My memoir is All The Fishes Come Home To Roost, published by Rodale, Hodder/Sceptre, and Mouria. Click below to buy a beautiful, first-edition, autographed hardcover direct from me, for only $12.00 plus shipping and handling.

Read free samples of and buy my manga here! Gorgeous art by telophase, martial arts, angsty psychics, and men kissing men: what more can anyone want?

( WARNING POLICY )
( STORY INDEX )

( Buffy the Vampire Slayer )
( Cherry Ames )
( Dragonlance )
( Emily of New Moon )
( Weetzie Bat )
( Fullmetal Alchemist )
( Godchild )
( Gundam Wing )
( Heroes )
( Kushiel's Dart )
( L. J. Smith's The Secret Circle )
( Mushishi )
( Naruto )
( Saiyuki )
( Samurai Champloo )
( Sandman )
( The Sarah Connor Chronicles )
( Spooks/MI-5 )
( Suzanne Vega's The Queen and the Soldier )
( Tsubasa/Xxxholic )
( Watership Down )
( Veronica Mars )
( Westmark )
( X/1999 )
( Yami no Matsuei )

Dear Sekrit Yuletide Writer,

Thank you very much for writing a story for me!

I’m writing this letter so you can get a sense of what I love about the fandoms I requested, and of what sort of stories I like. I realize that the length and level of detail contained herein make me sound like a control freak (which I kind of am) but nevertheless, please take it as something that I hope will be helpful or inspirational, rather than as a set of commands. Honestly, I love these fandoms so much, I am going to be over the moon with whatever you write me.

For ease of stalking, my non-fic LJ is rachelmanija.

This year I'm hoping for comfort and joy. If you happen to know all four of the fandoms I requested, you'll see how while they can be quite angsty, they exist in universe where love of all kinds is real and valued, the world is a huge and colorful and amazing place, sex is about fun and connection rather than guilt,* and even the saddest and loneliest and most damaged person can find companions, a purpose, and joy they never dreamed of.

*Except in Pern, sometimes. But that's a "fix it" request.

So in your stories, feel free to put in plenty of angst-- the happiest endings are the ones that feel most earned through struggle and sorrow-- but I'd really like that happy ending. Wistful or hopeful or bittersweet would be fine too, just not glum or tragic.

My squicks are the usual ones, though seriously: who writes golden showers or necrophilia without a specific OK given for it? Just in case, I am squicked by excretory substances, noncon, dubcon, necrophilia (since I mentioned it), vomit, sexuality between adults and young teenagers, and children having sex. Teenagers having sex with each other is fine with me, ie, joyous encounter between teenage Menolly and Mirrim? Go for it! That being said, I do not require explicit or indeed any sex. Go where the story takes you.

( Anne McCaffrey's Pern )

( Vonda N. McIntyre's Dreamsnake )

( Fire Dancer series )

( Modesty Blaise )

If you’d like to check out some of my fic but aren’t familiar with any of the fandoms I’ve written in, note that all my fic is bookmarked on a sticky post at the top of this LJ. I’ve linked here to some stories I’ve written which neither require familiarity with nor contain spoilers for their fandoms.

The Taste of Honey, written for Neil Gaiman’s comic book series Sandman, requires no knowledge of the source whatsoever except that Death is Death, and Dream rules both the dreams of sleep and the dreams of waking-- that is to say, stories.

Autumn Gold was written for the manga series Saiyuki and its prequel Saiyuki Gaiden. It should be self-explanatory.

There's more stories in my memories, for varied and sundry fandoms. Note that stories may also be spoilery so proceed with caution, and that the Kushiel's Dart story "The Rose of Naamah" contains fairly extreme S&M.

Here’s a very long List O' Things I Love

Again, thank you very, very much. I hope you have fun writing my story. I can’t wait to read it!

I think you all may not have fully thought through the possibilities of my offer, for the fandom charity auction to raise money for life-saving surgery, to write any short piece to order, poetry or prose, fanfic or original, to the TOP THREE bidders.

This is your chance to get something beautiful to cherish. Or, alternatively, to get me to metaphorically stand on my head and bark like a seal. You could ask for a Gundam Wing sestina!* You could ask for your favorite poor-quality, high-id-factor fandom, like Sime/Gen or Anne McCaffrey or Jack Chalker, to be rewritten in decent prose! Or anything!

I'm just saying, think about it.

*No guarantee on quality.

Also, you can now line up at the dunk tank and get me to review nearly anything.

Please feel free to copy and publicize this far and wide!

What is this?
care_faith_hope is a fandom auction to benefit faithhopetricks. Bidding begins on September 28, 2009, Monday, 10 a.m. Pacific time, and closes on October 10, 2009, Saturday, 11:59 p.m. Pacific time. Please do not bid until bidding opens. (You may put up an offer at any time.)

What's the cause?
This auction is to raise money for the medical expenses of faithhopetricks and her husband. They have no health insurance and no savings, and her husband requires immediate heart surgery. Both have other potentially life-threatening conditions which have gone untreated or poorly treated due to their lack of health insurance. More detailed information is in the user info of care_faith_hope

Some details have been left out for reasons of privacy. Please do not contact faithhopetricks to inform her of government assistance programs she can apply for. We are working on that. However, if you know of job openings for an IT professional in greater Seattle, her husband will be seeking a job as soon as he recovers.

How can I help?
You can bid on fanfic, original fic, vids, cookies, memorabilia, critique/betas, and much more! Or you can offer your skills and services as a writer, vidder, baker, knitter, or whatever else you'd like.

Current offers include homemade baked goods and candy, unique memorabilia from and a guided tour of the Jim Henson Company, books signed by the authors, vids and fanfic, and much more!

I am offering fanfic to the TOP THREE bidders! And more! To find my offers, click on the tag "seller: rachelmanija."

How do I bid?
This post has full information on bidding.

How do I offer an item or service?
1. Join the community via the user info page.

2. Make a properly tagged and headlined post. You can find the full list of tags here. Please check the format of the tags before making up your own. Standardized tags help people find your offer.

PLEASE TAG YOUR POSTS.

Title: Paradise.
Fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Word Count: 2200
Spoilers: For the entire run of the series.
Rating and warnings: PG for non-graphic violence.
Synopsis: Five timelines that might have happened.
Author’s note: I did my best to get the character ages and details of who knows what in which timeline right, but it’s very complicated. Any inconsistencies are probably errors rather than subtle hints.

For oyceter, who came up with several of the scenarios, though now I forget which are hers and which are mine. Enjoy!

( Once a tunnel rat, always a tunnel rat. )

Guys, give me a prompt, in any fandom I'm familiar with (including ones I haven't written yet.) Preferably in the form of a Five Things of some sort.

A complete master list of all my stories, with warnings, is now available at the top of this LJ.

Title: Countdown
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Words: 3600

Written for poilass for "Con Or Bust."

Rating and warnings: PG for violence and trauma; this is a story about Heero, so warning for suicide attempts. Given the fanon regarding the subject matter, perhaps I should mention that this story does not contain any child abuse other than that inherent in being trained as a child soldier.

Synopsis: Heero has brief encounters with the other pilots when they’re all children.

Author’s Note: The canon for this story was taken from the manga Episode Zero. It has backstories for the pilots which had been intended to be part of the anime, but were cut for logistical reasons. You don’t have to have read the manga to read this story, and the only things the story spoils are fairly predictable anyway. Odin Lowe is in the manga; he’s an assassin who teaches the child Heero (who apparently didn’t then have that name) the tricks of the trade.

( I had accompanied Odin Lowe on many missions by the time I first asked him if I could carry out of our scheduled assassinations myself. )

Title: To Catch A Star
Fandom: Emily of New Moon, by L. M. Montgomery
Spoilers: This is an alternate ending for Emily's Quest, so spoilers for about the first third, then it goes AU.
Word count: 1800
No warnings.

Note: Happy birthday, sartorias! It's your Con Or Bust story!

The poem is by Basho.

( Her laugh alone threatened to shatter Aunt Elizabeth’s heirloom mirror. )

Title: In Dreams
Words: 200
Spoilers: For Xxxholic 12. Spoil me further and lose an eye.

For rilina_fic.

( Sakura never gets used to the cascade of memories when she gets a feather back. )

Title: Sisters.

Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Note: Written for yhlee for springfluff -- go join, y'all!

Synopsis: Friends who slay together stay together.

Characters: All original.

Warnings: Pure, unadulterated fluff.

Spoilers: Either none or for the series end, depending on how you think of it.

( I need snappy comeback lessons. )

Not one, but two auctions for good causes are going on right now!

One, con_or_bust, is to help fans of color/non-white fans to attend Wiscon. Some of those fans had already expressed interest but could not afford to go, and hence a fundraiser was created. I am offering fanfic or an original story.

The other, accessiblehouse, is to help a couple keep their house. One has lost his job, and the other is disabled. The house was completely renovated for accessibility, and it would be prohibitively expensive or impossible to make a new home equally accessible. I am offering two beautiful autographed hardcover copies of my memoir.

In light of how much everything sucks right now for so many of us (in the last week, my car and computer needed repairs, I still don't have net access at home, and I got an unexpected medical bill - and that's just me!) yhlee and I decided to cheer everyone up.

We created springfluff, a no-deadline, no-stress fandom gift exchange!

Rules in user info; go check it out. Requests and offers need not be fluffy; if angst and doom make you happy, we will bring on the angst and doom!

Please be kind and tag your entries in this format: anime and manga: [name of show or manga], author: [last name first name], tv: [non-anime tv show], movie: [you get it), comic: (western comic), manhwa: [name of manhwa], etc.

Please announce this on your own LJs if you'd like to spread the joy and increase the chances of someone creating something for you.

I will be hovering over the requests like a vulture, so if you'd like a story written by me for you, please post your requests - maybe one will strike my eye.

In honor of Viz flinging new volumes of Naruto into the market - up to 41 in English now and I'm not yet caught up so please don't spoil me - octopedingenue has launched reread_no_jutsu, a group reread community for Naruto, the shounen ninja manga that charmed me with its portrayal of a young ninja losing his mind during the ninja written exams and then broke and healed my heart more thoroughly than anything ever. (Volume 31, in case you're curious. Again, please do not spoil here.)

Please join and discuss!

Order the series from Amazon: Naruto, Volume 1

Click on the tag for my Naruto fic.

Apparently I never linked to last year's stories, either. Oops.

All the King's Men. Godchild. Written after I'd read volume 6 but before volume 8 came out, but it totally accidentally is completely in accordance with actual canon!

Rated R. At least. Contains lots of explicit and inventive sex, including BDSM and some mindgames, but all consensual.

The request was for Cain/Crehador, but I really ship Cain/Riff, so I had to find a way to make that work.

An undead priest named Father Lucanus Revelation and a plot to poison London with Communion Wine leads to Cain having several fraught encounters with Crehador and Riff while Cain is dressed as an altar boy. I am so going to Hell.

Cain's silken hair fell across his face as he bent over a lower shelf. He removed a vial with no label at all, whose contents resembled liquid amber. A tiny white object was suspended in the thick fluid, but more detail than that Crehador could not see. Cain took out a pipette and withdrew the smallest minim of liquid. He regarded it with none of the proper apprehension any man might feel when observing something venomous, but with a dreadful anticipation. Hypnotized by this strange sight, Crehador forgot the terrible suspicion which had brought him to this place, and watched as Cain, with a languorous sigh, let a single drop fall upon his small pink tongue.

Then Crehador was roused to action! Leaping from his place of concealment, he grasped the eggshell bones of Cain's delicate wrist.

The vial shattered against the marble floor. The white object slowly rose to the surface of the amber pool. (As Cain knew though Crehador did not, it was the skull of an embryonic shrew.)

City of Angels. Written for Francesca Lia Block's Weetzie Bat series, but I think it stands on its own. The prompt was "make this New Yorker miss Los Angeles." I'm really happy with how it came out. Rated G.

It was New Year's Eve, and the excitement of the 3.8 million residents of Los Angeles, plus assorted visitors and passers-through, sizzled through the crisp and only slightly smoggy winter air. All over the city, the thoughts of those 3.8 million (plus extras) bubbled like champagne in anticipation of fireworks and designer dresses and parties and dancing and as-yet-unkissed midnight kisses.

Lucky. Er, Dragonlance. I had way too much fun writing this one. Rated G. Vague hints of slashiness.

The companions had been trudging through the endless maze of mountain caves for several days (as best as they could judge without sun or moon to guide them), and had already battled a rust monster, a skeleton hook horror, and a gelatinous cube. But nothing had truly struck fear into Tanis' heart until he heard the cheerful piping tones of Tasslehoff's voice saying, "Now this looks really interesting!"

I've been tagging all my old fic (so click on the tags to find them all!) and realized that I forgot to post links to this year's Yuletide stories of mine.

The Star in the Sapphire. Epic (8000 words!), plotty story based on L. J. Smith's Secret Circle trilogy, about teenage witches. When another coven attacks Cassie's in a series of duels on the psychic plane, character and secrets are revealed. (Duels loosely inspired by the Black Rose arc in Revolutionary Girl Utena.) Rated R for slash, femmeslash, het, and more! Set post-series.

She was pressed between Diana's slim elegance and the luscious abundance of Faye's voluptuous body. Laughing, the cousins pushed her down to the ground. Their long hair fell past their shoulders and tickled Cassie's skin. Her senses were so attuned that she could feel the difference between Diana's fine strands and Faye's springy locks, and smell Diana's apple-scented shampoo, Faye's sandalwood, and the natural oils of their hair.

The Drop. Spooks/MI-5. Tom Quinn can't let go of his past. I was originally going to call this "Five Things That Might Or Might Not Have Happened At MI-5," but I only ended up thinking of the one. 2000 words, rated PG. Spoilers for season three.

It's hard to stop seeing hidden connections and secret flurries of activity beneath the placid surface of ordinary life.

Cherry Ames, Summer Camp Nurse. Based on the Cherry Ames series written in the 1940s-1950s, about a very dedicated nurse with cheeks red as cherries. PG-rated femmeslash.

Cherry had planned to spend the summer resting and recovering after her harrowing experience in Alaska. Though she had uncovered a ruthless criminal and saved the life of a child, her long trek through the snow had left her run-down and sensitive to cold. But she couldn't resist such a desperate plea for aid. Besides, being a summer camp nurse for high-spirited teenagers would be as good as a vacation.

Title: Five Things Tsunade Didn't Save (And One She Did)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None if you know who Tsunade is.
Words: 1350

Note: A gift for rilina_fic. Apparently prompted by a post she'd made hoping for Tsunade fic, I dreamed the title but no story to go with it. She suggested that I write it anyway, so I did. Enjoy!

( There was a time when Tsunade was proud of her scars. )

Fandom: Gundam Wing
Title: Two Business Cards, a Backstage Pass, and a Multi-Purpose Tool
Word Count: 4300
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Vaguely spoilery for Endless Waltz

Written for poilass for livelongnmarry. The battle continues!

Synopsis: Heero looks for a purpose in peacetime; the other pilots offer him some possibilities.

( There are more important things in the universe than the regrets of weapons. )

Dear Sekrit Yuletide Writer,

Thank you very much for writing a story for me!

I’m writing this letter so you can get a sense of what I love about the fandoms I requested, and of what sort of stories I like. I realize that the length and level of detail contained herein make me sound like an insane control freak (which I kind of am) but nevertheless, please take it as something that I hope will be helpful or inspirational, rather than as a set of commands. Honestly, I love these fandoms so much, I am going to be over the moon with whatever you write me.

For ease of stalking, my non-fic LJ is rachelmanija.

This year I'm hoping for comfort and joy. If you happen to know all four of the fandoms I requested, you'll see how while they can be quite angsty, they exist in universe where love of all kinds is real and valued, the world is a huge and colorful and amazing place, sex is about fun and connection rather than guilt, and even the saddest and loneliest and most damaged person can find companions, a purpose, and joy they never dreamed of.

So in your stories, feel free to put in plenty of angst-- the happiest endings are the ones that feel most earned through struggle and sorrow-- but I'd really like that happy ending. Wistful or hopeful or bittersweet would be fine too, just not glum or tragic.

( Modesty Blaise )

( Diane Duane's Door Into... series )

( Barbara Hambly's Windrose series )

( Fire Dancer series )

If you’d like to check out some of my fic but aren’t familiar with any of the fandoms I’ve written in, I’ve linked to some stories I’ve written which neither require familiarity with nor contain spoilers for their fandoms.

The Taste of Honey, written for Neil Gaiman’s comic book series Sandman, requires no knowledge of the source whatsoever except that Death is Death, and Dream rules both the dreams of sleep and the dreams of waking-- that is to say, stories.

Autumn Gold was written for the manga series Saiyuki and its prequel Saiyuki Gaiden. It should be self-explanatory.

There's more stories in my memories, for varied and sundry fandoms. Note that stories may also be spoilery so proceed with caution, and that the Kushiel's Dart story "The Rose of Naamah" contains fairly extreme S&M.

Here’s a very long List O' Things I Love

Again, thank you very, very much. I hope you have fun writing my story. I can’t wait to read it!

This is the story won by kinsugi in the livelongnmarry auction to benefit marriage equality in California. Thank you very much for your contribution, and I hope you enjoy the story.

Fandom: Mushishi
Title: Perennial
Word Count: 2000
Rating: G
Spoilers: None really, but it's set after "A Sea of Brushes."

Synopsis: Ginko tells Tanyuu a story.

( Maybe I shouldn’t share sake with the next half-human mushi who offers me some in a cup of green bamboo. )