DVD Commentary Meme

[pooh_collector]

Jumping on elrhiarhodan's bandwagon. I've never done this meme before but I'm willing to give it a whirl. Ask me about any fic I've written, and I will happily divulge any details I remember.

Here's how it works:

Pick a passage from my stories, up to 500 words, from anything I've written in my LJ masterlist and on AO3, (LJ is missing a couple of my most recent fics, AO3 is complete) and comment to this post with that selection (including a link to the story being excerpted). I will then give you 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 story, awful puns [perhaps], and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

If you would like to ask about multiple stories, that's awesome. Please post the passages in separate comments so that I can respond coherently about each one. :)

Comments

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed Caretaking: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5099045
Any special thoughts on this particular fic?

“You need to stop coming here all the time.”

Peter closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I miss you.”

Oddly, Peter heard Neal’s shoes ruffling the dry grass as he moved closer to his former handler. “I miss you too, but coming here every chance you get isn’t the solution to that.”

“I know.”

“Then get out of here and go pick up your wife and take her to her appointment. Take care of your family, Peter.”

When Peter opened his eyes a moment later, Neal’s ghost was gone. He ran his fingers lightly along the top of the dark grey granite stone once and then went back to his car and home to his wife.

[pooh-collector.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. My whole initial response to the finale was to try to come up some happy ending scenario, where Peter and Neal are reunited to solve more crimes together, or in the perfect OT3 with El.

But at some point, just before I began writing this fic I think my sadness at the ending of the show came in and I needed to release it somewhere and it became this fic, this melancholy expression of Peter's grief at losing Neal.

I knew I wanted to write four vignettes, not sure why, but four seemed the right number, and this one you quoted was the first one that I visualized around which the other three were built.

I knew I wanted the ending to be more hopeful, while staying true to the tone of the story, and I think I was able to achieve that.

I think the thing I like that most about the story is the sort of role reversal between Peter and Neal. Neal was always the one who was a little lost, who needed Peter's guidance and now Peter needs Neal's.

That's what I've got. :) Thanks for asking!

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

I think the thing I like that most about the story is the sort of role reversal between Peter and Neal. Neal was always the one who was a little lost, who needed Peter's guidance and now Peter needs Neal's.

This kind of role reversal is something I love exploring too.

[pipilj.livejournal.com]

I love your story What Is Left Is but Ashes and Dust It is fascinating AU. Any thoughts on Adler being such a master manipulator and his words playing in Neal's head.

[pooh-collector.livejournal.com]

As great as Neal was as a conman, he paled in comparison to Adler who played Neal expertly when Neal thought he was playing Adler.

And, I don't think Neal ever got over that and Adler knew it when he met Neal on the pier that day. He knew Neal felt bested, vulnerable.

There is also the aspect of this version of Adler that wants Neal, and Adler is a man who is used to getting what he wants and knows how to get what he wants.

On the pier, Adler puts Neal in a completely untenable position, and even as he saves Peter's life and manages to outmaneuver Adler, for the first time, he knows that in shooting Peter he has trapped himself and that he has no other option than to let Adler have him.

Phew! Thanks for asking! I hope that was not rambling a response.

On the island, Adler keeps playing Neal patiently, knowing that he trapped Neal and that Neal has no choice and that with time he'll have everything he wants, and that Neal will give it to him freely because Neal is resilient and a survivor and he'll take what he can from life even if that means it's with Adler.

Thankfully Peter and Mozzie save the day.

Neal and Adler have always had a really interesting dynamic and I wanted to explore as many aspects of it as I could with this story, Neal's vulnerability, his grudging admiration for Adler, his hatred for him for deceiving him and killing Kate, and his own need to be the conman, the manipulator versus Adler's cool confidence, his patience, his complete lack of morals and his multi-faceted interest in Neal.

[kanarek13]

Well, I just have to ask about the Christmases verse which is absolutely epic ♥ My question is: What is the most difficult aspect of this verse for you to write? The medical aspect of it? Emotional? Maybe a mix of both?

[pooh-collector.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Now you're asking me to give away my secrets. Okay, but just for you.

I've done very little research for these stories. Thanks to google it really isn't hard to find the basics and I've had some help from angelita too, who has some personal experience. She's actually been immensely helpful. Anything else is me faking it.

So, in answer to your question, the hardest part of writing these stories has been trying to wrap my head around what Neal is feeling. There's so much involved from how his brain functions now, to how he's coping with his recovery, his relationship with Peter and El and on and on. How do you get inside the head of someone whose been hurt that seriously from an emotional standpoint certainly and also just who is he now? He's clearly not the same guy he was before it happened, you can't go through that kind of trauma without being affected in so many ways. I had to remake him, and it was a wonderful exercise as a writer and super hard too.

He needed to be true to who he was, but be someone reborn from the coma as well.

Thanks K!

[kanarek13]

Awww, thank you ♥ It is certainly one heck of an emotional verse and everything just works the way it should ♥ Brilliant writing iz brilliant *hugs*

[angelita26]

I'm going to ask about Of Christmases too, but in a different way than K13 did :D

Peter stood again, dropped the papers in the chair he had just vacated as if they were toxic, lowered the guardrail on the bed and sat down, his hip to Neal’s hip. The early morning light coming through the window cast an angelic glow on Neal’s face. Peter had seen the same innocence on Neal’s beautiful countenance a hundred times before when he woke before his partner in the bed they shared with Elizabeth. It never failed to tug at his heart, to make him love Neal just a little bit more somehow.

Peter reached around the ventilator tubing and ran his fingers through the soft strands of Neal’s hair. It needed to be trimmed. He touched the dab of gray on his partner’s temple. He had teased Neal about it and getting older just a few days before…

The sound of wood striking bone, a sound Peter would never forget, a sound that haunted his dreams and his every waking moment, rang in his ears again. He swallowed hard against the nausea and the sting of guilt the memory produced.

Despite his love for the game since early childhood, despite his pleasant memories of watching games on TV and throwing the ball around with his father, despite his own short-lived, but fondly remembered career in the majors, Peter would never think of baseball in the same way again. (From the first story in the 'verse

Will you tell me about how you came up with the idea?

Also, how did you decide on this injury and how it happened? I find it very interesting, as noted in this passage, that it was a baseball bat, which then gave Peter a bad feeling about his beloved game.

What was the hardest scene of the 'verse to write? What was the easiest?

THANK YOU!!! *HUGS*

[pooh-collector.livejournal.com]

winterstar wrote his wonderful Stony fic, Upon Waking, where Tony is introduced to Steve while Steve is comatose. Tony becomes fascinated with Steve before Steve even wakes up and when he finally does, well relationships are formed and such.

I unashamedly stole the idea of the coma because I wanted to explore the angsty goodness of how Peter, El and Neal would deal with something this horrible happening to them.

The fact that it was a baseball bat added an extra level of ironically angsty goodness for Peter, who felt so much guilt over Neal being injured in the first place. And, I liked the idea that I had never come across a story where sports memorabilia was what was being forged.

The hardest scene to write in the verse. Hmmmmm. From the get go this verse has been surprising easy to write. But, I guess the hardest bit was the whole Within the Book and Volume of My Brain fic. Ironically, you and K came up with this one for me at meet up. It was tough being inside Neal's head when he was that stressed and upset. I think it was a successful fic, but it didn't flow like the others in the verse.

Which brings me to what was the easiest. I'm going to go with the original. I came up with those first sentences you quote about Peter at Neal's bedside and they were so clear and emotionally vibrant in my head and they stayed that way when I wrote them down (a rarity) and then all the rest just seemed to flow right out of me. Don't get me wrong, it was still work, but the idea for connecting the 'Christmases', the inclusion of the Dickens, and the things Neal 'dreams' about all just came and went down on the paper in a way that felt really natural.

Thanks for the awesome questions! *HUGS*