astolat has been accused of having freaky mind powers over me, and I cannot actually deny that. Because a few days ago she said to me, "kris/adam public bar porn, please!" and, well, here I am. (Also, I'm pretty sure the "please" was only implied.) I would thank her for the beta and cheerleading, but since it was all self-serving, I'll just post, instead. =)

For those of you who don't know yet that I'm having an astolat-induced, American Idol-based RPS summer fling, this is your final warning. There's the sign post up ahead...

~

serious moonlight | by Merry
Kris/Adam, adult.
2,761 words

( They'd built a friendship around the edges of the looks Kris didn't see. )

So, last week when I was a bit desperate for distraction from then-unaired Supernatural finale, astolat pounced on me in a weak moment and plied me with something like 50 episodes of Season 8 American Idol, along with about a billion cute pictures of Adam Lambert hugging people and beaming sunnily at the world. Some of those pictures were animated.

I've never really been a strong woman.

So now I'm a convert, and apparently astolat's minion in this. As you may know, she's been posting buckets of porn as bribery for power-voting ('ware music, you turn it off in the blue player, right sidebar). What you don't know is that she's also been heavily hinting that I haven't been carrying my weight in that department.

:: sigh ::

So. I don't have buckets of porn to bribe you with. But what I do have is astolat's promise that if Adam wins tonight, she'll write all of us the porn that inevitably follows from...

( Note: Incredibly vague spoilers for SPN 4.22 behind the cut tag! )

( ...this silly little story about Adam Lambert, Dean Winchester, and the Antichrist )

~

So, if you want astolat to tell us what happened backstage at that haunted theatre - and I know I seriously do! - vote vote vote! =)

The final performance episode starts at 8pm in your timezone (or 7pm if you're in Central), runs an hour, and the phone lines will open afterwards! Please vote for Adam! If you have an AT&T cellphone, you can text votes to 5701, or you can call in for him at 1-866-436-5701, 1-866-436-5703, 1-866-436-5705! (Those numbers are almost sure to be right but I will post the final/announced ones after the show, too. :D) Voting is open for FOUR HOURS in every timezone!

So, for no big dramatic reason, I'm going to friends-lock my livejournal and dreamwidth journal today and default to friends lock/access lock for all future posts except for fiction. I just want to fly a little more under the radar than I have been for the past few years. I tend to be a homebody in RL, and lately I've been feeling a bit homebody-ish online as well.

I'll be giving access/friending anybody who subscribes to my journal on DW or friends me on LJ. If you've got me friended on LJ and I haven't added you back, I'll likely be doing that sometime today. The "lock" is intended to keep me in, rather than to keep anybody out!

I'll leave all my past and future stories unlocked, so nobody needs to friend me or give me access just for that. But pretty much everything else -- which basically amounts to episode reactions, meta, and RL stuff -- is going under the lock. I'll still be crossposting everything to both LJ and DW.

Just an FYI in case anybody wonders where all my nattering went. =D

Every now and then I try to go to bed, and find that there's some writing in me that needs to be let out before I can sleep. This is one of those times. =) Many thanks to terrio for midnight beta duty.

~

A Brief History of Falling | by Merry
Sam and Dean. Gen (ish? maybe I should just say G-rated)
Wherein the Winchester brothers pick their battles.
1,152 words

( Sam lands a punch, lands it hard, and gets one back for his trouble... )

Feedback is always welcome. =)

Many thanks to astolat for late-night cheerleading terrio for that and late-night beta! And thanks too to Write or Die, which played pop music at me as a form of shock-therapy every time my fingers stopped typing.

This is the fourth part of a kind of ongoing series of little stories I've been calling Interstitial Spaces. The stories are stand-alone, but follow along with John and Rodney's developing relationship throughout the show.

Previously on...
1. Apples
2. Brokedown Palace
3. Configuration

And now...

4. D.O.A. | by Merry
John and Rodney, pre-slash.
Sometime after 38 minutes.
2,141 words

( He'd like to get to know Sheppard better. )


~

After months of near-total nonpostingness, I did not intend to show up and fling Merlin fic at my flist with no prior warning! But that seems to be what is happening. I'm thinking of it as my SPN hiatus fling fandom.

Anyway, last night, astolat demanded 100 words of Merlin on the topic of celebration from me (as part of a longer set of negotiations that will get us more Merlin fic from her soon -- you can thank me later), knowing that I have never been able to write just 100 words of anything in my entire life. She drives a hard bargain. And so...

Over in merlin_flashfic, I posted a story for the celebration challenge! It goes like this:

The Feast of Sticks | by Merry
Merlin and Arthur, pre-slash. Merlin was born. Later he met Arthur. And then some things happened, and then there were cakes!
Slight spoilers for 101 and 110.
1550 words

( Read the story at merlin_flashfic )

Dear Yuletide Writer,

First, thank you! This exchange is my favorite time of the year, and I'm so excited about it, and so happy to have someone writing a story for me. I said a lot in the details of my request - probably too much! - so I just wanted to throw this post out here in case you wanted any clarification or to know anything else about the kinds of things I like.

I'd be happy to get a story in any of the fandoms I requested, with any of the pairings I requested; there's really no one fandom that I want more than any other. And though there are some places where I specified that I'd really like a romantic relationship, I don't want you to feel compelled -- I'm pretty bifictional, and I'd be perfectly content with a gen story that focused on the strength of the relationship between my chosen characters.

( That said, here are some things that might help along the way )

Three months | the kiss addiction remix
Sam/Dean, adult. Sam chases Dean until they catch each other.
2,070 words
Web link: Here

Notes: For remixredux08. Many thanks to musesfool for beta! Remix of Unless Continents Collide, by luzdeestrellas.

I love doing remix, because it's always sort of challenging and threatening and nervous-making and I always end up doing something I'm kind of proud of. At, um. The very last minute. Literally! This was no exception. I got to remix luzdeestrellas, whose writing is always brilliant, always exactly my kind of thing, and always very, very tight. This story is no exception, but there was this one line that was just the perfect doorway from the story she wrote, which I loved, to the story I might have written if she'd said to me, Merry, write me the story where...

This is that line:

( Dean shook his head, said, 'We can't do this, Sammy,' walked out the door and ran from it for three months. )

Twenty minutes, before breakfast
Sam & Dean. Coffee and puttering. G.
1730 words
Web link: Here

Notes: For the spnflashfic "downtime" challenge. Many thanks to luzdeestrellas for beta and whatnot. She's pretty useful. This is set, um... sometime this year? Before Jus in Bello, after Fresh Blood, I would say. Time is weird on TV! This is morning stuff, which I wish we saw more of. =).


( There's coffee on the night stand and sun in his eyes when Dean wakes up. )

LJ- and web-storing a little thing I wrote for the last SPN flashfic challenge.

Fixed
755 words
Supernatural, gen
Sam & Dean
Website link: here

Notes: This is not my usual fare. I would thank luzdeestrellas for the beta, but her most constructive comment was "meep", and after that she hid under her bed. So.

( Dean wasn't any stranger to fucked up dreams. )

So, I wrote a little story for spnflashfic!

Fixed
755 words
Supernatural, gen
Sam & Dean

cut-tag goes to the comm.

( Dean wasn't any stranger to fucked up dreams. )

I posted the link to this story on spnflashfic yesterday, but I also wanted a copy of it in my own LJ now that the challenge is over. So. Story spam! Sorry! I guess this time I better write earlier in the challenge. :)

Title: Surrender Dorothy
Author: Merry
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: Adult
Word count: 2,570
Off-LJ story link: Here.

Summary: They've been on these roads all their lives; they know what to do.

Notes: Thanks to flambeau for the readthrough, and to luzdeestrellas for having a birthday to write for. And a thank you also to gwyn_r, a dear friend from whom I belatedly realized I swiped the title!

( Iowa is a corn state, all steel-grey sky and silver-tipped stalks )


Feedback is always welcome. :)

Due to its incredible awesomeness, I'm expecting to read many, many codas to Mystery Spot between now and April 24th - and probably quite a lot of them after. I'm maybe a little rusty at this, but anyway. Here's mine! =)




North of Wednesday
a post-Mystery Spot Supernatural story
Sam/Dean, slash, first time.
Spoilers for SPN 311.
PG. 3,701 words.

Sam's behind the wheel before he realizes he doesn't have the keys. Dean does.

( North of Wednesday )




A billion of thanks to flambeau and luzdeestrellas for cheerfully beta-reading. They are also incredibly awesome.

Late, I know! But now that all the Yuletide authors have been revealed, I can say that my story was set in Madeleine L'Engle's Time series (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, etc.). These were among my favorite books when I was a kid - right up there with Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia in the list of novels I first adored. My recipient was cyphomandra, whose request was:

I definitely skew more towards the Kairos/Murry books, with my favourite being A Swiftly Tilting Planet, but I do really like the world of these books; the focus on connections, on science as well as art, and family. I would prefer something with a glimpse of the unearthly, if possible, and I'd love to see more of Charles Wallace - what's he like as an adult? Or something in between the earlier books, a breathing space or a more local conflict.

To fulfill that request, I wrote:

A Song by Starlight, a story set three or four years after A Swiftly Tilting Planet, in which Meg and Charles Wallace have another adventure and Charles Wallace graduates from high school (sort of).



terrio, luzdeestrellas, Dorinda and elynross were wonderful editors and hand-holders through the course of the story, and therienne and aka_arduinna literally kept me alive while I wrote it. I adore them all.

( Cut to spare you all a ramble about my physical and emotional progress through the Yuletide writing process and a couple of vague story spoilers... =) )

Now, as a recipient this year, I made out like a bandit. I've already gone into extensive happy rambles about my stories here, but I wanted to add a personalized thank-you to the writers now that I can:

Once Upon a Mistletoe, by Jheen, is a lovely Reid/Morgan Criminal Minds story with a side of Garcia, who regularly wins my internal "favorite female character on TV" contests.

Happy New Year, by ladybug218, is a Bones story, and the story of the second kiss Brennan and Booth needed to have.

Yes, by Laylah, is set after Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls novel is a sweet, calm, easy first-time story for Ghost and Steve with music and lemonade and honey.

and Missing Mile, by Cher, is also set after that novel and is a sweet, hot, needy first-time story for Ghost and Steve with beer and bad dreams and desperation.

It was an embarrassment of riches, and each of these stories made me really happy in a way totally different from the others, and you all rock. Thank you!

O HAI YULETIDE!

You maded me an archive, but I slept through it!

:: ahem ::

Well, not really. I'm still randomly narcoleptic, and I'm still not sure what makes my voice go out worse - talking too much, or not talking at all. Regardless, I am fading in and out like a busted radio whenever I open my mouth. But yay! most of the ow is gone. My throat doesn't hurt anymore, and my chest only hurts a bit when I cough. My head also hurts like it's gonna come off when I cough, but I'm coughing less than I was, so that's ok. Thank god for the antibiotics; I think I might've lost that fight, on my own.

Anyway! Yuletide!

First, I wanted to note that here is a list of stories that did not get into the Yuletide archive database, but which were written for people for this year's challenge. Since these stories won't be coming up on searches or on quicksearch pages, make sure they are seen and loved!

I have been too sick and too much sleeping to say much about Yuletide till now. I had obligated myself just before I got sick, so I spent this whole past week sick AND writing, and that was quite an experience. My recipient seems to have liked her story, and my betas gave it the thumbs up, so I'm trying not to take that as a positive referendum on writing while totally cracked out on drugs. But it was really great, a fun and challenging experience in a fandom I never thought I'd write, but really loved writing. Oddly, I've never had less angst over a story for yuletide (or any other holiday challenge), and I've never struggled less with the plot or the ending of any story. Again: Drugs Y/N? I think *Y*. Just say YES!

The stories I got made me really, really happy. I never think about the fact that I'm going to get stories until I am done with all my own, so it's always an exciting reward. This year I got FOUR STORIES! Seriously, I made out like a bandit. I did manage to wake up enough on Reveal Day to comment on them, but I wanted to pimp them out here too, because they are LOVELY and MINE.

Once Upon a Mistletoe is a Reid/Morgan Criminal Minds story in which Penelope is so one of us, and Reid goes home with Morgan for the holidays. Oh, I adore these people. I admit, I started watching Criminal Minds with a negative attitude when it aired, because it was Yet.Another.FBI.Show. but that lasted all of about ten minutes, because the characters just draw you in, and the character voices in my story for ME for yuletide rang true, and they all just care about each other so much, and they're all willing to sacrifice for each other, and and and! it made me wish I could go watch the show right then. Thank you, yuletidewriterperson! You made a sick girl very happy.

Happy New Year is the perfect sequel to the 3rd season Christmas episode of Bones. This show was also kind of stealth; I didn't start watching it until just a few months ago, but then I mainlined it and went through two seasons all at once; it was that adorable. Yeah, it's Yet.Another.FBI.Show. too, but apparently I have a weakness for them, especially when the characters are as cute and fun and sometimes-angsty as these. Brennan and Booth are, in my not so humble opinion, MFEO, and this story was their second kiss, with added possibility. It made me beam all over my face when I read it! It's just the perfect blend of them. Brennan and Booth's voices are real and true, and they're just adorable, and thank YOU TOO, treat-writer!

Yes is Ghost/Steve from Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite, and oh, I adore it. I keep asking for Ghost/Steve every year because it's a pairing in such serious need. These guys cry out for slashing! They want each other! It's not their fault their writer stopped short of consummating their love! So I feel like we have to do it for them. And every time I ask for it, I get phenomenal stories, like this one! The tone is lovely, pitch perfect, and there's lemonade in mason jars and there's dandelions and guitars and a hot summer night and Steve being so, so brave and Ghost being so, so generous and I just. I am all aflutter! This was beautiful, and I appreciate it so much. Thank you!

And finally, last but oh, certainly not least, Missing Mile, another Ghost/Steve story for me, and I am the luckiest of lucky ladies this Yuletide. It's sweet, and hot, and them, and it wraps their music around everything they are to each other, and it's just. I totally melted. I believe it. Weirdly, I believe it in the story above when it happens when Steve's sober, and I believe it in this one when it happens when he's been drinking. Because you can never tell with Steve, if he's going to need the liquid courage, or if he's going to shine through on his own. Also the title? Totally. That's where it happens, and that's what this is - their missing mile. Perfect. Between these two Lost Souls stories, and the one I got last year? I am a very, very happy girl. Am I asking for it again next year? Yes. Why? Because it is the key to happiness, people! Y'all should ask for it, too. And: Thank you!

This yuletide is made of JOY.

I was just ranting to a few friends in a chat room about some of the comments on an old Making Light post ("Fanfic": force of nature) and on the recent boingboing entry on OTW (Organization for Transformative Works: defend fandom!).

( I'm trying now to clarify my reactions to both. )

I've had this story open in a tab in Safari since barkley recced it on Monday, and I keep meaning to steal her rec and then forgetting! So here it is - a stolen rec, because the story is just that cool.

This is something I'm only slowly coming to realize is one of my bulletproof kinks: A crossover between Supernatural and one of my favorite crime dramas. It's the outsider point of view on the boys that I love, but it doesn't work for me if the outside POV is an original character in an SPN story or even one of the other SPN characters. It's -- it's getting to see what people I love in another show I love think about Dean and Sam. There was a Numb3rs/SPN story that I deeply loved a while back, and I can't remember if I recced it - I'll hunt it down and see. But this is not that one!

This is a Criminal Minds/SPN crossover, and it works for me as both the bulletproof kink crossover POV and as a really cool Supernatural story with worlds and worlds of family and love between Dean and Sam. It's gen, but that perfect kind of gen that gives us the relationship we see on the screen, but... more. I really enjoyed it, so you people should read it too! It made me really, really happy.

barkley, thanks for the rec. =) You can have it back now!

Defect, by kikkimax. For those who want them, cover art and a very brief forward with minor warnings can be found here.

ETA: frogspace was kind enough to hunt down the Numb3rs xover I mentioned, which I love for all the reasons I mentioned above, plus bonuses of Don being conflicted and Charlie being sort of almost not really in extreme danger, comparative brotherhood, and Dean and Sam being almost frighteningly competent and in sync. This one is gen, too, but like Defect, it's the best kind of gen. =)

Take a Long Line, by derry667

Ok, now someone do the Bones crossover that musesfool is talking about today plz?kthxbai.

This post is also over here, for the link I put in my request. But just in case you missed the link...

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Welcome to the Letter that Ate the world! I was going to make this short and sweet, but... that didn't happen. (Eep!)

First, thank you! This exchange is my favorite time of the year, and I'm so excited about it, and so happy to have someone writing a story for me. I said a lot in the details of my request - probably too much! - so I just wanted to throw this post out here in case you wanted any clarification or to know anything else about the kinds of things I like.

I'd be happy to get a story in any of the fandoms I requested, with any of the pairings I requested; there's really no one fandom that I want more than any other. And though there are some places where I specified that I'd really like a romantic relationship, I don't want you to feel compelled -- I'm pretty bifictional, and I'd be perfectly content with a gen story that focused on the strength of the relationship between my chosen characters.

( That said, here are some things that might help along the way )

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Welcome to the Letter that Ate the world! I was going to make this short and sweet, but... that didn't happen. (Eep!)

First, thank you! This exchange is my favorite time of the year, and I'm so excited about it, and so happy to have someone writing a story for me. I said a lot in the details of my request - probably too much! - so I just wanted to throw this post out here in case you wanted any clarification or to know anything else about the kinds of things I like.

I'd be happy to get a story in any of the fandoms I requested, with any of the pairings I requested; there's really no one fandom that I want more than any other. And though there are some places where I specified that I'd really like a romantic relationship, I don't want you to feel compelled -- I'm pretty bifictional, and I'd be perfectly content with a gen story that focused on the strength of the relationship between my chosen characters.

( That said, here are some things that might help along the way )

Free and Clear
a post-AHBL2 Supernatural story by Merry
Sam/Dean, slash, adult. 6,641 words.

Summary: "You don't even know what you're thanking me for."

You can read this story beneath the cut tag, or at my website.



( Free and Clear )




Notes: This story could not have been finished without torch and Laura, for holding my hand while I wrote it and its fifty slightly-different endings; Terri, astolat, Rachel, Seah, Margie, and thisisbone for hand-holding and beta-reading; and tvm for running the Guess the Writer contest at spn_gleeweek, for which this story was written (and for letting me rewrite the ending that one last time). *HUGS PEOPLE*

Feedback is always welcome.