I'm not sure we need to have Vanessa as an event-milestone. In canon it makes sense — she has to be introduced to the audience somehow, and the easiest way to do it is to let us watch her be introduced to Fisk. We don't need that though; our audience already knows Vanessa, so she can just... be there.
That said, we do have options:
if her arrival changes the lives of our characters significantly, then it makes sense to have Fisk meet her just now.
This is kind of where canon went - Fisk fell in love, and his empire started to fall apart. Or so Leland says. Another function Vanessa had in c. was to just - humanize Fisk. Let him have a life, some screentime beyond being a Bond villain. But neither of those work for us, I don't think.
So, does her arrival change things? I don't think it would re: Fisk/Weasley, not enough for our audience to care. But it might if we get creative, if she's not just an art gallery worker but someone whose presence brings changes whereever they go, like, I don't know, a heiress with her own 100 slaves or something.
Not sure I want to go there, though. I think we should either:
have Vanessa be there from the start
have Fisk change a little or do something stupid and James comment that he "met someone" (from there we can trickle Vanessa's presence in more and more if we want)
turn this mile-stone into Vanessa visiting, Matt meeting her for the first time or some such. Introduce Vanessa to the fic, and maybe to Matt's life, but she was already there in Fisk's.
PLOT - answer 3 (Vanessa)
Vanessa
I'm not sure we need to have Vanessa as an event-milestone. In canon it makes sense — she has to be introduced to the audience somehow, and the easiest way to do it is to let us watch her be introduced to Fisk. We don't need that though; our audience already knows Vanessa, so she can just... be there.
That said, we do have options:
This is kind of where canon went - Fisk fell in love, and his empire started to fall apart. Or so Leland says. Another function Vanessa had in c. was to just - humanize Fisk. Let him have a life, some screentime beyond being a Bond villain. But neither of those work for us, I don't think.
So, does her arrival change things? I don't think it would re: Fisk/Weasley, not enough for our audience to care. But it might if we get creative, if she's not just an art gallery worker but someone whose presence brings changes whereever they go, like, I don't know, a heiress with her own 100 slaves or something.
Not sure I want to go there, though. I think we should either:
have Vanessa be there from the start
have Fisk change a little or do something stupid and James comment that he "met someone" (from there we can trickle Vanessa's presence in more and more if we want)
turn this mile-stone into Vanessa visiting, Matt meeting her for the first time or some such. Introduce Vanessa to the fic, and maybe to Matt's life, but she was already there in Fisk's.