Dear Author Letter: Yuletide 2020
Oct. 14th, 2020 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
corpsebrigadierYuletide Letter for CorpseBrigadier on Ao3
Dear Author,
Hello! Thank you so much for taking the time to create something for me this Yuletide, and congratulations on your great taste in whatever cool canon it was that we both enjoy. This is an exchange for which I have a great deal of love, and I am exceedingly excited for whatever it is you end up making for me. I've tried my best throughout this letter to give some prompts/ideas for a wide range of writing styles. However, I really want to emphasize that I'm very interested in you feeling free to flex your creative muscles. If the prompts listed aren't quite doing it for you, I am a genuine believer in optional details being optional, and I would love to see whatever creative production you are inspired to make out of these canons/characters.
[NOTE: This letter is functionally complete at the time it was posted, but it may be tweaked through the end of sign-ups.]
General (DNWs, Likes, Opt-Ins) | The 13 Clocks | Betrayal at Krondor | Final Fantasy Tactics | Mini-Challenge Specific Prompts
• ageplay
• incestuous relationships portrayed as healthy and uncomplicated (messed-up, dysfunctional incest is absolutely a-okay)
• omegaverse
• pregnancy-related kinks (ex: breeding kink, mpreg, worshipful focus on pregnant bellies, etc...); narrative explorations of childbearing, pregnancy, and reproduction more than welcome
• scat/emeto (unsexy mentions of vomit are okay; all poop is a no go)
Opt-Ins:
• all archive warnings
• crossovers
• epistolary fiction
• non-linear narratives
• whatever person/tense is your jam
General Likes:
• angst
• bittersweetness
• black humor
• character death
• complex family relationships
• hurt/comfort
• illness and injury (plague and head bashing in particular)
• incest where everything is maladaptive and bad
• fever dreams
• existential despair
• non-kinky explorations of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood
• stoicism in the face of terrible things
• surreal imagery
• torture; religious, mythological, and/or plant-based symbolism
• whump
Smut Likes:
• awkward, bad, or inept sex that's still enthusiastic
• blasphemy/sacrilege kink
• clothed or partially clothed sex
• double penetration
• drunk/drugged sex
• hate sex
• gangbangs
• non-con/dub-con in general
• non-penetrative sex
• strangulation/breathplay
• undead sex
• violent sex
Yuletide-Affiliated Challenges I'm Up For:
• Crueltide (darkfic)
• Drabbles (for Yuletide Madness)
• Interactive Fiction
• Two for One (Crossovers)
• Wrapping Paper (art as Yuletide Madness treats)
• Yuleporn (Smut)
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Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): The book is available as an online library loan via the Open Library, and it is generally available at a not too hefty price from various booksellers.
Characters: The Golux is my #1 fave, and despite being a self-confessed plot device operating according to questionable logic, I have always found both him and his describable beard oddly dashing. I think some of the most beautiful quotations from the book come out of his mouth, I love his bizarre anecdotes about his parents, and I am perpetually fascinated and amused by his self-awareness about being a narrative tool.
Ships: I don't really have any real ships for this canon even as much as I appreciate the bizarre dynamics of cursed fairy tale romance at its core. If you are very keen on writing something with a slightly romantic bent, I'm very open to narratives involving the Golux's relationship to Zorn/Saralinda or to his witch/wizard parents. As for Golux ships, I feel like Zorn/Golux is pretty intuitive, and I could see him having a bit of a thing with Hark, as they are technically sort of co-workers, and I think it would be neat to examine how two characters who can suddenly divert the course of the plot so much get on. Also, I'm always up for villains menacing people in sort of desirous/fraught ways, and while I wouldn't be up for anything too explicit, I think I could enjoy something that implies some Duke/Golux tension.
If you want to write something lighter: This is definitely the lightest of the canons I'm requesting, and I'm very open to canon-typical playfulness and stuff that focuses on the hopeful and optimistic: on the shining shores of Ever After and the notion that time cannot be stopped and evil will not triumph. I feel, however, that even the most joyous parts of this book have a tinge of bittersweetness, and I'd love to have that brought out a bit even in something that's very fluffy and absurd.
If you want to write something darker: While this is a fun, lyrical children's book with a happy ending, it is also laden with obscure monstrosities, threats of violence, corpse-devouring geese, and the murder of time, and I'm really always game for anything that recasts a narrative in a slightly melancholy light. As mentioned above, I have a bit of a particular obsession with the ghost children and the mysterious toy balls, and I'm genuinely interested in what it might be like for some of the Duke's threats to begin to play out (or even for time not to right itself). I'd also love to see the Golux having to face some of the existential realities of being a device--even if he's not a mere one.
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: This is the one canon where I'm not really down for smut. If you're very intent on writing some Golux shipfic though, I'd absolutely be game for something non-explicit, and as mentioned above, Golux/Zorn, Golux/Hark, and Golux/Duke are all relationships where I see some potential.
If you want to write a crossover: If you are familiar with Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, I feel it exudes a lot of the same general energy as The 13 Clocks in marrying the absurd to the bittersweet, and I would welcome a fic that combines the two. I think the Duke of Coffin Castle and Haggard would work well as distant relations or members of the same villainous noblemen society, and I feel like the Golux is the sort of creature who might well pop into Beagle's setting without any need for justification and that Beagle's setting is precisely the sort to accept him.
Canon DNWs: NSFW content
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Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): The game used to be legally free via Sierra's website, but this was back in the 90s. You can get it on GOG for $5.99 though. There used to be a very helpful website called BAK Help Web that contained numerous information, walkthrough material, and NPC transcripts, but it is now offline. You can still find it in largely archived form here via the Wayback Machine. The "Text Web" section is very useful for finding story content.
Characters: There's a line in the original manual along the lines of Gorath being "as menacing as Owyn is innocent," and I really love the contrast between the characters and how much Owyn's dorky teenage naivete and sort of snarky desire to impress people clashes with Gorath's somber, quiet badassery. The fact that the game does so much with such radically different characters and how they find common ground is a large part of what I found so endearing about it.
Ships: I'm obviously very game for Gorath/Owyn, although I'm also open to shippy examinations of the Delekhan/Gorath rivalry or an exploration of Ugyne's attraction to Owyn (It only comes up if you go all the way to Cavall Keep in Chapter I).
If you want to write something lighter: Anything that focuses on the day-to-day adventures of life on the long pixelated road who be great. One of the best things about this game was the loving detail with which things like staying at an inn, badly playing a lute, or meeting a bunch of random enemies were narrated. I feel like there's room in BaK's world for introspective pieces of character exploration in the everyday video game grind of encountering weird townsfolk, having a rough time at the tavern, or trying to open one of stupid puzzle boxes. Settings like Hallford's Midkemia (which is honestly very different from Feist's) are just made for these sorts of vignettes: there's that one well in the middle of the western forests that makes you instantly drunk; there's that random magician Owyn cons out of his staff by pretending to have gone blind; there's generally just a vast number of fun little snippets of pleasant goofiness throughout the game. I'd love to see something in the same style.
If you want to write something darker: Chapter IV of this game--in which Gorath and Owyn are captured, drugged, nearly executed, and then left to make their way out of a freezing wasteland--was very... formative for me. It is also the Chapter in which Gorath decides that the best way to rescue a potential ally is to sell Owyn into slavery such that they are both captured and nearly drown trying to escape. In addition to that, there's also that plot in Chapter III relating to Owyn's relations at Carvall Keep, in which it is revealed that his supposedly dead cousin (Navon/Neville) is now the head of an assassins guild and is bent on avenging himself on the father (Owyn's uncle Count Corvalis) who tried to kill him. He is doing this by trying to court and marry his own sister (Ugyne) and then kill her. So yeah... lots of sad/bad things could happen in relation to any of the above. Everything in the Northlands is immensely whumpworthy and Owyn freaking out in appropriate measure about his semi-incestuous murder relatives would be a nice departure from a game that refuses to directly address them. I love angst, and there's plenty for both characters to angst about in this narrative.
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: There's that one well in the middle of the western forests that makes you instantly drunk. Gorath decides that the best way to rescue a potential ally is to sell Owyn into slavery. There's a wide range of potential ways one could easily delve into the pornographic here. I like things pretty dark, and I'm all about messed up stuff happening to Owyn in the course of Chapter IV, but I'd also be into tropey lighthearted scenarios about there only being one bed at the inn or having to huddle together for warmth in the Northlands, as this is completely in keeping with all of the BaK flavor text indicating how inconvenient it can be to go on an adventure.
If You Want to Write a Crossover: I'm not actually open to crossovers for this canon, despite it being set in another author's larger universe and having both a spiritual sequel (Betrayal in Antara) and a direct sequel (Return to Krondor). I feel Hallford created something uniquely cool with this game that doesn't really mesh with either the rest of Midkemia or with adjacent Sierra properties.
Canon DNWs: Material unique to Krondor: The Betrayal (the game's novelization); crossovers
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Where to Find It: If you haven't played FFT for a while or are unfamiliar with it and want to get an idea of what it's like, you can check out scripts of the dialogue here (PSX translation) and here (PSP translation). There's also a very comprehensive Let's Play here (PSX translations). If you have an emulator and wish to skip to specific save states, somebody put together a nice collection of them here.
Note on Names: I mix and match PSX and PSP names for characters and places based entirely on what I think sounds cool, and I encourage you to do likewise and adhere to whatever orthography you like best.
Characters: I got some phenomenal fic for this canon both Yuletide last and throughout the past year, and while I am enthused for just about any fanworks for this game whatsoever, I'm choosing here to focus on my favorite villain. I completely, unironically love Dycedarg Beoulve. I love his unrepentant, family-annihilating dedication to the pursuit of power. I love his unrelenting manipulation and betrayal of people around him. I love his impractical outfit and terrible hair. What I love most about him in a narrative sense though is that he is--for the bulk of the game--a completely mundane human being and not some supernatural JRPG demon with motivations that presumably transcend mortal concerns. As such, what I'd really enjoy is something that looks to him as a villain possessed of uniquely human motivations: something that looks to what makes a person with a vaguely normal life and a mostly not terrible family decide to kill his father, stab his childhood friend, and treat his brothers as pawns to be discarded.
Ships: I ship Dycedarg with Ruvelia Atkascha for very convoluted headcanony reasons (Orinus being his kid would be such a cool complication), and I wrote a lengthy ship manifesto about it if you're interested in jumping down that rabbit hole (Please feel absolutely no obligation, though). I also enjoy pretty much any thoughtful depiction of his relationship with Zalbag, and I am open to interpretations that include some manner of toxic incest. Honestly though, if you have a ship in mind, I'm probably open to it. FFT is a canon where I am most assuredly a promiscuous multi-shipper.
If you want to write something lighter: Dycedarg isn't a character that really lends himself to the light and fluffy, but I'm honestly very curious as to what his life might have been like prior to becoming so incredibly villainous, and I'm very interested in how he relates to his family when he isn't in the midst of attempting to kill them. At the beginning of the game, the Beoulves are still clearly messed up, but they all seem to be in sympathy with one another.
If you want to write something darker: Given the patricide, the conspiracies, the backstabbing, and the turning into a demonic goat, there's a lot of room to explore dark themes. I'd love something on the more introspective side that explores his motivations for all the awful stuff he does, and I'd love anything that actually delves into some sort of conflict or complexity as to his decisions to be That Awful. As I've mentioned before, he clearly has some sense of loyalty to his family at least in the abstract, and I'd love an examination of what it means to want your House to come out on top while simultaneously undertaking the actions that destroy it.
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: I am down for pretty much any sort of villainfuckery you feel inspired to write, be it comparatively pleasant consensual hook-ups between Dycedarg and like-mind villains (Ruvelia's great for this), shady seductions in the name of power, or messed up incest and/or non-con.
If You Want to Write a Crossover: I'm up for Final Fantasy VII crossovers, as the game itself embraces that, and I think it would be neat to examine what somebody like Cloud thinks of Ivalice's oppressive feudal rulership in contrast to ShinRa's capitalism run amok. I'd even be open to an FF7/FFT fusion where the plot of FFT is transplanted into FF7's high tech Gaia, and the Beoulves are scions of an evil electric-power company instead of a powerful Duchy. While I know that the game also has overlap with Final Fantasy XII and the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Games, I haven't actually played any of those in full and wouldn't be able to appreciate a work combining them (although I am super chill with a fic that draws upon them for background elements). Lastly, I am familiar with Vagrant Story, and I really dig it. I'd be open to things that address ways that the two canons (allegedly) take place in the same universe. I feel that there are a lot of opportunities to do something that might involve world-building or the exploration of similar themes (religion, filial responsibility). The Dark is just a generally good handwavy device for having things happen, and I feel it's a useful tool to bring characters together either in the horrific abyss of a post-death existence or via some sort of magical shenanigans that open portals between FFT-era Ivalice and Valendia. Stuff that touches on parallels between the Glabados Church and the Order of St. Iocus, between House Beoulve and House Bardoba, or some of FFT's doomed sibling sets and Duane and Grissom would all be welcome.
Canon DNWs: n/a
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The 13 Clocks: I'd straight up love anything that replicates the palette and general feel of the Marc Simont, but really anything whimsical and fun involving the Golux and his attributes both describable and indescribable would be delightful. I'm even fine with compositions that take advantages of his guise as Listen and leave him implied in a scene but possessing no describable features at all. In general though, I would just love anything that might be enjoyable for a Golux to do: juggling, spellcraft, cooking, gardening, intigue, hatmaking, larceny, etc... I'm pretty happy to see all manner of Goluxes (Golices?) doing all manner of things.
Betrayal at Krondor: Anything involving Gorath and Owyn in the Northlands, possibly emerging from Sar-Sargoth or recovering from nearly drowning; mundane instances of day-to-day happenings on the road (healing cantrips, drinking at shady taverns, Owyn trying to busk for money); any images of Owyn interacting with Neville/Navon and Ugyne or images of Gorath in happier times in the Northlands with Cullich and all of his friends who had not yet died in Murmandamus' hopeless campaign. If you want to do something a little bit comic/cutesy, you could portray the characters struggling with one of those accursed puzzle chests.
Final Fantasy Tactics: I undoubtedly make too much of Rofel/Loffrey's throwaway line about Dycedarg knowing a lot about poisons, and as such I'd love to see him chilling with any manner of poisonous plant or fungus. Illustrations of him hanging around with his family or with those rascally Larg kids would be great, and I'm also very game for anything that involves Adrammelech or just goat imagery in general. I am just really an absolute dork for FFT characters chilling with mundane incarnations of their signature animal-based Lucavi. If you want to do something a little offbeat, things that have some sort of medievalish art style (illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, etc...) would be great for this canon.
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In terms of what I enjoy in IF, I really appreciate things that take advantage of unique or innovative mechanics, and I have a soft spot for games that acknowledge the pre-determined nature of their narratives and don't really try to be "fair." Having decisions that feel meaningful but that won't save you from a bad outcome are really up my alley, as are choices you make resulting in different outcomes than you might like. My ideal game in any medium is one that provides me with a sense that I'm not being given precisely what I initially want but that I'm not being treated unfairly or having things made difficult for the sake of being difficult. Don't be afraid to make something where there are no completely satisfactory endings.
In general, though, feel free to use IF as a means to experiment and play around. I like IF a lot as a medium for fanworks because it can open up so many possibilities that aren't typical of most written or visual compositions. I'd love things that exploit the different ways one might feel when the medium forces a certain level of identification with a player character, or that layer in ambiguity through multi-pathing and multiple endings.
The 13 Clocks: Given the narrative's emphasis on time and its flow, this would be a neat canon to do something involving time loops or (if you're feeling fancy) timers as an IF component. Given Thurber's skill for inventing and playing with words, I feel like this canon would lend itself well to the style of IF where words change or disappear when clicked on. In terms of content, I feel that there are a lot of neat things you could do with the Golux as Listen (a spy adventure!) with the Hagga storytelling episode (dialogue trees!) or with something that concerns the clocks themselves (time management (literally)!)
Betrayal at Krondor: One of the things I like best about BaK is how much attention is given to the flavor text, and I feel that the loving care Hallford expended in giving you paragraphs of description regarding your trail rations purchases lends itself well to a tiny IF side quest style adventure about the characters doing something incidental to the main plot. Given how gradually Gorath and Owyn become close, I feel like there are a lot of neat ways that you could use some canon-typical side questing to drive some development in their characters (perhaps some moment of cultural exchange or talking about their pasts/families). In terms of mechanics, I don't have a lot of particularly wild suggestions, although it might be cool to do something with Morhedhel script if you want to do something a little fancy/experimental with text (you can download the font here).
Final Fantasy Tactics: I've both made and received FFT IF in the past, and I absolutely adore using it as a tool to expand on untold narrative elements of the game--given that FFT itself is a story about lost history and who gets to tell what sort of story. Something that pries into secrets regarding House Beoulve or the Duchy of Gallione or that recasts Alazlam's (and/or Olan's) narrative as unreliable would be excellent, although I'm honestly just interested in anything that touches on Dycedarg's narrative from a perspective that differs from the original game. If you are absolutely intent on spoiling me to death, I would love you forever if you did something that imitated some of the elements of the Japanese in game sound novels (Accessible right now only via the Lion War mod and this archived GeoCities site).
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Dear Author,
Hello! Thank you so much for taking the time to create something for me this Yuletide, and congratulations on your great taste in whatever cool canon it was that we both enjoy. This is an exchange for which I have a great deal of love, and I am exceedingly excited for whatever it is you end up making for me. I've tried my best throughout this letter to give some prompts/ideas for a wide range of writing styles. However, I really want to emphasize that I'm very interested in you feeling free to flex your creative muscles. If the prompts listed aren't quite doing it for you, I am a genuine believer in optional details being optional, and I would love to see whatever creative production you are inspired to make out of these canons/characters.
[NOTE: This letter is functionally complete at the time it was posted, but it may be tweaked through the end of sign-ups.]
General (DNWs, Likes, Opt-Ins) | The 13 Clocks | Betrayal at Krondor | Final Fantasy Tactics | Mini-Challenge Specific Prompts
General (DNWs, Likes, Opt-Ins, Etc...)
Do Not Wants:• ageplay
• incestuous relationships portrayed as healthy and uncomplicated (messed-up, dysfunctional incest is absolutely a-okay)
• omegaverse
• pregnancy-related kinks (ex: breeding kink, mpreg, worshipful focus on pregnant bellies, etc...); narrative explorations of childbearing, pregnancy, and reproduction more than welcome
• scat/emeto (unsexy mentions of vomit are okay; all poop is a no go)
Opt-Ins:
• all archive warnings
• crossovers
• epistolary fiction
• non-linear narratives
• whatever person/tense is your jam
General Likes:
• angst
• bittersweetness
• black humor
• character death
• complex family relationships
• hurt/comfort
• illness and injury (plague and head bashing in particular)
• incest where everything is maladaptive and bad
• fever dreams
• existential despair
• non-kinky explorations of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood
• stoicism in the face of terrible things
• surreal imagery
• torture; religious, mythological, and/or plant-based symbolism
• whump
Smut Likes:
• awkward, bad, or inept sex that's still enthusiastic
• blasphemy/sacrilege kink
• clothed or partially clothed sex
• double penetration
• drunk/drugged sex
• hate sex
• gangbangs
• non-con/dub-con in general
• non-penetrative sex
• strangulation/breathplay
• undead sex
• violent sex
Yuletide-Affiliated Challenges I'm Up For:
• Crueltide (darkfic)
• Drabbles (for Yuletide Madness)
• Interactive Fiction
• Two for One (Crossovers)
• Wrapping Paper (art as Yuletide Madness treats)
• Yuleporn (Smut)
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The 13 Clocks
The Canon: This is one of my absolute favorite children's books, and it was quite possibly both the first book I read on my own with the intimidatingly adult reality of chapter divisions. I adore its phenomenal ability to intermingle both the absurd and the bittersweet, I love its witty, exuberantly playful use of language, and I love how it treats the inevitability of time and its passing.Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): The book is available as an online library loan via the Open Library, and it is generally available at a not too hefty price from various booksellers.
Characters: The Golux is my #1 fave, and despite being a self-confessed plot device operating according to questionable logic, I have always found both him and his describable beard oddly dashing. I think some of the most beautiful quotations from the book come out of his mouth, I love his bizarre anecdotes about his parents, and I am perpetually fascinated and amused by his self-awareness about being a narrative tool.
Ships: I don't really have any real ships for this canon even as much as I appreciate the bizarre dynamics of cursed fairy tale romance at its core. If you are very keen on writing something with a slightly romantic bent, I'm very open to narratives involving the Golux's relationship to Zorn/Saralinda or to his witch/wizard parents. As for Golux ships, I feel like Zorn/Golux is pretty intuitive, and I could see him having a bit of a thing with Hark, as they are technically sort of co-workers, and I think it would be neat to examine how two characters who can suddenly divert the course of the plot so much get on. Also, I'm always up for villains menacing people in sort of desirous/fraught ways, and while I wouldn't be up for anything too explicit, I think I could enjoy something that implies some Duke/Golux tension.
If you want to write something lighter: This is definitely the lightest of the canons I'm requesting, and I'm very open to canon-typical playfulness and stuff that focuses on the hopeful and optimistic: on the shining shores of Ever After and the notion that time cannot be stopped and evil will not triumph. I feel, however, that even the most joyous parts of this book have a tinge of bittersweetness, and I'd love to have that brought out a bit even in something that's very fluffy and absurd.
Specific Prompts:
• What's the Golux's doing after the end of the story? Does he visit Saralinda and Zorn in Ever After? Does he stop by and see how Hagga's doing? Does he check up on his highly eccentric parents? What's he like when he's not busy being a device in somebody else's story.
• It's clear that the Golux is Goluxing about Coffin Castle prior to the start of the narrative. It would be sweet to see something with him and Saralinda interacting. I'm also perpetually fascinated by the account of him playing with children with those balls covered in stars and owls, and I would love to see something that shed's light on them in a happier times.
• Golux and Hark: chilling and having weird times being a confusing plot device disguised as an invisible spy and being a secret double spy he's working with.
• What's the Golux's doing after the end of the story? Does he visit Saralinda and Zorn in Ever After? Does he stop by and see how Hagga's doing? Does he check up on his highly eccentric parents? What's he like when he's not busy being a device in somebody else's story.
• It's clear that the Golux is Goluxing about Coffin Castle prior to the start of the narrative. It would be sweet to see something with him and Saralinda interacting. I'm also perpetually fascinated by the account of him playing with children with those balls covered in stars and owls, and I would love to see something that shed's light on them in a happier times.
• Golux and Hark: chilling and having weird times being a confusing plot device disguised as an invisible spy and being a secret double spy he's working with.
If you want to write something darker: While this is a fun, lyrical children's book with a happy ending, it is also laden with obscure monstrosities, threats of violence, corpse-devouring geese, and the murder of time, and I'm really always game for anything that recasts a narrative in a slightly melancholy light. As mentioned above, I have a bit of a particular obsession with the ghost children and the mysterious toy balls, and I'm genuinely interested in what it might be like for some of the Duke's threats to begin to play out (or even for time not to right itself). I'd also love to see the Golux having to face some of the existential realities of being a device--even if he's not a mere one.
Specific Prompts:
• Bad endings! What happens if our heroes are found to be missing the 1000th diamond? What happens if the clocks never start again? How does the Golux carry on if it's forever then and never now? How do things pan out of poor Xingu/Zorn ends up as so much goose feed?
• Those ghost kids: I just want to know. What was the Golux's relationship to them? What happened such that they are no longer around? What is the significance of those two balls?
• Having the Duke act genuinely antagonistic and menacing re: the Golux would be excellent. The Duke is honestly one of my favorite antagonists in children's literature, and I would love to see the Golux antagonized by him.
• Bad endings! What happens if our heroes are found to be missing the 1000th diamond? What happens if the clocks never start again? How does the Golux carry on if it's forever then and never now? How do things pan out of poor Xingu/Zorn ends up as so much goose feed?
• Those ghost kids: I just want to know. What was the Golux's relationship to them? What happened such that they are no longer around? What is the significance of those two balls?
• Having the Duke act genuinely antagonistic and menacing re: the Golux would be excellent. The Duke is honestly one of my favorite antagonists in children's literature, and I would love to see the Golux antagonized by him.
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: This is the one canon where I'm not really down for smut. If you're very intent on writing some Golux shipfic though, I'd absolutely be game for something non-explicit, and as mentioned above, Golux/Zorn, Golux/Hark, and Golux/Duke are all relationships where I see some potential.
If you want to write a crossover: If you are familiar with Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, I feel it exudes a lot of the same general energy as The 13 Clocks in marrying the absurd to the bittersweet, and I would welcome a fic that combines the two. I think the Duke of Coffin Castle and Haggard would work well as distant relations or members of the same villainous noblemen society, and I feel like the Golux is the sort of creature who might well pop into Beagle's setting without any need for justification and that Beagle's setting is precisely the sort to accept him.
Canon DNWs: NSFW content
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Betrayal at Krondor
The Canon: This game was pretty influential in my youth, and the two main characters (Gorath and Owyn) were one of my earliest ships, even if they were visually portrayed by what seemed to be Dynamix office workers pulled aside to wear cheap Halloween wigs. I adore this canon's sense of an expansive, varied world; its focus on the growing relationship between two unlikely friends; and its willingness to brutalize the player with both unforgiving status ailments and a thoroughly crushing finale.Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): The game used to be legally free via Sierra's website, but this was back in the 90s. You can get it on GOG for $5.99 though. There used to be a very helpful website called BAK Help Web that contained numerous information, walkthrough material, and NPC transcripts, but it is now offline. You can still find it in largely archived form here via the Wayback Machine. The "Text Web" section is very useful for finding story content.
Characters: There's a line in the original manual along the lines of Gorath being "as menacing as Owyn is innocent," and I really love the contrast between the characters and how much Owyn's dorky teenage naivete and sort of snarky desire to impress people clashes with Gorath's somber, quiet badassery. The fact that the game does so much with such radically different characters and how they find common ground is a large part of what I found so endearing about it.
Ships: I'm obviously very game for Gorath/Owyn, although I'm also open to shippy examinations of the Delekhan/Gorath rivalry or an exploration of Ugyne's attraction to Owyn (It only comes up if you go all the way to Cavall Keep in Chapter I).
If you want to write something lighter: Anything that focuses on the day-to-day adventures of life on the long pixelated road who be great. One of the best things about this game was the loving detail with which things like staying at an inn, badly playing a lute, or meeting a bunch of random enemies were narrated. I feel like there's room in BaK's world for introspective pieces of character exploration in the everyday video game grind of encountering weird townsfolk, having a rough time at the tavern, or trying to open one of stupid puzzle boxes. Settings like Hallford's Midkemia (which is honestly very different from Feist's) are just made for these sorts of vignettes: there's that one well in the middle of the western forests that makes you instantly drunk; there's that random magician Owyn cons out of his staff by pretending to have gone blind; there's generally just a vast number of fun little snippets of pleasant goofiness throughout the game. I'd love to see something in the same style.
Specific Prompts
• Canon-typical quirky confrontation with random farmer/tavern patron/rando on the road; must be resolved with magic and/or flagrant lies
• Our heroes are in desperate need of supplies and have nothing available for miles except one of those awful chests
• Oh hey, it's the booze well (PG)
• Canon-typical quirky confrontation with random farmer/tavern patron/rando on the road; must be resolved with magic and/or flagrant lies
• Our heroes are in desperate need of supplies and have nothing available for miles except one of those awful chests
• Oh hey, it's the booze well (PG)
If you want to write something darker: Chapter IV of this game--in which Gorath and Owyn are captured, drugged, nearly executed, and then left to make their way out of a freezing wasteland--was very... formative for me. It is also the Chapter in which Gorath decides that the best way to rescue a potential ally is to sell Owyn into slavery such that they are both captured and nearly drown trying to escape. In addition to that, there's also that plot in Chapter III relating to Owyn's relations at Carvall Keep, in which it is revealed that his supposedly dead cousin (Navon/Neville) is now the head of an assassins guild and is bent on avenging himself on the father (Owyn's uncle Count Corvalis) who tried to kill him. He is doing this by trying to court and marry his own sister (Ugyne) and then kill her. So yeah... lots of sad/bad things could happen in relation to any of the above. Everything in the Northlands is immensely whumpworthy and Owyn freaking out in appropriate measure about his semi-incestuous murder relatives would be a nice departure from a game that refuses to directly address them. I love angst, and there's plenty for both characters to angst about in this narrative.
Specific Prompts
• Owyn and Gorath growing closer in the midst of the Western forests while Gorath is experiencing the pain of the returning.
• The Northlands are terrible!
• Owyn's murderous family is terrible!
• Owyn and Gorath growing closer in the midst of the Western forests while Gorath is experiencing the pain of the returning.
• The Northlands are terrible!
• Owyn's murderous family is terrible!
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: There's that one well in the middle of the western forests that makes you instantly drunk. Gorath decides that the best way to rescue a potential ally is to sell Owyn into slavery. There's a wide range of potential ways one could easily delve into the pornographic here. I like things pretty dark, and I'm all about messed up stuff happening to Owyn in the course of Chapter IV, but I'd also be into tropey lighthearted scenarios about there only being one bed at the inn or having to huddle together for warmth in the Northlands, as this is completely in keeping with all of the BaK flavor text indicating how inconvenient it can be to go on an adventure.
Specific Prompts:
• Oh hey, it's the booze well (NC-17)
• Huddling together for warmth in the frozen wastes
• Awful non-con with Owyn and various Chapter IV morhedel; possible comfort, angst, recovery to follow
• Oh hey, it's the booze well (NC-17)
• Huddling together for warmth in the frozen wastes
• Awful non-con with Owyn and various Chapter IV morhedel; possible comfort, angst, recovery to follow
If You Want to Write a Crossover: I'm not actually open to crossovers for this canon, despite it being set in another author's larger universe and having both a spiritual sequel (Betrayal in Antara) and a direct sequel (Return to Krondor). I feel Hallford created something uniquely cool with this game that doesn't really mesh with either the rest of Midkemia or with adjacent Sierra properties.
Canon DNWs: Material unique to Krondor: The Betrayal (the game's novelization); crossovers
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Final Fantasy Tactics
The Canon: This is a 1998 tactical RPG by Square-Enix that I just really really like. I love how immensely unrepentantly bleak it is, how it's full of Church-flavored horror, and how it is just filled to the brim with unhappy families. I'm entirely here for political backstabbing and endless misery 24/7 in this sad little world of grid-based warfare. I love pretty much everything within it, and I would frankly be happy to receive almost anything for this fandom.Where to Find It: If you haven't played FFT for a while or are unfamiliar with it and want to get an idea of what it's like, you can check out scripts of the dialogue here (PSX translation) and here (PSP translation). There's also a very comprehensive Let's Play here (PSX translations). If you have an emulator and wish to skip to specific save states, somebody put together a nice collection of them here.
Note on Names: I mix and match PSX and PSP names for characters and places based entirely on what I think sounds cool, and I encourage you to do likewise and adhere to whatever orthography you like best.
Characters: I got some phenomenal fic for this canon both Yuletide last and throughout the past year, and while I am enthused for just about any fanworks for this game whatsoever, I'm choosing here to focus on my favorite villain. I completely, unironically love Dycedarg Beoulve. I love his unrepentant, family-annihilating dedication to the pursuit of power. I love his unrelenting manipulation and betrayal of people around him. I love his impractical outfit and terrible hair. What I love most about him in a narrative sense though is that he is--for the bulk of the game--a completely mundane human being and not some supernatural JRPG demon with motivations that presumably transcend mortal concerns. As such, what I'd really enjoy is something that looks to him as a villain possessed of uniquely human motivations: something that looks to what makes a person with a vaguely normal life and a mostly not terrible family decide to kill his father, stab his childhood friend, and treat his brothers as pawns to be discarded.
Ships: I ship Dycedarg with Ruvelia Atkascha for very convoluted headcanony reasons (Orinus being his kid would be such a cool complication), and I wrote a lengthy ship manifesto about it if you're interested in jumping down that rabbit hole (Please feel absolutely no obligation, though). I also enjoy pretty much any thoughtful depiction of his relationship with Zalbag, and I am open to interpretations that include some manner of toxic incest. Honestly though, if you have a ship in mind, I'm probably open to it. FFT is a canon where I am most assuredly a promiscuous multi-shipper.
If you want to write something lighter: Dycedarg isn't a character that really lends himself to the light and fluffy, but I'm honestly very curious as to what his life might have been like prior to becoming so incredibly villainous, and I'm very interested in how he relates to his family when he isn't in the midst of attempting to kill them. At the beginning of the game, the Beoulves are still clearly messed up, but they all seem to be in sympathy with one another.
Specific Prompts:
• Was Dycedarg ever optimistic or at least less cynical and murderous? What might he have been like if and when he clung to some sense of his father's ideals?
• I'm honestly a sucker for members of the Beoulve family being in some way sympathetic or supportive of one another before the family is the imploding ball of dysfunction that we see in game. Something with Dycedarg interacting with Zalbag, Ramza, and/or Alma at a happier point in their lives would be cool. While I love Dycedarg and Zalbag stories a lot, I'm also particularly interested in how he relates to Alma, who is his one sibling he's never in direct conflict with and who seems--like him--to be just a little bit more clever/assertive than their two other siblings.
• Did Dycedarg ever have a relationship with his father that wasn't "Bitch, I'm going to poison you"? If so, what did it look like? How might he have related to Balbanes at a time before they were at odds enough that he was willing to poison him?
• Was Dycedarg ever optimistic or at least less cynical and murderous? What might he have been like if and when he clung to some sense of his father's ideals?
• I'm honestly a sucker for members of the Beoulve family being in some way sympathetic or supportive of one another before the family is the imploding ball of dysfunction that we see in game. Something with Dycedarg interacting with Zalbag, Ramza, and/or Alma at a happier point in their lives would be cool. While I love Dycedarg and Zalbag stories a lot, I'm also particularly interested in how he relates to Alma, who is his one sibling he's never in direct conflict with and who seems--like him--to be just a little bit more clever/assertive than their two other siblings.
• Did Dycedarg ever have a relationship with his father that wasn't "Bitch, I'm going to poison you"? If so, what did it look like? How might he have related to Balbanes at a time before they were at odds enough that he was willing to poison him?
If you want to write something darker: Given the patricide, the conspiracies, the backstabbing, and the turning into a demonic goat, there's a lot of room to explore dark themes. I'd love something on the more introspective side that explores his motivations for all the awful stuff he does, and I'd love anything that actually delves into some sort of conflict or complexity as to his decisions to be That Awful. As I've mentioned before, he clearly has some sense of loyalty to his family at least in the abstract, and I'd love an examination of what it means to want your House to come out on top while simultaneously undertaking the actions that destroy it.
Specific Prompts
• The Fifty Years War is really the pivotal, life-shaping background event for almost everyone in the game over a certain age. What is Dycedarg's relationship to the war, and how might it have effected him as a presumed participant in it?
• What actually led Dycedarg to settle on patricide or to make the decision to murder Larg (who is noted as having been his friend since childhood)? I'm game for answers that range from the traumatic to the petty to the mundane. I just really like dissections of how baddies work and what leads them to the extremes they reach.
• Dycedarg only spends one battle as an eldritch goat demon, but I'm so curious as to what his relationship to Adrammelech is and how the transformation from person to Lucavi works for him. There's so much more build up with Wiegraf's Faustian pact with Belias, and I'd love to see a similar sense of drama and horror with Dycedarg, who is the only other real human to Lucavi transformation we get to see. (I guess there's Alma, but she gets better.)
• The Fifty Years War is really the pivotal, life-shaping background event for almost everyone in the game over a certain age. What is Dycedarg's relationship to the war, and how might it have effected him as a presumed participant in it?
• What actually led Dycedarg to settle on patricide or to make the decision to murder Larg (who is noted as having been his friend since childhood)? I'm game for answers that range from the traumatic to the petty to the mundane. I just really like dissections of how baddies work and what leads them to the extremes they reach.
• Dycedarg only spends one battle as an eldritch goat demon, but I'm so curious as to what his relationship to Adrammelech is and how the transformation from person to Lucavi works for him. There's so much more build up with Wiegraf's Faustian pact with Belias, and I'd love to see a similar sense of drama and horror with Dycedarg, who is the only other real human to Lucavi transformation we get to see. (I guess there's Alma, but she gets better.)
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: I am down for pretty much any sort of villainfuckery you feel inspired to write, be it comparatively pleasant consensual hook-ups between Dycedarg and like-mind villains (Ruvelia's great for this), shady seductions in the name of power, or messed up incest and/or non-con.
Specific Prompts
• I am personally convinced that the game is much cooler if the rumors that Larg arranged to get his sister pregnant via somebody who is not her husband are true and if that person is Dycedarg. It adds such a neat additional dimension to all the additional intrigue and it creates room for the criminally neglected character of Ruvelia to be explored in a bit more detail.
• Everyone in the Game-of-Thrones-esque political plot of the game would be well served by hooking up more for shady Game-of-Thrones-esque political reasons. While I find a lot of political plot characters less than attractive, I'm very invested in the emotional awkwardity of fucking for mercenary motives, and I'm just as happy to hear about Dycedarg enduring the terribleness of Bestrald Larg's haircut as I am to hear him carrying on with someone like Elmdor.
• If you want to go dark, I'm definitely up for some sort of obsessive/co-dependent Dycedarg/Zalbag. I'm even up for some murderous/non-consensual Goat!darg/Zalbag.
• I am personally convinced that the game is much cooler if the rumors that Larg arranged to get his sister pregnant via somebody who is not her husband are true and if that person is Dycedarg. It adds such a neat additional dimension to all the additional intrigue and it creates room for the criminally neglected character of Ruvelia to be explored in a bit more detail.
• Everyone in the Game-of-Thrones-esque political plot of the game would be well served by hooking up more for shady Game-of-Thrones-esque political reasons. While I find a lot of political plot characters less than attractive, I'm very invested in the emotional awkwardity of fucking for mercenary motives, and I'm just as happy to hear about Dycedarg enduring the terribleness of Bestrald Larg's haircut as I am to hear him carrying on with someone like Elmdor.
• If you want to go dark, I'm definitely up for some sort of obsessive/co-dependent Dycedarg/Zalbag. I'm even up for some murderous/non-consensual Goat!darg/Zalbag.
If You Want to Write a Crossover: I'm up for Final Fantasy VII crossovers, as the game itself embraces that, and I think it would be neat to examine what somebody like Cloud thinks of Ivalice's oppressive feudal rulership in contrast to ShinRa's capitalism run amok. I'd even be open to an FF7/FFT fusion where the plot of FFT is transplanted into FF7's high tech Gaia, and the Beoulves are scions of an evil electric-power company instead of a powerful Duchy. While I know that the game also has overlap with Final Fantasy XII and the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Games, I haven't actually played any of those in full and wouldn't be able to appreciate a work combining them (although I am super chill with a fic that draws upon them for background elements). Lastly, I am familiar with Vagrant Story, and I really dig it. I'd be open to things that address ways that the two canons (allegedly) take place in the same universe. I feel that there are a lot of opportunities to do something that might involve world-building or the exploration of similar themes (religion, filial responsibility). The Dark is just a generally good handwavy device for having things happen, and I feel it's a useful tool to bring characters together either in the horrific abyss of a post-death existence or via some sort of magical shenanigans that open portals between FFT-era Ivalice and Valendia. Stuff that touches on parallels between the Glabados Church and the Order of St. Iocus, between House Beoulve and House Bardoba, or some of FFT's doomed sibling sets and Duane and Grissom would all be welcome.
Canon DNWs: n/a
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Extra Challenges
Art Prompts (for the Wrapping Paper Challenge)
General Art Likes: I like things with dynamic poses; things that are cute/cartoonish; things that do something offbeat and a little bit exaggerated/surreal; and things that are a little over-stylized and dripping with symbolic imagery. Limited palettes and starkly inked black and white pieces are close to my heart as I am a rotten colorist and have an affinity for styles I could conceivably emulate. I also tend to like things that are de-saturated or a washed out looking. As with my general likes, I am always here religious imagery (which would obviously lean more Catholicy with FFT and more classical Pagan with BaK) and for anything cool involving symbolically important plants (significant uses of fictional plants like silverthorn and mosfungus are obviously cool, but if you want to do things with a floriography primer and real world plant life, please go wild).The 13 Clocks: I'd straight up love anything that replicates the palette and general feel of the Marc Simont, but really anything whimsical and fun involving the Golux and his attributes both describable and indescribable would be delightful. I'm even fine with compositions that take advantages of his guise as Listen and leave him implied in a scene but possessing no describable features at all. In general though, I would just love anything that might be enjoyable for a Golux to do: juggling, spellcraft, cooking, gardening, intigue, hatmaking, larceny, etc... I'm pretty happy to see all manner of Goluxes (Golices?) doing all manner of things.
Betrayal at Krondor: Anything involving Gorath and Owyn in the Northlands, possibly emerging from Sar-Sargoth or recovering from nearly drowning; mundane instances of day-to-day happenings on the road (healing cantrips, drinking at shady taverns, Owyn trying to busk for money); any images of Owyn interacting with Neville/Navon and Ugyne or images of Gorath in happier times in the Northlands with Cullich and all of his friends who had not yet died in Murmandamus' hopeless campaign. If you want to do something a little bit comic/cutesy, you could portray the characters struggling with one of those accursed puzzle chests.
Final Fantasy Tactics: I undoubtedly make too much of Rofel/Loffrey's throwaway line about Dycedarg knowing a lot about poisons, and as such I'd love to see him chilling with any manner of poisonous plant or fungus. Illustrations of him hanging around with his family or with those rascally Larg kids would be great, and I'm also very game for anything that involves Adrammelech or just goat imagery in general. I am just really an absolute dork for FFT characters chilling with mundane incarnations of their signature animal-based Lucavi. If you want to do something a little offbeat, things that have some sort of medievalish art style (illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, etc...) would be great for this canon.
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IF Prompts
General IF Likes: I really really really like IF, and I'm always happy when I see it in exchanges. I'm a Twine person myself. While I am admittedly not an expert in things outside of it, I'm eager to play any sort of interactive fiction you wish to create in any sort of medium. I'm good for both Choose Your Own Adventure Style games and things that employ a parser, although I'd greatly appreciate a walkthrough in the case of the second one.In terms of what I enjoy in IF, I really appreciate things that take advantage of unique or innovative mechanics, and I have a soft spot for games that acknowledge the pre-determined nature of their narratives and don't really try to be "fair." Having decisions that feel meaningful but that won't save you from a bad outcome are really up my alley, as are choices you make resulting in different outcomes than you might like. My ideal game in any medium is one that provides me with a sense that I'm not being given precisely what I initially want but that I'm not being treated unfairly or having things made difficult for the sake of being difficult. Don't be afraid to make something where there are no completely satisfactory endings.
In general, though, feel free to use IF as a means to experiment and play around. I like IF a lot as a medium for fanworks because it can open up so many possibilities that aren't typical of most written or visual compositions. I'd love things that exploit the different ways one might feel when the medium forces a certain level of identification with a player character, or that layer in ambiguity through multi-pathing and multiple endings.
The 13 Clocks: Given the narrative's emphasis on time and its flow, this would be a neat canon to do something involving time loops or (if you're feeling fancy) timers as an IF component. Given Thurber's skill for inventing and playing with words, I feel like this canon would lend itself well to the style of IF where words change or disappear when clicked on. In terms of content, I feel that there are a lot of neat things you could do with the Golux as Listen (a spy adventure!) with the Hagga storytelling episode (dialogue trees!) or with something that concerns the clocks themselves (time management (literally)!)
Betrayal at Krondor: One of the things I like best about BaK is how much attention is given to the flavor text, and I feel that the loving care Hallford expended in giving you paragraphs of description regarding your trail rations purchases lends itself well to a tiny IF side quest style adventure about the characters doing something incidental to the main plot. Given how gradually Gorath and Owyn become close, I feel like there are a lot of neat ways that you could use some canon-typical side questing to drive some development in their characters (perhaps some moment of cultural exchange or talking about their pasts/families). In terms of mechanics, I don't have a lot of particularly wild suggestions, although it might be cool to do something with Morhedhel script if you want to do something a little fancy/experimental with text (you can download the font here).
Final Fantasy Tactics: I've both made and received FFT IF in the past, and I absolutely adore using it as a tool to expand on untold narrative elements of the game--given that FFT itself is a story about lost history and who gets to tell what sort of story. Something that pries into secrets regarding House Beoulve or the Duchy of Gallione or that recasts Alazlam's (and/or Olan's) narrative as unreliable would be excellent, although I'm honestly just interested in anything that touches on Dycedarg's narrative from a perspective that differs from the original game. If you are absolutely intent on spoiling me to death, I would love you forever if you did something that imitated some of the elements of the Japanese in game sound novels (Accessible right now only via the Lion War mod and this archived GeoCities site).
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