Yuletide Letter 2020

[shinon]

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hello, happy Yule season, and thanks for taking the time! Phlyarologist here. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

I hope this letter will be a useful reference, but I'm absolutely not married to any of the prompts I'm putting out here. I say this upfront to indicate that I'm gonna throw down some likes and a bunch of approximately prompt-shaped rambling and you should feel free to cherry-pick whatever you want, or ignore the prompts entirely. It's fun for me to be surprised by what my writer has pulled together, so please, write something that interests you (while avoiding my DNWs) and I'll come meet you there! I like gen, m/f, f/f, and m/m, and I like stuff that falls into that weird gray area where it's not clear if this is shippy or not! I'm also not an OTPer – if there's a character I like, I just want to bounce them off a bunch of other people, whether for gen or shippy purposes, and I'd also be happy with a solo piece about them doing their thing. I like external plot if you want to go there, and I'm fine without it if you don't! I'm open to stuff in all kinds of tones – humor, angst, horror, drama, good-times friendship or family feels, the works. Heck, if you don't want to stick to one or another, mood whiplash is welcome too.

As far as major archive warnings I am opting in for major character death (unless by suicide; see DNWs) and I am cool with canon-typical levels of violence for any of my requested canons.

Likes: Humor, friendship, adventure, worldbuilding, missing scenes, character study, interactions between characters who don't normally share a lot of page- or screentime, bittersweetness, hope in the face of adversity. Angst, complicated family dynamics, body horror, deathfic.
DNW: Explicit sexual content (implied or fade-to-black is fine), non-con, unrequested incest, unrequested adult/underage ships, pregnancy, non-canonical child characters, modern or mundane AUs; gender or sexuality as sources of angst/conflict; vomit, feces; non-canonical death by suicide (canon suicides or suicides-by-proxy are fine)

Three of these fandoms are the same ones I requested last year. I've made a couple additions to my prompts for The Worm Ouroboros, but the text is otherwise unchanged. For FFVI and The Folk of the Air, I'm requesting different characters this go-round, but if general-purpose prattle about either canon may be of use to you, have at it!

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Collegia Magica series – Carol Berg
Characters: Any (Anne de Vernase, Dante, Ilario de Sylvae, Portier de Savin-Duplais)

This series has everything. Optical instruments used for necromancy. The gradual breakdown of physical laws. Friendship. Deception. Angst. Ritual bleeding. Librarians. Suddenly becoming a badass sorcerer. Poisonings. Stabbings. Saints. Questionably competent spies. I'd love any exploration of this world and I love all four protagonists. Plus I'd genuinely be down to ship them in any combination. Ilario/Portier and Anne/Dante jump out at me the most, but Dante/Portier and Anne/Ilario are also highly shippable. Anne/Portier? Sure, why not! Dante/Ilario? Would probably take some doing, but I'm intrigued! & ships in any permutation are categorically welcome (my kingdom for some kind of Portier & Dante & Ilario casefic, or Anne & Portier, or any other combo you care to contrive). Feel free to go canon-divergent AU on pretty much anything, fix it or make it worse, or set stuff anywhere during or after the books' timeline.

Prompts:

• Anne: I would really love casefic with Anne in particular. This awkward, nerdy, intense young lady trying to navigate Eugenie's court in book 2 was extremely enjoyable to me; I'd love more of that, with assistance from any of the guys as relevant.
  
• Also interested in explorations of her relationships with Lianelle or her father before the plot happened, or how she and her family deal with those losses in the longer term, or any weird speculation on the new nature of magic and structure of the afterlife.
  
• Does the Mondragon bloodline still carry magical power in the new world order established at the end of the series? Does Anne join Dante in investigating? Is she able to embrace this new form of power with fewer reservations?
  
• Dante: Please hurt Dante. Please give him, physically and/or emotionally, a pretty bad time. Dude has to repeatedly go deep undercover and blow up his few existing friendships, do a bunch of nasty things, and wrangle with how easy it is for him to do nasty things; there's all the sensory deprivation stuff; there's the tangle curse, and subsequent weird mutual pining between him and Anne. I would like more angst and suffering from him. A happy or bittersweet ending would be welcome but is not required!
  
• Actually, on that front, some bittersweet family gen with Andero would be great too! I'm especially interested in post-canon for these two – getting to know each other as adults, Dante piecing together things from their fucked-up childhood that he didn't have context for at the time, Andero doing his best to support his weird and scary little brother who does not want to be supported.
  
• Ilario: Everyone in this series goes through the wringer, but while the others do this on page, Ilario's suffering is a little more discreet, and not coincidentally is my favorite. It's just, oh, here's the funniest and most charming person in the book, lifting everyone's spirits, living a lie for going on 30 years, taking a gnarly gut wound and being left for dead, and wearing a fashionable hat! The bit where he agrees to kill Portier in the third book, holy shit. Ilario simply existing and doing Ilario things is fully enough for me, whether it's straight humor, putting a humorous veneer on something deeply upsetting, or just like, stealthily being an honorable and high-minded guy with a depth and sincerity of feeling (including his religious convictions) that nobody fully understands. I love both of his personas and I love the tension between them and also, if you want to write him tragically pining after Anne or Portier, I'm here for it
  
• Backstory on Ilario cultivating his dumbass facade so that he can stay close to Eugenie? Any routine canon-era interaction between them (maybe she asks him a favor, or defends him from insults, or he engages in typical OTT gallantry for her ladies) that's laden with subtext Eugenie doesn't pick up on?
  
• Portier: Justice for Portier's mom, the most interesting character to never actually get to speak for herself! Portier mentions realizing he didn't give her enough credit and trying to patch things up with her, but I want to actually see it. The more painful and awkward on both sides, the better.
  
• A lot of Portier's magical and religious studies happen off page (also the promise of his religious studies was for the most part a trap, but, you know) – I'd like to see him coming to grips with the change in his circumstances more generally. You can do magic after all! And you're going to keep getting reincarnated forever! Like, this is big for a shut-in with no self-esteem who had given up on ever amounting to anything. How does he get his head around it? Is his librarian training any help here, or is this one thing books can't explain?
  
• ETA 10/28/20: I cannot believe I forgot to include this when I first drafted my letter, but - I really like depictions of necromancy, on general principles, and this universe's version of it is super cool. If you wanna write some ornate dark magic ritual (or in-universe documentation on how to perform such a ritual?), seriously, that'd be so rad, I don't even need any of the nominated characters to be in it.

Final Fantasy VI
Characters: Celes

Celes, what a gal. A no-nonsense badass, a war criminal, a child soldier, a former lab rat, can apparently sing an aria with minimal preparation?, struggling with her identity and purpose and her right to existence – she is EXTREMELY COOL and she has ISSUES and I am here for anything focusing on either aspect or both.

Clarification re: suicide DNW: Totally fine with examination of Celes's suicide attempt and any effect that may have on her down the line – I just don't want her dying that way. Fine with Shadow being unambiguously dead by suicide, if the subject arises.

Re: Celes's canonical romance options:

• It's not a dealbreaker, but I'm not wild about Locke/Celes as written in-game. I'm cool with saying they had a thing and it didn't work out, or that their early sparks fizzled and stuff stayed platonic, or maybe Locke just happens not to appear in this film.
  
  • (In a continuity where Celes/Terra was a thing pre-Slave Crown, I'm envisioning a deeply weird bonding moment where “holy shit my girlfriend ALSO forgot who I was, that's rough buddy”)
    
  • (damn I think I just accidentally talked myself into wanting Locke & Celes gen of some kind?)
  
  
• I am on board for weird unrequited Setzer > Celes with uncomfortable levels of projection and angst, but as a mutual thing it's less interesting to me.

Prompts:

• Early World of Ruin, where's her head at, really? What's the process of getting from (depending on timeline) suicidal despair to Getting the Band Back Together to finally Attack and Dethrone God? Does she feel differently about her allies now, on the whole or individually, than she did in the World of Balance?
  
• Where does she end up postgame? What's she gonna do with her life? If she ends up with a fixed address, I think some solid options include Figaro (the castle proper is pretty much intact, so as good a place to live as any, and they could use someone with her skills!), Thamasa (their relationship with magic isn't the same as hers, but it's a whole community of people who are also dealing with a similar loss postgame! That kind of environment would be novel for her!), or Mobliz (Terra is there!). But I'd be curious about another take, too.
  
• & Cid: Cid's fond of Celes, and he's extremely important to her. He's also made a career of nightmarish experiments on thinking beings, for no more noble cause than Gestahl's bullshit war machine. I don't have prompts for this, really, I just want to signal a general level of interest in “that feel when you love someone who's done horrible things, some of them to you.” Fine with either Cid Lives or Cid Dies continuities. If this comes with a side of medical horror, all the better. I mean, feel free to incorporate medical horror in anything, it's pretty consistent with Celes's backstory, this is just an especially apt context if you're up for it
  
• & or / Terra: Terra finds her way forward by reconnecting with her past, but Celes has to reject old habits of thought and break out of the role imposed on her. They've both been supersoldiers, but Terra has no real culpability whereas for Celes it's complicated. GIMME ALL THAT THEMATIC RESONANCE. Who were they to each other in the past? Who will they be going forward? How do their experiences of magic differ, and what about the experience of its loss? Gimme some weird shared history that only Celes remembers, or a future that makes up for all that! This could be angsty and nightmarish or it could be sunny and optimistic, I'm good either way.
  
• & or / Edgar: Some people freeze everyone out by acting like a dumbass and some people freeze everyone out with literal ice... And yet, Celes knows about the trick coin, what the hell is up with that! I'm intrigued by how these two might come to trust each other – though outwardly very different, they're both smart and practical people who have had to hold shit together for everyone else after suffering serious personal losses. That's interesting. If only Edgar wasn't probably going to ruin it with more obnoxious flirting.
  
• & Sabin: He's a fun, nonjudgmental guy and serial befriender of sad loners... She's a sad loner... You follow me. Sabin also has relevant experience with getting a good look at what is expected of you, yelling “SCREW THAT,” and running off and getting swole finding your own way. This might be a perspective Celes could use. I'd like to see this friendship pretty much anywhere in the timeline, although it does lend itself especially well to early WoR stuff or postgame.
  
• & Strago or & Relm: Magic meta! Worldbuilding! Family! Grief! The purpose of art in the face of futility and death! I'll be honest, I haven't subjected the Thamasans to nearly as close of a reading as I have – ahem – certain other characters, but I think there's a basis for some interesting interactions there, and if you have any thoughts, please enlighten me!

The Worm Ouroboros - E. R. Eddison
Character(s): Any (Lord Gro, Lady Prezmyra, Lady Mevrian, Brandoch Daha)

God, this book goes hard. Paragraphs of heady descriptions of blinged-out palaces on an alien planet, the improbable badassery of the Demons, all of Witchland's intrigues and betrayals and dark magic, mountaineering through the land of the dead, Mevrian's escape from Krothering, the final attack on Carcë – it's so lush, and so weird, and so cool. I love the atmosphere, the grandeur, the general loftiness... but I'd be just as pleased to get something more down-to-earth amid all these great doings.

DNW Exception: If you want to go there, I'm completely fine with non-canonical suicide for this. You have carte blanche to kill off any character in any way you see fit, and especially if you're doing weird stuff with the timeline

Prompts:

• What is Gro's deal? I mean, yeah, a love of lost causes leading to Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, but like – on some level he's still loyal to Prezmyra even after defecting to the Demons. Why is that? Is he actually in love with her, or in love with the idea of being in love with someone who will never have him (that whole lost causes thing again)? When he does join the Demons, Gaslark wants to kick his ass and he has nothing to say for himself, just letting Juss and co. defend him – but what happens when his Demon lord buddies aren't there to intervene? I'd just love anything dealing with the frankly bizarre nature of his allegiances, which by all indications are totally sincere at the time (working with Gorice on that sending, for instance!) but which he's also totally ready to throw over for aesthetic purposes.
  
• I'd also be interested in something of Gro's journeys documenting all the hazardous wildlife of Mercury. Sounds both dangerous and nerdy!
  
• In a book full of extremely metal happenings, Prezmyra's suicide stands out to me as the most metal thing. This lady is a total badass in death; I'd also like to see more of her being a badass in life! Witchland court politicking? Falconry? Falconry as a medium for politicking? Her loyalty to her husband and her brother is admirable – have these loyalties conflicted before? What are her memories of Pixyland?
  
• For Gro or Prezmyra (or any other named Witchland character), what's the experience of getting resurrected at the end? Are they as ready to hash everything out again as the Demons are? Will they make the same choices the second time around? Any kind of time loop / canon divergence fuckery would be welcome here.
  
• Do the Demons keep winning? Will the gods keep letting them roll the clock back every single time they get depressed cause they're out of people to fight, or are there limits? Do the Witchland posse try to win, lose with dignity, refuse to fight, break the cycle? Heck, if this becomes a recurring thing, at what point does Gro figure the deck is stacked against Witchland and therefore he's permanently Team Witchland (and does that actually turn things around for the Witches)?
  
• Mevrian and Gro, back-to-back, swordfighting a whole bunch of of dudes in the middle of nowhere, is another favorite scene of mine. More of Mevrian kicking ass is always welcome, whether with a sword or with freezing politeness. She and her brother seem to trust and rely on each other implicitly even though she's considerably younger – I'd love something on that sibling relationship. Maybe they've fought together before, or she's helped him out on some past adventure? Maybe she did something wild and reckless once that proved her mettle? What about her relationship to Krothering as a place, as her home, as a symbol of their family's power and honor? How does she feel about the weird of Ishnain Nemartra, which impacts her heavily too, through no fault of her own?
  
• Any interaction between Mevrian and Prezmyra would be absolutely excellent. (If you can find a way to make that shippy, I'm on board, but I recognize there are obstacles.)
  
• Brandoch Daha, that smartass fancyboy. I could get behind shipping him with Juss (maybe a quiet moment on their quest to find Goldry?) but I like their friendship as written, too. As the dingus who actually got himself cursed by the lady of Ishnain Nemartra, one assumes that the loss of Krothering, and not getting to take it back himself, was a huge blow to him – though his reaction is largely glossed over. Care to un-gloss it? I could also use a bunch more of him and Gro butting heads over Gro's underhanded tactics. Or really just Brandoch Daha butting heads with anyone for any reason.

The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Characters: Madoc

This series was pitched to me by a friend who asserted that Cardan would be my type, and this assertion was not wrong. Jude won me over pretty damn quick, and Jude/Cardan is a hell of a ship to hang the series on, and I love it.

...But I really want to talk about Jude's murder dad. Hunting down and killing your ex, then adopting all her kids, is certainly one way to make an entrance! Really sets expectations for the rest of the series vis-a-vis the violence and blue-and-orange morality of Faerie. Everything that goes on in this magnificently fucked-up family unit is fascinating, between Madoc's scheming and murdering and the kids' changing relationships to him and each other, and Oriana just sitting there looking respectable on a giant pile of secrets -

I love Madoc. I also love where he ended up. He's a monster, and he has no regrets, but he accepts defeat with good grace, and he is still Jude's dad. I wonder if he's proud of her in the end, to the extent his bizarre faerie psychology even allows for that.

Prompts:

• I would just really, really like any kind of introspective character study for this guy. It's unambiguous throughout the series that the fae do have feelings, but it's also clear they are not quite the same as those of humans, or their subjective experience of them is different. I can't see Madoc experiencing actual remorse for anything he's done, but I do wonder what he thinks about it all. He's able to channel his bloodthirst strategically and delay gratification, so it's not like he's a frenzied beast, but bloodshed is nonetheless something that he needs – what's that feel like?
  
• Post-canon anything. I want to see how this guy handles the human world and the restrictions Jude has placed on his behavior. I'm okay with anything here tone-wise, from “oh actually he's still found a way to be a quite threatening individual” to something lighter where he is a fish more or less out of water and may get more or less dunked on by any of his kids.
  
• AU where, at any point in the story, Jude kills Madoc!
  
• AU where, at any point in the story, Madoc kills Jude!
  
• Genuinely, I want to see anything about this father-daughter duo, nobody even has to die (I'm relieved he didn't have to die in canon!), it's just such a fascinatingly fraught relationship that the first two things I thought of were both murder.
  
• /Eva: I am so extremely curious about Eva, and Madoc's relationship with her. How did she catch his eye? How completely terrifying were they together? Anything you want to do with this is cool.
  
• Any missing scenes, especially during books 2 and 3, showing what Madoc is up to when Jude isn't there to report on it. I wonder how the atmosphere in the household changes -
  
  • and in particular I'm very curious about Madoc's relationship with Taryn. She's not as fighty as Jude and initially seems softer and more sentimental, but she is way, way better at saying the right things and playing the courtly game, and comes to discover her own brand of ruthlessness over time. (And of course, while it's not her first choice, she can do a murder when push comes to shove.) Was Madoc always aware of this potential in her? Was he surprised to find she was the one most prepared to be an asset to his plans?
  
  
• & or / Oriana: Is there any genuine fondness there or are they basically just co-conspirators? How exactly do they define their relationship, how does it change as Oak grows up, what was their planned endgame after crowning him? Does Oriana have an exit strategy? Does she have any guarantees of her safety after Madoc gets what he wants?
  
• & Vivienne: How did Madoc handle trying to raise her? Does she have different ground rules from the twins? (Aside: what does faerie parenting even entail normally? Given that fae children are stated to be lower-maintenance than the human ones, but there's still, uh, a definite spectrum of parental involvement.) Are there ways in which she and Madoc understand each other, ways she takes after him, ways she does not? How far does he trust her? How does he view the whole Heather situation?
  
• In the first book Madoc shows a certain amount of protectiveness over his kids, strictly as a status thing – all his children are entitled to a basic level of respect, and some types of attacks on them will be taken as insults to him. There's nothing warm and fuzzy about it; Jude and Taryn definitely keep their problems secret when they think he won't or can't do anything, or would make it worse. I'm interested in seeing him go to bat for the twins, or a time they did the math and figured it wasn't worth involving him, or a time he helped when they didn't expect him to and it's like, “unsure if he cares? Does he actually care??? Seems fake, what's his angle this time”
  
• Weird moments where you could almost mistake this for a functional family with no murder in it