Games without Frontiers

I know, I know..."Day 2" was about 2 1/2 weeks ago. But I was in San Diego for five days, had a red-eye back, drove to NJ that morning & took the train into NYC to go to the WC set, was home for a couple of days, went to Long Island for a day & a half or so, then turned around and flew to St. Louis for a work trip. Yesterday was my first normal work day with no impending trip in far to long. Excuses, excuses...but I didn't abandon this meme, really. :-)

First, then, a reminder of the days:

1. Something old
2. Something new - talk about a new fanwork of yours!
3. Something you made for someone else
4. Something you made just for yourself
5. Something for a large fandom/pairing/character
6. Something for a small fandom/pairing/character
7. Something you're just really proud of

I'd been in the White Collar fandom for a while at this point, and I made an off-hand comment about how I should get a paid LJ account so I could edit my comments (no longer an issue, but this was 2011). The next thing I knew, elrhiarhodan had gifted me with paid LJ time. I wanted to give her something in return, and decided to write her a fic. I started out thinking I'd get a hold of her unused prompts from the most recent round of wcpairings, but that didn't work out, so I decided to go with a nice little "what if" follow-up to the end of Season 2. I knew more or less what it would be...until I didn't get it written before S3 started...you can read more about what happened after that in the original author's notes, but what I ended up with was kind of a mirror-verse of S3, starting from the idea, "What if Peter just talked to Neal?" It's the longest thing I've written, by far, and I'm honestly pretty proud of it. Unfortunately, I got it done just under the wire, before the back half of S3 aired, and I don't think posting a story the day before new eps start is conducive to a lot of people reading it. Maybe some people who missed it back then will give it a try now. ::hopeful look::  In any case, it was an enjoyable journey for me to write it, and I was glad to be able to give my good friend something (and so very pleased that she enjoyed it).

The story is called "Awake My Soul," and you can find Part I here.

So I feel a bit funny doing a self-promotion meme when a) I've been pretty absent from fandom (and epic failing to comment on other people's stuff), and b) I'm still ever so slowly dragging through writing stories for a meme I started in, I think, May. But this seems like such a cool meme, and one I can do even though my Master List isn't very long. Ganked from embroiderama and seen all over my flist.

The days are as follows:

1. Something old
2. Something new - talk about a new fanwork of yours!
3. Something you made for someone else
4. Something you made just for yourself
5. Something for a large fandom/pairing/character
6. Something for a small fandom/pairing/character
7. Something you're just really proud of

Note: I'm also getting ready to leave for a trip to San Diego so see one of my best friends from college and do the Comic Con thing, so I won't be doing this on consecutive days. So I'm going to try to do days 1 & 2 today, and maybe try to sneak one in while I'm gone, and then pick up when I get back next Monday.

So...something old...my very 1st White Collar fic that was posted publicly was a fill for one of the lovely elrhiarhodan's Promptfests. In fact, the first few WC fics I posted were from that fest. I'm going to link two of those here, because the first one is so short (but I still really like it):

The first one is just called "Untitled Ficlet #1" (sounds like I'm a famous artist or something), it's just under 300 words, Neal in prison after the plane explodes (prompt was Neal, stars), and can be found here.

The second one I'll share was in response to the prompt, Any Character, 5 o'clock. It's called "Five Moments," and it's not quite 2000 words of El POV. Summary: It's 5 am when Peter gets the call that Neal is out of his radius. Story found here.

I am continuing to work (ever so slowly) through the all of five prompts I got for the meme I posted about a month ago now. The second fill I wrote is about 980 words, and would just barely fit in a single comment if I didn't have any intro at all, so (once again) I'm putting it in a separate post. Story snippet for pooh_collector who prompted Neal, barstool. Takes place early season 2.


( Story under the cut. )

So I am still utterly buried in grading - I spent a good chunk of today reading formal lab reports about enzyme experiments, took a short break, and then read through extra credit seminar worksheets. And I still have a ton to do. But I miss my fandom friends, and I miss writing, and so I thought I would maybe try a writing meme in an effort to get the creative juices flowing again (and because I can only grade so many papers at a time before I go crazy).

I really like the time-stamp meme, but I feel like my masterlist is not really long enough to do one. And the drabble meme that's been going around is good too, but I sometimes have difficulty writing to prompts. Thus, I bring you, Doctor Fangeek's Meme Mashup!

My fic masterlist is here. You are welcome to pic a fic from there and give me a prompt relating to that story. Alternatively, you can go with the ever popular drabble meme formula: name of a character + noun (place, emotion, thing, whatever). Or I guess it could be an adjective or short phrase.

Given my writing on demand issues, I would request that if you can, you leave a couple of prompts - this will help me actually give you a fill.

I will do my level best to fill as many as I can in as timely a fashion as I can, but I make no promises as to exactly what will constitute "timely." :-)

Title: I'll Be Home for Christmas
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Neal, Peter, Elizabeth
Length: ~2900
Spoilers: None really, unless you are way behind (brief mention of some Season 1 and Season 2 events)
Warnings: None
Summary: This was not the way Neal Caffrey planned on spending Christmas Eve.  And it was just a little too close to another Christmas Eve from his past for comfort.

AN: My entry for the whitecollarhc Advent.  I actually started writing this story, or at least conceived of it and wrote maybe a paragraph, some time ago, inspired by a prompt on one of the White Collar LJ communities.  That paragraph, by the way, did not end up in the version of the story I ended up writing for this fest.  Big thanks to my good friend ivorysilk, who brainstormed some of the plot elements with me and then read the draft I sent her just yesterday and gave me some really helpful feedback.

( Neal Caffrey grimaced and set his cup down. )

Written for wcpairings. Kudos once again to rabidchild67 and elrhiarhodan for running such a great exchange!

Title: Learning How to Bend
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: P/E/N
Length: ~3715
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Summary: The three of them are still learning what it takes to make this relationship work, but there's no question it's worth the effort.  Luckily for Peter and Neal, they have El.  And ice cream.

AN: Written for amy1705fl, who wanted OT3 (of the domestic sort).  She had plenty of good, very broad/general prompts.  This is mainly for the last of the prompts on her list (cooking of any sort), with a side-dish of prompts 8 & 9 (chocolate and caramel).  There were a couple of other ones I thought might get worked in there, but the story went in a slightly different direction than I initially anticipated.  Takes place in a post-anklet, OT3 future.  Title from the song of the same name by Gary Allen.  Major thanks to my good buddy rabidchild67, for a super helpful, under-the-gun-last-minute beta.  You're the best, RC!  ETA: Additional thanks to RC for the helpful food-related suggestions while I was working on this. :-)


( Here there be fic... )

Title: Find My Way Home
Rating: I'm not sure this is even PG
Characters/Pairings: kid!Neal, Peter, El
Spoilers: None
Content Notice: De-aging Fic
Word Count: ~1300
Summary: Peter never imagined anyone could have such an affinity for mystical de-aging objects.  Then again, Neal Caffrey is good at defying expectations.  And Peter is good at finding Neal Caffrey.

A/N: So this is my entry for the Kid!Fic Challenge going on over at whitecollarhc, but it also comes with an apology and a promise.  This story (ficlet, really) is actually the Kid!Neal fic I wrote a while back for a prompt challenge at a WC fan gathering in Chicago, but never posted anywhere.  When I signed up for the Kid!Fic Challenge, my back-up plan was to post this story, but I hoped to write a new one.  Unfortunately, "real life" (a.k.a. work, for the most part) intervened.  So the apology goes out to the Chicago 7, as this is just a cleaned up version of a story you've already seen.  For anyone else, the prompt game involved pulling three words out of a hat (or was it a Tupperware?) and writing a story featuring/prompted by those words, in a genre picked by the group.  My words were chocolate, coconut, and explosion, and my genre was fluff.  Except when I started writing it was kind of crack.  And then it was fluffy crack.  And then, somehow, the thread of a serious story crept in.  The promise is that I will post a follow-up story, and I hope to have it ready by sometime this weekend.  I finally figured out what my new Kid!Neal fic was going to be, and at this point I think I'm at least half-way done, but I couldn't quite finish in time to post it for the challenge.


( Read the fic here... )

Notes, etc. in Part I post, blah, blah, blah...


( Part IV under the cut... )