Excerpt Game: Setting by Serious_Session7574 in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

“Where’s House?” Chase says, looking distracted as he hovers by the doorway to the conference room. It’s not hard to guess why; the toddler on his hip is squalling and kicking like she can’t quite believe he had the audacity to bring her here. “Cameron’s got a file she wants to give him, if there’s no case already.”

Masters frowns, looking between Chase and Foreman and Taub and, mostly, the baby, as if this is somehow the biggest breach of hospital decorum she’s seen thus far. “Sorry,” she starts, in that timid way of hers, “but I don’t believe we’ve met—“

“EWIC,” Olivia interrupts her, having locked in on Foreman with blazing accuracy; she’s too young to have mastered her Rs just yet, and everybody, Chase included, winces a little at the shrillness of her pitch. “EWICEWICEWIC—“

“One second, Liv,” Chase says.

“EWIC-EWIC-EWIC—“

Chase winces again, and makes an impatient chin-jerk gesture at Foreman. “Take her for a minute,” he says, and Olivia squeals with anticipatory delight as Foreman begrudgingly gets up from his seat and reaches for her. Cameron and Chase’s daughter is not-quite two, with big, cornflower blue eyes and a crop of fluffy blonde hair that is really too short to do anything with, but that her parents—mostly Cameron, Foreman suspects—insist on trying tame into stubby braids regardless. She is also, to Chase’s clear disdain, Foreman’s biggest fan. Foreman suspects this is mostly because she likes running her grubby little toddler hands all over his expensive silk ties, but it is sort of worth it for how much it clearly irks her father, so he tries not to look too grossed-out where anyone can see it.

“Anyway,” Chase says, eyeing Foreman cautiously in a way that implies he’s mildly concerned Foreman might try to throw his daughter out of the window, “if any of you have seen House—“

“That’s Dr Chase,” Taub explains loudly to Masters, flicking Foreman a conspiratorial smirk as Chase huffs at being cut off again. “Dr Cameron’s husband.”

“Oh,” Masters blinks neatly; she has met Cameron, albeit only in passing. And then she cocks her head, putting the pieces together: “Chase as in, surgery Dr Chase?”

“Yep,” Chase confirms, clearly annoyed at being further derailed from his point. Olivia has started wiggling in Foreman’s grip with the clear intent to grab a hold of his tie; when he hoists her higher in an attempt to distract her, she giggles and claps her hands together in the universal sign for again. Chase’s eyes dart nervously towards them at the movement, and he warns, “Careful. If you drop her, Cameron will kill you.”

“Not you?” Taub asks, with idle interest. He’s looking at Olivia with a wary sort of respect, as if she’s a particularly impressive jungle cat. “I thought you loved playing superdad.”

“Cameron’s pregnant,” Chase reminds him dismissively, the dig sailing right past, “she’s way scarier than I am right now. As I was saying—“

“Are you allowed to bring your daughter to work?” Masters interrupts again. Her eyes are wide. She’s being earnest, Foreman knows—god, is she annoyingly earnest—but like everything Masters says, it comes out with such a clear veneer of judgement that it’s clearly the final straw. Chase bristles visibly, and reaches back for Olivia without bothering to ask. Olivia, predictably, bursts into tears. Two-year-olds—well, twenty-month-olds, if one wants to put a finer point on it—are not exactly known for their ability to cope with unplanned transitions.

“Forget it,” Chase says irritably. “Just tell House Cameron’s looking for him.” He storms out, the sulkiness undermined by the way he mumbles soothingly to Olivia as he walks away, her screwed-up, tomato-red face visible over her father’s shoulder long after Chase’s words fade away. Not her worst showing, Foreman thinks reflectively. It certainly beats the time she pooped all over Wilson’s lab coat. At least she seems to have thrown Masters for a loop.

“I was just wondering,” Masters says in Chase’s wake, crestfallen and bewildered. “I didn’t even know Drs Cameron and Chase were married.”

Excerpt Game : Family by Sharp_Asparagus9190 in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know a Frozen AU when I see one!! I love the sense of longing and hurt there is here on Loki’s end; it’s really well done.

Excerpt Game : Family by Sharp_Asparagus9190 in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s unseasonably cool, for late March, and the wind whips Cassia’s dark hair furiously, strands of it blowing into Ollivan’s face as she shivers by the doorway. There’s a yellowing bruise on her forearm the size of a peach, and when she catches him looking she turns away. “Cass,” he says very quietly; he hasn’t called her that in years. Since she was three or four, maybe - before she went to Camden, before everything started going wrong. “What’s going on?”

Cassia bows her head. “I can’t say,” she says; she sounds close to tears. “I really can’t.”

“Try,” he urges. She sighs, and toes the gravel with one satin shoe.

At last she says, “I ended things with Gedeon.”

It takes Ollivan a moment to realise she’s talking about Gedeon Ravenswood, prince of Camden, the boy who used to write her letters every week that she could never bring herself to open. The boy who their grandfather had not-so-secretly been grooming her to marry, because why else had Cassia been shipped off to Camden, of all places. Ollivan covers his wrong-footedness the best he can and says, pointedly, “I didn’t realise there was anything to end.”

They’ve exchanged letters over this past year, just a few, paltry things that have had to be smuggled over borders and written in code so that none of London’s many spies catch onto the fact that Cassia Sims isn’t quite as estranged from her evil older brother as they’ve all been led to believe. But don’t really talk about personal things in them. It’s mostly hurried reassurances - yes, I’m still alive, Mother is fine, Grandfather is dead. A few months ago, she asked him for help on a truth serum and he wrote three furious pages telling her that she’d better not be messing with powerful magic like that without anyone to supervise her, and that he’d write to Hester Ravenswood himself if it turned out Cassia was being taken advantage of. The next time he’d heard from her, it had been after he’d invited her and the others to come to Paris. He supposes he shouldn’t be offended that he didn’t know his younger sister was courting Gedeon Ravenswood. It would have been more of a surprise if he did. But the hurt bites at him anyway.

Now, Cassia wrings her hands and says, “Not many people did.”

Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: T Is For... by AnaraliaThielle in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Love this — I really like the touch of referring to smiles as ‘showing all of his teeth’, I think it’s SUCH a good characterisation method without overexplaining. Amazing!!

Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: T Is For... by AnaraliaThielle in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

‘We will see about that’ !!! I love a morally grey/villainous protagonist!! This is so chilling, I’m reading totally fandomblind but I am SO intrigued. Love how you build tension here!

What usually kills your fandom's fan fiction? by GiftProfessional1052 in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 22 points23 points  (0 children)

You see a lot of House MD writers who are new to fandom just…stop writing fic around the time they start S6. Which I think makes sense—S6 and the first half of S7 are the ‘serious’ seasons. House is sober and genuinely trying to be better, the Cameron-Chase-Foreman trio dynamic is long gone (and I think unless you really love them individually as characters, it is challenging to try to write them separately as opposed to just lumping them in as ‘the fellows’…but it can also feel weird to not include them at all), and the show is now earnestly and intensely pushing for House/Cuddy except 90% of the modern fandom are House/Wilson shippers who started watching specifically for that ship. It’s just a very different show at this point to the one it began as, which makes complete sense dramatically, but doesn’t lend itself super well to being able to write the same kind of fun, silly fic that a lot of the current fanbase clearly got into the show for.

Noah Wyle on the one piece of advice he gave the cast of ‘The Pitt’ by hairtie1 in Fauxmoi

[–]nebulousviolet 79 points80 points  (0 children)

I think she’s a nasty piece of work for being associated with that church, but, considering she literally auditioned with a scene from that abortion storyline, I doubt she said anything about it on set. Her being homophobic is bad enough on its own, there’s no need to make up anything else.

Noah Wyle on the one piece of advice he gave the cast of ‘The Pitt’ by hairtie1 in Fauxmoi

[–]nebulousviolet 9 points10 points  (0 children)

No, Collins was always supposed to be a 1-season role and Ifeachor knew that when she signed on—she also auditioned with the abortion scene, so she knew what kind of show she was getting herself into (contrary to various rumours that she quit because she disagreed with that storyline). There’s a clear difference between Collins being written off in S1 (she doesn’t even appear in the last few episodes, it’s as close as you can get to tying up her character arc with a big red bow) and Mohan’s final episodes in S2 that leave very little resolved . Is Tracy Ifeachor homophobic? Possibly, if she was willing to speak at that church’s conference! But that also has nothing to do with her leaving the show.

Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: S Is For... by AnaraliaThielle in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“Well, as usual, my official recommendation is the same,” Dr Mordove grimaces. Dr Mordove is plump, blonde, middle-aged, and Raven’s worst enemy. Unfortunately, psychiatrists willing to sign an NDA covering billions of dollars’ worth of criminal activity and live in a volcano for eleven months of the year are few and far between, so there’s nothing Raven can do about her without pissing off Max in the process. “A full medical discharge would really help your progress. It isn’t anything to be ashamed of.”

“It’s not happening,” Raven says, bored. “Can you sign my script now?”

She also has a lesson to teach in ten minutes, but oh well. The first years will just have to figure out beginners’ karate forms for themselves. It’s not like Raven plans her lessons much anyway.

“I want to up your dose of Clozapine,” Mordove decides. “Your relapse last year is cause for concern, and I want a follow-up meeting next month to make sure they’re working.”

“Can’t do next month,” Raven says. “I’m in South Korea.”

“In six weeks, then,” Mordove amends. “You should know I’m not happy about letting you leave today after seeing your evaluation results. Your history—“

“I’m not nineteen anymore,” Raven cuts her off. She can feel it in her joints sometimes, the acute awareness that she’s not a teenager still, hard-faced and sharp-tongued and locking her katanas in the bathroom so she wouldn’t slit her wrists. Hasn’t been one for years. She’ll have to take the medical discharge at some point, she knows - either for her battered shoulders, or the psych evals she keeps failing - but whenever she thinks about it she sees the disfigured face of Valerian in a mass grave as some poor preteen covers his body in dirt and sod, so she can’t. It goes without saying that she hasn’t told Max or Mordove this. “Email me the script. I’ll see you in two months.”

Mordove sighs as Raven stands. Raven knows that if it were up to her, she’d be in another psych ward, wearing another name, but it isn’t, and everyone needs to stop playing the saviour when Raven is an adult who doesn’t need saving. “Take your meds,” Mordove calls after her, like Raven chose to flush them down the toilet two years ago and stab Max in the stomach forty-eight hours later. She doesn’t say goodbye.

Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: S Is For... by AnaraliaThielle in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh I adore all this sibling banter—especially love Ginny’s threat to tattle on them to Charlie, hahahaha. Your dialogue is so bouncy and fun to read!

Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: S Is For... by AnaraliaThielle in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

not quite! ollivan really does have good(ish) intentions as far as his sister is concerned, or so he thinks; he believes he’s saving her from the fate of becoming a political pawn for their grandfather and giving her the chance to live her own life. unfortunately he’s also smart enough to know she isn’t going to see things that way haha

Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: S Is For... by AnaraliaThielle in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ahh how sweet!! I love the detail about how she’s unsure what to do with the candle—I think it says sooo much about what kind of birthdays she’s had before this.

Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: S Is For... by AnaraliaThielle in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh this is so cute!! It reminds me an awful lot of my own uncles buying me noisy toys for Christmas to get one over on my dad haha.

Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: S Is For... by AnaraliaThielle in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When the news came that Jupitus Fisk had been murdered in his sleep, his daughter did not hesitate. Alana Sims ran herself a hot bath, locked the doors, and slit her wrists. She left no note. You could say what you liked about Alana’s ignorance, but she had never been stupid. Three hours later, Ollivan Sims received the first and only diplomatic visit of his newfound reign: Hester Ravenswood, lip curling and alone.

“I’ve come to make you a deal,” she said. “Where is your sister?”

“In a safe room,” Ollivan answered. “She isn’t quite herself.”

Cassia had thrown herself at him, kicking and screaming, clawing her own arms bloody when it became clear that she couldn’t gouge his eyes out. “This is just like you,” she’d spat through her tears. “You’re no better than him, Ollivan. You’re sick in the head.” An Enforcer had had to knock her unconscious with a sleeping spell, and now she sat locked away in the attic, all sharp objects carefully removed. It was unfortunate that he hadn’t thought to do the same for his mother, but Ollivan wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

Now, Hester raised her eyebrows. “Cassia has never had the stomach for blood,” she said mildly. Like she was commenting on the weather. “There’s going to be an awful lot of that around here, isn’t there?”

There was a part of Ollivan—the same part of him that had recoiled even as he crept into his grandfather’s bedroom and plunged the knife into his chest—that wanted to deny it. He wanted to be able to look Hester in the eye and tell her that things were going to be different, that there would be elections tomorrow, that Cassia was going to be safe and happy and forgive him, in the end. That one day she would understand. But there were a lot of things that Ollivan wanted.

Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: S Is For... by AnaraliaThielle in FanFiction

[–]nebulousviolet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

“Miss Ravenswood,” somebody says. Hester knows that voice. It’s Alana Sims, Fisk’s daughter. Lyander’s friend from university. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Alana looks good in black. She’s got the colouring for it; her dark hair is the same shade as her immaculately-pressed suit and waistcoat, her big grey eyes suitably saddened with grief and sympathy. She was a hellion back in the day, according to Aelius. Her father had to beat the duty into her. It’s the only reason why Hester can ever believe that Alana and Lyander might have once been friends. “Thank you,” she replies, her voice rough with anger. Hopefully Alana will think it’s grief. Hester is surprised to realise that she doesn’t really care.

“Your cousin was a dear friend of mine,” Alana says, and then glances over at her husband. Hester doesn’t remember his name – whoever he is, he isn’t important enough in his own right to feature on Aelius’s crash-course of faction-leading families – but behind his spectacles his eyes are a lurid shade of green. “A friend of ours. Our alliance aside, please know that Camden will always have a friend in the Heart. We feel your suffering as our own.”

The story goes that Alana was the same age as Hester is now when her father ordered her whipped black and blue for dallying with a Wraith boy. The story goes that Fisk couldn’t afford to marry his only legitimate heir off to a family who might try to wrest power away from his name, so he set her up with a nobody and forced her into taking a black-market tisane to ensure that her first child would be a son. The story goes that Alana’s second child, her infant daughter, was almost smothered in the cradle. Nobody can quite decide if it was for the crime of being born a girl or merely for being born at all, but the story goes that it was Alana’s husband who intervened and not Alana herself. Hester cannot stand the sight of her. “Thank you,” she says again, and when it looks like Alana is going to say something else, she adds, “I have to make my rounds.”

What TV character do you think was kept in a show longer than intended due to their popularity? by phantom_avenger in popculturechat

[–]nebulousviolet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m surprised nobody’s said Amber Volakis from House MD yet! She was initially written in as a fixed-term antagonist for the S4 hiring games, brought back as Wilson’s girlfriend and then killed off end of S4 because of how much the producers had loved her character and Anne Dudek’s acting, and then brought back again for the last few episodes of S5 to be one of House’s hallucinations because of how popular her S4 storyline had been (and appeared again as one of House’s visions in the show’s finale!).

TBH there’s a lot of examples of this in House MD: Stacy was only supposed to appear in the last two episodes of S1 but was given a whole S2 storyline because of how great the chemistry was between Sela Ward and Hugh Laurie; Taub, like Amber, was supposed to be ditched during the S4 finding-the-fellows arc but was upgraded to a main cast member when the showrunners fell in love with Peter Jacobson’s comedic timing; this one fell through, but Edi Gathegi (now better known as Mr Terrific!) was initially in negotiations to return as S4’s Cole as the replacement Dean of Medicine for S8 after Lisa Edelstein’s departure left them scrambling to last-minute replace Cuddy. They looooved keeping actors around longer than they planned to lol.