nightdog_barks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nightdog_barks) wrote2013-12-10 11:58 am
nightdog_barks) wrote2013-12-10 11:58 am
Tuesday and A Meme
So it is still just about freezing. The high temp today is supposed to be 36 (2.2 Celsius), so maybe some of this ridiculous ice will start to/keep melting. I will now pause while my Canadian friends LAUGH AND LAUGH AT ME for thinking 2.2 C is "cold." :D
I'm still writing, both on Alaska II and on a Christmas Eve story.
The meme, which I saw on Tumblr:
Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any fanfic I’ve written, and stick that selection in a comment. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what’s going on in the character’s heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.
If anyone would like to give it a try, go for it and I'll do my best. *g*
I'm still writing, both on Alaska II and on a Christmas Eve story.
The meme, which I saw on Tumblr:
Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any fanfic I’ve written, and stick that selection in a comment. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what’s going on in the character’s heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.
If anyone would like to give it a try, go for it and I'll do my best. *g*
no subject
(rubs hands) It's hard to pick just one of your wonderful stories but here goes:
"Do you know where he is?"
"No," Wilson says. "And I don't want to know."
"But if you did know, you'd tell the cops, right?"
Wilson sighs and puts down his pen. Taub doesn't move from his position by the open door.
"We've been through this before," Wilson says.
"You know ... some of his stuff disappeared. From his office."
"Yes," Wilson says. "I heard." House's office is, of course, empty these days. Every day. Word has it Foreman will be occupying it soon.
"His ball," Taub says. "His spare cane. His -- "
"And you're telling me this because ... "
"No reason," Taub says. He shrugs, a quick up-and-down followed by a smile. "I'll just be ... getting back now."
Wilson waits a long time before he slides open his own top desk drawer. A chicken feather, lipstick-red, drifts free. Wilson watches it settle to the floor.
Six months go by. A year.
Wilson gets an engraved card in the mail, a simple announcement hidden beneath a square of tissue paper. On the back a handwritten note --
There are Jews in Minneapolis!
Wilson sets the card aside and goes online to order a wedding present. For the happy couple, he types. Best wishes, Dr. James Wilson. He gazes at the glowing screen for a long moment, then presses Submit.
He wonders if he'll ever find out what happened to House. If one day he'll receive another card in the mail, a picture postcard from somewhere far away, with no name or message, but only Wilson's address, scrawled in that familiar right hand.
Of course he won't.
That shit only happens in the movies.
no subject
Okay, so we're off ...
"Do you know where he is?"
"No," Wilson says. "And I don't want to know."
This story was written at a really sad time -- right after the season finale of S6, "Moving On," where House crashed his car into Cuddy's home and incidentally broke Wilson's wrist. I was trying to capture how Wilson might feel in those days immediately following, when things had calmed down but everyone was still walking on eggshells, so to speak. Personally I think my writing style here reminds me of another fic of mine, Kissing the Unicorn -- spare and direct, lots of description of what's actually happening in the narrative.
"But if you did know, you'd tell the cops, right?"
Wilson sighs and puts down his pen. Taub doesn't move from his position by the open door.
"We've been through this before," Wilson says.
And you know they have. All of them have probably been interviewed, by the police, by PPTH Human Resources, maybe even by reporters. And for sure they've all talked to each other.
"You know ... some of his stuff disappeared. From his office."
"Yes," Wilson says. "I heard." House's office is, of course, empty these days. Every day. Word has it Foreman will be occupying it soon.
A guess on my part about Foreman, but seriously, who else could they give it to? Unless TPTB brought in someone new.
"His ball," Taub says. "His spare cane. His -- "
"And you're telling me this because ... "
"No reason," Taub says. He shrugs, a quick up-and-down followed by a smile. "I'll just be ... getting back now."
I think Taub feels the need to connect here. He suspects Wilson knows more than he's telling, and he wants to talk, but obviously it's very difficult.
Wilson waits a long time before he slides open his own top desk drawer. A chicken feather, lipstick-red, drifts free. Wilson watches it settle to the floor.
A callback to the episode where House and Wilson were competing at hiding live chickens in the hospital. Also, in a (very) small way, a callback to my old story A Button, A Feather, A Grain of Sand. ;-D
Six months go by. A year.
Wilson gets an engraved card in the mail, a simple announcement hidden beneath a square of tissue paper. On the back a handwritten note --
There are Jews in Minneapolis!
Heh. I know nobody got this, but this a tiny tip of the hat to an old Northern Exposure episode, where Joel basically thinks of himself as the only Jew in Alaska, and when he hears about some other Jews, one of whom is named Trevor (or Nigel, I can't remember which), exclaims "There are no Jews named Trevor!" Therefore Wilson's line to Cuddy earlier in the fic, when he says "There are no Jews in Minneapolis," and Cuddy triumphantly replies there are. SO. A really long way to go for an explanation, I know, but there it is. Northern Exposure. :D
Wilson sets the card aside and goes online to order a wedding present. For the happy couple, he types. Best wishes, Dr. James Wilson. He gazes at the glowing screen for a long moment, then presses Submit.
I think it's a mark of Wilson's lingering sadness here that he writes something so generic and impersonal. :-(
He wonders if he'll ever find out what happened to House. If one day he'll receive another card in the mail, a picture postcard from somewhere far away, with no name or message, but only Wilson's address, scrawled in that familiar right hand.
Obvious reference to The Shawshank Redemption, when Tim Robbins sends the blank postcard to Morgan Freeman -- the front of the card shows the ocean and beach at Zihuatanajo, Mexico, so Freeman will know where to find him.
Of course he won't.
That shit only happens in the movies.
As I said above. *g* This isn't a movie for Wilson, and all too often life doesn't have happy endings. At the time I wrote this, nobody knew they'd ride off into the sunset together at the end of the series. There are still a lot of stories to be told about this period -- how House and Wilson lived without each other. :-)
no subject
I think it's a mark of Wilson's lingering sadness here that he writes something so generic and impersonal. :-(
Yep, this. The whole fic has these little touches, conveying sadness directly or indirectly, and the feather is one of them, too, the idea of lifeless remnants of the past.
And oh, I did not recognize the Shawshank reference at the time. That's great, because obviously Moving On had it from the other side of the picture, and it doesn't happen like the movie for House either, who goes back and to prison afterwards. (Which you didn't really know when writing this? In any case, that's a meta level of connection that I like in retrospect.)
no subject
Wilson is very sad. I wish the show had shown that SOMETHING happened with him during that lost year, rather than pretend he doesn't exist unless House is there.