merriman | Recent Entries

Hi.

Why is it I feel like I've suddenly gone back in time? Years and years ago, a friend of mine, upon hearing my dissatisfaction with LJ (pre-strikethrough) told me about this site he'd been using to host his own blog: tumblr. Alas, it looks as though while it might still continue to exist, it won't be what it once was. So it goes.

Which brings us here.

I'm not the most active of fans in terms of content. I'm closing in on 40 years old and I'm busy and cranky and I've got anxiety and depression to deal with. I don't make gif sets or mood boards or amazing photo edits. But I do write. Not a ton, but I do. I've been writing fic for a long-ass time and I don't intend to stop. I'm mostly active in the fall and winter (i.e. Yuletide and other swaps) in terms of output, but I'm always happy to lurk/read/comment/discuss any time of the year.

Fandoms: Highlander, Pacific Rim, Tamora Pierce's Tortall and Circle books, Sandman, MCU, and then a whole host of smaller stuff. If you want to see everything I've written, check my AO3. Highlander is definitely the fandom of my heart, regardless of its age. Want to talk sword-wielding immortals? I'm in.

Other places to find me:
pillowfort: merriman
AO3: merriman
ye olde tumblr: flukeoftheuniverse

My twitter is private. Anyone going by merriman on there isn't me.

Currently working on:
A fic for the Highlander swap (

hlh_shortcuts)
Two fics for

yuletide_admin/

yuletide
Editing last year's 50k NaNoWriMo Highlander fic

First and foremost:
Where to find me: Here, obviously. I'm merriman over on AO3 and merrimanlyon on Discord. I like to keep things as consistent as possible.

Thank you for offering something I requested! Yuletide truly is one of my favorite things and I'm always so thrilled to see what someone else has in mind for the bitty little (and maybe not so bitty) fandoms I've requested. Treats are always welcome, though never expected.

Secondly, let's talk generalities: (this bit stolen from previous years' letters)
When it comes to rating, I am not picky. I'll be just as happy with a gen story as with smut and vice versa. Don't try and force a sex scene into a story if it's just not going there for you and don't try to keep it all-audiences if things are heating up. As well, I am perfectly good with slash, femslash, het, poly of any type, when it comes to relationships and pairings. Write what works for the characters and for you so long as it doesn't hit one of the DNWs below.

I am such a sucker for backstory and continuing stories, seeing what happened before we met the character(s) or after the end of the canon. Missing scenes are great too, but you can always get me with some pre or post-canon.

I love angst in stories, but I also like my angst to be resolved by the end of the story. I'm not asking for everything to be super happy funtime with kittens and roses and party balloons, but I'd like some resolution to whatever problem comes up.

As for my DNW list, here goes:
Non-con/dub-con/rape
Pregnancy
Kidfic
Mpreg
ABO
Incest
Underage sex
Cannibalism (of the sexual and non-sexual varieties)
Sex involving bodily fluids other than the norm, and human waste of any kind
In fact, please keep any sex on the non-kinky end of things
Non-canon character death
I'm good with different POVs, but I'd prefer to get plain prose as a format - I'm not into IF, video, poetry, drabble sets, etc. for these requests.

Thirdly, now for specifics:

( Read more... )

It's fic swap season and that means it's time for the Highlander Holiday Shortcuts swap! One of my favorite swaps ever. My sign-up has all my basic info, but here's some additional details that might be relevant:

I've been doing a rewatch of the series from the beginning and enjoying it wholeheartedly. There's definitely some absolute bangers in season one, right off the bat. There are also some duds, but that's what happens with the first season of any show.
I'm currently dealing with some pretty heavy family stuff, so I'd prefer something lighthearted this year, or at least something with a happy ending.
I have also started collecting rusty swords in order to refurbish them, which has been a really fun and really ridiculous hobby so far. I wouldn't mind seeing some sword-care written into a story.

The things I love most about Highlander overall are how it handles immortality in various ways. There are episodes about the melancholy and ennui that can come from so much time, episodes about losing loved ones, episodes about being able to learn more than a mortal has time to learn, episodes about survival, episodes about how much someone can change over centuries, etc. There is so much to explore. Plus there are the swords and the fights. I do love the swords and the fights. I think that's it! Please contact the mods if you have questions for me.

Oh look, I haven't posted since last Yuletide. I should probably do more over here. Ah well. That's for later me to worry about!

First and foremost:
Where to find me: Here, obviously. I'm merriman over on AO3 and merrimanlyon on Discord. I like to keep things as consistent as possible.

Thank you for offering something I requested! Yuletide truly is one of my favorite things and I'm always so thrilled to see what someone else has in mind for the bitty little (and maybe not so bitty) fandoms I've requested. Treats are always welcome, though never expected.

Secondly, let's talk generalities: (this bit stolen from previous years' letters)
When it comes to rating, I am not picky. I'll be just as happy with a gen story as with smut and vice versa. Don't try and force a sex scene into a story if it's just not going there for you and don't try to keep it all-audiences if things are heating up. As well, I am perfectly good with slash, femslash, het, poly of any type, when it comes to relationships and pairings. Write what works for the characters and for you so long as it doesn't hit one of the DNWs below.

I am such a sucker for backstory and continuing stories, seeing what happened before we met the character(s) or after the end of the canon. Missing scenes are great too, but you can always get me with some pre or post-canon.

I love angst in stories, but I also like my angst to be resolved by the end of the story. I'm not asking for everything to be super happy funtime with kittens and roses and party balloons, but I'd like some resolution to whatever problem comes up.

As for my DNW list, here goes:
Non-con/dub-con/rape
Pregnancy
Kidfic
Mpreg
ABO
Incest
Underage sex
Cannibalism (of the sexual and non-sexual varieties)
Sex involving bodily fluids other than the norm, and human waste of any kind
In fact, please keep any sex on the non-kinky end of things
Non-canon character death
I'm good with different POVs, but I'd prefer to get plain prose as a format - I'm not into IF, video, poetry, drabble sets, etc. for these requests.

Thirdly, now for specifics:

( Read more... )

One year to the day after my last post... here we are again. So much Yuletide. So much nostalgia! I've been looking forward to this, so let's fuckin' go.

First and foremost:
Where to find me: Here, obviously. I'm merriman over on AO3 and merrimanlyon on Discord. I like to keep things as consistent as possible.

Thank you for offering something I requested! Yuletide truly is one of my favorite things and I'm always so thrilled to see what someone else has in mind for the bitty little (and maybe not so bitty) fandoms I've requested.

Secondly, let's talk generalities: (this bit stolen from previous years' letters)
When it comes to rating, I am not picky. I'll be just as happy with a gen story as with smut and vice versa. Don't try and force a sex scene into a story if it's just not going there for you and don't try to keep it all-audiences if things are heating up. As well, I am perfectly good with slash, femslash, het, poly of any type, when it comes to relationships and pairings. Write what works for the characters and for you so long as it doesn't hit one of the DNWs below.

I am such a sucker for backstory and continuing stories, seeing what happened before we met the character(s) or after the end of the canon. Missing scenes are great too, but you can always get me with some pre or post-canon.

I love angst in stories, but I also like my angst to be resolved by the end of the story. I'm not asking for everything to be super happy funtime with kittens and roses and party balloons, but I'd like some resolution to whatever problem comes up.

As for my DNW list, here goes:
Non-con/dub-con/rape
Pregnancy
Kidfic
Mpreg
ABO
Incest
Underage sex
Cannibalism (of the sexual and non-sexual varieties)
Sex involving bodily fluids other than the norm, and human waste of any kind
In fact, please keep any sex on the non-kinky end of things
Non-canon character death
I'm good with different POVs, but I'd prefer to get plain prose as a format - I'm not into IF, video, poetry, drabble sets, etc. for these requests.

Thirdly, now for specifics:

( Read more... )

First and foremost:
Where to find me: Here, obviously. I'm merriman over on AO3 and merrimanlyon on Discord. I like to keep things as consistent as possible.

Thank you for offering something I requested! Yuletide truly is one of my favorite things and I'm always so thrilled to see what someone else has in mind for the bitty little (and maybe not so bitty) fandoms I've requested.

Secondly, let's talk generalities: (this bit stolen from previous years' letters)
When it comes to rating, I am not picky. I'll be just as happy with a gen story as with smut and vice versa. Don't try and force a sex scene into a story if it's just not going there for you and don't try to keep it all-audiences if things are heating up. As well, I am perfectly good with slash, femslash, het, poly of any type, when it comes to relationships and pairings. Write what works for the characters and for you so long as it doesn't hit one of the DNWs below.

I am such a sucker for backstory and continuing stories, seeing what happened before we met the character(s) or after the end of the canon. Missing scenes are great too, but you can always get me with some pre or post-canon.

I love angst in stories, but I also like my angst to be resolved by the end of the story. I'm not asking for everything to be super happy funtime with kittens and roses and party balloons, but I'd like some resolution to whatever problem comes up.

As for my DNW list, here goes:
Non-con/dub-con/rape
Pregnancy
Kidfic
Mpreg
ABO
Incest
Underage sex
Cannibalism (of the sexual and non-sexual varieties)
Sex involving bodily fluids other than the norm, and human waste of any kind
In fact, please keep any sex on the non-kinky end of things
Non-canon character death
I'm good with different POVs, but I'd prefer to get plain prose as a format - I'm not into IF, video, poetry, drabble sets, etc. for these requests.

Thirdly, now for specifics:

( Read more... )

First and foremost:
Where to find me: Here, obviously. I'm merriman over on AO3 and merrimanlyon on Discord. I like to keep things as consistent as possible.

Thank you for offering something I requested! Yuletide truly is one of my favorite things and I'm always so thrilled to see what someone else has in mind for the bitty little (and maybe not so bitty) fandoms I've requested.

Secondly, let's talk generalities: (this bit stolen from previous years' letters)
When it comes to rating, I am not picky. I'll be just as happy with a gen story as with smut and vice versa. Don't try and force a sex scene into a story if it's just not going there for you and don't try to keep it all-audiences if things are heating up. As well, I am perfectly good with slash, femslash, het, poly of any type, when it comes to relationships and pairings. Write what works for the characters and for you so long as it doesn't hit one of the DNWs below.

I am such a sucker for backstory and continuing stories, seeing what happened before we met the character(s) or after the end of the canon. Missing scenes are great too, but you can always get me with some pre or post-canon.

I love angst in stories, but I also like my angst to be resolved by the end of the story. I'm not asking for everything to be super happy funtime with kittens and roses and party balloons, but I'd like some resolution to whatever problem comes up.

As for my DNW list, here goes:
Non-con/dub-con/rape
Pregnancy
Kidfic
Mpreg
ABO
Incest
Underage sex
Cannibalism (of the sexual and non-sexual varieties)
Sex involving bodily fluids other than the norm, and human waste of any kind
In fact, please keep any sex on the non-kinky end of things
Non-canon character death
I'm good with different POVs, but I'd prefer to get plain prose as a format - I'm not into IF, video, poetry, drabble sets, etc. for these requests.

Thirdly, now for specifics:
( Arcade Spirits, Logan's Run, The Prisoner, Star Trek: Lower Decks )

Once again I have left my letter to the last minute. Alas, it is my fate to forever get ridiculously busy at the same time as signups.

This year's letter is below the cut - Fandoms requested are Arcade Spirits, Starlight Brigade, and West of Loathing

( The Letter )

Please feel free to contact me through the Yuletide mods if you feel you need more information or have a question/concern about something. I'm more than happy to elaborate on a point or clarify. Thank you again for offering one of my tiny little fandoms and I hope you have a wonderful Yuletide!

Dear Chocolate Box Writer:

This is my first time doing Chocolate Box but not my first swap, as you can see looking at some of the other swap letters here. I hope I've given you plenty to work with and that you have a great time writing!

( The Letter )

Ah, Yuletide. The time of year when I optimistically say I know what I want and therefore I'll have my letter up quickly and then it doesn't happen. I do this every year. I should know better by now. But hey, this year at least it's up before the end of signups, right? Right! Happy Yuletide!

This year's letter is below the cut - Fandoms requested are Dash Sword Slash and the Defenders of Everything, The Box of Delights, Spirit Island, and Arcade Spirits

( The Letter )

Please feel free to contact me through the Yuletide mods if you feel you need more information or have a question/concern about something. I'm more than happy to elaborate on a point or clarify. Thank you again for offering one of my tiny little fandoms and I hope you have a wonderful Yuletide!

After much back and forth in my mind, I have decided to do Fic Corner, and thus this will soon be a letter with more details about things I like and want and things I'm maybe not so fond of but for now it's just a "Watch This Space" post.

( Likes )

( DNWs )

( Request-specific details )

And a thank you! Thank you for offering something I asked for and thank you for writing! I greatly appreciate it!

It's Yuletide time! My favorite time of the year!

Every year I say to myself I will get my letter done before signups open and every year I am very mistaken. That being said, now it is done! A lot of the more general stuff and two of the requests are largely the same as last year and that letter isn't far below this one, so feel free to go take a gander there but there's not much more to see.

And now this year's letter:

( The Letter )

Please feel free to contact me through the Yuletide mods if you feel you need more information or have a question/concern about something. I'm more than happy to elaborate on a point or clarify. Thank you again for offering one of my tiny little fandoms and I hope you have a wonderful Yuletide!

It's Highlander Holiday Shortcuts time!

So I looked back for my old letters when I was doing my signup, fully intending to put something "new" together this year anyhow, but then realized holy crap, the letters I've been pointing to are now over three years old. Definitely time to put a new one together. That said, the old ones have been migrated over to this journal so they should be there if you want to poke back at them.

Let's get to it:

Basics

I'm very much not picky about rating. I would be perfectly happy with just about anything, so long as it suits the story, if that makes sense? I just don't want anyone to be trying to force a sex scene into a story just to have it there, but likewise I don't want to say don't go there if the story is heading in that direction for you. I'd prefer no PWP, but that doesn't mean no sex.

As for pairings, I'm not big on Methos/Joe, but I'm absolutely fine with configuring Methos, Duncan, and/or Amanda however you want, if that's how you want to roll.

I'm not entirely opposed to some crack!fic if you've got a good idea.

I've got a few DNWs and squicks:
- Pregnancy/mpreg
- kidfic
- Unresolved angst (angst is cool - leaving it unresolved gets in my head.
- Dubcon/noncon/rape

What Do I Like?
I like lots of stuff! Specifically, I like Methos. I find him endlessly fascinating as a character, in many different situations. I also really like Amanda, because who doesn't love a charming troublemaker like her? I'm very fond of stories that address the oddness of being Immortal, how it changes how they see the world around them and move through it. I kind of have a thing for the older Immortals. There's got to be a ton of different ways they cope with the various changes they see, the things they've lived (and died) through over the centuries. I don't mind some melancholy in there, but I also do like things to get resolved by the end. Stories that end on an uncertain note tend to leave me feeling unsettled.

Crossover-specific Stuff

Star Trek: I am a long time Star Trek fan. Mostly TNG is my thing, but I also adore TOS. I specifically mentioned Picard, Data, and Q, because they're some of my favorite characters. I think they'd have some interesting reactions to Highlander type Immortals.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Okay look, I love this movie. I love everything about it. And the Cavaliers certainly encounter plenty of Weird Shit, so I've always thought it would be fun to see them encountering Immortals. Or hey, what if Methos was hiding out among them in the 1980s? There's some good crack potential in here.

Supernatural: Ever since I started watching this show, I've thought it was a natural fit for a Highlander crossover. Random lightning strikes without accompanying storms? Headless corpses? People who come back from the dead? Come on. The Winchesters would be all over that. Or you could do Immortal Charlie, right? Or Immortal any of the very many characters who've died. I'm open to a whole lot here.

That's about all I can come up with right now. If I think of anything else I'll add it.

Thank you so much for writing for me!

Oh hey, it's Yuletide signups time again! Which means it's also Yuletide letter time again!

This year's letter is modeled very closely on previous years' letters, which should all have been migrated over here from LJ. If you're curious about previous letters for Yuletide and other swaps, please feel free to take a look.

And now this year's letter:

( The Letter )

Please feel free to contact me through the Yuletide mods if you feel you need more information or have a question/concern about something. I'm more than happy to elaborate on a point or clarify. Thank you again for offering one of my tiny little fandoms and I hope you have a wonderful Yuletide!

Dear Yuletide writer!

( All the details )

Dear Crossovering writer -

I am so very sorry that this letter was not up before assignments went out or just after. Life got in the way, then LJ got in the way and ate what I wrote. Sorry about that.

I've participated in a number of fic swaps over the years, so there are other Dear Writer letters in my LJ, fairly easy to find. Of special note would be if you matched with me on Highlander, I've done a Highlander swap for several years now and my letters for that have some of my preferences for that fandom.

That being said, here's the rest of the letter!

( Dear Crossovering Writer under here )

I think that's about it! I hope you have a good time writing!

My Old Fandom - I am the worst and this was totally supposed to be done weeks ago. Life went whoooooosh and here we are on Trash Mountain. Of which I am the queen.

Anyhow, in the hopes that the person assigned to me is still looking, here's an actual letter:

( Dear My Old Fandom writer/artist )

That's it! Sorry again for utterly dropping the ball on this letter.

Wow, this is super late. Things got away from me at the beginning of the year and I just never made a post about what I wrote for swaps this year. Oops. I did, on the other hand, make a tumblr dedicated to my fic writing: merrimanwrites. All it has so far is links to this year's swap fics on AO3 and some notes on this year's Highlander story, but eventually it will have more.

For

hlh_shortcuts I wrote:
Title: Like New
Characters: Methos, Richie
Rating: Gen
Words: 4429
Summary: Methos is definitely not a new Immortal, but Richie doesn’t know that and Methos isn’t about to tell him.
On LJ * On AO3
Expanded notes on tumblr.

For the Pacific Rim Secret Santa I wrote:
Title: Spindrift
Characters: Raleigh, Mako, Stacker, Herc, Chuck, Tendo
Pairings: Raleigh/Mako, Raleigh/Mako/Chuck (implied/potential)
Rating: Teen+
Words: 4343
Summary: After Pitfall no one is sleeping well, particularly Stacker Pentecost. It might just be survivor’s guilt keeping him awake, or maybe it’s something else. Mako and Raleigh are determined to find out.
On AO3

For

yuletide I wrote:
Fandom: Only Lovers Left Alive
Title: Vast Darkness Unobscured
Characters: Eve, Adam
Pairing: Eve/Adam
Rating: Teen+
Words: 3220
Summary: Adam and Eve, a galaxy apart but still together and moving closer and closer and closer.
On AO3

Fandom: Emelan/Circle of Magic - Tamora Pierce
Title: Investiture
Characters: Sandry, Briar, Tris, Daja, Duke Vedris, Dedicate Lark, others in minor appearances
Rating: Gen
Words: 2999
Summary: Duke Vedris is naming Sandry as his heir. Does she truly want that? And will there be trouble?
On AO3

Fandom: The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Title: Tree Time
Characters: Jane Chatwin, Julia Wicker
Rating: Gen
Words: 1620
Summary: Four meetings in four places at four times. Super duper spoilers for all three books.
On AO3

Fandom: Black Books
Title: Resolved!
Characters: Bernard, Manny, Fran
Rating: Gen
Words: 1114
Summary: Where did they come from? When were they made? No one knows!
On AO3

And that's the lot from this past winter swap season! I'll hopefully be writing up some notes on the Pacific Rim, Only Lovers Left Alive and The Magicians fics at least. They'll be in my writing tumblr.

Dear Pacific Rim writer!

( Letter here )

Dear Yuletide Writer!

( All the details )

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