YMMV / The New Retcons

• Accidental Aesop: "Make sure adopted children or those in blended families have access to medical history of their biological parents": Claire didn’t know that she was at risk of mental illness along with her biological sisters until she found them and Michael didn’t know that his biological father’s family had a history of learning and cognitive disabilities until Robin was diagnosed with autism and he learned the truth about his father.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Elly's an unhinged woman with a martyr complex that should not have raised kids. But she didn't deserve to get murdered.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Elly's attitude toward her kids and grandkids' problems. Her problems, however....
  • John is strangely unbothered by Elly’s death, only caring about the fact that she can’t cook his favorite unhealthy foods anymore. It’s rather telling that Frank Day, who hadn’t spoken to Elly in decades has a more appropriate reaction to her death! But at the funeral itself, it becomes clear why: he’s cheating on her with Kortney.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Not Robin, who's eventually diagnosed as autistic, or even Elly, who was eventually diagnosed with being under a fugue state, but Anthony. Word Of God is that he has undiagnosed Asperger's-undiagnosed because his obsession with numbers suited Gavin's needs just fine.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Fiona, of all people.
  • Anthony after his Character Development.
• It Was His Sled: Elly Patterson is murdered. A well known plot point now, a huge plot twist back when the story was written.
• Moral Event Horizon: That John crossed it everyone can agree on. When is a more debatable question, but there are three strong candidates: 1)When he refused to seek help for an increasingly unhinged Elly, 2) when he attacked Elly upon finding out she has an illegitimate daughter, and point blank revealing that Michael's not his biological son, and 3) getting involved with Kortney (who in the comic had stolen from Elly's bookstore and threatened to beat up April over it), bringing her to Elly's funeral, and introducing her as his fiancee. For what it's worth, a few characters find his MEH to be finding that Elly was abusing and starving Edgar hilarious.
  • Elly retroactively crossed it when Elizabeth and Anthony figure out she was behind Elizabeth's Attempted Rape to invoke the Rescue Romance trope on Anthony. Funny thing was, though, Elizabeth thought it was Anthony's MEH until she realized Elly set it up.
• Nightmare Fuel: Imagine living in the same neighborhood as an increasingly unhinged Elly and unable to do anything about it cause the law won't do anything about it until she's an actual threat.
  • The scene where Elly tried to sew on Butterscotch.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: One of the things this fanfic does well is rescues a lot of characters from the Scrappy pile, and turns them into sympathetic characters, Anthony being the biggest one.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Jim's death.
  • Claire tried to reach out to Elly but was rebuked with a hiss that Elly tried for years to clean Claire's dirt off her. The saddest part is for a brief moment Elly looked surprised and happy that her lost daughter found her, even whispering 'my baby girl'...and then John punched her, proving all her fears about being rejected because she was 'dirty' right.
  • Finding out that it's possible Deanna's miscarriages were an effect of being born in Millborough, and Elizabeth wondering if she could bear another healthy child...which only reminds her that she and Anthony have not had a child together. Likewise, Anthony wonders if the only reason their kids are healthy is because they each had a parent not from Millborough.
  • Claire's mother's death and her reaction.
  • Elizabeth and Anthony sharing a bed for the first time since James's birth, and Anthony asking her out on a date.
  • Anthony opening up about his mother while getting ready for Elly’s funeral. It’s made worse when he learns that she was murdered by his father and covered up for decades.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Elizabeth running out in a fit when her new husband tears into her for her sexual past on their wedding night? Understandable. Sleeping with her ex, unprotected, on the same night? Pushing it.
• The Woobie: Franciose. First, her mother leaves (although Therese does love her and wants to spend more time with her in the future) and her father remarries. Then her stepmother Took A Level In Jerk Ass during her pregnancy, such as saying “It’s Anthony’s and my first child together” with the kid in earshot, resulting in her having a recurring nightmare of being abandoned at an orphanage. The only person who cares is April, her teenage sister in law. And then after the baby is born and it’s revealed that Anthony isn’t the father, her father and stepmother’s marriage nearly breaks up. Not to mention that she’s becoming The Unfavorite of the Patterson grandchildren for not being a biological child, and the only people who seem to care about her is April and Meredith.