1:1 to Season 3:13 inclusive, as there is no need to – that's what the DVDs are for and it would be spoiling for viewers.

However, the other thing I wanted to mention is the episode S1;10 The Hand You're Dealt, because via Vanessa Stanley it is responsible for what I believe to be the Great McGuffin of the series – namely that Duke is supposedly doomed to be murdered by a guy with The Guard tattoo.

Soap Box Moment: Rubbish! Well, it may not be but I have to admit that I found this episode vastly irritating – primarily the Vanessa Stanley character; nothing against the actress who played her at all, but the character was annoyingly wet in the wimp sense – full of "woe is me" self-pity and, quite frankly, stubbornly stupid. Even when Audrey, Duke and Nathan stop one of her predicted deaths from coming true she was still moping and "we're all doomed" and glumly fatalistic about her own death – which was entirely unnecessary, given she would have survived had she just listened and obeyed Audrey's instructions.

It not in keeping with Duke's character in that he spends most of Seasons 1 to 3 quite sensibly (and often rightly) demonstrating that whilst Havenites might not be the Masters of our Fate they do have enough power of self-determination to give Fate, and Destiny, and that imposter predestination, a series of sharp kneecaps to the gonads as it were. Yet he – and everyone else – accepts the addled mumbling dying Vanessa's pronouncements as gospel, and continues to do so when it is proven demonstrably wrong on several points.

Basically, S1:10 focusses on the key photograph, taken by Dave Teagues, that Audrey sees in a back-copy of the Haven Herald from 28th May 1983: Who Killed the Colorado Kid? At this juncture, Audrey believes that Lucy Ripley, who is identical to her in appearance, is her birth mother. So, she tries to investigate the photograph.

In canon, we only ever learn the identity of some of the people – Dave Teagues states he took the wide-shot photograph, so he is not visible; James Cogan of course is the "body", Garland Wuornos is the policeman, Duke Crocker admits he is the boy holding Lucy's hand. Dave and Vince advise that the other photographer in-shot is Morris Crane (whom they visit but whom turns out to have become insane, resembling certain dementia type illnesses, for unknown reasons), and Duke explains that the woman in the sweater (not the denim) was his former babysitter, Vanessa Stanley. Whether the scriptwriters forgot about it or some other reason, the woman in denim (most logically Arla Cogan), the tall man behind her and Vanessa with the face scarf (most logically Vince Teagues) and the arm/leg just out of shot (most logically Nathan Wuornos) have never been officially identified.

Audrey and Nathan and Duke link Vanessa to a series of mysterious deaths, and she explains that when she touches another person (even though clothing) she sees*, for a second or so, "through their eyes", the last thing that he or she sees at the point he or she dies. Vanessa is very lugubrious, downbeat and fatalistic, believing that nothing can be done about it, including her vision of her own death, despite the fact that she witnesses how Audrey, Duke and Nathan save several people's lives using the information she has supplied to prevent propane tanks exploding at a barbeque.

During the course of the investigation, Vanessa tells Audrey that she remembers little about 1983 because her Trouble went away in October 1983 and has only recently restarted, but she did remember that she met the Colorado Kid and had a "vision" of his death – a pale arm with a tattoo reaching out of the darkness. This introduces Audrey & Co., to The Guard tattoo and of course The Guard secret society itself, though they don't discover Vince is the hereditary Commander of the Guard via a Mi'kmaq ancestress until seasons 3 and 4. They locate Matt West (who is another Tristram Carver/Ian Haskell type delinquent, blaming everyone else for his own shortcomings) as he is manning the projector and an outdoor movie show.

Vanessa recognises the glimpse of her own death but would have survived with no problem had she obeyed Audrey's instruction to stay back behind Audrey and Nathan rather than confront Matt West. Instead, in a fatuous act of stupidity – she ignores this and runs forward because "this is how I'm supposed to die"?! It seems to me that Vanessa was too caught up in her own mental fantasy of being in some mediaeval Arthurian type romance with herself in the starring role as the Tragic Heroine, a la The Lady of Shallot.

Duke holds her as she dies whilst Audrey and Nathan deal with Matt West – Audrey realises that Matt's own egotistical envy is the way to defeat him and so taunts him before turning away as if he is not worth bothering with and his own fiery outrage causes him to spontaneously explode.

At this juncture we get the dramatic moment when Vanessa tells Duke he will be killed in the same way as the Colorado Kid, seeing yet again the pale reaching arm of a man with a tattoo. As we see, this is accepted without hesitation by Duke and the other characters, despite it being disproved and debunked repeatedly and in short order.

For a start, Duke does die shortly after this – a few weeks later in S2:6 Audrey Parker's Day Off, he is killed by a hit-and-run car. Throughout S2:6 of course Audrey has no way of being able to guarantee she can set Haven's "Groundhog Day" right again, so Duke could have stayed dead, in which case what Vanessa should have seen (through Duke's eyes) was a "big metallic blur".

Then there is the fact that like all good fantasy series, in Haven death is not quite as final. Nathan is also killed by the same hit-and-run driver in S2:6; then he is shot dead by Arla posing as Tommy Bowen, until he is resurrected by Moira in S3:8, Magic Hour Part II. James Cogan, also supposedly dead is alive in Season 3. In a purely secular, real-life sense, if Vanessa touched someone who had a heart attack or who drowned, they could be clinically dead for some seconds or a few minutes, but revived and recover.

I'll return to James Cogan momentarily, but we as viewers see what Vanessa saw – or rather momentarily glimpsed. Which is basically nothing. She sees a human forearm from the hand to the elbow reaching forward. Other than the forearm being white-skinned and having the tattoo on the underside of the forearm, that is it. There is nothing to indicate the sex or the age of the person: Man, woman, teenager, adolescent (20s), adult (30-60) geriatric (60-100)? No clue. Additionally, the hand is not holding any weapon whatsoever – no gun, knife, club, spear, bat, syringe, garrotting wire, nothing. And the hand is open, the fingers curling as if the arm is reaching out to clasp hands with or take hold of the other person's arm – it is not clenched into a fist as if to punch, nor it is wearing knuckledusters or other offensive equipment. The action doesn't look anything like threat, but rather an attempt to help, as if the arm were reaching out to help someone clinging to a rooftop or a cliff edge, trying to help them stand up or pull them to safety. Admittedly it could portray that the attempt might fail and the last thing Duke "sees" before he falls fatally is the person trying to pull him to safety (Nathan?).

The same also applies of course to James Cogan. He disappears on 2nd May 1983, and his "body" is found on 28th May 1983. Vanessa must have touched him before 2nd May 1983, but when he meets Audrey and Nathan, his parents, at the Barn, at no time does he mention, even in passing, attack by a Guardsman (or woman). He was, in fact, "hit from behind" by an unknown assailant. Indeed, The Guard, in the form of Eleanor Carr was instrumental in saving his life because she (technically) illegally released his "body" to Lucy Ripley and Vince Teagues on the same day he was discovered at the foot of Tuwiuwok Bluffs, 28th May 1983, without doing an autopsy – which certainly would have killed him. This can be compared to the vision respecting Duke wherein it seems more like the tattooed arm was reaching to help Duke not harm him.

This, presumably, is why Audrey finds little further information when Julia Carr lets her look through her late mother's old ME files. Eleanor covered up the Colorado Kid "murder" in that there is no way to know whether the "body" was really dead (highly unlikely, given Howard said the Barn healed rather than resurrected James) or if James was in a coma caused by injuries – probably he would have died had not Lucy inveigled a way to get him to the Barn after letting everyone – including Vince – believe he was dead by burying him.

In short there is absolutely nothing whatsoever about Vanessa's vision that indicates Duke will be murdered at all, never mind by a tattooed man. Not only did the saving of the barbeque people from the propane tanks demonstrate even before Vanessa's death that her visions were not guaranteed, but he has died at least once in a way that had no involvement by The Guard (S2:6) and, or so it appears, again in S4:13 when his "reintroduced Trouble" starts to go wrong and Mara callously responds to Nathan that both Duke and Jennifer are dead anyway.

* To clarify, the paranormal and psionic are as follows:

A precognitive, alias a seer, visionary, soothsayer, prophet, is someone who sees possible future events that may take place. Perhaps the most accurate portrayal of how a true human precognitive would experience the world is in none other than Men in Black 3, in the character of Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg) who is a "fifth-dimensional being who sees multiple possible timelines unfolding in front of him simultaneously".

The future is constantly changing depending on sometimes even the most insignificant choices which have a ripple effect onto things much bigger than the sum of their parts – this is the idea behind the Butterfly Effect, which posits the seemingly ludicrous theory that a butterfly fluttering its wings at exactly the wrong moment in Africa can cause a hurricane in the Caribbean, but which is not quite so impossible in the right circumstances. Due to this – the simple effect of free will – there are so many innumerable variables on what could happen that a precognitive would be like Griffin – assailed by multiple possible future outcomes that constantly changed depending on actions – or the choice not to act – in the present.

This is actually summarised quite well by the late authoress Agatha Christie in her Mr Quin short story, The Man from the Sea (1929), wherein the protagonist Mr Satterthwaite is talking to a suicidal woman, 'You say your life is your own, but can you dare to ignore the chance that you are taking part in a greater drama? Your cue may not come till the end of the play – it may be totally unimportant, a mere walk-on part – but upon it may hang the issues of the entire play if you do not give that essential cue to another player. The whole thing may crumple and collapse. You as you may not matter to anyone in the world, but you as an anonymous human being in a certain place at a particular moment of time [that diverts aside others] may matter unimaginably.'

A clairvoyant, also a medium, is someone who communicates with deceased people's ghosts and non-corporeal sentient entities, such as angels and/or demons.

A psychic is someone who has the ability to "impossibly" know details of contemporary events that is impossible for them to glean through available communication device – for example, radio broadcast, TV, being an eyewitness. An example is found in the Floating Outfit series of the late escapism-adventure author J.T. Edson when the half-Indian character of Lon Ysabel wryly admits to another character that he stopped 'trying to figure all that stuff out after a Shawnee medicine woman told me all about the Battle of the Little Bighorn an hour after it happened,' bearing in mind both of them were over 200 miles from the battleground at the time.

A psychic is not to be confused with someone who has Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP), someone who has a "sixth sense", the ability to perceive sensory input above what is considered typical, or normal. ESP is actually the most measurable of the parapsychological states – for example, some women are verifiably partial or "true" tetrachromats, able to see four colours, whereas most humans are only trichromatic, seeing only three colours. The "cones" for colour vision are in genes on the X-Chromosome, so since women get two copies, those that have a gene which causes an extra, fourth cone to develop will perceive more colours than usual. Depending on where the fourth cones expresses on the optic nerve, the woman may be able to see some more colours in the red-orange spectrum, or all colours in the red-orange spectrum.

Similarly in the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong had what seemed at first to be an ESP – the ability to "detect" Western US Army soldiers from a distance without even seeing them. This was demonstrated to be an acute olfactory talent in that the VC could differentiate by smell the difference between native Vietnamese people's urine and faeces and Western people's urine and faeces. When in-country US soldiers switched from MREs and a Western diet to eat what the native Vietnamese traditionally ate, such as rice and catfish, the Viet Cong lost their apparently paranormal ability to distinguish them from local people.

A person can be psychic and have no psychic powers. These are considered to be things such as telepathy – the ability to receive and/or broadcast thoughts, empathic (not to be confused with empathy) – the ability to receive or broadcast emotions, telekinesis – the ability to move objects about with the power of the mind rather than picking them up and carrying them. Telekinesis is not the same as teleportation, in which an object is "transported" from one location to another using the power of the mind, whereas telekinesis is only moving them around the same location. Another popular power is Pyrokinesis, the ability to cause fires with the power of the mind, as happens in Stephen King's Carrie. Presumably, Aquakinesis and so forth must also be possible.

Vanessa Stanley, for example would not be psychic, but precognitive, because what she sees when she touches someone alive is a future event (even if only by a few minutes) rather than perceiving something about a current event. For example, in The Dead Zone TC series (starring Anthony Michael Hall as Johnny Smith) when John wakes from his coma and looks at the nurse, he sees her young daughter in danger from a house fire – that is not precognition but psychic ability, because the house fire had just broken out giving her time to send help and save her daughter. People can have vestigial "psychic" talents, such as "gut instinct" or "spider sense" – I personally know of a brother and a sister who share an unusual connection and describe their feeling that "something is amiss" jokingly as "there's a disturbance in the Force."

23rd October 2010:

Audrey enters the Barn; Jordan McKee shots Nathan from behind, causing him to reflexively shoot Agent Howard; Jordan shoots Nathan a second time in the back and Duke shoots Jordan in the torso. Nathan makes Duke dive headlong into the imploding Barn to try and save Audrey, as the dead bodies of Agent Howard and Arla Cogan are yanked into the Barn and it looks as if it collapses in on itself. Nathan manages to call Vince Teagues and The Guard before they leave Kick 'Em Jenny Neck Island and they get Nathan and Jordan to hospital.

23rd October 2010:

Inside some part of the Barn, now the "Bar", The Woman becomes Lexie de Witt.

9th November 2010:

Nathan and Jordan survive and are discharged from hospital by this point – it seems that Nathan does not have Jordan arrested and charged with attempted murder. However, by this time the Troubles are as much present as they ever were, instead of fading away with THMS by the first week of November, and everyone – including Nathan himself – blames him for the Troubles not stopping. Nathan blames himself for he believes is his responsibility for causing the deaths of both Audrey and Duke, so he resigns as Chief in favour of Dwight Hendrickson, and leaves Haven.

By circa 10th November 2010:

Wade Crocker, Duke's older half-brother, relocates temporarily to Haven, probably having been told by Dwight that Duke was "lost at sea" or some such. It would be logical that initially Wade intended to sell The Grey Gull and the Cape Rouge and return to New York but that he stayed a while longer due to nostalgia. Although in 2011 we see that Marcy Crocker is having an affair, such things do not happen all of a sudden, and women often will work to save an unhappy marriage after a man has given up. It is therefore probable that Wade's continued stay in Haven was more about him and Marcy avoiding dealing with the real problems in their troubled (no pun intended) marriage than it was Wade having any real sorrow or grief over losing Duke.

Circa 10th November 2010:

In Boston, Massachusetts, Jennifer Mason begins hearing Duke calling to Audrey, and other sounds that turn out to be Lexie in the "Bar". Since she was adopted she has no genetic family medical history, and so believes she is developing late onset Schizophrenia, and goes on medication to stop the "voices".

February 2011:

Aaron Harker Junior is born to Ashley* (maiden name unknown) and Ben Harker Junior. Gloria Verrano**, the town's new ME is the stepmother of Ben Harker Junior, being the second wife of his late father Ben Harker Senior; she is shown to have a positive relationship with Ben and clearly dotes on her step-grandson Aaron.

* This is what is technically known as a bit of a "blooper". We know that the Curses aren't random (even though Audrey claims that in frustration at the Harker Curse in S4:12) and are related to the people that have them. An original spiteful Harker boy like Tristram Carver is of course unknown but very plausible, as if the Harker victims being descendants of those that the Original Harker Boy perceived as having "wronged" or "oppressed" him in his sulky imagination.

Obviously the death of Aaron's mother was included for dramatic effect and pathos, but it didn't make sense – why suddenly was she affected then and not the first time? On top of that, such things are anti-survival of the species. Humans are the only known species on Earth whose young are utterly dependent on the parents for at least the first decade following birth, usually the first two decades – this is not because of bad parenting or bad children but is a biological imperative which cannot be overridden without causing massive mental, physical and emotional damage to both the parents and the children. Nature is usually fairly good at ensuring the "survival" of the species, so Aaron's "curse" affecting either of his parents is illogical since by killing one or both, this vastly increases Aaron's risk of dying in infancy, which means the Harker Curse dies out before the next generation.

**It is unknown whether Verrano is her maiden name or the surname of a subsequent husband to Ben Harker Senior; given the close relationship between Ben Harker Junior and his stepmother Gloria it would suggest that Ben's biological mother died when he was very young and that Gloria was his "mother".

In S4:12 Ben Harker appears to have no siblings (or not that care enough about his predicament to come and try to help) again implying his mother died young when he was young; however when Audrey tells William she is considering killing the baby, William responds that the Harker family 'are a big clan' and that Aaron had 'eight cousins under the age of ten' that he could target. Since the Troubles appear to "run true" even amongst wider relatives (e.g., second, third cousins etc.,) it would appear that Ben Harker Junior (if an only child) is an anomaly and that his father, grandfather, etc., had several brothers. Or, alternatively, in what sense does William mean "Harker clan". Is the Harker Curse universal or mono-sex? Does it affect all genetic Harkers or just male children? If it is universal to the Harker family then a wide number of those afflicted don't need to have Harker as their surname, if the mother's maiden name was Harker, just like Ian Haskell wasn't surnamed Carver and descended from Tristram Carver through a mixed male-female lineage.

April 2011:

Charlotte Gallagher dies of resurgent cancer having fallen into depression in October 2010 when one of the meteors hits her house and the Troubles fails to stop. Her husband, Mike Gallagher, the janitor at Haven PD, unconsciously hates Nathan for her death so his blood goes after Nathan as a sentient entity to kill him.

Circa 21st April 2011:

Duke is sucked out of the Barn through a wall crack and is saved from death on impact by landing the Boston Aquarium. Jennifer Mason sees the news broadcast and is shocked to realise that the "voice" in her head is a real person. She inveigles her way in to see Duke at the hospital as his sister; Duke things the woman coming through the door will be Audrey, whom at that point he believes was ejected with him.

Duke persuades Jennifer to help him escape the hospital (and arrest) and return to Haven with him. They find Nathan and Duke explains he has no idea where Audrey is. Nathan explains that he and Jordan McKee saw what seemed to be the Barn collapsing in on itself and believed that both Audrey and Duke were dead. They determine to find Audrey.

Circa 21st April to circa 1st May 2011:

Duke's survival startles people, but gives weight to his belief that Audrey may be alive, as Jennifer confirms she is still hearing voices, meaning the Barn must still exist, damaged or not. Duke explains that from his perspective, he was only inside the Barn for no more than five or six minutes and he is still struggling to adjust to the fact that Earthside six months have passed (23rd October 2010 to 21st April 2011) before he came out.

Nathan is not accepted as the Chief, but he doesn't really want the job anyway, his opinion being that Dwight is doing a better job – he does however take up Dwight's offer of being a plainclothes detective in order to have access to the resources to locate Audrey. Nathan tells Vince and The Guard categorically that he has only returned to Haven for one reason – that when they find Audrey he will coerce her into killing him, thus ending the Troubles as they should have been ended.

Circa 1st May 2011:

With Jennifer's help, they find the "door" between the Barn and the real world. On the other side, Lexie, with William's help, sees through the illusion of the Bar to the damaged Barn, and the door her side.

Audrey manages to jump back through both doors to Earthside – initially everyone is stunned insensible by the shockwave but as they come around, Nathan tries to get Audrey to shoot him dead – with quick thinking, Audrey pretends she is still Lexie de Witt and has no idea who any of them are. Enraged, Jordan tries to murder Nathan, but Audrey-as-Lexie stops them in time to let Duke do some fast talking. Duke persuades Vince and The Guard to try his plan – get Lexie to fall in love with Nathan, then get Lexie to kill him. When Nathan promises Vince that he will go along with Duke's plan, Vince agrees.

Circa 1st May 2011:

Lexie de Witt superseded by Audrey Parker (II)

May 2011:

Duke realises that Lexie is really Audrey. She admits this and explains that she will not kill Nathan, and as Lexie everyone believes she doesn't really know or have affection for Nathan. She explains that unlike Lucy Ripley where she has only fragmentary moments or Sarah Vernon, of whom she has no memories whatsoever, Audrey remembers being Lexie de Witt, enabling her to maintain being "Lexie" when needed, even though Audrey increasingly lets slip some of Audrey Parker's personality.

Audrey enjoins Duke not to tell anyone, but Nathan finds out and that Duke knows, at which point Audrey again reiterates that she will not kill Nathan, no matter what he and Duke have agreed with Vince Teagues as representing The Guard. Duke confesses that his "plan" was just a bluff – it was a ruse to try and save Nathan's life in the immediate crisis and buy them some "breathing space" so Nathan could escape Haven again – he has been winging it ever since The Guard took the idea seriously, but warns that they cannot play it out for long – if "Lexie" shows no signs of being attracted to Nathan as Audrey was, Jordan McKee for one will take matters into her own hands, exactly as she did at the Barn, despite being the one really responsible for the continued Troubles because of her treachery then.

June 2011:

Jennifer, Vince and Dave discover that "what was once your salvation is now your doom", and they with Duke rush to stop Audrey killing Nathan – Vince admits that Audrey and Nathan's deception over the fact that "Lexie" was really Audrey 'may have saved us all'.

Circa August 2011:

In S4:13, they finally get William to the portal under the lighthouse to be the fourth person to "unlock" it – the other three being Audrey herself (Otherworlder), Dave Teagues, who explains he was born in the Otherworld and has been back there at least once as an adult, and Jennifer Mason, who discovered she was born there in 1981. William refuses to co-operate, taunting Nathan with the fact that Nathan cannot hurt William without injuring Audrey, was demonstrated when Nathan shot William but Audrey was also "shot" as well. Smirking, Nathan retorts, 'I think I can' and rams his kneecap into William's balls; William doubles over and falls to his knees in agony but the other side of the cavern, Audrey merely blinks and feels absolutely nothing and smirks at Nathan.

Audrey, who hates William for what he has forced her to do, tells him that she wants to push him back through to Otherworld herself, but as they manage to push William into the portal, he manages to send an electrical jolt of power through Audrey, which causes Mara to spring back to dominance and "override" Audrey – this is initially unnoticed as they battle to reclose and lock the portal capstone. When Nathan sees that Jennifer appears to have been killed and that Duke is seriously injured, with black "blood" leaking from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears, and his breathing labouring, Nathan cries out to Audrey that they had to help them. Callously glancing at Duke and saying that he was dead anyway, Mara says they need to get William back.

This is where Season 4 ends; Season 5, presumably the final season given it has been upgraded to a full season of 26 episodes to be shown in two half-season runs from 2014 – 2015, takes up from August 2011 and as Duke presciently warned in S4:12: ''if you turn back into some female version of William…we are screwed on a whole other level!'

Known Incarnations of the Woman:

Mara – circa August 2011 to unknown date, reactivated by William at the pool portal under the lighthouse after an unknown period of time since her original personality was suppressed and "overwritten" – physical evidence of her identity in her speech and attitude at the end of S4:13 when responding to Nathan's distress, Duke apparently dying and Jennifer apparently dead

Audrey Parker (II) - circa 1st May 2011 circa August 2011 - states who she is to Duke, Nathan, Vince, Dave et al; physical evidence of her identity in her speech and attitudes, though we also see bits of Lexie de Witt and a "resurgent" Mara come through during this period as well.

Lexie de Witt – inside the Barn (aka the Bar) only from 23rd October 2010 to circa 1st May 2011 – she tells William that she is Lexie, her speech and attitude and what she reveals about Lexie's back story are also evidentiary as to her being Lexie de Witt. This personality is apparently an "emergency patch job" by the Barn to prevent the Mara personality regaining ascendancy.

Audrey Parker (I) – known to be extant as of 1st June 2009 to 23rd October 2010 – physical evidence of identity in speech and attitude – is the second known Incarnation of The Woman who knows that she is a "copy" of someone else's identity.

Lucy Ripley – known to be extant as of 21st April 1983 to 22nd October 1983 – photographic evidence of Lucy's existence in Haven, eyewitness accounts by Duke, Nathan, Vince, Dave, Garland et al. Testimony also provided by the real Lucy Ripley. Lucy is the first known Incarnation of The Woman that apparently knew she was a "copy" identity.

Sarah Vernon – known to be extant from 2nd August 1955 to 21st October 1956 – arrived in Haven on 16th August 1955. Photographic evidence and testimony from Vince and Dave who were adolescents at the time, and Stuart Mosley and June Cogan both recognising Audrey as "Sarah". So far Sarah Vernon is the only Incarnation of The Woman known to have had a child, and seems to be the first Incarnation to have developed social connections – friendships – in Haven, i.e., Vince and Dave, as a result of guidance by Nathan and Duke.

Unnamed/unknown woman – possibly extant from 1926 until circa 20th October 1929 – no visual, audio or testimony evidence of her presence in Haven; logic dictates she was there because there is visual evidence to place her predecessor there in 1902 and her successor was Sarah Vernon in 1955.

Unnamed/unknown woman – possibly extant from 1899 to circa 23rd October 1902 – photographic evidence of her presence in Haven in 1902, although the fact that she is bottom right of the photograph on the cusp of being edged out of it at the funeral suggests she was operating very much incognito.

There is no visual, audio, testimony or other evidence of any Incarnations of The Woman being in Haven before 1902, although logic suggests – along with the Mediaeval attire of Mara and William in the flashback (S4:13) reminiscent of 17th Century Austro-Hungarian Empire – that The Woman has been present in Haven repeatedly at least during the 19th Century if not before.

People in the 28th May Photograph, 'Who Killed the Colorado Kid?'

The photographer – Dave Teagues (not shown, but self-confirmed)

The body – James Cogan (confirmed multiple sources)

Woman holding boy's hand – Lucy Ripley (confirmed multiple sources)

Boy holding woman's hand – Duke Crocker (self-confirmed)

Police officer – Garland Wuornos (confirmed multiple sources)

Long-haired woman in crocheted sweater – Vanessa Stanley (self-confirmed)

In-shot photographer – Morris Crane (confirmed multiple sources)

Woman in denim jacket/jeans – unidentified (logically most likely Arla Cogan)

Tall man with beard/scarf – unidentified (logically most likely Vince Teagues)

Arm/leg person left edge – unidentified (logically most likely Nathan Wuornos)

Haven Medical Examiners:

1970s – 1980s: Gloria Verrano was Chief ME; she trained Eleanor Carr, who was the trainee ME supposedly in "charge" of James Cogan's body/autopsy 28.05.1983 and who released the body unmolested to Lucy, Vince and Garland. Gloria's status as a member of The Guard is still not known but she is certainly on good enough terms with Vince et al to be trusted to do what is necessary.

1980s – 2009: Eleanor Carr (accidentally killed by the shape-shifter) became Chief ME when Gloria retired in the 1980s all through until September 2009. Both her daughter Julia Carr and either Eleanor's own father or father-in-law are shown to be a member of The Guard and is seems likely that the man in question was a Teagues by birth. Julia Carr, although a doctor, leaves Haven to return to Africa to serve with Medicins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders). Duke warns Nathan that Havenites are already "picking sides" in the Troubled versus non-Troubled cliques and points out that when people are scared, 'they either run, or they fight…Julia ran.' Neither Julia nor her mother evinced any sort of Trouble.

2009 – 2011: Dr Rudy Lucassi, Chief Psychiatrist of the Murray Q. Frederickson Psychiatric Facility, resigns from that job to become Chief ME following the death of Eleanor Carr. Acerbic and droll, Lucassi gives Vince and Dave misquotes they can use to divert attention and cover up Troubles and on the surface appears to deal with the Troubles with great equanimity. However, he mysteriously disappears in the middle of the night without notice, taking his next-door neighbour's pet cats with him.

2011 – Present: Gloria Verrano comes out of retirement (presumably at the request of Vince Teagues and Dwight Hendrickson) following Lucassi's disappearance, given her vast experience of being Haven ME and already being fully up to speed on the "Woman". It is obvious from her sardonic demeanour that Gloria realises immediately that Audrey is only "pretending" to still be Lexie, but she keeps her own counsel. As Gloria trained Eleanor Carr, she now takes on Victoria "Vicki" Dutton, from S1:10 Sketchy as her intern/trainee ME. What Vicki sketches can be used to affect the person or object depicted – such as tapping her sketch of a lighthouse with a fingertip which caused it to collapse in on itself. As a trainee ME, Vicki can avoid a lot of paperwork.

'2010 Shippers Choice':

Relationships both romantic and platonic and the chemistry between characters is the cornerstone of any TV show, whether that chemistry is sparky and prickly (The Professionals) or sparky and affectionate (Hawaii 5-0) or will they/won't they (Bones) or even which one should he/she…?

Everyone has their own opinion regarding Audrey's best beau, or beaux. In terms of the mythology of Haven I will apply what I teach my Creative Writing students:

Whatever the issue you have (in this case romance) with the characters, or the place, or the event, then what your characters/place/event is like is not the important thing in resolving it (in this case should it be Audrey and… or...?), the most vital thing is that your solution must be believable within the rules of the universe in which it exists.

For example, in Season 3 of Stargate: Atlantis, Dr Carson Beckett was killed by a bomb explosion. In Season 1 of NCIS: Los Angeles Sam Hanna's protégé Dominic Vail was kidnapped and murdered by Muslim terrorists – in LA.

However, in Season 4 of Stargate, Carson Beckett's character returned when the SGA-1 team found him imprisoned as a clone of the original "real" or "biological original" Beckett. Stargate is a sci-fi show, and within the "in universe "rules" of science-fiction, high fantasy, fantasy, and future science, etc., clones are acceptable and plausible.

But NCIS is a modern-day contemporary police procedural, so clones are not plausible within the "rules" of the "universe" in which NCIS exists. The only way to work a "return" for the character or someone like him would be to have Vail turn out to be an unsuspected identical twin or, at a push, a "lookalike" close relative (brother, son, father, nephew, cousin.)

However, something similar has already been done in NCIS, where Abby Scuito finds her DNA does not matcher her parents or her brother and she was adopted, eventually meeting a genetic half-brother.

In Bones S3:8 The Gunk in the Garage, the baffling and motiveless murder of a man killed by a bomb in an underground parking garage is solved when it turns out the intended victim was the man's unknowing identical twin brother who had no idea he/they had been separated and adopted at birth. Given his photo and payment by the intended victim's wife enraged at him about to give their life savings to a conman New Age "guru", the assassin spotted the man's twin coincidentally arriving at the hotel on the same day and got the wrong man.

In Nash Bridges, S4:19, Angel of Mercy, the eponymous Nash (Don Johnson) is baffled when the 5-year-old remains of a victim of an uncaught serial killer, unusual for shooting adult male victims, reveal via driving licence that the man is none other than Nash's mysterious homeless vagrant adviser "Angel" who wanders around San Francisco in a white "Ebenezer Scrooge" style Victorian nightgown with a pair of feathered wings strapped to his back claiming to be an angel.

This is impossible until of course a retired midwife explains that her employer, the obstetrician of Angel's parents, was married to a woman who could not have children. When they had twins, the doctor coerced her into helping him steal one of the boys, and told the parents it had died, whilst he and his wife took the boy. When the obstetrician's wife died just a few years later, the doctor put his "son" into foster care. It was his twin that had been murdered by the serial killer Charles Gandy, and Nash uses this to expose Gandy when he is arrested by getting Angel to dress in his dead brother's business suit and tell Gandy that he survived – Angel tells Nash that Gandy was "the man" but Gandy, who got to know his victims via business dealings before luring them to the kill spot, breaks down and confesses because he "knew" that his victim was "an only child" and is terrified of Angel.

And so on and so – unfortunately, because of being done to death (no pun intended) by every soap opera going, the "long lost…" any relative these days tends to be seen as a cop-out cliché or lazy writing unless you can pull it off well. The trope goes as far back as the 1950s, when C.S. Lewis used in the third of his seven book Chronicles of Narnia as a convenient two-line plot device to wrap up the "secret identity" of Shasta as really Crown Prince Cor of Archenland, long-lost kidnapped heir to the throne, much to the delight of the current Crown Prince Corin "Thunderfist" who is delighted to be 20 minutes younger and thus get to have all the partying of princes without the paying of the piper responsibilities.

In terms of Haven – whom Audrey chooses, or if she chooses no-one – is not important as long as the storyline is PPP within the rules of the Haven universe. PPP is what I teach in my Creative Writing classes: Is it: Possible, is it: Plausible, is it: Probable©? To be honest, most things are possible in fiction, but the key question is plausibility – if the answer is "yes" then probable - and therefore believable to and accepted by your readers and/or your viewers – will also more likely be "yes" than "no" – and vice versa. For example, could Audrey end up with Dwight Hendrickson? Yes, it's possible, because most things are possible. Is it plausible…? No: Audrey and Dwight have a connection, they have a friendship, but there is all the "attraction" spark of concrete.

Is Audrey with Nathan PPP – well yes, obviously. Is Audrey with Duke PPP – still yes, as we have seen flirtations throughout the show. What about Audrey with Nathan and Duke? Possible yes, plausible…?

Yes, in line with both the mythology of Haven and real-life practice and history, Audrey choosing to go down the polyandry route is both possible, plausible, and in the right circumstances, probable, which means it is in keeping with the rules that Haven exists in and if presented in a suitable manner it would be believable as an outcome to viewers/readers.

Most people are familiar with polygyny (one husband several wives) but are surprised that polyandry was and is more widespread. The primary reason for this is survival of the species – if the man is killed or his adult son(s) when he is elderly and frail a group of women and children and elderly are left with nobody to do the heavy lifting, hunt mammoth, and drive off sabre-tooth tigers or looters/slavers.

Nor can anyone be in two places at the same time. Remember in Chapter 1 how the New England Algonquin tribes increased in number, technology and longevity because instead of "start to finish" they pre-empted the British Industrial Revolution by breaking daily life into smaller chunks and had multiple people specialised in smaller parts that could then be fitted in to a greater whole. The men fought off predators both bipedal and quadruped and also hunted protein-rich mean and fish as well as the heavy duty tasks of scraping and tanning animal hides and making weapons and big tools; the women tended crops and livestock, turned smaller predators into tasty stews and produced linen, flax and pottery. But with the man gone, so too was the warrior, the hunter, labourer and repairman – a woman with young children couldn't be hunting fish or elk at the same time as stopping birds eating her herb garden or berry crop.

Perhaps the classic example of course is none other than Hatshepsut. Most textbooks relate how she seized power. But whilst she admittedly quickly became comfortable being Pharaoh rather than Great Royal Wife (Regent) for her minor half-brother/husband Thutmose II, it is highly unlikely that she seized anything willingly. The problem was that as well as Pharaoh, Thutmose I, and his adult sons (it seems Wadjmose and Ramose), the Egyptian Army included all the able-bodied adult priests of Egypt's male deity religious cults, and the able-bodied males of the national infrastructure – what we today would term the civil service, police (city watch/guard), and politicians. In short, the country's royalty, religious leaders, government ministers and judiciary. As well all this array of middle-class, upper-class, aristocratic and royal males it also included the cannon fodder peasantry forced into military service and slaves likewise.

Hatshepsut was thus faced with hundreds, indeed thousands, of households across the nation where the titular household "head" was a male child who still thought "poo jokes" were the height of conversational sophistication. There was no standing army left to defend the national borders, nobody to administrate the daily life of the citizens to prevent starvation, the drains blocking up, criminals being arrested, trialled and jailed, no doctors, no priests, nobody to stop the peasant women and the slave women whose surviving sons might be eleven or twelve tearing into the houses of those with a higher social standing but no husbands/sons/fathers/brothers aged over toddlerhood and looting them. Egypt teetered on the brink of total social collapse and the nation looked to the House of Pharaoh, the living incarnation of Amen-Ra for leadership. Hatshepsut grasped the nettle and literally saved the world as they knew it.

So it was with polyandry as opposed to polygyny: if one of the woman's husbands died, she would still have all those resources to hand to protect her and her children. Additionally – and no offence to parents – the fact is that prepubescent children are much of a muchness unless there is a specific "identifier" about them. In the common Celtic polyandry, all children were classed as the children of the senior husband unless there was some obvious identifying characteristic or if a particular husband could not have been the father for some well-known reason or unless meticulous records/conjugation timings were kept that made it reasonably accurate. Due to this, all the males had a vested interest in protecting and rearing "what might very well be" his biological offspring, so if the wife died she could be sure that her husbands would not abandon any of her children.

Additionally of course it came down to numbers – in any area where one sex tended to outnumber another or there was a sudden drop in "peer" age people of the opposite sex then if the shortage was of women, polyandry increased and vice versa. An example happened in World War I when an entire generation of male youths just at the traditional age of employment, courtship, marriage and fatherhood were wiped out. In the 1920s cases of bigamy where a man who "worked away" as commuters were then called was discovered to have two or three wives and families along his route were not uncommon. Often his "victims" were in fact silently complicit in the bigamy/polygyny because they were typical of the 18-year-olds at a British public school in 1917, grimly advised by the Headmistress that "most of you will never marry" because no matter where you go, your husbands' lie dead across the Western Front.

As noted by the invention of "double houses", pre-Norman women, especially those of high social status, were educated, cosmopolitan, career women who had money, rights and property on their own account.

As with Arthur having two wives of the same name, the second more famous than the first, the oldest accounts are consistent that Arthur's parents were Uther Pendragon and Ygraine of Cornwall and at that time (400s AD) most of Midwest and Southwest England and Wales were allied kingdoms interrelated by relationships of genetics and/or marriage. Some scholars believe that Ambrosisus Aurelius, who is consistently portrayed to be the older brother (occasionally uncle) of Uther (Enniaun Girt/Enion Yrth) was the same man as Amlawdd Wledig, listed in some texts as the father of Eigyr, or Ygraine.

There is no way to know, but what is consistent is that Ygraine was a powerful queen of Dumnonia (Cornwall) and she appears to have had no great issue with marrying Uther whilst apparently remaining the wife of Gwlais (Gorlais) King of Cornwall, by whom she had already got three daughters (Elaine, Morgause and Morgaine (possibly indicating the latter two were twins) and a son Cawdwr (Cador), later King of Cornwall, when she married Enniaun Girth and had Arthur. Only in post Norman texts is Gorlais downgraded to Duke and occasionally confused with Cador, and only then does Gorlais conveniently die minutes before Uther forcibly "marries" Ygraine the freshly made wimp making the marriage legal and Arthur legitimate.

And what is the ethnic heritage of the settlers in Haven, Maine? Very predominantly Celtic – Irish, Scots, Picts, Britons. And what is their religious heritage – well its roots are not in Roman Catholicism but in Celtic Christian-Paganism. Then there is basic economic necessity – far more men emigrated out to the New World either voluntarily, as slaves or on indentured contracts than women. Polyandric relationship or remaining a childless bachelor were often the only options for several years. So in terms of real-life and in-show history, religion, society, culture and economics, polyandry "fits" into the "rules" of the Haven universe. We even see a brief example in the bigamy of Penny Driscoll alias Gwen Glendower, who "married" Cole Glendower and had a son by him (Leith) after leaving her legal husband Edmund Driscoll and their daughter Hannah, due to the Reverend's growing fanaticism about the Troubled.

In some cultures, a woman is considered a "social failure" at polyandry unless she has at least three husbands, but that might be considered excessive. It is all down to fitting in with the rules of the "universe" but essentially Audrey pulling an "Ygraine" and having both Nathan and Duke as "husbands" would be acceptable within the backstory and "underpinning" cultural society of Haven. So those shippers who want (Audrey) to have cake and eat it there you go!

Stephen King Note: Obviously Haven was loosely based on an ambiguous short-story called 'Who Killed the Colorado Kid?' Ambiguous because the protagonist, a female brunette cub reporter never solved the case either.

Allusions, references, in-jokes, parodies, homages and "shout outs" to King's oeuvre abound throughout the show, but I have not pointed these out, because that would take all the fun out of spotting them, and because this timeline is already quite long enough. However, there are a variety of the more obvious ones – for example, in the opening credits there is the shot of the timid mongrel dog on the deck of the boat, an inversion of the big and rabid Cujo. The Troubles disappear every 27 years, another inversion of the fact that the evil returns every 27 years in "It". A common phobia is circus clowns – a reference to Creepshow and so. The quest of the characters in Season 4 with the female Jennifer Mason as the Child of Ruin and the lighthouses (towers) being mystically significant relates to King's most epic series: The Gunslinger, where Roland Deshain is on a quest to find a mysterious tower. The Child of Ruin is a play on the famous poem by Robert Browning: and the child Roland to the dark tower came.

(PS – please nobody ask me to do a timeline of the Gunslinger series. Love to read it, chronologically ordering it would kill me).

Author's End Note:

I hope that readers and writers find this timeline as useful as people have very kindly said that they liked my timeline for Hawaii 5-0.

Timelines for other shows have been mentioned, and in the future I may attempt these, however at this time it is not possible. Although so far each season of Haven has been a 13-episode half-season when doing a timeline it still requires multiple freeze-frame of every episode and copious note-taking of dialogue, scenery and props, particularly when the online "wiki" does not necessarily always agree with what is shown or said in the actual televised episodes. It is very time-consuming and quite draining.

Additionally at this stage I am focussed on researching and writing the biography of the late western/adventure author, J.T. Edson, who was also a distant cousin of mine. Unfortunately the grants I applied for to cover the £4000 first year costs have been refused in Scotland (because I live in England) and refused in England because the institute supporting the research is in Scotland; this in turn has wiped out my research budget as it needs to be diverted to cover the costs, so I am currently deep in applications to all and sundry, trying to raise donations/sponsorship, etc. In this regard I also need to apologise again to the wonderful Mendenbar, waiting patiently for me to start posting Sugar & Spice, the penultimate story in my Angel fandom series The Blood Will Tell. I'll get there soon.

So if there is a show you desperately want a timeline for, please feel free to ask, but please don't be offended if, at this time, it is simply not possible. Please also note that I personally dislike shows that are deliberately offensive/include gratuitous foul language/violence/nudity without any justifiable context for it (e.g., Breaking Bad, South Park, Eastbound and Down, Mrs Brown's Boys) so I would not be able to do a timeline for that type of show.

Note regarding dates, and time frames and languages:

Dates:

The dates used for this timeline are the standard Western B.C. (BC) and A.D. (AD) format, that is "Before [the birth of] Christ" and "Anno Domini" which is a Latin phrase basically meaning after the birth of Christ.

There is wide usage of B.C.E. (BCE) and C.E. (CE) "Before [our] Common Era and "Common Era"; however these phrases are actually linguistically meaningless unless you replace "Common" with "Christian" in which case why not just use the proper dating to start with?

Other characters or information from other countries or sources, however, may be different. A secular Israeli character – e.g., Ziva David from NCIS – would likely use the standard BC/AD dating system, but an Orthodox Jew would use the Jewish dating system, which uses the abbreviation Anno Mundi (AM) – 20th September 2013 is the year 5774 in the Jewish Calendar – it started 5th September 2013 and ends 25th September 2014 consisting of 385 days because it is a leap year containing an intercalary thirteenth month.

Similarly if you used an archaeologist (Gabby Ansaro) or anthropologist character (Blair Sandburg) they would know that BC dates are suffix and AD dates are prefix, so 200 years Before [the birth of] Christ and 15 years After [the birth of] Christ should be written as 200 BC and AD 15, although I have not followed this convention and for ease have used BC and AD as suffixes.

Those characters would also know that for BC dates you count down and AD you count up. For example, if Event B happened in 1492 BC and Event A happened 234 years earlier and Event C 67 years after, to find the date of Event A you add 234 years to 1492 (1726 BC) but subtract 67 (1425 BC). For AD dates you do the opposite – if Event B happened in AD 1966 and Event A happened 1642 years earlier and Event C happened 40 years later, then you subtract 1642 from 1966 to get AD 324 and you add 40 to get to AD 2006.

A great deal also depends on the country or even region of the country involved. For example, since Westerners did not visit Hawaii with any meaningful contact until the 1700s, Hawaiian history does not count time in the BC/AD format just as religious Muslims and Jews et al do not. Likewise, in Britain and mainland North America – the United States and Canada - "national time" did not exist until the Industrial Revolution made it possible to build a national railway network, at which point "local time" had to be reconciled – in some towns of Britain and New England it was hours or even a day earlier or later than in other places and everyone had to be working to the same timetable to make running trains and the newly invented tramcar and omnibus systems feasible.

In real life, this would affect a scattered township like "Haven" in Maine as until the coming of trains, trams and buses, The Grey Gull – ten miles up the coast from central Haven – could be anywhere up to an hour ahead or an hour behind time wise despite still being considered part of the same town, and places such as Cleaves Mill, Castle Rock, Derry, etc., depending on their latitude from Haven could still be in the last hours of yesterday or already in the early hours of tomorrow.

However, Western dating is very important in canon and in fan fiction. In Christianity, the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ is celebrated as Easter on Good Friday and Easter Monday in March or April.

However, Jesus Christ died at Passover, 14th Nisan AD 33. In the Jewish calendar, Passover always starts on Nisan 14th no matter what day of the week that takes place, but in Christianity the festival is fixed to the nearest Friday-Monday combination. For example, in 2014 for the first time in some years, the date of 14th Nisan AM 5774 also happens to be 14th April AD 2014 which is the date of Christ's death, but Easter is not until "Good Friday" 18th April 2014.

This could be important because something could hinge on a key date – for example in Haven it is the night that THMS is at its most visible peak over Haven (between 19th – 24th October), and although the death of Jesus Christ and the Passover took place on the same night in reality, the former is commemorated and the latter celebrated five days apart in modern times. Similarly, in the West, each day starts at midnight – but in the Jewish calendar it starts at sunset (usually about 6.00pm) and runs until sunset the next day (6.00pm). So when a religious Jew told Audrey or Nathan that event X happened at three o'clock in the morning, he means 9.00pm at night, whereas a British Christian such as myself would mean 3.00am.

Some cultures also have concurrent calendars – in Britain we have the secular year from 1st January to 31st December, but anyone with children follows the academic/school year; that and the agricultural year both from 1st September to 31st August. People who work as accountants and bankers and the British Treasury work to the tax year which runs from 1st April to 31st March.

But The Russo-Greek Orthodox and Coptic Eastern churches still maintain the Julian calendar that was superseded by the Gregorian calendar in Britain and Europe (but not the USA at first) in 1752. In Britain the religious year used to run from 25th March to 24th March: people had a festive booze and food blowout throughout the "12 days of Christmas" from 25th December to 6th January and then went back to work because they got to have another blowout at New Year's Eve on 24th March, which was the last day of the religious year. In Scotland, the New Year's celebration of Hogmanay which runs from the evening of 31st December to 2nd January inclusive (2nd January is a national holiday in Scotland) is more important than Christmas. In a different vein, in Israel, the agricultural year began 1st October and ended 30th September about 6 weeks after the start of the agricultural year in Britain because they are in different areas of the world.

As a Creative Writing tutor my advice is that Rule One is to use whatever is most feasible in terms of the "universe" you are creating but that Rule Two is that the Majority Rules. You are writing for a readership and if the vast majority of your works' readers are Jewish and follow the Anno Mundi calendar, then you should use the Anno Mundi calendar, and if the majority are Western and use the BC/AD calendar, then you use the BC/AD calendar. The aim is that you want people to read and like your work, so insisting on such "authenticity" that you totally confuse your readers and make their brains hurt so they give up trying to work out whether its spring, summer, an Ice Age or Tropicana is pointless.

Time frames:

It is generally agreed that a 'generation' is a span of circa 35 years, so 'it happened a generation ago would be an event between 30-45 years ago, and 'two generations back' would be between 65-80 years ago. But why care?

As an example I'll use Duke, Simon and Roy Junior: say all three were alive in September 2010. Writing your story from Duke's perspective, Vietnam was a generation ago c.35 years (Simon), World War II was two generations ago c.70 years (Roy Jr), World War I (Roy Sr) was three generations ago c.95 years and the 2nd Boer War of 1899-1902 was four generations ago c.130 years ago (Roy Sr's father).

This is important especially if you are writing "vampire" fiction or Moonlight/True Blood crossovers. When I wrote my Angel series, The Blood Will Tell (© 2005-2014 The Cat's Whiskers) I had to rewrite a couple of continuity errors because Liam was turned into Angelus by Darla in 1753, and got his soul in 1898, so to him the Irish Potato Famine of 1845 was a laugh riot, as was the Crimean War in 1854. But William wasn't turned into Spike until 1880 – by which time both of those events fell into the 'previous generation category' because William was born in 1854, at the end of the Crimean War. So you can't have Spike waxing lyrical about the gory Battle of Balaclava and 'onwards, into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred' because he was a human baby at the time. Similarly, Liam was born in Ireland in 1727, but Catholic Europe did not switch to the Gregorian calendar until 1752 – Protestant England resisted this Popery for a few years after that.

Likewise in Hawaii 5-0 or NCIS or CSI or any contemporary fiction, a man of Roy Crocker Junior's generation will "speak" differently, that is have a different characterisation, in a story that has something about World War I – a war that could have killed his father and older brothers, than would Simon Crocker, who would know only of school history and tales about "granddad".

Likewise Simon Crocker's generation would display a different attitude about Vietnam – a war that killed their sons and younger brothers – than would Duke, who only knows his dad Simon was of the Vietnam War generation in an intellectual not emotional sense. It's the difference between sympathy and empathy. For example, in Hawaii 5-0, Steve McGarrett's own military career means he can sympathise with his dad and granddad's military experiences, but he can't empathise because you can only do the latter if you understand that experience – if you have lost a parent or child in death, you can empathise with another person who has suffered that same loss, but if you haven't, you can only sympathise with them. That key difference should affect how you create your characters.

A good example is in the show Nash Bridges, where Nash's father Nick is a World War II veteran (belatedly awarded the Navy Star) but also the father of Robert Bridges, an Vietnam Navy helicopter pilot MIA/KIA. The excellent late actor James Gammon (1940-2010) portrayed a different approach to World War II (ignoring his own service) than he did to Vietnam (proud of his son) because the former was a personal horror story and the latter was a way to memorialise the child that died far from home.

Getting the character to "speak" with a realistic "voice" for someone of their "generation" or throwing in a passing titbit name-checking/referencing something like that is a nice way to add depth without having to work at it – for example, old granddad telling stories about how he knew Roosevelt and nobody ever believing him until the Library of Congress releases some old photos or something and there is a 20-year-old granddad clearly in shot in the Oval Office shaking hands with the President.

Another great example is Judd Hirsch who plays Don and Charlie Epps dad in Numb3rs. Season 5:4 Jack of All Trades guest-starring Henry Winkler, is a great episode where Don is reinstated in the FBI but realises he got away with something he ought to have been reprimanded for because the modern FBI is about results and expediency, not morally right actions. But he doesn't have to admit this, because wise, wise old Dad has figured that out already:

'You feel you got away with something here, that next time, no-one will be there to stop you…' Dad to Don

Telling pause/silence

'Well don't worry, someone will be there…You. You'll be there.' Dad

'Is that supposed to make it easier?' Don asks wryly

'Who says it's supposed to get easier?' Dad points out.

It's a beautifully crafted little scene that is pitch perfect, and you really know how much Steve McGarrett needs his father John, and Nathan needs his father Garland Wuornos, to be there delivering such wisdom to counter the whispering siren-song of "the ends justify the means".

Unfortunately the Western World is infected with rampant ageism which is a pity, because as the African proverb warns, "when an old person dies, a library burns". Way, way, smarter than us on all counts; Haven actually does a great job of show casing that old folks are way smarter than anyone else. Contrast Haven with Hawaii 5-0, particularly S3;23 He Welo 'Oihana [Family Business] – in which Steve's attitude towards his mother Doris, plus Mick and Wade – is hugely disrespectful and offensive, but spot on with modern attitudes.

I know these might seem to be largely irrelevant to fic writing but you can make your story seem incredibly detailed and highly researched without having to do a lot of work just by sprinkling a few well-picked phrases or minor details here and there and it will make your characters much more 3D to the reader.

For example, I know a romantic-suspense writer who's never held anything more lethal than a steak knife who has all of Richard Marcinko's "Rogue Warrior" series and has her male characters mutter about wanting to "rock with an HK" or "MP5 room broom" and you'd swear she had just extracted from a "-Stan" hot zone.

Another example I've taken from Hawaii 5-0 is the show's ME Max Bergman, but you can apply this to Gloria Verrano, or any other ME. Despite Political Correctness it is now acknowledged that scientifically male and female humans are so different from each other in every way as to be almost biologically compatible but semi-separate species, like us sapiens and Neanderthals or sapiens and Denisovans or Neanderthals and Denisovans, all of whom had no problems with having sex and therefore children with each other.

Men and women have different anatomy, height, weight, internal organs, biochemistry, brain size, brain shape and brain operation. What isn't publicised is that these brain differences exist across the five main "colours" and general regions of H. sapiens humanity as well: White/Caucasian in Europe, Black/Negroid in Africa, Yellow/Oriental across China/Japan/the Far East, Brown/Arabian in India/the Middle East and Red/Asian in the Americas. These are broad in scope and there is overlap.

Caucasian (European) brains and Negroid (African) brains and Oriental brains all work differently from each other – like Linux and Android, Mac and Windows – the end user gets the same result at the same speed at the same time but what's going on inside is different in A than in B or C and likewise in B than in A or C.

For example, suppose you had a portable brain imaging scanner that showed how the brain "lit up" when it was doing certain functions. You see the four core cast members of 5-0 standing together and go up and ask them if one of them can swap you a $20 bill for two tens. In Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan, who are Caucasian, the temporal lobe of their brain, which processes language, will activate because that is where they process math/numbers/numerical information. In Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, who are Oriental, the parietal lobe of their brain, which processes visual images will activate because that is where they process math/numbers/numerical information.

Why the difference? Many Western/Northern hemisphere languages are symbol based, using "letters" representatively of meaning, like Brythonic (ancient British English), Viking Runes, and some Asian languages such as Arabic. Many Eastern/Southern Hemisphere languages are literal based, using "characters" pictorially to show meaning, like Egyptian Hieroglyphics (Arabian), Mandarin (Asian), and Japanese (Oriental). You can remember it as "letters" are words and "characters" are pictures.

An old example is the number eight, which in English – a symbol based letter language - is five letters, e, i, g, h, t, none of which look anything like eight apples or eight people or even the Arabic numeral 8 or the Roman numeral VIII. In the Bible book of Genesis, the Global Flood is survived by eight people in the Ark (a giant floating box). In ancient Mandarin – a literal based pictorial language – the numeral eight is a pictogram (picture) of people in a boat.

In a more relevant example, the ancient City States of the then Chinese Empire used fingerprints as a means of identification, and verification of identity, as well as in art forms; and fingerprint impressions are pictorial images. If you have ever read the U.S. Fingerprint Sourcebook (well worth a look, even if you aren't a law enforcement professional) in Chapter One it mentions that the earliest – as yet – known example comes from c.220 BC, in a report called, 'The Volume of Crime Scene Investigation – Burglary' written by a civil servant (who else?) under the Qin Emperor, wherein handprints were used as evidence in burglary investigations (Xiang-Xin and Chun-He, 1988, p.283). By AD 700 fingerprints/palm prints and handprints were all likewise in use in the Japanese Empire and in across India under the Maharajahs and Moghuls. All of these countries have pictorial (character) based language systems, rather than symbolic (letter) based languages systems.

In Hawaii 5-0 as a Chief Medical Examiner, having lived and schooled and worked all his life in an environment with a wide ethnic mix of people, Max Bergman as a scientist would know all about that, so you can really show off without needing to do lots of confusing and brain-hurting neurological research in order to show off by having him throw in a passing line that is very 'Science'.

How about this:

"The brain construction is clear via the larger formation parietal lobe here," Max dug in a finger with a faint disgusting squelch, "comparative to the smaller temporal lobe as it…"

"Max, for the love of God…when I said I was a visual learner that was not a code phrase that really meant, "'Yes! Show me gory visceral horrors in minute detail!'"" Danny protested.

Max looked at him for a moment then made that characteristic bird-like head tilt as he laser-focussed on Danny – pure Steve-like...oh yes, Max wasn't the only autistic savant in the room. "You have never informed me that your brain processes learning visually rather than aurally or kinaesthetically, Detective Williams."

"Um he's right, you actually told that to Commander Hale in the tsunami warning station, but you've never mentioned it since," Steve interjected with a face that on anyone else would be "mock" helpful, but Steve tended not to demonstrate that level of emotional nuance, so he was being genuinely helpful – which didn't lessen Danny's desire to punch him one iota.

"Okay, for the record: I am a visual learner. And for the avoidance of all possible doubt: that is not a code phrase for saying I want to be standing a foot away from disgusting gloopy gory horrors at…oh yes…7.23am in the morning before I've had my first coffee."

"You drink too much coffee," Steve being Steve it was an imperious decree, not a ventured opinion or a concerned protest.

"Steven, I am Italian. It is impossible for me to ever drink enough coffee."

"You said that about being Irish and drinking whisky, and being Jewish and drinking red wine, and being Scandinavian and drinking beer."

"Exactly. So Max, what you are saying, in order to cut short this assault on my optic nerves and reach the nearest caffeination station a.s.a.p., is that although we have only the brain and partial skull of the vic., you can tell from the way the brain…is…that the vic., was Asian not Caucasian?"

"Precisely, Detective."

Note the effortless demonstration of solid science in that exchange yet Max comes across as totally believable as the CME – or if you have Ducky Mallard (NCIS) visiting Oahu for some reason you can have him say it. Likewise you can have Sergeant Wu deliver such information in an autopsy report to Nick Burkhardt and Hank Griffin in Grimm or have Gloria Verrano explain it to Audrey, Nathan and Dwight and/or Duke in Haven, or have it land on Tamzin Outhwaite's desk in New Tricks, or whatever show you are writing on that has murder and mayhem in it. The important thing is that you have a character whom it is plausible in-universe for him, her or it to know those sorts of things.

Or how about this:

"The long bones of the femur and the pelvic girdle itself come from a human male, but the internal organs we found belong to a human female." Charlie explained

"But they were found in the abdominal cavity of the male pelvic bones?" Steve asked in confusion, exchanging a glance with Danny. "Are you sure they're female organs?"

"Absolutely." Charlie cleared his throat in the customary manner of a person who has to talk about an embarrassing not-for-public-discourse subject but is determined to soldier through it. "Every species has certain unique characteristics that define it from all others, and even if most of everything else is destroyed if you find them you can be pretty sure what you're dealing with."

"Sure – find nothing but a pair of huge tusks and you don't need to find any more skeleton any more to know it was an elephant." Danny rolled his eyes at Steve. "Animal Planet, Steven. Do you watch anything other than bad action movies and schlock horror movies with mutant sea monsters in them...Sharktopus, for crying out loud…" he shuddered, having waxed lyrically and vocally on the subject of sharks and celophads – octopi.

"I preferred Sharknado myself," Charlie quipped.

"You…you are not to enable the giant goof here," Danny scolded.

"They had a Marine Monster Mayhem Marathon on sci-fi during my first week back at home from the hospital, nothing to do but sit on my couch and watch…" Charlie admitted.

There was a tiny pause; Michael Noshimuri's stab wound nearly had killed Charlie, and he had had to recuperate at home for 12 weeks before he had returned AMA to his Chief of Forensics post at HPD.

Rescuing their masculinity, 'cos 'Real Testosterone Does Not Do Feelings', Steve quipped, "Okay, so moving on from Dinocroc versus Supergator."

"Yes, please." Danny growled.

"Well, the pelvic organs included a clitoris, which is unique to female humans." Charlie explained.

"Really, what about lady…?" Danny waved his hand vaguely in the air to indicate applicable species.

"Really. And yes, you should feel the envy. Human women are the only females of any species to have a clitoris – scientists have no idea why."

Steve glanced at Danny, who as a father was considered the go-to-guy on the esoteric mysteries of all things femme and this ilk.

"I got nothing," Danny shook his head firmly waving his hands again to indicate This Subject. With a Ten Foot Pole. Not touching. "Rachel told me she had terrible problems when she started puberty so when she was eighteen – the age of adulthood in the UK - she marched to her GP – general doctor they have in the UK – and told him in the Twentieth Century medicine had advanced enough to sort it out and she wanted the good drugs now."

"Uh-huh," Steve, understanding how well Rachel could do formidable and English steel had no doubt that this "GP guy" had folded like wet lettuce to her will.

Charlie cleared his throat significantly. "The issue is that the clitoris serves only one function, and that is to enable human females to enjoy sexual pleasure for the sake of enjoying sexual pleasure. In every other life form, including human men, sexual pleasure – orgasm – is part of or linked to or an effect of the reproductive process or the reproductive organs – even jacking off on your lonesome in the shower. The clitoris has no other purpose but to enable women to enjoy sex because they want to have sex, whether they are aiming to reproduce or not. That's why it baffles science. It's an organ that shouldn't exist, but it does, apparently because – or maybe as a result of – the fact that humans are the only species in existence that has no reproductive cycle. Humans never go into sexual heat, or have a mating season, we are the only species that has sex because it feels good and we like it rather than to reinforce social bonds, or establish hierarchical authority or reproduce more of our kind."

"That's…wow…" Steve shook his head.

"And now unfortunately we go from weird to downright iy-iy-iy creepy." Charlie apologised. "We found only a partial skull cap and some fragments but an intact brain…"

"Crap, it's a zombie apocalypse, isn't it?" Danny groaned.

"That wouldn't be a problem, Danno." Steve grinned.

"Oh really, finding yourself in Season One of The Walking Dead wouldn't freak SuperSEAL?"

"Nope, zombies are easy –"

"Just aim for the head." Steve and Charlie chorused in unison.

"I hate you both – with the fire of a thousand suns. You are both banned from Movie Night – no more World War Z, no more Zombieland..."

Steve ignored this by simply over-talking with the ease of long practice. "So what's the creepfest about, Charlie?"

"The skull is human, the brain isn't."

Both Steve and Danny looked at the 3D image rotating on his computer screen, a grey three pound lump that could have been anything from a human brain to two week old cauliflower for all they could tell in all honesty.

"Here," Charlie pointed at one of the forensic lab's not exactly cheery framed wall images which was labelled underneath: side view colour diagram of the human brain, seen from the left. They guessed the thick tube/stem going down from near the back bottom over to the right was the brain stem.

Charlie tapped the far left edge of the brain as it curved upwards and round. "This big bit at the front is the frontal lobe. Directly above each eyebrow in the frontal lobe there is a specific area called the frontal pole prefrontal cortex."

"Yeah, that just rolls off the tongue," Danny muttered.

"The FPPC varies in size from around the size of a Brussell Sprout to a small orange – say a tangerine or a nectarine size. However, each FPPC is actually made up of twelve separate segments. Except that humans are the only species to have twelve – primate species, even macaques and bonobos, with which we share most DNA, have only eleven. That brain," Charlie pointed back at his screen, "has eleven segments, which means it is not human."

"Wait…hang on…what about…chimps?" Danny asked, "See Steven, TV is educational. Animal Planet, you animal."

Charlie shook his head. "Nope. For about forty years the scientific orthodoxy was that humans shared ninety-eight percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, but the mapping of the human genome meant that by 2005 scientists refined that down to only ninety-four percent shared DNA."

"Which means…?" Steve pressed.

Charlie shrugged. "We share around ninety-three percent of our DNA with shrimp. We share about ninety-seven percent of our DNA with lichen. Every life-form on Earth does share over ninety percent of its DNA with every other life-form on Earth. The quantity of DNA one species shares with another is irrelevant – we are no more related – closely or otherwise - to any primate species than we are to shrimp or lichen – we share too many profound physiological differences that so far have only been matched in extinct human species – Neanderthal, Denisovan, Erectus, Heidelbergensis…"

"Like the clitoris and not having a mating season or reproductive cycle and this Brussel sprout brain bit." Danny grasped.

"Amongst others, exactly. For example add size differential of genitalia. In primates the female only develops breasts when lactating to feed young; a male's genitals increase in size only if he succeeds in becoming dominant and fathering lots of offspring. In humans girls develop breasts at puberty regardless of their childlessness or not and human boys get a certain size of equipment end of – you can have celibate Himalayan monks hung like a horse and the reincarnation of Casanova who stuffs socks down his jockstrap. Yet again, humans are the only species where the breasts and balls are used for sexual pleasure for the sake of it not for some other purpose. Regrettably porn is a uniquely human concept."

"Well that fact ixnays any higher life-form egotism I guess," Danny acknowledged.

"What is relevant about DNA is that it's where it is and what it does which changes you from a mollusc to a man. The whole man to werewolf and shape-shifter lore is actually based on real science – goodness knows how but in ancient civilisations that came up with all that stuff in myths and legends like the Minotaur and Medusa, they somehow grasped the concept that if you could fiddle about with human DNA – or the blood, as they would have thought – you could in theory change a man into a mouse or whatever."

"Like taking SuperSEAL's flatbed truck, tricking it out with megawheels and turning it into a Monster Truck Rally contender?" Danny worked his way through it. "Only with DNA instead of car parts?"

"Essentially yes. That storyline is pure Cybermen – or Daleks – or Zygons."

"What?" Steve demanded.

"Longest running sci-fi series in Britain, Doctor Who…Alien saves the world, travelling through time and space in a blue box. Except he's a high-functioning sociopath who annihilated his entire world in a galactic inferno to save the universe," Danny rattled off as Steve gaped at him, "but to focus – you're sure that brain is not human?"

"Max Bergman and I scanned it to death and sent the images to Professor Swaab in Sweden – he's the world's leading neurological pathologist. He confirmed – the twelfth segment of the FPPC that only humans have is called the lateral frontal pole pre-frontal cortex. It is what gives human beings a moral conscience, because it allows us to think about more than one thing at the same time and therefore understand how our choices will affect other people – positively or hurtfully."

Charlie gave them a moment to take that in and then went on, "More importantly, it enables us to contemplate the past and consider the future, which is what enables humans to avoid repeating mistakes we have made in the past and to build on previous experience – it's one of the reasons why primate species like chimps still live in trees foraging for food after a hundred thousand years and Steve lives in a house on the bay with indoor plumbing and a microwave oven. In mentally retarded children and dementia sufferers who have no concept of consequences or of "the future", and those people who are psychopaths because of genetics not by personal choice to do bad, and most sociopaths, all of them have some or all of the twelfth segment congenitally abnormal or damaged via brain injury for whatever reason – car wreck, drug use, et cetera."

"Okay, SEAL or not, I'm a little freaked out," Steve conceded.

"Gattaca." Danny said grimly.

"What?"

"At the risk of referencing the Discovery Channel for the third time in as many minutes, that storyline is a lot more than pure Doctor Who, babe. We're talking cloned humans, designer babies – Gattaca. Maybe that's what the perp' who did this was fomenting about? Human male skeleton with female organs and monkey brain…"

"Gattaca is a sci-fi movie, Danny," Steve pointed out with an eye roll.

"You tell him or me?" Danny asked Charlie with no discernible humour.

"Sorry, Steve," Charlie shrugged. "Gattaca is now…it has been for a few years. The birth of the first test tube baby was great for the infertile husband and wife but the Law of Unintended Consequences meant it turned children into just one more consumer product, and if you want to stay marketable and commercially golden like McDonalds and Denny's what do you need to do?"

"You keep reinventing yourself, babe," Danny informed Steve wryly, "a steady path of 'new and improved'."

"Such as?" Steve folded his arms sceptically.

"Take your pick," Charlie shrugged. "Sex selection is available for only a little more than Danny's rent for that rattrap hovel he lived in during his first eighteen months here. Then there came saviour siblings. The first and most famous case was in 2001 when a couple had fertility treatment to create a child who was genetically able to save the older one from Diamond-Blackfan Anaemia. Now it's commonplace."

"Well…it's hard to hate on that…" Steve pointed out.

"Steve, we're not hating. But our point is that couple had fertility treatment that produced a good half-dozen healthy embryos – not eggs and sperm, but fertilised embryos – living creatures. There was nothing defective about them, but those nascent babies not lucky enough to match big brother got tossed in the trashcan with as little thought as if tossing last night's Pad Thai." Danny pointed out. "And there's always something new on the market. How about HMGA2."

"Aitch-Em-Gee-Ay-Two?" Steve repeated.

"It's a key gene in determining an individual's height." Danny waved a hand up and down Steve's long frame. "If you have a particular version, a la a certain Gigantor SuperSEAL, you get a quarter-inch extra height per foot of vertical growth. If not…welcome to Williams World."

"It's about how the media – newspapers, TV, the internet – portray these kinds of discoveries, Steve." Charlie put in, seeing that Steve still wasn't getting it. "The news media didn't report that 'scientists have discovered that one type of the HMGA2 gene will produce a quarter-inch more height per foot of vertical growth in those individuals born with it', what they reported was that 'people with the right version of the height gene will be taller than those without'."

A dint appeared between Steve's eyebrows and Charlie saw the metaphorical above-head light-bulb flicker as Steve conceded, "When the word 'right' is used about something the subtext is 'good' and 'best' and 'advantageous' so therefore 'right version' carries the implication is that something else is 'wrong' and 'bad' and 'worse' and… defective'."

Danny gave a sharp nod, "Think about it Steve, what if fertility treatment had been available in the 1970s? Mr and Mrs Williams only want and can only afford to have one son. Embryo A has the right version of HMGA2 for up-where-the-air-is-rare growth spurts during puberty to reach your level of oxygen deprived tallness. Embryo B will be short and scrappy his entire life. Which son would my parents have now, do you reckon and which one would have been dumped in the lab trashcan with the cold coffee and stale Danish?"

Steve's face when through constipated angst and aneurysm to…'nauseated epiphany' Danny decided to christen it.

"And now scientists have determined the key genes in sexuality," Charlie said grimly, "as a direct result of helping transgender people surgically and psychologically integrate in the 'right' sex body."

"Seriously?" Steve asked.

"Seriously…unfortunately ideologues can't have their cake and eat it," Charlie shrugged, "If you accept transgender as a neuro-sexual-pathology, a genetic in utero defect that can be alleviated but at great expense and suffering – and both scientists and the public have accepted that, then you automatically start looking for a way to screen for the problem prenatally and either fix it or discard the defective embryos. And transgender is simply a form of non-heterosexuality, which means that all other types of non-heterosexuality have to be accepted to be a neuro-sexual-pathological genetic defect, and not simply a variation of normal neuro-sexual-pathology. Believe me when I say that the first fertility researcher who finds a way to guarantee a heterosexual foetal brain – nothing but straight babies straight down the line - will be the world's first trillionaire if he or she is smart enough to head for the Patent Office and not the Nobel Prize Committee."

Danny cleared his throat, "Look babe, under normal circumstances I would say that we are obviously dealing with a mind that takes profoundly sicko and transcends it, but in 2011 a bonkers 62-year-old single white Englishwoman used a Danish sperm donor and an Indian subcontinent woman egg donor to produce her ultimate bay-bee accessory because she wanted honey-ringlet hair and that beautiful glowing golden skin-tone that only mulattoes achieve without spending all summer on a sunbed. That poor, poor kid is growing up with two biological parents who lived on different continental shelves from each other – ignoring the whack job raising him, his real mommy and daddy's most recent common ancestors who lived in close enough proximity to do the horizontal Lambada and produce him was in the Middle East six thousand years ago. Therefore our sicko may be mentally deranged to the nth degree, but he has a valid point, no matter how inappropriately expressed it is – we have been bitch-slapping Mama Nature with our – 'ooh look at the kiddie I can cook up' one-finger salute for thirty years - and the ultimate Mean Mother is going to start punching us back real soon."

(end)

The above has a bit of everything – wit, banter, humour, pathos, real science and How Men Really Do Feelings – it's even got plausible case fic and name-checks sci-fi greats in there. You also get social commentary, political opinion and religious/cultural philosophy for your dime. You also get to show off whomever you choose to be the boffin with some real complex characterisation – and you can amend that to whatever show you are writing for.

Language

As is probably obvious, this timeline has been written in British English, not American English or Canadian English or Australian English.

Ninety percent of the time, this isn't a problem, but just occasionally it all comes to a juddering halt. I'll give you my classic reason why:

In British English, kerb is a noun – it is the edge of a sidewalk; by the kerbside, the kerbstone chipped, he tripped over the kerb edge.

To curb is a verb – I managed to curb my anger at her patronising tone; I curbed my desire for just one more chocolate biscuit.

Kerb and curb mean entirely different things. In American English, the one word, 'curb' is used for both, so, when I read a story on Fan fiction Net or AO3 or Live Journal, I get "thrown out" of the story the instant my eyes hit 'curb' because my brain knows that it is the wrong word – like except instead of accept or planets instead of planes or plants. My brain then has to mentally reinsert the meaning that the author is trying to convey.

That is why I have tried in the timeline as far as possible to use terms that can be easily understood and, if you want to, translate the timeline into other languages without having any bizarre translation issues.

I'm not about being prescriptive with any words, but my personal plea is – if you're faced with curb, can you curb your automatic use of the word and pick something else, especially if you are talking about a kerb. The sidewalk, the blacktop, in the gutter…anything other than curb for kerb!

The same applies to other terms as well.

Disinterested means to be dispassionate, impartial neutral. Uninterested means to be uncaring, cruel; heartless. 'Mara's attitude to the case was disinterested' is good. 'Nathan Wuronos' attitude to the case was uninterested' is bad. So instead of dis or un what about using Nathan's attitude to the case was dispassionate/neutral/impartial instead, or ''Duke knew Vince did not realise he was coming across as uncaring/cruel/heartless' rather than uninterested.

Ambiguity is not your friend, especially when your readers come from many countries where English may not even be in the top five native languages. I'm sure everyone has other examples like divers and diverse or they're (they are), there (place) and their (belonging to), or we're (we are) where (place) and were (past event). If at all possible, rewrite the sentence to use an easier, more widely understood word. Even a really good story can be ruined by being littered with words that are correct but ambiguous or contradictory. From the list below, just as one example, to diffuse a bomb would be very, very bad. To defuse a bomb would be very, very good.

Unbeknownst to him (unknown to him)

Hitherto known as (previously known as)

Hence it was decided (and so then it was decided/so at that point it was)

(I like hence, whence and thence – they are all one word instead of having to use three or four but they are increasingly being discarded, at least in the appalling education 'system' of Britain)

My sisters' monies (all of my sisters had a portion of money each)

My sister's money (my sister had money)

Septuagenarian (in her seventies)

Pulchritude (curvaceous and plump – voluptuous)

Voluptuary (promiscuous, immoral) versus:

Voluptuous (hourglass figure, plump)

Bosom (man – area of chest between nipples; woman – breasts)

Bo'sun (also Bo's'n, Bos'n and bosun – shortened form of Boatswain) is the Warrant officer on a warship and a petty officer on a merchant ship – synonymous with senior deckhand.

Defuse (deescalate, prevent an explosion literally or emotionally, calm, soothe)

Diffuse (spread widely, disseminate, especially in the context of perfume or other gaseous substance or a political/religious/philosophical ideology)

Discreet (tactful, diplomatic, subtle, efficiently handled without fuss, aplomb)

Discrete (specific, focussed, individual, exiting in its own right)

Grenade (small bomb)

Grenada (tropical island)

Grenadine (alcoholic drink)

Grenadier (type of soldier)

Great (impressive, wonderful, excellent)

Great (huge, massive, mountainous)

Grate (sewer cover, manhole)

Grate (rub against antagonistically)

Grade (level, inclination, state of – high grade gemstones, low grade fever)

Drunk (state of inebriation, person who is inebriated – may be one off occurrence or rare)

Drunken (state of inebriation, state of being inebriated – may be one off occurrence or rarity)

Drunkard (habitually inebriated)

Inebriated (drunk)

Intoxicated (high)

Lead (leed – to take the forward position, to lead change, or lead the way)

Lead (led – an element on the Periodic Table, very dangerous neurotoxin)

Led (past tense of Lead (leed) – he led the way, we were led)

Loose (not tight, free)

Lose (misplace, mislay, be unable to find)

Weary (tired, exhausted)

Wary (cautious, suspicious)

While (simultaneously, at the same time as something else)

Whilst (in comparison or contrast to something else)

Advise (to actively give someone your opinion of their choice/decision)

Advice (an opinion about something that is available but is passive)

Stimulation (provoke to action, activate, goad to heightened state)

Simulation (staged visual example of an inanimate object or event/occurrence)

Simulacrum (non-alive image or object or form closely resembling/identical to but not an original living being or plant – Jewish 'golem')

Simultaneous (happening together with, in unison or chorus, at the same time as)

Similitude (similarity to, resemblance to)

Approbation (approval, praise, complimentary)

Opprobrium (disapproval, scolding, uncomplimentary)

Compliment (unsolicited praise about something)

Complement (something that helps, supports)

Psychic (Sigh-kick)

Physic (Fizz-ick)

Physics (Fizz-ix)

Physically (Fizzy-Callie)

Psychically (Sigh-kick-lee)

Weather (what the atmosphere is doing, e.g., raining)

Whether (if something is feasible – it depends on whether the ship can dock)

Wether (male sheep (ram) specialist livestock term a farmer character would know but others would not unless they were well-read).

Obviously you notice the similarities.

Use chest/breasts (or boobs) instead of bosom and Warrant Officer, Petty Officer or Senior Deckhand instead of Bosun so you don't have – the 'drunken bosun clutched me to his bosom'.

Personally, I was always taught that part of being a good writer is that slang is lazy and what may be slang in your part of the world isn't elsewhere. Utter the words, 'I could murder a fag' in Britain and you are explaining that you are desperate for a cigarette; utter those words in America and you are making a homophobic hate speech. In Britain 'not a dickie bird' is a slang phrase meaning you haven't heard about or have no information regarding the question/subject/event – this phrase doesn't exist in the USA so if someone asked you, 'Have you heard anything about the job?' and you reply, 'Not a dickie bird' they will have no clue what you mean.

I was also always taught that 'swear'/'foul' words aren't edgy, or cool just a sign of stupidity and that the person has nothing to say worth listening to and nothing to write worth reading. It is always best to use certain words (if you have to use them at all, really) with 'sparing effectiveness' rather than idle tediousness – the more offensive words I read in one story, the lazier it makes the writer seem – I work long hours in a job where I hear verbal filth being whined and screamed and tantrumed nearly every day – why on earth would I want to spend my leisure time having my eyes battered with the same verbal ugliness in textual form?

Your readers may feel the same way, so it's always better for a woman to have a chest instead of boobs or tits or a rack (not a wrack) or if you must, use a euphemism like 'at least a DD cleavage'. Likewise a man should have a groin or if you must balls, but crotch is too easily mixed up with crutch and simply sounds vulgar.

Remember that you are 'speaking' as the character –Danny Williams, father of a daughter, would probably think/say/visually admire a 'stacked' woman or her great rack, but would not use a vulgarity like tits and he would never, ever use that obscenity "cunt" for the female vagina or genitals – it is a grossly offensive word and I stop reading immediately and delete any author that uses it unless they have a very, very good reason for doing so.

A woman is more likely to 'admire a guy's package' or 'lust after the buns of steel' than she is to say words like 'crotch' or 'dick' – or think them. As with the example above, many people don't even think in those words or similarly offensive ones, so you should maintain your character's mental "integrity" if you want their character to stay "real" to the reader or viewer.

And of course, your character might be an alien. In Babylon 5, Londo Molinari's Centauri ideal female were tall, curvy women – who were completely bald bar scalp-lock ponytails and who had some nice flexible tentacles (the Centauri produced tentacles from a special frontal pouch in their upper abdomen/human midriff area). On the same show, G'Kar and the Narn were a reptilian race but genetic compatible with mammalian humans and there were instances of mutual sexual interest between the two species

This is not the appropriate place to discuss the sociological history of reptile/tentacle porn, but you get the idea that beauty – and hotness in the sexually attractive sense – really is in the eye of the beholder. Several years ago when my weight ballooned due to medication and I was really fed up on holiday – in Hawaii no less – I was thoroughly cheered up when a Tongan explained that in Polynesia, largeness is viewed as healthy (scientifically true, slightly 'overweight' people are healthiest, mainly because BMI is junk science and should be ignored) and wealthy (sadly, if only) and therefore only the King of Tonga would have been allowed to marry me. Queen of Tonga, yeah, I could do that.

From a science research viewpoint I found it both very telling and very sad that in the (then) few years they'd had satellite TV reception in Polynesia from the U.S. mainland, the incidence of eating disorders and extreme dieting in young Polynesian women and then younger Polynesian men had increased by a factor of 500% - before 1997 bulimia and anorexia and 'dieting' were unknown in their culture – and they were much better off for it. That snippet was also useful to make me realise that very few cultures are really homogenous – Hawaii may be a US State but its culture is Polynesian, like Alaska is Canadian.

Moving on to the other words - Technically if a person is under the influence of a lot of alcohol he or she is inebriated. If he or she is under the influence of legal or illegal drugs like morphine or cocaine they are intoxicated. Drink is to do with inebriate – foodstuffs in liquid form (drinks) (foodstuffs in solid form is 'ingest'). Drugs are to do with chemicals usually in non-liquid solids (powder) or gas, toxins, i.e., toxic. It is much easier to write drunk as a skunk or stoned like a rock or high as a kite than spend five minutes trying to work out the nomenclature.

I lose my car keys and the hot like fire guy's phone number from the bar, but I run when I realise the bull is loose from its field. The waistband of my skirt was loose causing me to lose my dignity when it slid down.

Joey robbed the jewellery store, while Tom kept a look out.

Whilst Joey had the looks, Tom had the brains.

Actually if in doubt about while versus whilst, just mentally put 'mean' in front of them and see if it looks right:

Joey robbed the jewellery store; meanwhile Tom kept a look out.

Meanwhilst Joey had the looks, Tom had the brains.

For advise and advice, it is all about action or inaction:

I would advise you…is active or it is happening/being said now.

He didn't take my advice is passive; it is past or inactive.

The 's' group words listed above make my brain hurt to be honest, especially one I haven't listed: 'similarly' – too many 'i' and 'l' combos in close proximity. And yes, I did once read a story (not in the Haven fandom) which included the line: 'he simulated her to punting organism'. A punt is a small boat that you stand in the back of and pole across a river – a miniature version of the Venetian gondolas, so I'm quite sure the writer meant stimulated to panting organism.

Repeat after me: I am the master of my spellchecker, not its slave.

Of course, it all depends on what you want to or are writing about, which can lead us into some very dubious areas that I won't go into here. During an argument at a computer animation class about what is a simulation versus a simulacrum, a definite acquaintance of mine insisted that Rule 34 (If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions) applied to anime (cartoons) and since these were on computer, they were simulations even though the human characters would technically be simulacrum (the word is both singular and plural). The idea of anyone bothering with cartoon porn when there is live action seemed redundant to me, until he went YouTube and brought up this anime clip of a law-of-physics-defying-breasts female warrioress flaked out asleep on a riverbank presumably after wiping out an Orc horde when this fish man-monster pops up and uses its tongue to…well, you get the idea.

To be honest, I would strongly urge using phrases like, 'the coffee activated his sleepy senses' or 'the murder scene was a staged tableau of a…' and so on rather than stimulate or simulate. And verisimilitude is faked similarity – during the famous scene in When Harry Met Sally, Meg Ryan's actions were the verisimilitude of an orgasm.

Compliment and complement are also best avoided: Joe smiled as he overheard his fickle boss compliment his dear wife and pretended he hadn't heard as his boss came up to him and admiringly said, 'she really is a complement to you Joe.'

You can send a complement of US Navy SEALs to relieve a base under attack, and you can send a compliment on his leadership with the complement of SEALs to the base commander. Does your head hurt yet?

Then we get to the silent 'P' words.

As already noted, Psychic is to 'impossibly know' about contemporary events that you could not possible have seen, heard, read about or watched remotely.

Not to be confused with ESP (extra-sensory perception) which is the ability to see colours, hear sounds, taste substances, smell scents and feel tactile input that are beyond the range of human senses (like being able to see a 'ghost' because it is ultraviolet). Also not to be confused with precognition which is the ability to 'impossibly know' about future events, nor clairvoyance, which is the ability to interact with dead 'people'.

Physic is an archaic term for medicine, or tonic – which is why your spellchecker won't spot it as an error. Depending on the type of story you are writing, it may be entirely appropriate:

Duke stared in disbelief. How was this his life? He was in Haven in 2014 and not ten feet away an axe swinging dwarf straight out of Lord of the Rings was yelling at Dwight, like a sword-and-sandals B-movie knock-off: ''Tis a grievous plague he has, and I have no physic for it!'

Nathan beamed as Dwight brought him a huge latte as if his friend had psychically known how much he needed it.

Audrey's rage/charisma was so strong it was like a physical blow/physical presence in the room itself.

These are important because a good story can be ruined if it is has a lot of unnecessary errors and computer spellcheckers should be used with caution. I read a story on AO3, a Hawaii 5-0 AU that included the sentence:

'The planets hosed with unicorn pop,' instead of 'the plants hosed with unicorn poop.'

Then this one:

'Jason, while a bit weary of the rather large walrus', instead of 'Jason, while a bit wary of the large warhorse…'

And this:

'Your gun hoe antics' (should have been gung-ho antics)

And of course, with some shows, like Hawaii 5-0, Leverage, Grimm, or Star Trek or Stargate or Warehouse 13, you have to fit other languages or technobabble, or other languages and technobabble into the mix as well. How about:

Hokeo (Hawaiian – verb, meaning to love something or someone in secret, like, Malasadas were Steve's hidden vice – he was totally hokeo)

Hokum (bunk, flimflam, so-bad-its-good, B-movie cheesiness, etc.)

There are things like 'bug out' – military slang for fleeing a site fast – 'we bugged out of the –Stan with the terrorists on our heels'.

To 'book out' means to borrow a book, laptop, or other item from an organisation or person – Had I booked out the projector from the library for my presentation?

And what about hoa, hoar and whore? 'Hoa' is a Hawaiian word for a concept that means 'brother soul'. The idea is the 'Platonic Spouse', the warrior companion who is always loyal, always stalwart, greatly respected, deeply loved, but not in any sexual context or subtext.

Hoar means 'silver-white colour', particularly in reference to anything that is aged or antique – Audrey looked at the man with his wizened face and hoary hair.

Whore of course (and the slang 'ho') is a particularly offensive word for prostitute. Come on, does anyone really believe that any six year old girl anywhere any when in any culture ever sat there and said: when I grow up I don't want to be a fairy princess or a ballerina, I want to sell my body for sex six times a night? Prostitution may be a necessity but it is never a choice…getting those sorts of words right is fairly important.

I'm sure everyone has many of their own examples on this, but I just thought it worth mentioning, in the hope that certain word choices would be curbed and kicked to the kerb.

© All applicable parts 2014

The Cat's Whiskers