White Collar fic: Afterparty

Title: Afterparty
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: canon ones
Word Count: 2400
Summary: 6x04 missing scene. Peter's in too deep to get out, but at least he's not the only one. For my h/c bingo "arrest" square.
Crossposted: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2724341

( Afterparty - contains 6x04 spoilers )

December unscheduled posting meme: Peter & Elizabeth

This question from Leesa Perrie is spoilery for season six of White Collar, so I'll put the whole thing under a cut.

( General WC season six spoilers; nothing for future episodes )

December unscheduled posting meme: Gen fic

mific asked: You've written a lot of great Genfic. What is it about Gen that you like?

Thank you! :)

The flip (though accurate) answer is that, unless I specifically concentrate on getting other results, everything comes out gen. I look at canon and the kind of thoughts that run through my head are things like, "What if they fell out of a plane into the wilderness? That'd be awesome!" or "What if they were werewolves?" or "This plot development really needs everyone to sit around and talk about ethics for awhile" ... and then I write 20K of it. XD I'm just not a shipper by nature; even in the cases where I enjoy pairings (and I do enjoy a lot of canon pairings and a number of non-canon ones as well), I tend to be more interested in writing about the pairing doing something completely non-couple-related together -- investigating a jewel heist, fighting dinosaurs, etc -- than in exploring their couple dynamic on a date or whatnot. (The date would probably be crashed by dinosaurs. Actually, that'd be fun. *makes mental note*)

As a reader, I have enjoyed plenty of stories, in a skilled writer's hands, that were all about couple dynamics and nothing else. I admire the ability of other writers to do this! It's just not my fundamental setting as a writer. I'd actually like to get better at it, because I know that one of my big weaknesses as a writer is developing an emotional plot to complement the action plot.

But you know, even on the emotional side of things, I find gen relationship dynamics -- in general, though not always -- more fun to explore. I guess I'd say for me, there's more untapped territory there. We've all seen the getting-together story a million times, and I've read plenty of playful or touching or beautiful takes on it, but am not compelled to write it myself very often.

And also, most times, it's the gen character relationships (siblings, parents & children, partners, awkward nascent friendships, sympathetic enemies, etc.) that make my heart flip. Couples don't do it for me nearly as often, though there are some, and also quite a few relationships that I can enjoy on both sides of the gen or ship divide.

Mostly, I think what it comes down to is that gen is my default setting, for most things. It always has been.