SOMEONE ANONYMOUSLY BOUGHT ME PAID LIVEJOURNAL TIME. Who are you, mysterious person? Whoever you are, I think you're absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much!

I mentioned to th_esaurus (who is now my housemate!) that someone had bought me paid time. She pointed out that this was probably because I am, in fact, the only person who still uses Livejournal. It's true, alas.

Do I have anything to offer you, anonymous benefactor? It's difficult to choose something when I don't know who you are! Here are some snippets of unfinished fanfiction, anyway; I hope you find something you like in here. (I also hope you find something you like if you are not my anonymous benefactor, of course.)



My Little Pony/Merlin: Lancelass, the sequel to Marelin.

“Can you pass me my horn?”

“Your... horn?” Twilight asks, looking around the room. There’s one thing that looks kind of hornlike: a long rainbow-striped pole that comes to a point, lying on top of a chest of drawers. She manages to hold herself back from moving it magically – it’s a difficult habit to train oneself out of – and picks it up in her mouth instead.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash says, turning around. “Over by—” and then she stops talking and just stares.

Twilight grins sheepishly up at her around a mouthful of handle, fully aware of how pathetic she must look. She’s not really used to moving heavy objects without magic, and the only way she can get this ‘horn’ over to the princess is by dragging it across the floor.

“Wow,” Rainbow Dash says. “Don’t ever joust.”

Jousting. Oh, that’s right. Twilight has read about this. “Wasn’t really planning to,” she says, letting go of the handle. “Why do you call it a horn?”

Rainbow Dash shrugs. “I don’t know; the jousting’s meant to be some kind of metaphor for the dangers of magic or something. I mean, I think it just gives the message that the dangers of magic are kind of cool.”

Twilight hesitates.

“Is that what you think?” she asks. “That magic is cool?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure magic’s not exactly like jousting. I’m just saying it’s not a great metaphor.”



The Mentalist: Lisbon becomes psychic.

He doesn’t want her to see his thoughts on his family, she can feel it, because they’re private and they’re his and because he knows it will hurt her, but of course in wanting to hide those thoughts he brings them to the front of his mind and the guilt hits her so hard she physically doubles over.

Jane catches her by the arm and she tries to focus on the feel of his hands instead of his mind, tries to make her breathing loud enough in her head to drown out his thoughts.

The moment she’s halfway steady again, Jane lets go of her and walks away, lies down on the couch. She has to bite her tongue to keep herself from asking him to stay by her side, even though his proximity is the problem.

“How do you live with it?” she asks, when she feels capable of speaking. Her mouth feels dry.

Jane won’t look at her. “It’s mostly unconscious biological processes.”

“I’m being serious, Jane.”

“Oh, are we being serious now?” He swings his legs off the couch, sits up, fixes her with a very hard stare. “Stay out of my head, Lisbon.”

“I can’t exactly help it—”

“What’s in there is for nobody but me.” His gaze doesn’t waver, but she catches a few flickers of regret and reluctance in his mind. “I care about you very much, Lisbon, and I care about this job, but if you can’t turn this off, I can’t be near you.”

Lisbon stares at him. “You’d leave?”

“I don’t see what other options I have.”

Jane can’t lose this job. It’s something Lisbon has known since long before this thing happened to her head; being able to hear his thoughts only confirms it. He can’t walk away from the CBI. It would kill him.

“You can’t,” she says.

“What, my job security is so good I can’t quit?”

“I mean – where would you go?”



Peep Show/Harry Potter: Mark and Jeremy meet on the Hogwarts Express.

“So what are the houses?” Jeremy asks, sprawling in the seat opposite him.

Mark, disconcerted by the sign that this boy apparently doesn’t intend to leave any time soon, needs a moment to gather his thoughts. “Well, er, essentially Ravenclaw is for students of intelligence and wit, Gryffindor for bravery and valour, Slytherin for ambition and, well, ruthlessness, and Hufflepuff for... for hard work and loyalty.” Merlin, if he’s trying so hard to get into Ravenclaw will the Sorting Hat interpret that as loyalty to his father? Has he been working too hard at being intelligent? He can’t end up in Hufflepuff; he’ll be disowned.

Jeremy nods, considering. “I reckon I’ll be in Gryffindor. Or Ravenclaw. Can you be in two houses at once? Maybe they’ll have to change the rules for me.”

Mark frowns. “You can’t be in two houses at once.”

“Yeah, they’ll definitely have to change the rules for me.”

“They won’t.”

“Gryffinclaw,” Jeremy says, speculatively. “That sounds pretty cool. I’ll call my house that. Actually, I guess I don’t have to stick with the other houses’ names, do I? I can call it Rocking-something. Rocking... face.”

“They’re not going to invent a new house and let you name it,” Mark says, becoming steadily more irritated by Jeremy’s failure to be intimidated. The Sorting is a terrifying, life-changing event. Mark has been worrying about it since more or less the moment he emerged from the womb. Surely this boy should be at least slightly nervous.

“Well, they’re not exactly going to let you name it, are they? I mean, who are you? It’s not like you’re the king of Hogwarts.”

Mark stares. “Why are you any more – look, the four houses have existed for centuries. They’re named after the four original founders of the school, and there was no founder called Rockingface.”

“Fine!” Jeremy exclaims, throwing up his hands. “I’ll go with stupid Gryffinclaw, then!”

Mark finds he doesn’t have the strength to argue. He’s wondered before why his parents never speak to Muggle-born witches or wizards; if they’re all like Jeremy, he’s going to have to send his father a heartfelt letter of thanks for shielding him from Muggle-borns.

Of course, if he ends up in Hufflepuff his father’s never going to read it. He’ll probably curse Mark’s owl dead on sight. Not that that would be any great loss, because Mark hates his owl. It’s a huge intimidating eagle-owl and Mark is terrified of it. His father bought it for him, of course, despite Mark’s protests; apparently any son of his was going to have a manly pet. Mark doesn’t feel particularly manly when he’s shaking in a corner, trying to work up the courage to approach its cage. He would have been much happier with a toad.



Thank you again!

Unrelatedly: last week, I had a conversation with some friends on the subject of bad stories for Disney to adapt. We came up with Disney's A Clockwork Orange, Disney's Saw and Disney's The Human Centipede. The Human Centipede would have an actual centipede as a cute talking animal sidekick.

Further thoughts on the subject would be very welcome.