The Fic Index
Mar. 31st, 2007 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
namasteWhen I first started writing House fanfiction, I never expected I’d write that much. I thought I had one story in me. So I never thought about indexing the fic to make it easier to find.
Guess I was wrong.
And while I’ve had all my fic on my LJ site, people have had to seek and scan to find it. So now, finally, here’s a organized, one-stop-shop list.
I’m going to be boring and just list it in chronological order.
Tracking Time: This was the one that started it all, the one that began with me wondering how House and Wilson met. And when I couldn’t find a fic that covered that area that I liked, I decided to write it myself. From there, it just kind of took on a life of its own. I’m splitting the links up by chapters.
The Beginning, 1997
1998
1999
2000
April 2001
October 2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
After finishing “Tracking Time,” I discovered I missed writing. So I went for it again. The Java Jive echoes a lot of the style and themes of “TT,” mostly because I was still getting used to this whole fanfic writing vibe. But mostly I decided to deal in fic with how Wilson ended up getting the office next to House.
Balance was the first fic I did playing with Wilson’s history, more than House, but played up a theme I’ve used often: on House and Wilson being as close as brothers.
Declarations of Independence House pays a price for everything he does, and always has. This is a fic that grew out of a discussion I had with a friend who has CP, and our differing attitudes toward winter. I’m a skier and I love it. He sees winter as the time when he falls more, when he has to be careful about ice, when he’s sometimes afraid to leave the house because there’s snow in the driveway. I put both attitudes together in a pre and post-infarction House.
Come True had its first line and even its format come to me just as I was falling asleep. I then couldn’t get to sleep until I got up, turned on the computer and wrote it down. It was my first time writing Cuddy’s POV -- the first time writing a character study of anyone other than House or Wilson.
Eight Days, Eight Months began solely because I wondered about the crucifix that Stacy wore -- where it came from and why she wasn’t wearing it during the flashback scenes in “Three Stories.” Those thoughts wouldn’t leave, and then I got the idea of following House and Stacy’s breakup with glimpses at one day in each of the months between the infarction and her departure. This was one of the most plotted out fics I did, since I had to make sure I had eight months worth of concepts (otherwise it might have been called “Six Days, Six Months”). Links, again, are to the individual chapters.
August
September
October
November
December
January
February
March
The Masterpiece Collection came out of the first writing workshop challenge over at The Clinic. It was also written after the January chapter of “Eight Days,” giving me something of a mental palette cleanser. I intentionally gave myself 45 minutes to write, and 30 minutes to edit, so I’d have something completely different from the heavily plotted “Eight Days.”
Curiosity was another clinic kickstarter exercise, and marked the first time I’d tried to write from Cameron’s POV (though with some Chase focus in the middle of it) and the first time I played with writing in the present tense.
Family Housing was the first time I did a lot of backstory on House’s childhood. I’d played with it previously, but this time John and Blythe were the focus. It was also the first long fic I put up unbetaed, one that, again, seemed to come to me with the concept and language fully formed.
Cross Road Blues I do a lot of driving for work, which I suppose is a good thing for my brain, since the creative side likes to roam while I’m stuck in a car. This one came to me during a four-hour drive between Chicago and Detroit, with one of the key phrases actually occurring to me while stuck in traffic. It looks at House’s relationship with music, and how music still crosses over into his day-to-day life.
About Time Poor Foreman. He doesn’t get much fic love. I’d been wanting to do something with a Foreman focus for a while, and used this clinic kickstarter to do it, featuring Foreman on a visit home post-Euphoria.
Going Fourth Just for fun, because you know that House knows how to get his hands on the best fireworks.
Comfort Food When did Wilson learn how to cook? And why didn’t House know about it? This is a fic that came about solely because I wanted to write something. I didn’t have a plot in mind, didn’t have a direction. I just started writing and decided to see where it took me.
In The Rip Chase always eluded me until the image of a rip tide came to my mind -- while I was driving. (I told you driving is good for the creative side of my brain.)
Niyamas, or One Night At Wilson’s I never liked drabbles very much. Individually they seemed to just sit there, incomplete. Then the Clinic had a drabble writing challenge, using linked drabbles, and I started to play around with them myself. This one combined yoga philosophy phrases (just the phrases, no downward dogs were harmed in the writing of this or its partner fic) along with a House and Wilson friendship fic.
Yamas, or One Day At The Hospital The companion piece. The Yamas, by the way, would be the “thou shalt nots” of yoga philosophy’s ten commandments, the Niyamas would be “thou shalt.”
Morphine The previous drabbles had given me up to 200 words to work with. For “Morphine,” I wanted to challenge myself to actually do less than 100, and combined that with fun facts about morphine in a series dealing with House’s relationship with the drug.
Six Things Once I got started on drabbles, it was fun to play with them. This one combined a character study of Cuddy -- six things she is not and six things she is -- with a precise 100 word count.
Belongings Tired of drabbles? This one goes back to my tendency to play with House’s backstory, this time looking at his life through what he owns. It all started when I wondered about the “box shaped box” made of wood that we saw in “Clueless.”
Clinic Hours Purely a just-for-fun exercise, using the drabble format to show why it is House hates working in the clinic.
Icarus After the first couple of episodes, I was struck by Wilson’s comparison of House to Icarus (and by extension himself to Daedelus), and by how many people hated Wilson at that point. I sympathized with the guy, and decided to use the fic form to explain my point of view of his point of view on House.
A Towered Citadel Wilson sins, House wants to know why. So first a little sympathy for Wilson in “Icarus,” now a study of why he screws up.
Too Long In The Wasteland First the Clinic had a drabble challenge asking writers to take the first ten or so song titles on the shuffle list of their music player and use those to inspire drabbles. I wasn’t in love with the result -- they OK, but nothing special -- so I used the same titles again for two series, one looking at House and Wilson and their relationship with House’s Vicodin and one dealing with Cuddy and House and called it The Boxing Mirror. Then I decided to go for broke, use the same titles again and this time have three sets looking at Foreman, Chase and Cameron in Strangers Almanac.
Thirty was another of those “because I felt like writing” fics, this one intentionally without dialog, and focusing on House and his Vicodin.
All Is Bright Enough angst already. This one was just to look back a couple of seasons -- House and Wilson in the scenes we saw at the end of “Damned If You Do,” having fun and eating Chinese food.
Belief, Faith, Trust I’ve said that I like backstory, right? Here we go again, using House’s own words to offset times in his life that established his lack of faith in humanity, and finally bringing us back around to whether he trusts Wilson -- or if he’s afraid to trust him.
Dama Inspired by PWCorgigirl’s “A Map of the Body” I decided to use the maid Lady we saw in “Clueless” to examine House from an outsider’s perspective, and at the same time telling us why she was named “Lady” in the first place.
The Guilty Parties Another experiment, this time writing in a workshop format. (The link goes to the first part, but there are links there to the next two parts.) I was interested if it was possible to turn out a coherent fic with input from multiple writers -- less than a round-robin, more than a traditional beta. This was the result. I started with a rough idea for a plot and a case stolen from a New York Times diagnosis story. And with a lot of input, this was the result.
And that brings around to the current (as of writing this index) fic series, “Family, Friends and Other Complications.” More backstory, this time seen solely through the eyes of House’s mother and Wilson from their meeting to -- eventually -- post “Words and Deeds.” The fic is now complete, and all the chapters are linked here. *whew*
When Blythe Met Wilson
When Greg Got Sick
When Greg Went Home
When Stacy Left
When John and Blythe Moved
When Blythe Didn’t Meet Julie
When Days Were Bad
When Greg Got His Department
When Days Were Good
When John Retired
When Greg Went For A Visit
When They Weren’t Together
When John Took Blythe to Paris
When Wilson Lived With House
When Greg Was Shot
When Blythe Met Steve McQueen
When Greg Got Better
When Greg Got Worse
When Greg Called At Christmas
When Greg Apologized
Vacation Planning came about just because I'd recently read "The Beak of the Finch," a book about an ongoing study of Darwin's Finches on one of the Galapagos Islands, and when House mentioned the Galapagos as one of his potential vacation spots in "Fetal Position," I was intrigued enough to string together a series of drabbles on each potential place, and why he didn't go.
The Tolstoy Principle was intended to be a quick snapshot of Chase's feelings about his parents, but the fic fought back and refused to behave. Instead it turned into a three quasi connected ficlets on each of the fellows and their complicated feelings about their own parents and responsibilities -- for good and bad.
So It Goes came about when I noticed a few people doing the "first sentence" meme -- in which you use the first sentence on page 10, 20, 30, etc. to prompt a drabble. I hadn't really been interested in it, because I thought the prompts alone were a little unfocused, then I thought about tying the drabbles to a specific theme, in this case, the entire season. I'd just re-read Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five," and so I started there, covering the first half of the season. Since "Slaughterhouse Five" isn't long enough, I covered the second half in Big Brains, which took its prompts from Vonnegut's "Galapagos."
More POV insanity. While working on "So It Goes," I started thinking about how the characters would have different perspectives on each of the episodes than House had. (I blame the heat during a bike ride. I clearly wasn't thinking things through very clearly.) Regardless, that brought about 100 Seasons with drabbles (hence the "100") from each character's viewpoint throughout the season. Now complete, with 100 Seasons: Cuddy and 100 Seasons: Foreman 100 Seasons: Chase, 100 Seasons: Cameron and 100 Seasons: Wilson.
Because I had so much fun with last year's Fourth of July story, I decided to do it again with Five Fourths. I didn't have much time to work on it because I was in the midst of a drywalling/basement renovation project and also writing the "100 Seasons" fics, but just couldn't resist. This was a glimpse at five different times House saw -- or didn't see -- the fireworks.
Tuesday grew out of a challenge first posted in Housefic_Pens to write about one -- or more -- of the characters the morning after the end of the third season. I got the image of my mind immediately of Chase lying in bed and listening to Cameron in the shower, knowing everything had changed. The title came as I was struggling with the end, and it suddenly hit me that it'd be Tuesday that morning after, and that yielded both the closing line and the title.
Miss was from another Housefic_Pens exercise, this one to write about a box -- where it came from, who it belonged to, etc. I hadn't really planned on writing this, since I'd done my own story following a box back with "Belongings." But while I was visiting my Mom, helping her clean through some of the many things my Dad had refused to throw out over the years, I saw that he'd saved a single copy of the game "Battleship." A blue one. I opened it up, remembered playing it with my siblings ... and a story was born.
It was hot. I wanted to write about House being hot. I had no idea where it would go, but the line "He dreamed he was in Egypt" came out. I wrote a little more. Then I was stuck, not certain if I should write more or not. I posted it as a "gimmee feedback" sample on LJ. We discussed comparing the way House pushed away Stacy and why Wilson stayed. Then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pwcorgigirl mentioned Crandall. And I was off. The Past Is the Present (It's the Future Too) became a comparison of House's relationships with dreams and flashbacks and arguments in the post-infarction time period. It starts here: Chapter One with a link to each of the second chapter from there and so on through all five chapters.
As I was finishing the last chapter of "The Past Is the Present," Michigan lost its opening game of the football season to unranked Appalachian State. As I was out on a bike ride, contemplating the last chapter, I also started hearing Wilson giving House a hard time about the game. That imaginary conversation helped me fine tune their banter for the final chapter of "The Past ..." but I couldn't let it go. So I wrote it up (with an appearance by Cuddy) as Go Blue
Then halfway through Michigan's 39-7 loss to Oregon, I got multiple requests for what happened with Wilson and House's bet after that game. This time, Brenda joined Cuddy in the fun for Hail to the Victors?
I'd originally intended the fic that became Forgiveness to be for the ficwriters anonymous challenge, but it grew too big and too complex (and I needed a beta), so I took the inspiration from the Days of Awesome challenge -- to feature Jewish characters -- and brought in some of Cuddy's issues from her past and her present, then added House to stir up the emotional response.
Disobedience is the story that I did write for ficwriters_anon -- a basic "five things" style that began when I just wrote the word: "Don't," and wondered how many times House had heard that, and yet done it anyway.
The football series continued with Tailgating in which I expanded the House and Wilson bet to give me excuses to revisit the theme a few more times.
With By The Numbers I wanted to start playing with the newbies. I discovered that there full names and specialties were listed on the official House website, and began small, with drabbles from different POVs on what they thought of House's stunt in "97 Seconds."
Also on the official show site, there's a place where you can post questions about the show or characters. Someone asked about Steve McQueen, and the response was that he'd died, because rats don't live for long. That got me wondering about what House's reaction had been. And The Great Escape was born. I'm still shocked by the response that one got.
The football fic continued with an experiement (to be continued on New Year's Day) with College Game Day in which I wrote a "live" fic while House and Wilson watched the Michigan/Michigan State football game. The theme continued with Down The Badger Hole as Cuddy joins the bet.
Through The Woods compared House and Wilson's Thanksgiving day (with an apperance by Cuddy) along with the newbies' experiences on the holiday.
More newbie fic with In The Beginning. I wanted to sort of "introduce" the newbies as they first met House, and used House's speech from the end of "Alone" to frame their individual first impressions. (Also written for the First Impressions challenge from The Clinic.)
Back to football for Bowled Over, which set up the final bet for the season once Michigan gets its bowl game, and opponent. I predict House is going to have a crappy day.
The Thought That Counts began when I read newspaper story about regifting, and one guy's attitude that regifting was a good thing, because it didn't make sense to just see gifts go to waste. All I could think of was that House would be the ultimate regifter, and I could just picture the scene of House giving Wilson the tie that Wilson gave him. The concept sat there for a bit, until I came up with the framing device of Hanukkah, and it just grew from there.
Updated! (Finally)
Every Point Counts wrapped up the fall football series, written "live" while watching UM play Florida on New Year's Day, which was a very interesting exercise -- watching the game while also trying to watch it through House and Wilson's (and Cuddys') POV.
Speaking In Tongues grew out of the scene in "Don't Ever Change" in which House speaks a few words of Hebrew. I started playing with drabbles at that point, looking at how he's picked up languages over the years.
Fear Itself was prompted by a fic of Corgigirl's in which she wrote about House's many scars. I started thinking about how hard it must be to have raised House, whose curiosity is always stronger than his sense of self-preservation.
Another series of sports fics began with March Madness. I was listening to people in the office talking about their March Madness bets, and couldn't resist. Besides, it's fun to write about House and Wilson having fun. That was followed by Sweet Sixteen, Final Four, Changing the Game and Rock Chalk Jayhawk
For the Big Bang fic challenge (write a story of at least 20,000 words) I took a concept I've considered back during "The Guilty Parties," to tell the story through different character POVs, which didn't quite work then, added a twist on using weather as a metaphor that I'd had in mind for almost a year and added the desire to write another casefic to write Time Marches On. The link is to the first chapter, with links from there to the other chapters. It also gave me more of a chance to play with themes of change developed so far through the fourth season of "House."
The Cruelest Month came about from my own desire for winter to finally leave and the weather to warm up, combined with the idea that House would be the type of person to equate spring with potholes, rather than pansies.
White Lies Beneath was a series of ficlets inspired by the "Household Archeology" exercise at Housefic_Meta to write about the items found under the cushions of House's couch. I played with more of the item prompts with a second fic, Texas Hold 'Em which was about House recruiting his poker buddies.
I hadn't intended to write something about "House's Head" until after the conclusion of the story with "Wilson's Heart," but I'd read so many interesting things about the symbolic use of the color red that I couldn't help myself. Red was about various moments from House's life in which the color red played a part, while Scar Tissue took on the aftermath of "Wilson's Heart."
Lord Stanley's Cup was another excuse to play with House and Wilson's continuing sports bets, and also an attempt to try and find a way to write a "happy" fic in the aftermath of "House's Head/Wilson's Heart."
Triple Crown was another sports fic, this one focusing on Big Brown's run for the Triple Crown, and House giving in to sentimentality.
Bursting In Air went with the Fourth of July theme again, this time looking forward to a time when House and Wilson rebuild their friendship with a picnic and fireworks on a quiet beach.
Four Eyes was a flashfic challenge -- to write a complete story in less than 500 words. I'd also been wanting to write something about the first time Wilson saw House in his reading glasses, and this was the perfect excuse.
What You Need was a series of 13 flashfics telling the stories of House's 13 canes -- and House's attitudes toward them over the years. It begins here and each part is linked.
In A Flash was a series of 300 word fics taking a look at the characters other than House and Wilson and how they were impacted by "House's Head" and "Wilson's Heart."
Not a flashfic! Creature Comforts looks at the different places where House had found comfort and refuge throughout his life.
UPDATING AGAIN finally
On Rounds gave me a chance to do another Cuddy character study, looking at why she puts up with House, and giving more of a view into her administrative life. I was especially pleased with the comparison of House after the infarction to the debris left on the side of the road after a crash.
Another sports fics, as House and Wilson rejoined in canon, built around the World Series, Home Plate.
Another House and Wilson friendship piece, written for the challenge to write a story in an hour, and using a thought I'd had for a while about why House would go bowling. Strike Therapy.
For Halloween, I wanted to participate in the "Come As You're Not" fic fest, which asks you to try things you normally wouldn't do, and ended up doing both kid fic and AU in that it supposes that Cuddy kept "Joy." (I knew nothing of the upcoming Rachel storyline.) The result was mostly for laughs, Five Times Cuddy Regretted Letting House Anywhere Near Her Child, thentopaz_eyes said there was a potential for a followup fic, One Time House Didn't Totally Regret Being Left With Cuddy's Child.
Blythe's Story grew out of comments following the episode "Birthmarks" in which people said they didn't know how it was that Blythe could have kept a secret for so long that House's father wasn't John, and also excoriating her for her parenting skills. Since I have a real life connection with that story line that is so intense to the people involved that I could never write it in other ways, I decided to let loose with this. It ended up with 32 chapters (there are links from each chapter), and also drew inspiration from Roddy Doyle's series of short stories "The Deportees" in which he limited himself to 800 word chapters. I used a 1,000 word limit, though I didn't always fit into that size.
Five Bowl Games House and Wilson Missed and One They Didn't was another sports fic, this one set on a New Year's Day of football watching and eating.
Guess I was wrong.
And while I’ve had all my fic on my LJ site, people have had to seek and scan to find it. So now, finally, here’s a organized, one-stop-shop list.
I’m going to be boring and just list it in chronological order.
Tracking Time: This was the one that started it all, the one that began with me wondering how House and Wilson met. And when I couldn’t find a fic that covered that area that I liked, I decided to write it myself. From there, it just kind of took on a life of its own. I’m splitting the links up by chapters.
The Beginning, 1997
1998
1999
2000
April 2001
October 2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
After finishing “Tracking Time,” I discovered I missed writing. So I went for it again. The Java Jive echoes a lot of the style and themes of “TT,” mostly because I was still getting used to this whole fanfic writing vibe. But mostly I decided to deal in fic with how Wilson ended up getting the office next to House.
Balance was the first fic I did playing with Wilson’s history, more than House, but played up a theme I’ve used often: on House and Wilson being as close as brothers.
Declarations of Independence House pays a price for everything he does, and always has. This is a fic that grew out of a discussion I had with a friend who has CP, and our differing attitudes toward winter. I’m a skier and I love it. He sees winter as the time when he falls more, when he has to be careful about ice, when he’s sometimes afraid to leave the house because there’s snow in the driveway. I put both attitudes together in a pre and post-infarction House.
Come True had its first line and even its format come to me just as I was falling asleep. I then couldn’t get to sleep until I got up, turned on the computer and wrote it down. It was my first time writing Cuddy’s POV -- the first time writing a character study of anyone other than House or Wilson.
Eight Days, Eight Months began solely because I wondered about the crucifix that Stacy wore -- where it came from and why she wasn’t wearing it during the flashback scenes in “Three Stories.” Those thoughts wouldn’t leave, and then I got the idea of following House and Stacy’s breakup with glimpses at one day in each of the months between the infarction and her departure. This was one of the most plotted out fics I did, since I had to make sure I had eight months worth of concepts (otherwise it might have been called “Six Days, Six Months”). Links, again, are to the individual chapters.
August
September
October
November
December
January
February
March
The Masterpiece Collection came out of the first writing workshop challenge over at The Clinic. It was also written after the January chapter of “Eight Days,” giving me something of a mental palette cleanser. I intentionally gave myself 45 minutes to write, and 30 minutes to edit, so I’d have something completely different from the heavily plotted “Eight Days.”
Curiosity was another clinic kickstarter exercise, and marked the first time I’d tried to write from Cameron’s POV (though with some Chase focus in the middle of it) and the first time I played with writing in the present tense.
Family Housing was the first time I did a lot of backstory on House’s childhood. I’d played with it previously, but this time John and Blythe were the focus. It was also the first long fic I put up unbetaed, one that, again, seemed to come to me with the concept and language fully formed.
Cross Road Blues I do a lot of driving for work, which I suppose is a good thing for my brain, since the creative side likes to roam while I’m stuck in a car. This one came to me during a four-hour drive between Chicago and Detroit, with one of the key phrases actually occurring to me while stuck in traffic. It looks at House’s relationship with music, and how music still crosses over into his day-to-day life.
About Time Poor Foreman. He doesn’t get much fic love. I’d been wanting to do something with a Foreman focus for a while, and used this clinic kickstarter to do it, featuring Foreman on a visit home post-Euphoria.
Going Fourth Just for fun, because you know that House knows how to get his hands on the best fireworks.
Comfort Food When did Wilson learn how to cook? And why didn’t House know about it? This is a fic that came about solely because I wanted to write something. I didn’t have a plot in mind, didn’t have a direction. I just started writing and decided to see where it took me.
In The Rip Chase always eluded me until the image of a rip tide came to my mind -- while I was driving. (I told you driving is good for the creative side of my brain.)
Niyamas, or One Night At Wilson’s I never liked drabbles very much. Individually they seemed to just sit there, incomplete. Then the Clinic had a drabble writing challenge, using linked drabbles, and I started to play around with them myself. This one combined yoga philosophy phrases (just the phrases, no downward dogs were harmed in the writing of this or its partner fic) along with a House and Wilson friendship fic.
Yamas, or One Day At The Hospital The companion piece. The Yamas, by the way, would be the “thou shalt nots” of yoga philosophy’s ten commandments, the Niyamas would be “thou shalt.”
Morphine The previous drabbles had given me up to 200 words to work with. For “Morphine,” I wanted to challenge myself to actually do less than 100, and combined that with fun facts about morphine in a series dealing with House’s relationship with the drug.
Six Things Once I got started on drabbles, it was fun to play with them. This one combined a character study of Cuddy -- six things she is not and six things she is -- with a precise 100 word count.
Belongings Tired of drabbles? This one goes back to my tendency to play with House’s backstory, this time looking at his life through what he owns. It all started when I wondered about the “box shaped box” made of wood that we saw in “Clueless.”
Clinic Hours Purely a just-for-fun exercise, using the drabble format to show why it is House hates working in the clinic.
Icarus After the first couple of episodes, I was struck by Wilson’s comparison of House to Icarus (and by extension himself to Daedelus), and by how many people hated Wilson at that point. I sympathized with the guy, and decided to use the fic form to explain my point of view of his point of view on House.
A Towered Citadel Wilson sins, House wants to know why. So first a little sympathy for Wilson in “Icarus,” now a study of why he screws up.
Too Long In The Wasteland First the Clinic had a drabble challenge asking writers to take the first ten or so song titles on the shuffle list of their music player and use those to inspire drabbles. I wasn’t in love with the result -- they OK, but nothing special -- so I used the same titles again for two series, one looking at House and Wilson and their relationship with House’s Vicodin and one dealing with Cuddy and House and called it The Boxing Mirror. Then I decided to go for broke, use the same titles again and this time have three sets looking at Foreman, Chase and Cameron in Strangers Almanac.
Thirty was another of those “because I felt like writing” fics, this one intentionally without dialog, and focusing on House and his Vicodin.
All Is Bright Enough angst already. This one was just to look back a couple of seasons -- House and Wilson in the scenes we saw at the end of “Damned If You Do,” having fun and eating Chinese food.
Belief, Faith, Trust I’ve said that I like backstory, right? Here we go again, using House’s own words to offset times in his life that established his lack of faith in humanity, and finally bringing us back around to whether he trusts Wilson -- or if he’s afraid to trust him.
Dama Inspired by PWCorgigirl’s “A Map of the Body” I decided to use the maid Lady we saw in “Clueless” to examine House from an outsider’s perspective, and at the same time telling us why she was named “Lady” in the first place.
The Guilty Parties Another experiment, this time writing in a workshop format. (The link goes to the first part, but there are links there to the next two parts.) I was interested if it was possible to turn out a coherent fic with input from multiple writers -- less than a round-robin, more than a traditional beta. This was the result. I started with a rough idea for a plot and a case stolen from a New York Times diagnosis story. And with a lot of input, this was the result.
And that brings around to the current (as of writing this index) fic series, “Family, Friends and Other Complications.” More backstory, this time seen solely through the eyes of House’s mother and Wilson from their meeting to -- eventually -- post “Words and Deeds.” The fic is now complete, and all the chapters are linked here. *whew*
When Blythe Met Wilson
When Greg Got Sick
When Greg Went Home
When Stacy Left
When John and Blythe Moved
When Blythe Didn’t Meet Julie
When Days Were Bad
When Greg Got His Department
When Days Were Good
When John Retired
When Greg Went For A Visit
When They Weren’t Together
When John Took Blythe to Paris
When Wilson Lived With House
When Greg Was Shot
When Blythe Met Steve McQueen
When Greg Got Better
When Greg Got Worse
When Greg Called At Christmas
When Greg Apologized
Vacation Planning came about just because I'd recently read "The Beak of the Finch," a book about an ongoing study of Darwin's Finches on one of the Galapagos Islands, and when House mentioned the Galapagos as one of his potential vacation spots in "Fetal Position," I was intrigued enough to string together a series of drabbles on each potential place, and why he didn't go.
The Tolstoy Principle was intended to be a quick snapshot of Chase's feelings about his parents, but the fic fought back and refused to behave. Instead it turned into a three quasi connected ficlets on each of the fellows and their complicated feelings about their own parents and responsibilities -- for good and bad.
So It Goes came about when I noticed a few people doing the "first sentence" meme -- in which you use the first sentence on page 10, 20, 30, etc. to prompt a drabble. I hadn't really been interested in it, because I thought the prompts alone were a little unfocused, then I thought about tying the drabbles to a specific theme, in this case, the entire season. I'd just re-read Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five," and so I started there, covering the first half of the season. Since "Slaughterhouse Five" isn't long enough, I covered the second half in Big Brains, which took its prompts from Vonnegut's "Galapagos."
More POV insanity. While working on "So It Goes," I started thinking about how the characters would have different perspectives on each of the episodes than House had. (I blame the heat during a bike ride. I clearly wasn't thinking things through very clearly.) Regardless, that brought about 100 Seasons with drabbles (hence the "100") from each character's viewpoint throughout the season. Now complete, with 100 Seasons: Cuddy and 100 Seasons: Foreman 100 Seasons: Chase, 100 Seasons: Cameron and 100 Seasons: Wilson.
Because I had so much fun with last year's Fourth of July story, I decided to do it again with Five Fourths. I didn't have much time to work on it because I was in the midst of a drywalling/basement renovation project and also writing the "100 Seasons" fics, but just couldn't resist. This was a glimpse at five different times House saw -- or didn't see -- the fireworks.
Tuesday grew out of a challenge first posted in Housefic_Pens to write about one -- or more -- of the characters the morning after the end of the third season. I got the image of my mind immediately of Chase lying in bed and listening to Cameron in the shower, knowing everything had changed. The title came as I was struggling with the end, and it suddenly hit me that it'd be Tuesday that morning after, and that yielded both the closing line and the title.
Miss was from another Housefic_Pens exercise, this one to write about a box -- where it came from, who it belonged to, etc. I hadn't really planned on writing this, since I'd done my own story following a box back with "Belongings." But while I was visiting my Mom, helping her clean through some of the many things my Dad had refused to throw out over the years, I saw that he'd saved a single copy of the game "Battleship." A blue one. I opened it up, remembered playing it with my siblings ... and a story was born.
It was hot. I wanted to write about House being hot. I had no idea where it would go, but the line "He dreamed he was in Egypt" came out. I wrote a little more. Then I was stuck, not certain if I should write more or not. I posted it as a "gimmee feedback" sample on LJ. We discussed comparing the way House pushed away Stacy and why Wilson stayed. Then
pwcorgigirl mentioned Crandall. And I was off. The Past Is the Present (It's the Future Too) became a comparison of House's relationships with dreams and flashbacks and arguments in the post-infarction time period. It starts here: Chapter One with a link to each of the second chapter from there and so on through all five chapters.As I was finishing the last chapter of "The Past Is the Present," Michigan lost its opening game of the football season to unranked Appalachian State. As I was out on a bike ride, contemplating the last chapter, I also started hearing Wilson giving House a hard time about the game. That imaginary conversation helped me fine tune their banter for the final chapter of "The Past ..." but I couldn't let it go. So I wrote it up (with an appearance by Cuddy) as Go Blue
Then halfway through Michigan's 39-7 loss to Oregon, I got multiple requests for what happened with Wilson and House's bet after that game. This time, Brenda joined Cuddy in the fun for Hail to the Victors?
I'd originally intended the fic that became Forgiveness to be for the ficwriters anonymous challenge, but it grew too big and too complex (and I needed a beta), so I took the inspiration from the Days of Awesome challenge -- to feature Jewish characters -- and brought in some of Cuddy's issues from her past and her present, then added House to stir up the emotional response.
Disobedience is the story that I did write for ficwriters_anon -- a basic "five things" style that began when I just wrote the word: "Don't," and wondered how many times House had heard that, and yet done it anyway.
The football series continued with Tailgating in which I expanded the House and Wilson bet to give me excuses to revisit the theme a few more times.
With By The Numbers I wanted to start playing with the newbies. I discovered that there full names and specialties were listed on the official House website, and began small, with drabbles from different POVs on what they thought of House's stunt in "97 Seconds."
Also on the official show site, there's a place where you can post questions about the show or characters. Someone asked about Steve McQueen, and the response was that he'd died, because rats don't live for long. That got me wondering about what House's reaction had been. And The Great Escape was born. I'm still shocked by the response that one got.
The football fic continued with an experiement (to be continued on New Year's Day) with College Game Day in which I wrote a "live" fic while House and Wilson watched the Michigan/Michigan State football game. The theme continued with Down The Badger Hole as Cuddy joins the bet.
Through The Woods compared House and Wilson's Thanksgiving day (with an apperance by Cuddy) along with the newbies' experiences on the holiday.
More newbie fic with In The Beginning. I wanted to sort of "introduce" the newbies as they first met House, and used House's speech from the end of "Alone" to frame their individual first impressions. (Also written for the First Impressions challenge from The Clinic.)
Back to football for Bowled Over, which set up the final bet for the season once Michigan gets its bowl game, and opponent. I predict House is going to have a crappy day.
The Thought That Counts began when I read newspaper story about regifting, and one guy's attitude that regifting was a good thing, because it didn't make sense to just see gifts go to waste. All I could think of was that House would be the ultimate regifter, and I could just picture the scene of House giving Wilson the tie that Wilson gave him. The concept sat there for a bit, until I came up with the framing device of Hanukkah, and it just grew from there.
Updated! (Finally)
Every Point Counts wrapped up the fall football series, written "live" while watching UM play Florida on New Year's Day, which was a very interesting exercise -- watching the game while also trying to watch it through House and Wilson's (and Cuddys') POV.
Speaking In Tongues grew out of the scene in "Don't Ever Change" in which House speaks a few words of Hebrew. I started playing with drabbles at that point, looking at how he's picked up languages over the years.
Fear Itself was prompted by a fic of Corgigirl's in which she wrote about House's many scars. I started thinking about how hard it must be to have raised House, whose curiosity is always stronger than his sense of self-preservation.
Another series of sports fics began with March Madness. I was listening to people in the office talking about their March Madness bets, and couldn't resist. Besides, it's fun to write about House and Wilson having fun. That was followed by Sweet Sixteen, Final Four, Changing the Game and Rock Chalk Jayhawk
For the Big Bang fic challenge (write a story of at least 20,000 words) I took a concept I've considered back during "The Guilty Parties," to tell the story through different character POVs, which didn't quite work then, added a twist on using weather as a metaphor that I'd had in mind for almost a year and added the desire to write another casefic to write Time Marches On. The link is to the first chapter, with links from there to the other chapters. It also gave me more of a chance to play with themes of change developed so far through the fourth season of "House."
The Cruelest Month came about from my own desire for winter to finally leave and the weather to warm up, combined with the idea that House would be the type of person to equate spring with potholes, rather than pansies.
White Lies Beneath was a series of ficlets inspired by the "Household Archeology" exercise at Housefic_Meta to write about the items found under the cushions of House's couch. I played with more of the item prompts with a second fic, Texas Hold 'Em which was about House recruiting his poker buddies.
I hadn't intended to write something about "House's Head" until after the conclusion of the story with "Wilson's Heart," but I'd read so many interesting things about the symbolic use of the color red that I couldn't help myself. Red was about various moments from House's life in which the color red played a part, while Scar Tissue took on the aftermath of "Wilson's Heart."
Lord Stanley's Cup was another excuse to play with House and Wilson's continuing sports bets, and also an attempt to try and find a way to write a "happy" fic in the aftermath of "House's Head/Wilson's Heart."
Triple Crown was another sports fic, this one focusing on Big Brown's run for the Triple Crown, and House giving in to sentimentality.
Bursting In Air went with the Fourth of July theme again, this time looking forward to a time when House and Wilson rebuild their friendship with a picnic and fireworks on a quiet beach.
Four Eyes was a flashfic challenge -- to write a complete story in less than 500 words. I'd also been wanting to write something about the first time Wilson saw House in his reading glasses, and this was the perfect excuse.
What You Need was a series of 13 flashfics telling the stories of House's 13 canes -- and House's attitudes toward them over the years. It begins here and each part is linked.
In A Flash was a series of 300 word fics taking a look at the characters other than House and Wilson and how they were impacted by "House's Head" and "Wilson's Heart."
Not a flashfic! Creature Comforts looks at the different places where House had found comfort and refuge throughout his life.
UPDATING AGAIN finally
On Rounds gave me a chance to do another Cuddy character study, looking at why she puts up with House, and giving more of a view into her administrative life. I was especially pleased with the comparison of House after the infarction to the debris left on the side of the road after a crash.
Another sports fics, as House and Wilson rejoined in canon, built around the World Series, Home Plate.
Another House and Wilson friendship piece, written for the challenge to write a story in an hour, and using a thought I'd had for a while about why House would go bowling. Strike Therapy.
For Halloween, I wanted to participate in the "Come As You're Not" fic fest, which asks you to try things you normally wouldn't do, and ended up doing both kid fic and AU in that it supposes that Cuddy kept "Joy." (I knew nothing of the upcoming Rachel storyline.) The result was mostly for laughs, Five Times Cuddy Regretted Letting House Anywhere Near Her Child, then
topaz_eyes said there was a potential for a followup fic, One Time House Didn't Totally Regret Being Left With Cuddy's Child.Blythe's Story grew out of comments following the episode "Birthmarks" in which people said they didn't know how it was that Blythe could have kept a secret for so long that House's father wasn't John, and also excoriating her for her parenting skills. Since I have a real life connection with that story line that is so intense to the people involved that I could never write it in other ways, I decided to let loose with this. It ended up with 32 chapters (there are links from each chapter), and also drew inspiration from Roddy Doyle's series of short stories "The Deportees" in which he limited himself to 800 word chapters. I used a 1,000 word limit, though I didn't always fit into that size.
Five Bowl Games House and Wilson Missed and One They Didn't was another sports fic, this one set on a New Year's Day of football watching and eating.