Home
Mercury Rising

> recent entries
> calendar
> friends
> The Real Me
> profile
> previous 20 entries

Advertisement

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
9:49 pm - [Naruto: sleight of hand]
Title: Sleight of Hand
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3194
Notes: I wrote this over a year ago for a fanbook ([info]lemontreeparade) that is taking an age to get off the ground, and I've waited for a long time, but I'm not waiting any longer. I want to archive this with the rest of my fic. If people want to buy the fanbook (which will contain a whole heap of stories, all of which -- including this one! -- will be accompanied by gorgeous illustrations) then they can, but I'm posting this now.

Sasuke/Naruto. Futurefic. Love is the hardest thing you will ever do in your life.

There is no such thing as magic. )

Reading: 16 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Sunday, August 30th, 2009
5:51 pm - [merlin: miss the train before (3/9)]
Title: Miss The Train Before
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: currently PG
Word count: 6824 for this part
Notes: Yes. I know. I'm a terrible, terrible person. But I now know most of the plot structure (hurrah?) and how many chapters there should be altogether, so hopefully things will move faster from here. At least the Pendragons have finally appeared :) As have some rather silly injokes.

If you know anything at all about electronic security systems, I can't promise that my utter ignorance and artistic embellishment (ie. bullshitting) won't make you weep tears of pain, so, um, sorry about that.

From now on all of the illustrations will be LONDON PORN. Woo! Enjoy [info]ryokophoenix's gorgeous photography.

(Part One | Part Two)

Merlin took a deep breath and told himself to look as though he had every right to be where he was. )

Reading: 61 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Saturday, July 25th, 2009
1:41 pm - [HP: the game of kings]
Title: The Game of Kings
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Word count: 6560
Notes: UM. I don't know what I'm doing in this fandom! Honestly! I just came home from watching HBP with a lot of meta about character parallels swirling around in my head, and then I tripped over half a bottle of red wine and this came flowing out. I wrote the vast majority of it in a single glorious sitting, which I should really try to do more often.

Big thanks to [info]ariastar for feeding me little tidbits of Harry-centric meta when I complained that I could write Draco approximately forever, but was having trouble getting the Boy Who Lived to talk to me.

This fic owes a large debt to [info]pogrebin's story arise on the ruins, which you should definitely read because it's a more original and more interesting fic than this one.

Here you are at the end of the beginning; this year is the axis upon which your fate spins, widdershins, the direction of undoing. )

current music: Spring Awakening -- The Dark I Know Well

Reading: 109 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Friday, May 1st, 2009
11:46 pm - [Doctor Who: like a ruthless force]
Title: Like a Ruthless Force
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13 to R
Word count: 3860
Notes: A very long time ago I posted No Sleepers Must Sleep, and mentioned that it was the first of two connected stories about Lucy Saxon. This is the second, dedicated to [info]enevarim, who convinced me to dust off a long-abandoned draft and finish it :)

It'll make a lot more sense if you've read Sleepers. The title comes from the same poem: Whitman's Beat! Beat! Drums.

Somewhat to my surprise, an awful lot of Lewis Carroll found its way in here; some of the references are rather oblique, but if your childhoods were half as Alice-influenced as mine was, you'll probably have fun spotting them.

Their empire is ushered in with music and with music it continues, much to Lucy's pleasure. )

Reading: 22 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
6:57 pm - [Merlin: miss the train before (2/9)]
Title: Miss The Train Before
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: currently PG
Word count: 6576 for this part
Notes: Finally! I'm sorry this chapter took me ages to get out. This is the end of the pure globetrotting-and-introductions; after this, the plot might actually start in earnest. And Arthur will actually make an appearance, I promise :D

(Part One)

Both girls looked at him like he'd suggested making up a song about bombs and singing it within earshot of the security guards. )

Reading: 75 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
10:08 am - [original fiction: eyaiverse 101]
Title: Fortuna Fugit
Rating: PG
Notes: While I'm working on the next chapter of the heist AU (which I am! as we speak!), here's something a bit different: it was brought to my attention that I'd never actually posted my favourite original story to this ficblog, for reasons that seemed logical when I first posted it to [info]fahye but now seem...less so.

So here it is. This began as a one-off short story, and then there was the director's commentary, and then a few other people started writing stories and drabbles set in the same universe (the master post is here; I recommend them all to you without reservation, and suggest reading in the order that they were written), and my beloved [info]ariastar adapted this first story for a chapter of the infamous [info]dwseason5.

And now I'm working on my second eyaiverse story and have a couple more ideas up my sleeve, and it's become one of my favorite fictional playgrounds.

I hope you enjoy it, even though it's probably not quite why you're watching this ficblog :)

( "The creation of life," you say, "would that fall under the definition of fighting entropy, or increasing it?" )
Monday, March 30th, 2009
10:53 pm - [The History Boys: when our falsehoods are divided]
Title: When Our Falsehoods Are Divided
Fandom: The History Boys
Rating: probably a hard R
Word count: 8486
Notes: This is for [info]schiarire; things I stole from her include Buber's idea of I-thou relationships, and les didascalies. Things I stole from the Magdalen College website include the existence of the Florio Society, which meets and critiques the anonymously submitted poetry of its own members.

I have done my best to recreate what Ji calls the PERFECT STORM OF SEXUAL TENSION that exists in the film. This is a Herculanean task no matter which way you look at it, and I am always suspicious of fics when the writing process feels like eating chocolate mousse with a silver spoon (indulgent and guilty-pleasurey), but I hope you enjoy it.

I am a highly unsuitable person to be writing in this fandom because a) I usually write in speculative universes, and b) I took a single semester of history in Year 7 and haven't touched it since, so I know extremely little about the history of anywhere. Through sheer force of will I have (mostly) managed to avoid mentioning science, choosing instead to wallow around in Shakespeare and Auden and French and a whole lot of other lovely things that I also wish I were better educated in. There is now a director's commentary which explains all the references in more depth, but read the fic first :)

This was supposed to be all intellectual and stuff, but it surprised me by becoming one of the dirtiest things I've ever written. Not extensively, but...intensely.

Et pourquoi mentir, à qui mentir? )

Reading: 55 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Sunday, March 1st, 2009
11:44 pm - [Merlin: miss the train before (1/9)]
Title: Miss The Train Before
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: currently PG
Word count: 4604 for this part
Notes: I normally have a firm rule against posting WIPs, but as far as this story is concerned I am a) determined to write linearly for once in my damn life, and b) in dire need of some external pressure. So. Call it an experiment.

This is the first proper AU I've ever written and I blame Merlin fandom entirely. It was started, appropriately enough, in an aeroplane.

Written by [info]fahye, with illustrations provided by [info]ryokophoenix. This is a fiction, but parts of it are true.

The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to miss the train before.
-- G.K. Chesterton


Merlin turned the plane radio to a comedy channel, jabbed the volume down low, and fell asleep to the sound of Monty Python informing him that watery tarts going around distributing swords was not a reasonable basis for a system of government. )

Reading: 144 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Sunday, February 1st, 2009
7:15 pm - [Naruto: the anatomy of need]
Title: The Anatomy of Need
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4207
Notes: Written for [info]erisabesu for the [info]oh_shit_santa Xmas exchange, largely via frantic fits of scribbling in notepads on trains across Italy. We are maybe the only two people I know who are extremely fond of Kabuto, so I leapt at the chance to write something about him.

Call him a traditionalist, but Konoha's checkerboard existence has never been his favourite game board )

Reading: 26 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Saturday, December 6th, 2008
9:41 am - [Merlin: quickening days (3/3)]
This, whatever they had, whatever they were creating simply by existing in the same space at the same time, was too important to risk losing. )

Reading: 382 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

9:38 am - [Merlin: quickening days (2/3)]
In between Arthur stealing the best slices of ham and Merlin managing to drip berry juice all over his trousers, there was a lot more talking. )

Reading: 15 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

9:28 am - [Merlin: quickening days (1/3)]
Title: Quickening Days
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: R
Wordcount: 22,174 (HOLY SHIT)
Notes: In which dragons & ghosts & prejudices are confronted, Merlin wears a hat (twice) and a dress (once), Arthur breaks some crockery (lots), there are more pranks than pillowfights but at least one of each, and many secrets are revealed.

This idea jumped me one day, sunk its teeth into my jugular and refused to let go until it was written. Apparently I have a burning need to contribute to the infamous fandom subgenre known as 'Merlin wears a dress'; I just didn't expect it to grow (and grow, and grow, and grow) an actual plot. For everyone who's wondering where the kissing is: it happens eventually! I promise!

This is the longest thing I have ever written in my entire life, and in a grand Antipodean fuck-you-too to the sudden proliferation of winter-themed fics in the fandom, it is a summer story.

The title is drawn from the fact that another name for the rowan tree is the Quicken. Bless you, Wikipedia.

Isn't it fortunate that I have such a deep and abiding interest in the effects of storage mildew on the price of barley )

Reading: 21 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
4:22 pm - [Merlin: meteorology]
Title: Meteorology
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4596
Notes: Uh. Look. My big scary PASS THESE OR FAIL OUT OF MEDICAL SCHOOL exams are in less than a week, and watching Merlin was meant to be a nice joyful way to spend my study breaks, but...that didn't exactly work out. Because this show makes me want to squeal in a high-pitched manner and have caplocky conversations about DESTINY and, obviously, write fic. Much love to [info]ariastar for reading this over and making excited noises, and for helping me fill in some gaps.

This is a fic about Arthur's pratliness, because I miss it when it goes away, and I wanted an excuse to go on at great lengths about it. I suspect I also wanted an excuse to make up at least three different variations on the word 'prat'.

Set...between 1x09 and 1x10, I suppose. It was meant to be a lot slashier, but instead it is just about as slashy as the show. Which is still pretty damn slashy, trust me.

So what did they do, give you a spiked rattle and encourage you to whack your innocent toys with it? )

Reading: 204 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Saturday, October 25th, 2008
10:42 am - [Narnia: so great and beautiful]
Title: So Great & Beautiful
Fandom: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 8514
Notes: FINALLY DONE. I started writing this the day I came home from seeing PC at the cinema, and like most of my fics written for movies it became less a sensible narrative and more a complex scaffolding on which for me to display what I thought of the movie/Caspian's character/Narnia as a concept. I'm not quite sure what it is with me and second voice when it comes to male protagonists; I think the act of addressing them helps me settle into their thoughts.

This is based on movie canon. Ergo: everyone talks slightly less like they stepped out of an Enid Blyton Special, and Caspian is not nine years old. Susan was meant to have a lot more screentime but then my Caspian developed a raging crush on Peter as well, so I had to radically readjust what the emotional drive of this story was.

Enormous thanks are due to [info]liminalliz, who looked over my first skeleton-draft and told me what needed to be fixed. Without her this would have been a much poorer story.

Final notes: yes, I nicked a line from Peter Pan. Yes, my Heaven is less creepy than everyone else's Heaven -- I had to do this so that I didn't depress myself into oblivion. The epigraph is from Viva la Vida, around which the heart of this was woven and written -- be my mirror, my sword and shield -- oh, who would ever want to be king? -- and the title is from The Last Battle.

You laugh to hide the echo of Peter's voice in your head, telling you about death and mistakes. )

Reading: 90 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Monday, October 20th, 2008
7:56 pm - [Dexter: ask me how]
Title: Ask Me How
Fandom: Dexter
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4727
Notes: I just realised that I never posted this, which was my entry for last year's Yuletide, to my ficblog! So here it is, extremely belatedly. It took me a lot of frantic hair-pulling to write, but in retrospect I'm proud of it: I adore the twisty dynamics between Dexter and all of the other people in his life, and I adore playing around with life and death and fiction.

Set between S1 and S2, so obviously there are spoilers for the first season.

We haven't met, but I killed someone you passed in the street once. )

Reading: 5 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Saturday, September 27th, 2008
9:52 pm - [Avatar: to cover a bruise]
Title: to cover a bruise (the rainy days remix)
Fandom: Avatar
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3953
Notes: This is a remix of Reign Within, which is a fantastic semi-AU Avatar fic by the inestimable [info]rawles. I have been obsessed with that fic for ages, so writing this remix was a delight. It turned out EVEN MORE DISTURBING than I thought it would, which is a real accomplishment, but apparently Azula is one severely fucked-up little cookie (yeah, who knew, right?).

The title is a mixture of Fake Palindromes, which is the One True Azula Song, and Electrical Storm, which is the song for Azula in this fic.

In the darkness of her chambers Azula splits the story and splits it again. )

Reading: 49 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Saturday, July 26th, 2008
3:26 pm - [Naruto: anchored in dust]
Title: Anchored In Dust
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: R
Wordcount: 9758
Notes: This was my entry for the latest anon challenge at [info]oh_shit_santa and it appears that I have learned nothing from The Listening Sky, because Sasuke remains a bitch to write and I remain unable to stay within a sane word limit once I start getting excited about my own invented mythology. (Well, in this case it is a pastiche of mythology that I stole from other places and then chucked into the Naruto-verse and stood back to watch what would happen.)

In case this is not glaringly obvious: I have something of a Thing for desert stories.

The sand is like a thousand tiny fingers all scratching and pressing against his skin. )

Reading: 55 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Sunday, July 20th, 2008
6:07 pm - [Doctor Who: uncertainty principles]
Title: Uncertainty Principles
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4592
Notes: As...promised? threatened? this carries on vaguely from Mendelian Inheritance and Resonance Structures -- having covered biology and chemistry, I felt duty-bound to write something about physics, even though this one contains fewer metaphors and more dialogue. The linguistics, however, remain untouched. If I start one about maths, SHOOT ME.

Yes, the physical concepts raised by the subtitles are all referenced in the subsequent vignettes, because I'm a crazy person who did too much science in high school and now hangs out with too many academic physicists.

This is for Aria. I suspect she knows why.

Every time he doesn't leave, every time he makes a choice, he feels the universe splintering under his hands. )

Reading: 42 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Monday, July 14th, 2008
12:02 am - [Doctor Who: resonance structures]
Title: Resonance Structures
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2027
Notes: There is a very good chance that this is the geekiest thing I have ever written. I don't know. I opened a document a couple of hours ago and started to drabble Doctor/Master with absolutely no idea of where I was going, and somehow THIS happened.

The game of three-dimensional chess belongs to [info]ariastar -- I just borrowed it :)

As a general rule, the way humans think about the universe is incorrect by a magnitude of a single dimension. )

Reading: 57 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...

Sunday, May 11th, 2008
11:36 pm - [Naruto: triage]
Title: Triage
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 7838
Notes: Ohgodfinally *collapses*. I started writing this quite a few weeks ago* as an idle experiment, because I love OT3s and I wanted to see what I could do with the Sasuke/Naruto/Sakura dynamic, but it turned out to be more fiddly and time-consuming than I would have liked. Also rather more centred around the Sasuke-Sakura dynamic than I thought it would be, largely because of my perverse wish to see their relationship written in a way that didn't make me want to rip my own hair out.

This fic was meant to contain porn, or at least a lot more kissing, but it didn't work out :( This is entirely Sasuke's fault.

The title is a rather silly pun.

*Ergo: it is blessedly and shamelessly AU from recent manga developments.

Sakura has grown adept at recognising the point at which a fever teeters between recovery and fatality. )

current mood: tired
current music: Sarah McLachlan -- Elsewhere

Reading: 113 degrees | on the quicksilver scale...


> previous 20 entries
> top of page
LiveJournal.com