The Examination: Leiascully
During the past year of writing in the House fanfic universe, leiascully hasn't been shy, either in the amount of writing output or topic of her writing. She's presented very human characters, especially Cuddy, who sometimes suffers in fic as merely an obstacle for House.
In real life, leiascully lives in Arkansas -- proof that there is life and culture in deep south (I joke) -- and is a recent graduate of Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. She recently spent seven months in France, and has studied in India.
She's also a multi-fandom writer, with links to other fandoms on her LJ including "The West Wing" and the Harry Potter universe. Speaking for myself, she's been far more daring in terms of topics than I have. Without getting into NC-17 territory in this discussion, let's just point out two words that can be used to describe some of herfic: Smut Tuesday.
From an R-rated "For Good Behavior:" It was, to put it mildly, something of a surprise when Cuddy's foot brushed his calf again, and then again. House slumped purposefully in his chair. He could feel the individual caresses of her toes, meaning she'd kicked off her shoes. He glanced at Cuddy, but she was still wearing her "I'm listening and caring in a professional way" face and she gave away nothing. He glanced at Wilson, who was giving Obstetrics those puppy eyes but sitting with his shoulders squared away from her, so as not to appear too vulnerable. Wilson got around, but he wouldn't risk the resources of his department. House liked that about Wilson, the unyielding core that was in there somewhere. But Wilson didn't seem to know about Cuddy's foot. And Cuddy's toes kept moving slowly up and down the back of his calf.
But leiascully's not a one trick pony. Consider Ocean Pulling Inward which takes the "Wilson's Brother Returns" cliche and gives it new life.
"What are we going to do, House?"
"We're going to be here," he said. "More specifically, I'm going to be in the morgue, looking for Wilson, and possibly letting him punch me. Or a corpse. I'm too pretty to have a shiner." He hauled himself off the couch. "When he's done working his kinks out, I'll bring him back here and then we can decide what ought to be done. I'd suggest you have coffee on hand, and possibly Prozac. Maybe a sandwich. Maybe two sandwiches. Mediating grief is hungry work."
"How do you know he'll be in the morgue?" she asked, watching him cross the room.
"Good a place as any," he said, and walked out.
You can find the bulk of her Housefic here in her LJ.
What drew you to writing House fanfiction?
The first time I wrote Housefic it was really kind of an accident. It was before I’d watched much of the show - I really only got into it once I got back from India - and it was a Christmas piece. Laughably, at the time I didn’t identify at all as a House/Cuddy shipper and figured I was House/Wilson all the way. But the interactions between the characters on this show are so rich I couldn’t help myself wanting to flesh them out a bit. I’ve always had a thing for missing scenes and what happens between the episodes. I suppose the wealth of “what if” and “what then” in this series is really what got me writing.
Do you think of yourself as a Cuddy writer? Or a Housefic writer who happens to deal more with Cuddy?
I mostly just think of myself as a Housefic writer. I’ve dabbled in House/Wilson, and I wrote a House/Cam piece, but I feel most comfortable in Cuddy, so that’s who I write the most often. I understand her motivations better, and I feel like I can do her better justice than I can do the others. I guess you could call me a Cuddy writer.
Is it tough being a Cuddy writer in an Internet that seems dominated by either House/Wilson or House/Cameron?
To tell the truth, I hardly thought about it for months and months. Probably until I wrote a House/Wilson piece as part of “Five Ways You Never Slept With Gregory House” and realized that House/Wilson was much more popular than House/Cuddy. The circles I write and read in are pretty equal-opportunity, so I didn’t realize until I saw some FOX.com polls that House/Cam is a vastly popular ship.
Have you ever felt protective toward her character as a result of reading some fic that feels the need to demonize Cuddy to make their favorite character look better?
Oh, definitely. That’s why there’s a lot of House/Cam and House/Stacy fic I don’t read (though I like House/Stacy fine, and I’ll read well done House/Cam). I don’t like it when people demonize any of the characters, but Cuddy gets brushed off a lot, in slashfic as well as hetfic. She’s there and she’s part of their lives and I don’t think you can count her out or brush her off. She’s known House a good long time (in some capacity) and she’s one of the few friends he and Wilson have got and managed to keep. I had an argument with my mother the other day over Blind Date Guy (from “Insensitive”): Cuddy’s committed to her job and her employees and she gets a lot of flack for it on the show and in fandom. I don’t think that’s quite fair. I’m not always sure the show does her justice either, but it’s much harder to argue with canon.
What would you say is the most frustrating thing that you see as a reader out there in Housefic?
Demonizing characters because they’re inconvenient. Mary Sues. The tragic lack of good femmeslash (with a few exceptions). Ship wars. People refusing to read fic just because it’s a pairing that’s not their OTP.
You've written in other fandoms, correct? What do you do differently when you're working on a story for another fandom, West Wing for example v. House? Do you find there's much difference in terms of what you seek when you read fic in different fandoms?
There’s definitely a common denominator in the fic that I read, or at least the ships that I follow. I’m big on poetry and I don’t mind a lack of plot. I like banter, I like layers of meaning, I like a lot of history rolled up into the present. Sorkin-style banter is different from House-style banter and the background research is different, but a lot of the characters I write approach life in the same kind of devil-may-care-but-really-very-serious way, if that makes sense. I just got into Firefly and it’s the same thing all over again with different voices and histories.
How does a story start for you? A specific scene? A plot? A snatch of conversation?
Depends on the story. “to ashes to dust” started because I couldn’t just leave Cameron crying in the chapel and Wilson in the doghouse at the end of “Informed Consent”. “Ocean Pulling Inward” was Nightdog’s suggestion that I write something where Wilson’s brother comes back and Cuddy’s the first one to find out, and the first scene was in my head for a couple of months before I got around to writing it out. “Biology, Chemistry, Physics” was based on a lot of joking gossip from summer camp and college about the practice rooms in the music buildings. Sometimes it’s a song lyric or a line of conversation. I really haven’t written a whole lot that leans on a plot.
What's the hardest part of writing for you?
Coming up with the seed of the thing. I’ve got a prompts folder and a backlog of bits and pieces, but they don’t always turn into what I expect, and sometimes they just sit there. I’ve got a young-Cuddy story that I really want to write, but I haven’t done much with it lately. The serious pieces are a lot harder to write than the smutty ones.
What's the easiest?
Generally just sitting down and writing. I haven’t (knock wood) experienced a lot of writers’ block, though some stories are harder to get through than others.
Since you've written some explicit scenes ... smut Tuesday stories for example ... are those scenes difficult to write or easy? Personally I shy away from them for fear of writing an infamous "bad sex" scene, and I'm not really sure I could pull it off. Any advice for people in how to write good sex?
Mostly I think the bad sex scenes à la Cryptictac are a lot better than the good sex I write. (Mod Note: leiascully noted that she's referred to "bad sex" here in terms of a scene that's well written, but the sex is bad, rather than badfic bad!sex.) I started Smut Tuesday as a challenge to myself, because I thought “Oh, I could never write that, it would be too embarrassing.” It was at first and I blushed a lot, but now it’s rote. And the start of the whole thing, “easy to say but it’s harder to feel”, that’s pretty much SmutLite. These days I sit down on Monday or Tuesday afternoon and just kind of go into a porn trance. I’m never really sure that it’s good - a little too much flowery metaphor and thinking - but I try to keep it out of the florid romance novel department. I hardly ever write a piece that turns me on, and a lot of the pieces I hardly remember afterwards. Then I go back and look later and think, “Oh, I wrote that? Huh.”
My advice is start small: it’s the really little details that really make a scene hot. The little details are what compelled these two (or three or four, whatever floats your boat) people to fall into bed in the first place and that’s what makes it feel real. It doesn’t have to be as realistic as Cryptictac (smut’s generally an escape, after all), but put something in that belongs to the characters. Sex is kind of overwhelming and everyone’s got a different way of dealing with it. The more directly sensory stuff you can put in, the better it will be.
What's been the hardest fic for you to write?
Oh, this Cuddy piece I’m still working on getting to. “Ocean Pulling Inward”. The serious and more gen pieces, just because then I have to rely on some kind of plot to move them along, and I’m much more of a touchy-feely internal monologue no-plot kind of writer.
What's been your favorite of your fics?
I really enjoyed the “House and Cuddy get married” one which not a lot of people read, mostly because I was putting them in a really sappy situation without either of them being particularly sappy themselves. “Proximity” was fun, because I really enjoy putting scientific or medical or logical metaphor into romantic pieces, and Wilson’s not usually the more logical one on the show. I prefer the pieces with more emotional import to the smut. “to ashes to dust” I felt was a successful piece given the mood I wanted to convey. The pieces that dovetailed with thedeadparrot’s genderfuck universe were good fun (especially because it was a sort of group project), and so was the Foreman crackfic I did for Karaokegal’s Halloween party.
How do you overcome writer's block?
I move away from whatever story I’m blocked on and write something else, or switch fandoms for a while. A new voice to work with does wonders. It’s tiresome to write House all the time, so I’ll write Mal Reynolds or Scully or Sirius Black. Ainsley Hayes was a good break. I also like fic challenges, because then I don’t have an excuse for not writing. Deadlines help me with writer’s block.
What do you look for in fic that you read?
Good characterization. Believable motivations. Clean writing with a nice weight to it (which is hard to explain, but Corgigirl’s stuff is always a good example). I read a lot of one-shots, though I like multi-parters. I’ll read any pairing as long as it’s well-done, and any genre. This zombie apocafic trend is entertaining. Good crackfic is a nice palate cleanser. I expect good things from the BetteronVicodin crackfest.
Has writing fic changed the way you watch the show?
Definitely. I pay a lot more attention now, especially to the ways the characters move around each other. The more little details that go into the fic, the more interesting it is, and I’m always slavering for backstory on House and Cuddy’s friendship or how House met Wilson. I try not to focus completely on my ships and enjoy the show as a whole, but my interest is more piqued by backstory.
What would you change on the show if you had that power?
I’d fix the stupid timeline problems they’ve been having lately and standardize some dates and sets. I’d talk more about how House and Cuddy and Wilson met and less about Cameron (and I’d make her a bit more consistent). I’d stop ignoring the emotional and psychological consequences of the Ketamine and the Tritter arc and House’s apologies or non-apologies.
And now, let's open the floor -- so to speak -- for questions.
In real life, leiascully lives in Arkansas -- proof that there is life and culture in deep south (I joke) -- and is a recent graduate of Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. She recently spent seven months in France, and has studied in India.
She's also a multi-fandom writer, with links to other fandoms on her LJ including "The West Wing" and the Harry Potter universe. Speaking for myself, she's been far more daring in terms of topics than I have. Without getting into NC-17 territory in this discussion, let's just point out two words that can be used to describe some of herfic: Smut Tuesday.
From an R-rated "For Good Behavior:" It was, to put it mildly, something of a surprise when Cuddy's foot brushed his calf again, and then again. House slumped purposefully in his chair. He could feel the individual caresses of her toes, meaning she'd kicked off her shoes. He glanced at Cuddy, but she was still wearing her "I'm listening and caring in a professional way" face and she gave away nothing. He glanced at Wilson, who was giving Obstetrics those puppy eyes but sitting with his shoulders squared away from her, so as not to appear too vulnerable. Wilson got around, but he wouldn't risk the resources of his department. House liked that about Wilson, the unyielding core that was in there somewhere. But Wilson didn't seem to know about Cuddy's foot. And Cuddy's toes kept moving slowly up and down the back of his calf.
But leiascully's not a one trick pony. Consider Ocean Pulling Inward which takes the "Wilson's Brother Returns" cliche and gives it new life.
"What are we going to do, House?"
"We're going to be here," he said. "More specifically, I'm going to be in the morgue, looking for Wilson, and possibly letting him punch me. Or a corpse. I'm too pretty to have a shiner." He hauled himself off the couch. "When he's done working his kinks out, I'll bring him back here and then we can decide what ought to be done. I'd suggest you have coffee on hand, and possibly Prozac. Maybe a sandwich. Maybe two sandwiches. Mediating grief is hungry work."
"How do you know he'll be in the morgue?" she asked, watching him cross the room.
"Good a place as any," he said, and walked out.
You can find the bulk of her Housefic here in her LJ.
What drew you to writing House fanfiction?
The first time I wrote Housefic it was really kind of an accident. It was before I’d watched much of the show - I really only got into it once I got back from India - and it was a Christmas piece. Laughably, at the time I didn’t identify at all as a House/Cuddy shipper and figured I was House/Wilson all the way. But the interactions between the characters on this show are so rich I couldn’t help myself wanting to flesh them out a bit. I’ve always had a thing for missing scenes and what happens between the episodes. I suppose the wealth of “what if” and “what then” in this series is really what got me writing.
Do you think of yourself as a Cuddy writer? Or a Housefic writer who happens to deal more with Cuddy?
I mostly just think of myself as a Housefic writer. I’ve dabbled in House/Wilson, and I wrote a House/Cam piece, but I feel most comfortable in Cuddy, so that’s who I write the most often. I understand her motivations better, and I feel like I can do her better justice than I can do the others. I guess you could call me a Cuddy writer.
Is it tough being a Cuddy writer in an Internet that seems dominated by either House/Wilson or House/Cameron?
To tell the truth, I hardly thought about it for months and months. Probably until I wrote a House/Wilson piece as part of “Five Ways You Never Slept With Gregory House” and realized that House/Wilson was much more popular than House/Cuddy. The circles I write and read in are pretty equal-opportunity, so I didn’t realize until I saw some FOX.com polls that House/Cam is a vastly popular ship.
Have you ever felt protective toward her character as a result of reading some fic that feels the need to demonize Cuddy to make their favorite character look better?
Oh, definitely. That’s why there’s a lot of House/Cam and House/Stacy fic I don’t read (though I like House/Stacy fine, and I’ll read well done House/Cam). I don’t like it when people demonize any of the characters, but Cuddy gets brushed off a lot, in slashfic as well as hetfic. She’s there and she’s part of their lives and I don’t think you can count her out or brush her off. She’s known House a good long time (in some capacity) and she’s one of the few friends he and Wilson have got and managed to keep. I had an argument with my mother the other day over Blind Date Guy (from “Insensitive”): Cuddy’s committed to her job and her employees and she gets a lot of flack for it on the show and in fandom. I don’t think that’s quite fair. I’m not always sure the show does her justice either, but it’s much harder to argue with canon.
What would you say is the most frustrating thing that you see as a reader out there in Housefic?
Demonizing characters because they’re inconvenient. Mary Sues. The tragic lack of good femmeslash (with a few exceptions). Ship wars. People refusing to read fic just because it’s a pairing that’s not their OTP.
You've written in other fandoms, correct? What do you do differently when you're working on a story for another fandom, West Wing for example v. House? Do you find there's much difference in terms of what you seek when you read fic in different fandoms?
There’s definitely a common denominator in the fic that I read, or at least the ships that I follow. I’m big on poetry and I don’t mind a lack of plot. I like banter, I like layers of meaning, I like a lot of history rolled up into the present. Sorkin-style banter is different from House-style banter and the background research is different, but a lot of the characters I write approach life in the same kind of devil-may-care-but-really-very-serious way, if that makes sense. I just got into Firefly and it’s the same thing all over again with different voices and histories.
How does a story start for you? A specific scene? A plot? A snatch of conversation?
Depends on the story. “to ashes to dust” started because I couldn’t just leave Cameron crying in the chapel and Wilson in the doghouse at the end of “Informed Consent”. “Ocean Pulling Inward” was Nightdog’s suggestion that I write something where Wilson’s brother comes back and Cuddy’s the first one to find out, and the first scene was in my head for a couple of months before I got around to writing it out. “Biology, Chemistry, Physics” was based on a lot of joking gossip from summer camp and college about the practice rooms in the music buildings. Sometimes it’s a song lyric or a line of conversation. I really haven’t written a whole lot that leans on a plot.
What's the hardest part of writing for you?
Coming up with the seed of the thing. I’ve got a prompts folder and a backlog of bits and pieces, but they don’t always turn into what I expect, and sometimes they just sit there. I’ve got a young-Cuddy story that I really want to write, but I haven’t done much with it lately. The serious pieces are a lot harder to write than the smutty ones.
What's the easiest?
Generally just sitting down and writing. I haven’t (knock wood) experienced a lot of writers’ block, though some stories are harder to get through than others.
Since you've written some explicit scenes ... smut Tuesday stories for example ... are those scenes difficult to write or easy? Personally I shy away from them for fear of writing an infamous "bad sex" scene, and I'm not really sure I could pull it off. Any advice for people in how to write good sex?
Mostly I think the bad sex scenes à la Cryptictac are a lot better than the good sex I write. (Mod Note: leiascully noted that she's referred to "bad sex" here in terms of a scene that's well written, but the sex is bad, rather than badfic bad!sex.) I started Smut Tuesday as a challenge to myself, because I thought “Oh, I could never write that, it would be too embarrassing.” It was at first and I blushed a lot, but now it’s rote. And the start of the whole thing, “easy to say but it’s harder to feel”, that’s pretty much SmutLite. These days I sit down on Monday or Tuesday afternoon and just kind of go into a porn trance. I’m never really sure that it’s good - a little too much flowery metaphor and thinking - but I try to keep it out of the florid romance novel department. I hardly ever write a piece that turns me on, and a lot of the pieces I hardly remember afterwards. Then I go back and look later and think, “Oh, I wrote that? Huh.”
My advice is start small: it’s the really little details that really make a scene hot. The little details are what compelled these two (or three or four, whatever floats your boat) people to fall into bed in the first place and that’s what makes it feel real. It doesn’t have to be as realistic as Cryptictac (smut’s generally an escape, after all), but put something in that belongs to the characters. Sex is kind of overwhelming and everyone’s got a different way of dealing with it. The more directly sensory stuff you can put in, the better it will be.
What's been the hardest fic for you to write?
Oh, this Cuddy piece I’m still working on getting to. “Ocean Pulling Inward”. The serious and more gen pieces, just because then I have to rely on some kind of plot to move them along, and I’m much more of a touchy-feely internal monologue no-plot kind of writer.
What's been your favorite of your fics?
I really enjoyed the “House and Cuddy get married” one which not a lot of people read, mostly because I was putting them in a really sappy situation without either of them being particularly sappy themselves. “Proximity” was fun, because I really enjoy putting scientific or medical or logical metaphor into romantic pieces, and Wilson’s not usually the more logical one on the show. I prefer the pieces with more emotional import to the smut. “to ashes to dust” I felt was a successful piece given the mood I wanted to convey. The pieces that dovetailed with thedeadparrot’s genderfuck universe were good fun (especially because it was a sort of group project), and so was the Foreman crackfic I did for Karaokegal’s Halloween party.
How do you overcome writer's block?
I move away from whatever story I’m blocked on and write something else, or switch fandoms for a while. A new voice to work with does wonders. It’s tiresome to write House all the time, so I’ll write Mal Reynolds or Scully or Sirius Black. Ainsley Hayes was a good break. I also like fic challenges, because then I don’t have an excuse for not writing. Deadlines help me with writer’s block.
What do you look for in fic that you read?
Good characterization. Believable motivations. Clean writing with a nice weight to it (which is hard to explain, but Corgigirl’s stuff is always a good example). I read a lot of one-shots, though I like multi-parters. I’ll read any pairing as long as it’s well-done, and any genre. This zombie apocafic trend is entertaining. Good crackfic is a nice palate cleanser. I expect good things from the BetteronVicodin crackfest.
Has writing fic changed the way you watch the show?
Definitely. I pay a lot more attention now, especially to the ways the characters move around each other. The more little details that go into the fic, the more interesting it is, and I’m always slavering for backstory on House and Cuddy’s friendship or how House met Wilson. I try not to focus completely on my ships and enjoy the show as a whole, but my interest is more piqued by backstory.
What would you change on the show if you had that power?
I’d fix the stupid timeline problems they’ve been having lately and standardize some dates and sets. I’d talk more about how House and Cuddy and Wilson met and less about Cameron (and I’d make her a bit more consistent). I’d stop ignoring the emotional and psychological consequences of the Ketamine and the Tritter arc and House’s apologies or non-apologies.
And now, let's open the floor -- so to speak -- for questions.