Merc, 30+, she/her. Writer, Time Travel Enthusiast, Preacher of the Period Drama Gospel. OFC Fairy Godmother. PBS Nerd. Bespoke Historical AUs a Specialty, 18th - 20th centuries preferred. Anons are OFF until the current bot problem subsides.
Hi there! I’m Merc. I love period dramas, strong female leads and women’s history. Placements in 18th through 20th century preferred but not required. Historical Alternate Universes and Original Female Characters are a big part of my fandom practice.
Read more of my writing on Archive of Our Own or on Tumblr at mercurygraypresents
A full list of my original characters is available here.
Current Fandoms:
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, House of Guinness, Andor, Masters of the Air, SAS: Rogue Heroes, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, House of the Dragon
Current projects:
Wing and Cloud (Maekar x OC)
I regularly ask for prompts on Thursdays and Saturdays for these characters and others. (see: thirsty thursday.)
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Just watched Adam Conover (of Adam Ruins Everything) make such a solid point that I think we should spread far and wide. Yes, having AI write your emails is lazy, sure, but people love being lazy. We need to really emphasize that sending AI emails (or using AI responses on social media, or publishing AI flyers, or or or) is rude.
It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.
The above is doubly true if the content of the email is something that will be important to the person receiving - especially something that affects them negatively. They see that this thing that affected them so much didn't matter enough to you to write it yourself. I was a bystander to such a thing not long ago and it was just awful.
Gave myself a few hours off today in between homework assignments to do something fun.
Meri has finally come to King's Landing, an unknown quantity who is easily overlooked - until a chance meeting at one of the King's feasts draws her deep into the spotlight.
She was still getting used to the city.
It had been a long time since this had been required of her, the long tables and long nights and endless talking. Ashford was a quiet place, and if Kevan was summoned to Highgarden that was once or twice a year for an oathtaking and the paying of the rents and she was scarcely needed for that. Marriages and name-day tourneys had been the extent of her parties, and she'd made the most of them, but still - it was not King's Landing nor the king's household. Not even close.
And she had been known in those places - Lord Ashford's goodsister, the aunt of Androw and Robert and Gwin. Here she was an unknown, something for the gossips to puzzle over as Queen Myriah called her to her rooms, her exact connections unclear and her value as a friend unknown. Would it do to make her acquaintance? Was there anything to be gained by it?
It didn't matter, at least not yet - she had taken the time to become reacquainted with the faces at court, recalling old names and old loyalties, listening in to conversations as she passed, taking note of what the servants said about the lords they served. (Servants knew everything, in a house like this. Everyone seemed to forget that. And servants would soon start taking note of her, too.)
It was a rare evening when someone greeted her in the feasting hall - still rarer when someone did it by name.
"Do you not know me, Meri?"
She turned around, and there he was - still tall, with hair that was now just going to gray around the temples, his beard trying to hide a bit of chin and his Tyrell green tunic a bit of thickening middle. Well, but he had always enjoyed a feast. Nothing about him particularly striking - and nothing about his appearance provoked anything but a faint recognition. "Lord Edwyn. How nice to see you."
"You're…looking very well," he said, as if he were experimenting with the word, testing the air between them, smiling just a little. "That color suits you. It always did."
She remembered that crooked smile, and the way a young woman's heart had thrilled to hear a compliment. But she was older now, and more sure of her own worth without the pretty words of boys who didn't mean them. "Thank you."
He gave a nervous little laugh, still smiling in expectation. "Are we to be formal, then, you and I? Even after all this time? My sister made note you were in town, but I scarcely thought I would… I was so pleased when I saw you here."
"I think formal would be best," Meri said curtly. "After all, I am nothing to you." Except a source of embarrassment for your sister, I'm sure.
He grimaced at that, his own words thrown back in his face. "I suppose it's… a bad time to say that I never stopped wondering about us. What might have happened if I'd…been braver then. Stronger. If we'd have been happy. I was young, and…could not stand up to my father in those days."
Oh, that's a pretty way to say it. "And in all the years after, too? Could you not stand up them? Not a single idle moment to write a letter - when you were thinking about how happy we might have been?"
His smile stumbled for a moment, and the embarrassment she remembered so well from Highgarden was coming back in spades, the downcast eyes and shifting feet. "Well, I -- they were reading all my letters, Meri, and then I was sent away to Goldengrove, and I have been - been busy, you know, my father's estates and my…my family."
"Ah, yes, very busy indeed, with your five children," Meri replied, fifteen years of unsaid feelings coming to the fore. It had been a long time since she'd thought of him, longer still that she'd clung to any idea that he might come for her. She'd given up long since. Think of her! What had life dealt him that he would have need of daydreams? "And I'm sure there was no pleasure in the getting of any of them," she went on. "I saw Lady Briony here tonight - and fresh with another fruit for your orchard, I think. Is that what this is? Taking a chance for another bedwarmer while your wife turns you out?"
"Now, Meri, it's not - "
But Edwyn never finished his thought - there was a shadow at her shoulder, and judging by the look in the Tyrell heir's eyes, it was particularly dangerous one at that.
Maekar looked every inch the prince in black and crimson, his usual scowl out in full force. He could pick his moments too - and this would certainly be one for the ages, when he'd been a widower for however long and scarcely interested in saying a kind word to anyone, never mind coming to the aid of a lady in conversation. "Lady Merilinde. My lady mother wishes a word with you." He looked over like he was just noticing Edwyn and gave a curt nod. "Lord Edwyn."
The Tyrell heir swallowed nervously. "Prince Maekar."
"Have you something else to say to the lady, Tyrell? Or may we depart? My mother may be patient but I am not."
"So it's …true then," Edwyn said quietly, looking from former paramour to prince. "My sister suggested - but I wasn't sure if I could believe it."
Maekar's smile was blunt and unamused, his posture at Meri's shoulder leaving little to interpretation - a dragon jealously guarding his treasure. "I'm afraid it is. What is it that boys say? Who goes off the chase loses his place."
It was one thing to confront a rival - still another when that rival was a prince. But Edwyn never could pick his battles. "And you - you wish for this, Meri? To be the prize of a -"
"A dragon?" Meri asked, before the word kinslayer could cross his lips. "Yes - and to be a prize. I have never been that to any man." Not to you, or any other, save for him. Call me a fool for wishing to be loved.
Edwyn gave a sour smile, trying to master his thoughts. "You do know she's spoilt goods, your grace?" he said, trying to find something, anything, with which to claw back a little of his dignity. "Hardly fit for a prince of the blood."
"You may want to watch your words, Tyrell," Maekar said venomously, as Edwyn's mouth opened and then closed again. The prince stepped in closer and pitched his voice lower. "For if I did kill the brother that I loved dearly, what in seven hells will stop me with a man that I despise?"
Edwyn's face whitened, and he turned and fled, back to the safety of his retinue and his bannermen, some half-murmured excuses on his lips. Maekar looked satisfied and offered his arm to Meri. "Lady."
"You enjoyed that," Meri accused, preening just a little inside as they turned back towards the dais. "A little too much."
"Can a man not have some pleasure?" he asked quietly, and she could hear in his voice the hidden delight. "I suppose I had better actually deliver you to my mother," he reflected, steering them towards the royal party at the head of the room. "We are scandal enough as it is." The room was, indeed, staring - the dragon prince and his nameless Crane. And then, quieter still - "May I come to you later? After dinner?"
"Does the dragon wish to gloat over his horde?"
"He does," Maekar said, with as much of a smile as he allowed himself in public. "Very much." They were close to the throne now and Myriah's ladies, and the Queen was beckoning to her son, Aelinor at one hand and Aemma at the other. "My lady," he said, giving her a nod. "Mother."
Myriah made some word of welcome, and bid the women around her make room, and Meri glanced back to see the eyes of the room upon her, everyone staring and wondering and whispering, not the least of them Edwyn and the rest of the Tyrells, and knew, then, that the quiet was over, and the battle would soon begin.
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for the times when you really truly want to do something, but find resistance or that starting feels impossible
most helpful action to get into a task is:
look at it
options include: review what you've already done
open the tab on screen
blur your eyes at first if that helps
fullscreen the image
browse or skim relevant texts
let your gaze move around how it will
JUST...LOOK!!!
Your brain has resistance towards starting the particular project in the way that you've previously conceived of it. Instead of fighting that resistance, try to change your approach to starting your work. Ie, start with colored pencils on a piece you were doing in gouache, include a new stitch in a crochet piece,
Step one: identify the process
Step two: identify places where something new can be included
Step three: brainstorm new options to fill these spots
Step four: select one or more options and try your piece from this new angle
encourage yourself by asking questions
start with: "What am I actually trying to do right now?"
then try: "What would this look like if it were more fun?" "How would I do it if anything was possible?"
divide into discrete tasks
make the closest or shiniest one literally as small & specific as freaking possible
image text: I BELIEVE IN YOU
screenshot text: The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
W.B. Yeats (via billowy)
People are so wild, Jena Dondarrion and Myriah Martell haven't even SHOWN UP, and people are already shitting on them! Like you know, you can suck imaginary dick without being misogynistic, right?
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that “negative kudos” poll really got me lol i have a full time job and a family. do you know what that means lol. I don’t think many people know what that means? it means i have maybe 1 hour MAYBE 2 hours a day that are mine unless i sacrifice sleep. and i use them to write fic most of the time and then i chose to post it online. And there is a subset of people that exists out there that thinks they can and should be able to publicly dislike or negative kudos your fic if they don’t like it instead of just continuing to scroll or hitting back. man no wonder so many people are so easily turning to AI, this unfeeling unflinching thing that just gives and gives more and more slop but who cares about the quality or the person who made it as long as you can just demand more and more and be given more and more. Fic and fanart are not products, you do not get to “review” them. We call it commenting because it’s not a review. And kudos doesn’t reflect on quality, it means thank you for sharing. if you feel the need to complain about something someone used their precious and rare and still valuable time to create for you for free, keep scrolling or literally just die
Every single fic update there is an author trying frantically to find the right balance between a nonchalant aside of "leave a comment if you enjoyed =)" and clinging desperately to the coat tails of a random stranger, dragging along behind them on the street wailing "Please, please! I have to know what you thought! I'm desperate to talk to people about this! Ask me about the alliterative repetition! Ask me about the symbolism!"
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Update: We just started this last night and it was actually a lot of fun. This is a group of (3 Catholic, 1 Episcopal) women I went to (Catholic) college with, and all of them are very smart and deep thinkers. (We are also all very good at reading aloud, which we did for a good hour last night.)
This is the kind of document that it helps to have a friend along for the ride with because there is a lot of food for thought in it. Also, because these are my friends, we ended up talking a lot about fanfiction, human communities, and AI.
