Dear Author Letter: Yuletide 2021
Sep. 30th, 2021 11:12 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 write 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) | Final Fantasy Tactics | The Woman in White | Wuthering Heights | Mini-Challenge Specific Prompts
• ageplay
• character bashing
• omegaverse
• pregnancy-related kinks (ex: breeding kink, worshipful focus on pregnant bellies, etc...); narrative explorations of childbearing, pregnancy, and reproduction more than welcome
• scat/emeto (unsexy mentions of vomit and feces are okay)
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
• drunk/drugged sex
• hate sex
• non-con/dub-con in general
• non-penetrative sex
• strangulation/breathplay
• violent sex
Yuletide-Affiliated Challenges I'm Up For:
• Crueltide (darkfic)
• Drabbles (for Yuletide Madness)
• Interactive Fiction
• Two for One (Crossovers)
• Yuleporn (Smut)
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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: This year I'm asking for Miluda Folles, Wiegraf's doomed sister who gets called an animal before being slaughtered by the awkward teenagers who are ostensibly the protagonists of Chapter 1. I'm interested in how she is significantly less optimistic about the Death Corps' revolution than her brother but ends up being the one who dies fighting it. I'm interested in how--unlike Wiegraf--Miluda is willing to discard Teta (a commoner woman like herself) and tell Delita he's out of luck. I'm just generally just interested in who Miluda is outside of the very brief snapshot we get of her in game. What were her days like during the Fifty Years war? How did she and Wiegraf relate to one another before the end of the war? There are a lot of directions one can go with this character, and I'd love to see them explored.
Ships: I don't have any particular ships I'm super attached to that include Miluda, although I'd be happy to see her in a relationship with any number of characters. I'd be interested in her hooking up with the largely personality free Golagros or with her cute twin white mages with the alternate green outfit colors. I'd be interested in her having some sort of darker entanglement with Gustav (who is either an initially well-intentioned whistleblower or a war criminal and rapist, depending on which translation of the game you're playing) I'd be interested in her having some manner of dysfunctional incestuous relationship with her brother that no doubt contributes to his own unfolding tragedy. If you really want an out there suggestion, I'd be interested in pieces that bring her into dialogue with Simone/Ernesta Bulow/Oeilvert from the "Oeilvert" sound novel, given that they are both pragmatic, occasionally cold-hearted women grappling with revolutionary politics. 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. (Feel free to drop in either of my two incredibly weird OTPs in the background if you feel so moved.)
If you want to write gen: I'm endlessly fascinated by people's pre-canon takes on Final Fantasy Tactics and how characters developed in relation to the Fifty Years War. I'd love to see explorations of Miluda as a young woman coming of age during Ivalice's seemingly unending conflict with Ordallia and how that shaped her and her later revolutionary ideals. I'd also love to get more of a sense as to the Folles kids' background, as to their relationship to one another, and as to what they might have hoped for after they received the pay that was never allotted them. Takes that look to the sizeable age gap between Wiegraf and Miluda and how they came to the war at different ages could be cool, and I'd also enjoy some explorations of Miluda once she's a commander in the Death Corps, having to navigate the harsh realities of a failing revolution and her brother's high-minded ideas.
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: I'm a sucker for every sort of sad/tragic/miserable ship you can wring out of FFT, and a doomed group of starving revolutionaries seems like it provides abundant opportunities for horror, tragedy, and misery. I love FFT shipfic that is full of angst, missed chances at intimacy, and profound dysfunction. Please feel free to go very dark if you're inclined to:
If You Want to Write a Crossover: I'm up for stuff involving Final Fantasy VII content as the game itself embraces that (although I should note that I haven't played the remake). I'd be particularly open to an FF7/FFT fusion where the plot of FFT is transplanted into FF7's high tech Gaia, and the Death Corps takes on an AVALANCHEesque role up against various feudal powers re-imagined as captialist powers run amok. If you go this route, it would be fascinating to see how Miluda and Wiegraf engage with the sort of high casualty terrorist acts typical of FF7's conflicts.
Canon DNWs: n/a
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Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): You can read the entirety of The Woman in White for free at Project Gutenberg. While I haven't given any of the free versions at Librivox a try, you might also check there if you want to enjoy the book in audio form.
Characters: I'm asking for fic featuring both Marian Halcombe and Laura Fairlie. I love Marian for many of the reasons most people love Marian (she's brilliant, heroic, unapologetically "ugly"/masculine, and really stands out as one of the most stellar narrators in the text). I also love Laura, though, and I feel her strengths get overlooked by how much she recedes from the narrative following her suffering at the asylum. I love her stoicism in handling what she initially sees as an impossible romance, her boldness in standing up to Percival, and her intense devotion to Marian.
Ships: I will be upfront in saying that I'm actually very taken with Marian/Laura as an incest ship. Marian's possessive remarks about "her" Laura prior to Laura's ill-fated marriage, the moments in which the seem to share thoughts or feelings, Laura kissing Marian on the lips and referring to her as "my own love"... I feel there's a lot to work with here, and I'd love for things to spill over from nineteenth-century typical sisterly affection to an actual erotic relationship. I also have a very straightforward appreciation of Fosco/Marian as a one-sided and unconsummated dynamic, and I would also dig Marian/Walter/Laura as a triad if the emphasis is on Marian/Laura's relationship (incestuous or not) within it.
If you want to write gen: I'm definitely here for more canon typical happenings, for explorations of pre-canon or post-canon happenings, and for all manner of character studies regarding these woman and the conspiracy-laden reality they inhabit. The epistolary style of the novel leaves all sort of enticing gaps that one could fill, and I'd love to see more of these characters outside of their involvement in the tangle that is The Woman in White's main narrative.
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: I'm first and foremost here for Marian/Laura when it comes to anything particularly pornographic, but I'm interested in general in Marian potentially revising her textual commitment to joyous spinsterhood in ways that still acknowledge her undying commitment to her half-sister. I just really want the brilliant, mustachioed heroine at the heart of this story to get some sort of action.
If You Want to Write a Crossover: I am down for the idea of a mid-Victorian-sensation-novel extended universe, and I will be completely happy if you want to just set your fic in the same universe as Lady Audley's Secret, East Lynne, and/or The Moonstone. (I'm also midway through Aurora Floyd too, and will hopefully finish by December.) I'd be particularly fascinated by Woman in White/Lady Audley takes that bring Marian, Walter, and Laura together with Robert, George, and Clara, as there are so many self-evident parallels there (even just Robert and Marian take a moment to commiserate about having to do unexpected detectiving around charismatic/theatrical villains). I'd also love to have Laura/Walter and Rachel/Franklin get together and discuss how very weird it is trying to have a straightforward relationship in a Wilkie Collins novel.
Canon DNWs: Reciprocated/Consummated Marian/Fosco (I'm happy to have him be deeply into her, but I would like it to be one-sided)
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Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): As with The Woman in White, the text is free at Project Gutenberg, and an audio version is available via Librivox.
Characters: I am an ardent fan and defender of Catherine Earnshaw, however wild, spiteful, and violent she might be. I feel Nelly's narration obfuscates the degree to which she is an abused/neglected teenager trying to navigate a household where her tyrannical brother threatens to murder everyone with some frequency, and I think a lot of her actions are far more understandable and reasonably than they appear at first glance. Her inability to escape Wuthering Heights with Heathcliff and her subsequent despair at ever returning to whatever unity they had on the moors is completely heartbreaking, and I just about lose it every time she comes to her maddened speech about the lapwings. I just love this book a lot and have many feelings about it.
Ships: I will adore absolutely any miserable, toxic, terrible ship you can envision for Cathy: canonical or non-canonical. I'm particularly taken these days with the idea of violent, dysfunctional, hatesex filled Cathy/Isabella, where both parties are fixated with one another but also fixated on how they both carry some trace of Heathcliff. I've also given thought to an unconsummated, loathing-fueled longing between Cathy and Nelly (who runs parallel to Cathy in more ways than I feel she confesses) and to various permutations of abusive incest regarding Hindley or Mr. Earnshaw. I'm absolutely here for canon-typical Cathy/Heathcliff. I'm not terribly smitten with Edgar/Cathy to the same degree as other potential pairings, but I would still delight in something featuring them so long as there was some emphasis on dysfunction and toxicity baked in.
If you want to write gen: There are so darn many narrative lacunae you can fill in Wuthering Heights, and I'd love getting viewpoints outside of Nelly and Lockwood that give us more hints as to Cathy's interiority and relationships. Hearing more from Isabella, hearing anything from Hindley, or even getting more of Cathy's own fragmented accounts as to her own experiences would all be great.
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: I love horrible, terrible, no good, very bad relationships, and there are very few in Wuthering Heights that do not qualify. Whatever shipfic you might wish to write will probably be exactly the thing I like if you keep to canon typical levels of toxicity and misery. Feel absolutely free to go as dark as you like with stuff for this canon; it's darkness is a large part of what I like about it.
Canon DNWs: Crossovers; I also want to emphasize my Character Bashing DNW for this canon, as it is very very easy to bash these characters. I'm fine with acknowledgements that most of these people are not great people, but I'd like that they all be presented as though there is some room for sympathy or understanding as regards them.
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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.
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 the Death Corps and their failed revolution 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 Miluda'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), particularly if it touched on ways to bring Miluda into dialogue with Simone from "Oeilvert."
The Woman in White: IF is such a great medium to explore texts that are achronological, piecemeal, and puzzling, which is exactly what The Woman White is. It would be a great tool to tell an epistolary story that is linked together without a set chronology for how documents might be read: where you are able to read documents in a number or different configurations without having the order of page numbers imposed upon them. I also love IF where you find yourself changing what character you are following/making choices for, and I feel one could do a lot with that dynamic as one traces Marian and Laura's relationship and interactions with one another. Lastly, IF is really good at helping one to inhabit a POV you might not otherwise accept. While I didn't prompt much for scenarios involving Fosco in my general prompt list, I feel he's both a character who A) would have astute and meaningful observations about Marian and Laura and B) would function perfectly in a world of adventure game logic. Having some manner of Count Fosco scheming simulator, in which he both has to attempt to thwart Marian and Laura while growing increasingly aware of them and their relationship would be a delight.
Wuthering Heights: Wuthering Heights is a suffocating narrative, and it is arranged such as to make it virtually impossible to understand Heathcliff and Cathy's connection as they would have understood it, as everything about them is hidden behind two unreliable narrators. (The whole book is also just chock full of coffins, enclosures, and locks.) I feel like IF offers a great opportunity to chip away at the ambiguity of Cathy/Heathcliff and what it was that bound them together. I also feel that IF is wonderful for lending a sense of powerlessness to an unfolding tragedy: to letting the player struggle with trying to attain a good outcome that is out of their reach. I'd love things for this canon that emphasize the bleakness of its first arc, that multiply the POVs through which you are able to read the story, or that instills a sense of dread/helplessness.
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Dear Author,
Hello! Thank you so much for taking the time to write 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) | Final Fantasy Tactics | The Woman in White | Wuthering Heights | Mini-Challenge Specific Prompts
General (DNWs, Likes, Opt-Ins, Etc...)
Do Not Wants:• ageplay
• character bashing
• omegaverse
• pregnancy-related kinks (ex: breeding kink, worshipful focus on pregnant bellies, etc...); narrative explorations of childbearing, pregnancy, and reproduction more than welcome
• scat/emeto (unsexy mentions of vomit and feces are okay)
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
• drunk/drugged sex
• hate sex
• non-con/dub-con in general
• non-penetrative sex
• strangulation/breathplay
• violent sex
Yuletide-Affiliated Challenges I'm Up For:
• Crueltide (darkfic)
• Drabbles (for Yuletide Madness)
• Interactive Fiction
• Two for One (Crossovers)
• Yuleporn (Smut)
[Back to Top]
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: This year I'm asking for Miluda Folles, Wiegraf's doomed sister who gets called an animal before being slaughtered by the awkward teenagers who are ostensibly the protagonists of Chapter 1. I'm interested in how she is significantly less optimistic about the Death Corps' revolution than her brother but ends up being the one who dies fighting it. I'm interested in how--unlike Wiegraf--Miluda is willing to discard Teta (a commoner woman like herself) and tell Delita he's out of luck. I'm just generally just interested in who Miluda is outside of the very brief snapshot we get of her in game. What were her days like during the Fifty Years war? How did she and Wiegraf relate to one another before the end of the war? There are a lot of directions one can go with this character, and I'd love to see them explored.
Ships: I don't have any particular ships I'm super attached to that include Miluda, although I'd be happy to see her in a relationship with any number of characters. I'd be interested in her hooking up with the largely personality free Golagros or with her cute twin white mages with the alternate green outfit colors. I'd be interested in her having some sort of darker entanglement with Gustav (who is either an initially well-intentioned whistleblower or a war criminal and rapist, depending on which translation of the game you're playing) I'd be interested in her having some manner of dysfunctional incestuous relationship with her brother that no doubt contributes to his own unfolding tragedy. If you really want an out there suggestion, I'd be interested in pieces that bring her into dialogue with Simone/Ernesta Bulow/Oeilvert from the "Oeilvert" sound novel, given that they are both pragmatic, occasionally cold-hearted women grappling with revolutionary politics. 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. (Feel free to drop in either of my two incredibly weird OTPs in the background if you feel so moved.)
If you want to write gen: I'm endlessly fascinated by people's pre-canon takes on Final Fantasy Tactics and how characters developed in relation to the Fifty Years War. I'd love to see explorations of Miluda as a young woman coming of age during Ivalice's seemingly unending conflict with Ordallia and how that shaped her and her later revolutionary ideals. I'd also love to get more of a sense as to the Folles kids' background, as to their relationship to one another, and as to what they might have hoped for after they received the pay that was never allotted them. Takes that look to the sizeable age gap between Wiegraf and Miluda and how they came to the war at different ages could be cool, and I'd also enjoy some explorations of Miluda once she's a commander in the Death Corps, having to navigate the harsh realities of a failing revolution and her brother's high-minded ideas.
Specific Prompts:
• Wiegraf and Miluda seem to be from Gallione as of Ch. 1, and I'd love works that might bring them into contact with or compare them to other sibling sets from the region. In particular, it would be cool to see them in relation to the older Beoulves (who would have been combatants in the war around the same time they were) or in relation to the Heirals. I'm particularly interested in takes that look to how Miluda views Teta. She seems to know about her kidnapping prior to encountering Delita, but she doesn't seem to sympathize with her even when it's made clear that she is not a noblewoman. Something that looks at the line she draws between them could be very cool.
• Miluda having to deal with either Golagros or Gustav seems like it would provide a great opportunity to explore all of these underdeveloped characters in more depth. I'd love a look into how Miluda does or not approve of Golagros' tactics, how she reacts to the planned attack on Igros, or how she handles Gustav's splinter group and how Wiegraf violently deals with it.
• Explorations of Miluda (and Wiegraf's) childhood, origins, and initial entry into the war would be great. I'm honestly a sucker for fic that fleshes out character's lives as children, and I feel like there's room for all sorts of tragedy, drama, and bittersweetness with regards to a doomed character like Miluda.
• Wiegraf and Miluda seem to be from Gallione as of Ch. 1, and I'd love works that might bring them into contact with or compare them to other sibling sets from the region. In particular, it would be cool to see them in relation to the older Beoulves (who would have been combatants in the war around the same time they were) or in relation to the Heirals. I'm particularly interested in takes that look to how Miluda views Teta. She seems to know about her kidnapping prior to encountering Delita, but she doesn't seem to sympathize with her even when it's made clear that she is not a noblewoman. Something that looks at the line she draws between them could be very cool.
• Miluda having to deal with either Golagros or Gustav seems like it would provide a great opportunity to explore all of these underdeveloped characters in more depth. I'd love a look into how Miluda does or not approve of Golagros' tactics, how she reacts to the planned attack on Igros, or how she handles Gustav's splinter group and how Wiegraf violently deals with it.
• Explorations of Miluda (and Wiegraf's) childhood, origins, and initial entry into the war would be great. I'm honestly a sucker for fic that fleshes out character's lives as children, and I feel like there's room for all sorts of tragedy, drama, and bittersweetness with regards to a doomed character like Miluda.
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: I'm a sucker for every sort of sad/tragic/miserable ship you can wring out of FFT, and a doomed group of starving revolutionaries seems like it provides abundant opportunities for horror, tragedy, and misery. I love FFT shipfic that is full of angst, missed chances at intimacy, and profound dysfunction. Please feel free to go very dark if you're inclined to:
Specific Prompts
• Miluda doesn't have a lot of romantic options, given that there are only so many characters she can meet before she dies midway through Chapter 1. If you want to add a romantic/sexual dimension to her interactions with various members of the Death Corps though, I'd be down for it. What's it like to have a relationship during such desperate times and in such desperate straits? How might another entanglement inform or alter Miluda's relationship to her brother? I feel that shipping Miluda with Golagros, Gustav, semi unique generic units, etc... offers an opportunity to flesh out the dynamics of this rebellion and its players in more detail than we are given in game, and I'd love to read something about doomed characters sharing some sort of connection before
• I am absolutely down for messed up Follescest, and I am happy with either sibling initiating and with any level of consent, dysfunction, and/or guilt you feel interested in writing. I'd love stuff that looks to a relationship beginning/playing out pre-canon or stuff that shows a relationship being reviewed in retrospect by a now vengeful and messed up Wiegraf after Miluda has died.
• If you are interested in AUs, I really like the idea of takes on FFT where sibling dynamics and fates are inverted in some way (ex: Teta lives and Delita dies; Malak is abused and Rafa remains loyal to Barinten; Alma is a wandering heretic and Ramza's the vessel for JRPGesus). In that sort of universe, I would be incredibly game for templar Miluda/Meliadoul as a ship where they're presumably running the same mission that Wiegraf and Izlude do in the original.
• If you really want to take a bizarre and deep dive into FFT lore and find ways to bring Miluda into conversation with the protagonist of the Japanese sound novel "Oeilvert," the same-within-a-game is fully playable via the Lion War mod and has its entire transcript up on the FF Wiki. Time and space is fairly fluid in Ivalice (see: Cloud, Balthier, Luso, etc...), and I'd love really any interaction at all between Simone and Miluda, shippy or unshippy. They're both sort of messy, hard to handle women who are caught up in a major historical shift but forgotten by history, and I'd love something that explores Miluda in dialogue with somebody in a similar narrative position to herself.
• Miluda doesn't have a lot of romantic options, given that there are only so many characters she can meet before she dies midway through Chapter 1. If you want to add a romantic/sexual dimension to her interactions with various members of the Death Corps though, I'd be down for it. What's it like to have a relationship during such desperate times and in such desperate straits? How might another entanglement inform or alter Miluda's relationship to her brother? I feel that shipping Miluda with Golagros, Gustav, semi unique generic units, etc... offers an opportunity to flesh out the dynamics of this rebellion and its players in more detail than we are given in game, and I'd love to read something about doomed characters sharing some sort of connection before
• I am absolutely down for messed up Follescest, and I am happy with either sibling initiating and with any level of consent, dysfunction, and/or guilt you feel interested in writing. I'd love stuff that looks to a relationship beginning/playing out pre-canon or stuff that shows a relationship being reviewed in retrospect by a now vengeful and messed up Wiegraf after Miluda has died.
• If you are interested in AUs, I really like the idea of takes on FFT where sibling dynamics and fates are inverted in some way (ex: Teta lives and Delita dies; Malak is abused and Rafa remains loyal to Barinten; Alma is a wandering heretic and Ramza's the vessel for JRPGesus). In that sort of universe, I would be incredibly game for templar Miluda/Meliadoul as a ship where they're presumably running the same mission that Wiegraf and Izlude do in the original.
• If you really want to take a bizarre and deep dive into FFT lore and find ways to bring Miluda into conversation with the protagonist of the Japanese sound novel "Oeilvert," the same-within-a-game is fully playable via the Lion War mod and has its entire transcript up on the FF Wiki. Time and space is fairly fluid in Ivalice (see: Cloud, Balthier, Luso, etc...), and I'd love really any interaction at all between Simone and Miluda, shippy or unshippy. They're both sort of messy, hard to handle women who are caught up in a major historical shift but forgotten by history, and I'd love something that explores Miluda in dialogue with somebody in a similar narrative position to herself.
If You Want to Write a Crossover: I'm up for stuff involving Final Fantasy VII content as the game itself embraces that (although I should note that I haven't played the remake). I'd be particularly open to an FF7/FFT fusion where the plot of FFT is transplanted into FF7's high tech Gaia, and the Death Corps takes on an AVALANCHEesque role up against various feudal powers re-imagined as captialist powers run amok. If you go this route, it would be fascinating to see how Miluda and Wiegraf engage with the sort of high casualty terrorist acts typical of FF7's conflicts.
Canon DNWs: n/a
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The Woman in White
The Canon: The Woman in White is an 1859 sensation novel that I love as I do all sensation novels. I adore all melodrama, terrible twists, shocking secrets, and gothic ambiance, and Woman in White delivers on all fronts. I love in particular how it really takes advantage of its epistolary format, and how it plays around with the weirdness of character doubles and a surprising amount of fluidity re: gender roles. I also just love Marian Halcombe a lot because everyone loves Marian, even and especially the villain of the text.Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): You can read the entirety of The Woman in White for free at Project Gutenberg. While I haven't given any of the free versions at Librivox a try, you might also check there if you want to enjoy the book in audio form.
Characters: I'm asking for fic featuring both Marian Halcombe and Laura Fairlie. I love Marian for many of the reasons most people love Marian (she's brilliant, heroic, unapologetically "ugly"/masculine, and really stands out as one of the most stellar narrators in the text). I also love Laura, though, and I feel her strengths get overlooked by how much she recedes from the narrative following her suffering at the asylum. I love her stoicism in handling what she initially sees as an impossible romance, her boldness in standing up to Percival, and her intense devotion to Marian.
Ships: I will be upfront in saying that I'm actually very taken with Marian/Laura as an incest ship. Marian's possessive remarks about "her" Laura prior to Laura's ill-fated marriage, the moments in which the seem to share thoughts or feelings, Laura kissing Marian on the lips and referring to her as "my own love"... I feel there's a lot to work with here, and I'd love for things to spill over from nineteenth-century typical sisterly affection to an actual erotic relationship. I also have a very straightforward appreciation of Fosco/Marian as a one-sided and unconsummated dynamic, and I would also dig Marian/Walter/Laura as a triad if the emphasis is on Marian/Laura's relationship (incestuous or not) within it.
If you want to write gen: I'm definitely here for more canon typical happenings, for explorations of pre-canon or post-canon happenings, and for all manner of character studies regarding these woman and the conspiracy-laden reality they inhabit. The epistolary style of the novel leaves all sort of enticing gaps that one could fill, and I'd love to see more of these characters outside of their involvement in the tangle that is The Woman in White's main narrative.
Specific Prompts
• Marian and Laura (especially Laura) both fade a little more into the background following Laura's "death" and subsequent recovery from the asylum. I'd love to see more of them interacting during this period of waiting and recovery--something where Marian, perhaps, tends to Laura in the midst of her recovery and reflect on her own prior illness. Stuff where they work through their feelings about and potential relation to Anne would also be welcome.
• On a similar note, I'd also love to see Marian and Laura having some more space to process their emotions with regards to Percival and Fosco's deaths. I appreciate Walter getting to return triumphant and reinvigorated from abroad, but I still feel that he's not quite the stunning narrator Marian is, and I'd love to have more of her POV regarding the culminating defeat and death of the novel's baddies. I also feel that Laura has a lot to process re: Percival's final end.
• Stuff that looks either to both women having to grapple with their family legacy either before or after canon would also be great, and like many readers/critics, I'm intrigued by the way the two sisters and Walter seem to function as a family unit post canon, what with all the complexities of passing down names and identities. Seeing more of Marian relating to Laura when the latter is a mother seems like it could have fascinating possibilities.
• Marian and Laura (especially Laura) both fade a little more into the background following Laura's "death" and subsequent recovery from the asylum. I'd love to see more of them interacting during this period of waiting and recovery--something where Marian, perhaps, tends to Laura in the midst of her recovery and reflect on her own prior illness. Stuff where they work through their feelings about and potential relation to Anne would also be welcome.
• On a similar note, I'd also love to see Marian and Laura having some more space to process their emotions with regards to Percival and Fosco's deaths. I appreciate Walter getting to return triumphant and reinvigorated from abroad, but I still feel that he's not quite the stunning narrator Marian is, and I'd love to have more of her POV regarding the culminating defeat and death of the novel's baddies. I also feel that Laura has a lot to process re: Percival's final end.
• Stuff that looks either to both women having to grapple with their family legacy either before or after canon would also be great, and like many readers/critics, I'm intrigued by the way the two sisters and Walter seem to function as a family unit post canon, what with all the complexities of passing down names and identities. Seeing more of Marian relating to Laura when the latter is a mother seems like it could have fascinating possibilities.
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: I'm first and foremost here for Marian/Laura when it comes to anything particularly pornographic, but I'm interested in general in Marian potentially revising her textual commitment to joyous spinsterhood in ways that still acknowledge her undying commitment to her half-sister. I just really want the brilliant, mustachioed heroine at the heart of this story to get some sort of action.
Specific Prompts:
• I'm here for Marian/Laura, and I'm here for it being both very intense and very weird. Wilkie Collins loves to linger on physical and social strangeness, and I'd really like things that delve into an acknowledgement of both the taboo of incest and the supposedly unattractive combination of Marian's voluptuous body and masculine face. If you want to work in a psychical/spiritualist element, I've been fascinated by an essay by Sharonna Pearl (available in Victorian Literary Mesmerism if you have access to a library that has it) that there is a psychic link between the half sisters, with Laura wielding the greater power between them. In general though, I just want all of the intense affection between the two characters to spill over into an equally intense relationship.
• Marian is a major component of Walter/Laura's relationship. She relays communications between them. She seems to be the deciding force in Laura's acceptance of Walter's eventual proposal. She somehow broadcasts dream visions to Walter in Honduras. I'd love to have something that looks towards how the two sisters' relationship tangles around Walter and how he might serve as a figure they can both relate to in a way they can't relate to one another. I'd love takes on Walter/Maria/Laura that take this approach, and I'd also dig takes on Walter/Laura that center on how the two of them relate to Marian.
• If you want to engage in a little bit of 19th C. Literary RPF, Wilkie Collins allegedly was bombarded with letters following the publication of The Woman in White from gentlemen eager to make the acquaintance of whomever was the "real" Marian Halcombe such that they could make her an offer of marriage. I'm not necessarily asking for Marian/Original Male Sensation Novel Reader, but I love that this happened and I would love a story in which Marian actually is available to have these messages relayed to her such that she and Laura end up reacting to a situation in which Marian is the far more desired sister. Marian having to contend with the fact that Fosco is no actually that much of a fluke in his admiration, and that there are a number of other, doubtelessly far less villainous men who are interested in her, would be delightful.
• Thinking it through as I typed the prompt above this one, I've realized that I am pretty enthused about the idea of Marian/Original Male-Impersonating Female Sensation Novel Reader.
• I'm here for Marian/Laura, and I'm here for it being both very intense and very weird. Wilkie Collins loves to linger on physical and social strangeness, and I'd really like things that delve into an acknowledgement of both the taboo of incest and the supposedly unattractive combination of Marian's voluptuous body and masculine face. If you want to work in a psychical/spiritualist element, I've been fascinated by an essay by Sharonna Pearl (available in Victorian Literary Mesmerism if you have access to a library that has it) that there is a psychic link between the half sisters, with Laura wielding the greater power between them. In general though, I just want all of the intense affection between the two characters to spill over into an equally intense relationship.
• Marian is a major component of Walter/Laura's relationship. She relays communications between them. She seems to be the deciding force in Laura's acceptance of Walter's eventual proposal. She somehow broadcasts dream visions to Walter in Honduras. I'd love to have something that looks towards how the two sisters' relationship tangles around Walter and how he might serve as a figure they can both relate to in a way they can't relate to one another. I'd love takes on Walter/Maria/Laura that take this approach, and I'd also dig takes on Walter/Laura that center on how the two of them relate to Marian.
• If you want to engage in a little bit of 19th C. Literary RPF, Wilkie Collins allegedly was bombarded with letters following the publication of The Woman in White from gentlemen eager to make the acquaintance of whomever was the "real" Marian Halcombe such that they could make her an offer of marriage. I'm not necessarily asking for Marian/Original Male Sensation Novel Reader, but I love that this happened and I would love a story in which Marian actually is available to have these messages relayed to her such that she and Laura end up reacting to a situation in which Marian is the far more desired sister. Marian having to contend with the fact that Fosco is no actually that much of a fluke in his admiration, and that there are a number of other, doubtelessly far less villainous men who are interested in her, would be delightful.
• Thinking it through as I typed the prompt above this one, I've realized that I am pretty enthused about the idea of Marian/Original Male-Impersonating Female Sensation Novel Reader.
If You Want to Write a Crossover: I am down for the idea of a mid-Victorian-sensation-novel extended universe, and I will be completely happy if you want to just set your fic in the same universe as Lady Audley's Secret, East Lynne, and/or The Moonstone. (I'm also midway through Aurora Floyd too, and will hopefully finish by December.) I'd be particularly fascinated by Woman in White/Lady Audley takes that bring Marian, Walter, and Laura together with Robert, George, and Clara, as there are so many self-evident parallels there (even just Robert and Marian take a moment to commiserate about having to do unexpected detectiving around charismatic/theatrical villains). I'd also love to have Laura/Walter and Rachel/Franklin get together and discuss how very weird it is trying to have a straightforward relationship in a Wilkie Collins novel.
Canon DNWs: Reciprocated/Consummated Marian/Fosco (I'm happy to have him be deeply into her, but I would like it to be one-sided)
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Wuthering Heights
The Canon: Wuthering Heights is one of my absolute favorite novels of all time. The prose is just achingly beautiful; I love the intense, miserable, messy nature of everyone's intertwining tragedies; and I'm incredibly enamored of the nested narrative form in which we can never quite reach Cathy and Heathcliff and what their relationship was like. I'm a huge fan in particular of the suggestions of the supernatural throughout, the constant doubling and replication of characters through names and circumstances, and pretty much every quotable line that gets tossed around to explain what people mean by a capital R "Romantic."Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): As with The Woman in White, the text is free at Project Gutenberg, and an audio version is available via Librivox.
Characters: I am an ardent fan and defender of Catherine Earnshaw, however wild, spiteful, and violent she might be. I feel Nelly's narration obfuscates the degree to which she is an abused/neglected teenager trying to navigate a household where her tyrannical brother threatens to murder everyone with some frequency, and I think a lot of her actions are far more understandable and reasonably than they appear at first glance. Her inability to escape Wuthering Heights with Heathcliff and her subsequent despair at ever returning to whatever unity they had on the moors is completely heartbreaking, and I just about lose it every time she comes to her maddened speech about the lapwings. I just love this book a lot and have many feelings about it.
Ships: I will adore absolutely any miserable, toxic, terrible ship you can envision for Cathy: canonical or non-canonical. I'm particularly taken these days with the idea of violent, dysfunctional, hatesex filled Cathy/Isabella, where both parties are fixated with one another but also fixated on how they both carry some trace of Heathcliff. I've also given thought to an unconsummated, loathing-fueled longing between Cathy and Nelly (who runs parallel to Cathy in more ways than I feel she confesses) and to various permutations of abusive incest regarding Hindley or Mr. Earnshaw. I'm absolutely here for canon-typical Cathy/Heathcliff. I'm not terribly smitten with Edgar/Cathy to the same degree as other potential pairings, but I would still delight in something featuring them so long as there was some emphasis on dysfunction and toxicity baked in.
If you want to write gen: There are so darn many narrative lacunae you can fill in Wuthering Heights, and I'd love getting viewpoints outside of Nelly and Lockwood that give us more hints as to Cathy's interiority and relationships. Hearing more from Isabella, hearing anything from Hindley, or even getting more of Cathy's own fragmented accounts as to her own experiences would all be great.
Specific Prompts
• I am endlessly fascinated by the fact that the hasp to the window through which ghost!Cathy's arm is thrust is soldered shut when Lockwood first observes it. Cathy's acceptance of Edgar's proposal has always read to me first and foremost as an attempt to escape the abusive atmosphere of Wuthering Heights, and there whole narrative is laden with images of confinement and suffocation. I want to know more about Cathy's perceptions of
• I'd love just about anything that looks to Nelly as a foil to Cathy, and I'd enjoy seeing interactions between them from some perspective other than Nelly's canonical narration. I'm very taken by the potential parallels between Cathy/Heathcliff and Nelly/Hindley as people who grew up together (particularly with Nelly's strange premonitions and deep grief re: Hindley), and I'm interested in the ways that Nelly's attempts to frame Cathy as malingering precede what seem to be actual health declines. Seeing something that inverts the narratorial dynamics of the novel--something where we finally get Cathy's perspective on Nelly--would be great, although I'd really just love to see any exploration as to how these women function in relation to one another.
• It's easy--given that Wuthering Heights is a nineteenth-century novel--to lose track how pregnant Cathy is as the first half of the novel moves towards its climax, and I'd love something that actually explores her increasing desperation, attempted hunger strike, delirium, and death in relation her pregnancy with Cathy II. I love reproductive angst/tragedy in general, and in a novel filled with family dysfunction and endlessly mirrored characters, I think it would be fascinating to take a deep dive into the death/birth that divides one Cathy (and her respective half of the novel) from another.
• I am endlessly fascinated by the fact that the hasp to the window through which ghost!Cathy's arm is thrust is soldered shut when Lockwood first observes it. Cathy's acceptance of Edgar's proposal has always read to me first and foremost as an attempt to escape the abusive atmosphere of Wuthering Heights, and there whole narrative is laden with images of confinement and suffocation. I want to know more about Cathy's perceptions of
• I'd love just about anything that looks to Nelly as a foil to Cathy, and I'd enjoy seeing interactions between them from some perspective other than Nelly's canonical narration. I'm very taken by the potential parallels between Cathy/Heathcliff and Nelly/Hindley as people who grew up together (particularly with Nelly's strange premonitions and deep grief re: Hindley), and I'm interested in the ways that Nelly's attempts to frame Cathy as malingering precede what seem to be actual health declines. Seeing something that inverts the narratorial dynamics of the novel--something where we finally get Cathy's perspective on Nelly--would be great, although I'd really just love to see any exploration as to how these women function in relation to one another.
• It's easy--given that Wuthering Heights is a nineteenth-century novel--to lose track how pregnant Cathy is as the first half of the novel moves towards its climax, and I'd love something that actually explores her increasing desperation, attempted hunger strike, delirium, and death in relation her pregnancy with Cathy II. I love reproductive angst/tragedy in general, and in a novel filled with family dysfunction and endlessly mirrored characters, I think it would be fascinating to take a deep dive into the death/birth that divides one Cathy (and her respective half of the novel) from another.
If you want to write something shippy/smutty: I love horrible, terrible, no good, very bad relationships, and there are very few in Wuthering Heights that do not qualify. Whatever shipfic you might wish to write will probably be exactly the thing I like if you keep to canon typical levels of toxicity and misery. Feel absolutely free to go as dark as you like with stuff for this canon; it's darkness is a large part of what I like about it.
Specific Prompts:
• I would adore for the tensions between Cathy/Isabella vying for Heathcliff's attention to spill over into intense/violent hatesex. I would adore for Isabella's curiosity about the wild/unpolished girl who ends up in Thurshcross Grange on account of a dog attack spilling over into intense/violent youthful experimentation. I would just enjoy any excuse for the two of them to be intense and violent with one another, whether it's on account of their desire for whatever trace of Heathcliff they see on the other or on account of them just being really into somebody whose femininity is so alien to their own. I'm cool with either party instigating things and with any level of explicitness and consent.
• Even without the cousin marriages in the second half of the novel, everything about Wuthering Heights feels incestuous. The world it inhabits is one that feels crushingly inescapable, and virtually everyone in it is the double of somebody else's. I would love takes on this novel that add even more explicit incest to the narrative. I'd be game for Cathy suffering abuse at the hands of her father or brother, or for her to happen upon some illicit relationship between the Lintons. I'm also absolutely here for the theory that Heathcliff is Mr. Earnshaw's bastard son, if you want to go in that direction.
• I am seldom a person who just very much likes the central relationship in a text, but I love Cathy/Heathcliff as written, and I will never say no to more of it. I would love anything about them, from explorations of their existence together on the heath when they might still have been relatively benign/innocent to extremely dark takes on their relationship in its most monstrous forms. I'm game for both gentle/pleasant takes that stand in contrast to the misery of canon and for stuff that veers into violence, underage, noncon, or even necrophilia ("I saw her face again—it is hers yet!").
• I would adore for the tensions between Cathy/Isabella vying for Heathcliff's attention to spill over into intense/violent hatesex. I would adore for Isabella's curiosity about the wild/unpolished girl who ends up in Thurshcross Grange on account of a dog attack spilling over into intense/violent youthful experimentation. I would just enjoy any excuse for the two of them to be intense and violent with one another, whether it's on account of their desire for whatever trace of Heathcliff they see on the other or on account of them just being really into somebody whose femininity is so alien to their own. I'm cool with either party instigating things and with any level of explicitness and consent.
• Even without the cousin marriages in the second half of the novel, everything about Wuthering Heights feels incestuous. The world it inhabits is one that feels crushingly inescapable, and virtually everyone in it is the double of somebody else's. I would love takes on this novel that add even more explicit incest to the narrative. I'd be game for Cathy suffering abuse at the hands of her father or brother, or for her to happen upon some illicit relationship between the Lintons. I'm also absolutely here for the theory that Heathcliff is Mr. Earnshaw's bastard son, if you want to go in that direction.
• I am seldom a person who just very much likes the central relationship in a text, but I love Cathy/Heathcliff as written, and I will never say no to more of it. I would love anything about them, from explorations of their existence together on the heath when they might still have been relatively benign/innocent to extremely dark takes on their relationship in its most monstrous forms. I'm game for both gentle/pleasant takes that stand in contrast to the misery of canon and for stuff that veers into violence, underage, noncon, or even necrophilia ("I saw her face again—it is hers yet!").
Canon DNWs: Crossovers; I also want to emphasize my Character Bashing DNW for this canon, as it is very very easy to bash these characters. I'm fine with acknowledgements that most of these people are not great people, but I'd like that they all be presented as though there is some room for sympathy or understanding as regards them.
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Extra Challenges
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.
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 the Death Corps and their failed revolution 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 Miluda'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), particularly if it touched on ways to bring Miluda into dialogue with Simone from "Oeilvert."
The Woman in White: IF is such a great medium to explore texts that are achronological, piecemeal, and puzzling, which is exactly what The Woman White is. It would be a great tool to tell an epistolary story that is linked together without a set chronology for how documents might be read: where you are able to read documents in a number or different configurations without having the order of page numbers imposed upon them. I also love IF where you find yourself changing what character you are following/making choices for, and I feel one could do a lot with that dynamic as one traces Marian and Laura's relationship and interactions with one another. Lastly, IF is really good at helping one to inhabit a POV you might not otherwise accept. While I didn't prompt much for scenarios involving Fosco in my general prompt list, I feel he's both a character who A) would have astute and meaningful observations about Marian and Laura and B) would function perfectly in a world of adventure game logic. Having some manner of Count Fosco scheming simulator, in which he both has to attempt to thwart Marian and Laura while growing increasingly aware of them and their relationship would be a delight.
Wuthering Heights: Wuthering Heights is a suffocating narrative, and it is arranged such as to make it virtually impossible to understand Heathcliff and Cathy's connection as they would have understood it, as everything about them is hidden behind two unreliable narrators. (The whole book is also just chock full of coffins, enclosures, and locks.) I feel like IF offers a great opportunity to chip away at the ambiguity of Cathy/Heathcliff and what it was that bound them together. I also feel that IF is wonderful for lending a sense of powerlessness to an unfolding tragedy: to letting the player struggle with trying to attain a good outcome that is out of their reach. I'd love things for this canon that emphasize the bleakness of its first arc, that multiply the POVs through which you are able to read the story, or that instills a sense of dread/helplessness.
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