shinon | Yuletide 2023 letter

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Phlyarologist here - thanks so much for writing for me, and also, may I congratulate you on your fantastic taste in video games? I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with, and I hope you'll have fun writing it, too. The prompts below are totally optional, and if you have an idea you like better, by all means please do that!

General likes: Humor, friendship, adventure, worldbuilding, missing scenes, character study, interactions between characters who don't normally share a lot of screentime, bittersweetness, hope in the face of adversity. Dirtbags, scoundrels, weasely little bastards, etc. Autumn or winter aesthetics. Angst, complicated family dynamics, a creeping sense of dread, body horror, deathfic. My prompts tend to skew gen, but shipping-wise m/f, m/m, and f/f are all welcome.

DNWs: Explicit sexual content (implied or fade-to-black is fine), non-con, unrequested incest, unrequested adult/underage ships; mundane AUs for canons with supernatural elements; modern AUs for non-modern canons; pregnancy; non-canonical child characters; gender or sexual orientation as sources of angst/conflict; non-canonical death by suicide (canonical suicides or suicides-by-proxy are fine; ideation or attempts not resulting in death are fine); vomit, feces

TALES OF SYMPHONIA
RAINE SAGE

Fandom-specific DNWs: Raine/Regal, Raine/Kratos
(Totally fine if either of these guys appears in a capacity other than shipping!)
DNW clarification re: suicide: You are welcome to go with the timeline where Zelos commits suicide-by-Lloyd, if that fits the story you want to write.

Raine has an important ancillary role in a lot of the Incredibly Upsetting Experiences other people are having in this game: she keeps Colette's secrets, she translates between Sheena and Volt, Mithos sees Genis has a cool big sister and goes "he's just like me fr"... She takes a certain pride in appearing detached and pragmatic, but you KNOW she's got thoughts on this stuff. You KNOW she's gotta be feeling some type of way. I'd like to hear about it.
Postgame, having realized where her obsession with ruins came from - does she get back into archaeology? Maybe it'd be nice to geek out about this stuff again without any of the old baggage attached. Or maybe she's going to try out some new hobbies that are her own choice to begin with.
Angsty shit in or about Exire!!!
AU where Raine gets recruited to the Desians or Renegades! Maybe she thinks it's the only way to keep Genis safe? (If Renegades, would love to see her interact with Yuan and/or Botta)
Sibling Things. Gestures vaguely at parallels between Sage sibs, Yggdrasill sibs, Wilder sibs, Combatir sisters...
If you do Raine's Flanoir scene, then she's the one Mithos bodysnatches at Origin's Seal. More on that, please.
Body horror is cool. There's body horror in this game. The Clara sidequest shows us Raine's determination to fix even some far-gone cases - how bad can it get / how far will she go?
If none of these prompts speaks to you, no prob! Further information you can take or leave: my other favorite characters in this tagset are Zelos, Sheena, Colette, and Yuan; favorite game locations include Asgard, Triet, Palmacosta (RIP) (what was up with that lighthouse though), Meltokio, Flanoir, Welgaia. I do not actively ship Raine with anyone, but if you do, I'm totally willing to be convinced (barring Regal or Kratos as mentioned above).

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: A LINK BETWEEN WORLDS
RAVIO

Pregame, how did Ravio end up working for Hilda? What are his duties exactly? What's their relationship like? When did Yuga show up, and what did Ravio try to do about it before things escalated? WHAT IS SHEEROW? Where did Ravio get all the items he uses to stock his shop?
Midgame: All kinds of BIG WEIRD FEELS about his identity, similarities and differences between him and Link. Is he doing anything else behind the scenes while running the item shop? Do he and Link ever, like... hang out? Also down for something comedic about Ravio's increasingly brazen appropriation of all Link's stuff, or something more thoughtful about how weird Hyrule is for him.
Probably in for some pretty uncomfortable conversations with Hilda when all is said and done, huh! Does she give him his old job back, or is his role in Lorule's restoration a different one? How have their perceptions of each other changed? Does he try to see Link again?
Hero swap AU! Hilda & Link & Yuga together have a lot of firepower and a lot of will to use it; I think Zelda & Ravio (& Impa?) would be forced to play defensively and use various Tricks and Stratagems, and I'd love to see how they get on.
I like it when the Zelda series gets Spooky. I'd love anything where Lorule is an extremely unsettling and/or depressing place. Alternatively, what about Ravio having a very miscalibrated sense of normal / reacting to nonthreatening Hyrule things with horror?
I can get behind Ravio/Hilda, Ravio/Link, some kind of Link/Ravio/Hilda/Zelda polycule... go wild. I also like all these relationships as platonic, or as some secret ambiguous third thing.
Does Ravio have other friends or business contacts in Lorule? Did he make any in Hyrule? Please bounce him off of any other character you like!

FINAL FANTASY VI
SABIN FIGARO

DNW clarifications re: suicide: Totally fine with things touching on Celes's canonical suicide attempt. Also, feel free to treat Shadow's attempt as either fatal or not as it suits any story you want to tell.

I've requested Sabin before, and any of my previous prompts for him still hold. Ditto any of the Sabin&Celes prompts from the year I requested Celes.

What's Sabin doing post-canon? Sticking around Figaro Castle to support Edgar, reestablishing Duncan's dojo, helping Cyan in Doma, parenting Gau? Splitting his time between any of these? Some other option?
I enjoy a good training montage. I'd be happy to see Extremely Sad Just-Left-Home Teenage Sabin learning skills and overcoming challenges and growing toward being the easygoing beefcake we know today. Friendly rivalry or collaboration with Vargas also welcome for the dramatic irony points.
What was he doing during the year Celes was out of commission in the WoR? What's the party dynamic early on as the gang starts getting back together? I've talked about Celes in previous letters but I also don't think Sabin would've been particularly close to Setzer in the WoB - what about now? (Heck, given the coin toss situation, how does Sabin feel about gambling?)
So, Locke was Edgar's close friend and coconspirator during Sabin's absence. Locke has probably heard a lot about Sabin and drawn his own conclusions before they ever meet, right? (Or maybe he's heard suspiciously little from Edgar himself, and drawn conclusions from that....) Purely on personality, there's no reason they shouldn't get along, but I wonder if that complicates things. (Also, I love Edgar/Locke, if you wanted to put some of that flavor in there.)
Sabin ships I endorse: Cyan, Shadow, Celes, Terra. But honestly, if you want to ship him with any other adult human-or-humanoid-Esper who isn't his brother, I'd be delighted to come along for the ride.
Not to be a ghoul, but you always have my permission to write one of the Figaro brothers dying and the other being a wreck about it
Really though: Sabin is a chill, friendly, open-minded, funny guy and there are many opportunities to Send Him On Some Kind of Adventure With Friends. Maybe he can help solve their problems. Maybe he can't solve them but is still a source of support and strength. Maybe he has charged into some very stupid situation and needs help getting out of it! I just wanna see Sabin Doing Sabin Things, basically.