Dear Author Letter: Yuletide
Sep. 28th, 2019 04:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
corpsebrigadierYuletide Letter for CorpseBrigadier on Ao3
Dear Author,
Hello! I congratulate you on having the good taste to enjoy something I enjoy and I thank you in advance for being willing to write a complete Internet stranger something. I've done my best to give you a rough sketch of why I like the things I've requested, how you can find more info about them, and what you might write depending on your inclinations as an author.
[NOTE: This letter was tweaked several times prior to sign-ups ending. It will not be altered in the future save to correct typos.]
General Likes: angst; bittersweetness (I honestly am a fan of a lot of sweet and lighthearted stuff, but I like it even more when it's framed by a dark past or future); character death (particularly examinations of canonical character death); complex family relationships; hurt/comfort; illness and injury; found families; non-kinky explorations of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood; religious, mythological, and/or plant-based symbolism; whump
Opt-Ins: Interactive Fiction
Smut Likes: awkward, bad or inept sex that's still enthusiastic; blasphemy and religious kink; dub-con; first times; knives at throats; messed-up, unhealthy incestuous relationships; strangulation/breathplay; torture; non-con
Do Not Wants: ageplay; incest written as being consensual and happy; omegaverse; pregnancy-related kinks; scat; watersports
Yuletide-Affiliated Challenges I'm Up For: Crueltide (darkfic), Interactive Fiction, Wrapping Paper (art as treats), Yuleporn (smut)
Where to Find It: The game used to be legally free via Sierra's website, but this was back in the 90s and one now typically has to shell out a few bucks on GOG to obtain it without pirating (sigh). 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
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
If you want to write smut: 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
Canon DNWs: Material unique to Krondor: The Betrayal (the game's lackluster novelization); exact narrative replication of game mechanics (I'm cool hearing about having to drag your half-dead friend to a temple for healing. I'm less keen on detailed descriptions of pushing those those floaty polygons around to disarm traps. Feel free to world build a bit for game mechanics you might allude to.)
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). As you are my potential writer, I would like to remain in your good graces, which may not happen if you attempt to do a canon review on my account and find yourself having to confront the Dorter Slums.
Characters: Yuletide doesn't have OR matching. If it did, I would have selected Dycedarg, Zalbag, Wiegraf, and Miluda. I have instead opted to select Zalbag, as he's my favorite character, but feel absolutely free to write anything about either of the older Beoulve brothers or the Folles siblings. Feel free to even push Zalbag into the background or to exclude him entirely if you are genuinely interested in doing something with any of the other three. I love all of these tragic boss-battleable losers, and I would like to read something about any or all of them. (I chose to sign up for one rather than all four as AND matching makes it a little weird to select four characters who did not all meet in canon. Absolutely do notfeel that you have to write for anyone other than Zalbag though.)
In any event, since you presumably matched on him, let me say that I love Zalbag as one of the more frustratingly complicated characters in the game, given how a fair portion of the narrative's political plot hinges on both Ramza and the player not realizing how fundamentally different he is from Dycedarg until things are pretty irrevocably fucked up. I'm interested in takes that neither fully exonerate or fully condemn him for his actions at Ft. Zeakden (although lbr, he should still be condemned pretty damn hard), that explore his relationship to religion, or that look to how he relates to any of the other members of his family. One of the things that needles me most about Tactics is that we never really see in great detail how the fallout from Zeakden impacted the Beoulves who aren't Ramza. There's no real sense as to how everyone functioned as a family in the aftermath and when Ramza and Zalbag meet in Chapter III, the game doesn't have them discuss either Teta's death or Ramza's decision to murder a bunch of Hokuten and flee into the snow. Zalbag, in addition to having a wonderfully tragic character arc, seems like a really good character through which to explore this narrative gap.
Ships: Wiegraf/Zalbag is my incredibly obscure rarepair, and some insane bastard (*cough*) wrote a 10,000 word ship manifesto explaining why they go well together for another exchange (seriously... do not feel obligated to read this). I am also very into the idea that Dycedarg is Orinus' father (and hence hooked up with Ruvelia), as I feel this amps up the political drama significantly (and lbr, Dycedarg is 110% the BFF you call up if you are Bestrada Larg and you need somebody to knock up your sister). Honestly, though if you ship Zalbag or any of the three non-requested characters with anyone (including each other), I will be totally down for it.
If you want to write something lighter: If you're willing to write about characters as children or adolescents, I'd love some fic exploring the games' messed up sibling relationships when said siblings were younger and (presumably) less messed up. I also just really really would love things that flesh out the feel of the various Ivalician kingdoms. One of the things that makes me sad about Tactics is that all the cities have a tiny piece of flavor text and maybe a neat battle stage but they all boil down to the same tavern and the same shop with slightly different items/quests. I'd enjoy things that just explored characters interacting with the world around them, fleshing out what it's like to live in Gallione or what Ordallia or Romanda are actually like.
Specific Prompts (Zalbag)
If you want to write something darker: Final Fantasy Tactics was made for darkfic. Ivalice is just not a happy place, and every character I'm interested in dies horrifically. Please just... lean into that if you go this route. Even though the game takes place during another war altogether, I would love anything set in the painful slog that is the Fifty Years War. I am also here for all sorts of melodramatic stuff on top of what happens in canon to have transpired. Religious angst, traumatic wartime experiences, and dysfunctional family dynamics are all things I live for with this canon.
Specific Prompts (Zalbag)
If you want to write smut: I am game for everything from finding moments of meaningful human connection via sex before characters die horribly to violent horrifying non-con before characters die horribly. As long as you mind the DNWs and try to vaguely glance at my likes, you are free to craft whatever FFT porn your heart desires, and I will read it with enthusiasm.
Specific Prompts (Zalbag)
Where to Find It: You can watch it here on YouTube, although the quality isn't astounding.
Characters: I am totally completely smitten with both characters, their desire for trust, and the lengths they are willing to go to to find a meaningful human connection for a functional stranger they are willing to die for. I love pretty much everything about them and their relationship. I cannot really articulate how completely well these guys fit every contour of my aesthetic sensibilities. Just keep them in character and you can't really go wrong.
Ships: SERINENTIUS/MELOS; Serinentius/Raisa; Serinentius/Melos/Raisa (Note: There is no obligation to include Raisa, but if you want to, I'm here for it.)
If you want to write something lighter: Melos is a beautifully simple country boy who lives in bumblefuck nowhere. Go all pastoral mode if you like. Have him and his weepy artist boyfriend wear flower crowns and compose poetry about the sheep. Have Serinitus rediscover the joy of creation and sculpt again. Have Melos be a dork at his newly married sister and probable crop of nephews/nieces. I am normally very reserved in the amount of fluff I enjoy, but I am very willing for you to go hogwild if fluff is your thing.
Specific Prompts
If you want to write something darker: Serinentius' adoptive dad tried to murder him when he was a teenager, plunging him into a spiral of despair and the abandonment of his artistic passions. That really sucks. Melos gets beaten, nearly drowned, stabbed, etc... all while trying to run to his own death. That also really sucks. I'd love for pretty much any exploration of how very brutal their story arcs are. Anything that dwells on Serinentius' deep-rooted psychological angst and Melos' intense physical suffering are all great. If you want to go really dark, the fact that Serinentius was given a girl's name on account of his extreme beauty as a boy could be a starting point for an exploration of the abusive dynamics of Greek pederasty, and that would be even angstier if it involved his murderous "father."
Specific Prompts
If you want to write smut: Just have them fuck, man. Once you've had a man run for three days straight to tap you out of your own crucifixion, there is very little set up that needs to be done to move things to fucking. This is ancient Greece. Serinentius/Melos having jubilant oh-god-we're-not-dead-and-I-love-you sex = Perfect. Serinentius and his girlfriend somehow meeting up again despite the film's claims to the contrary and possibly inviting this sublimely good-natured beefcake over for a threesome = also perfect.
Specific Prompts
Canon DNWs: Setting AUs (I really dig the ancient Greek setting here)
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'm game for any artwork featuring either of the older Beoulve brothers or the Folles siblings or a set of them or (if you can manage it) all four. Anything set during the Fifty Years War would be fantastic, as would anything showing either set of siblings just generally interacting (as children or as younger adults). I am 110% here for dramatic/dorktastic uses of goat or sheep imagery. 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.
Hashire Melos!: I am really easy to please with these guys. I really just want to see them together, being happy and not being crucified. I would love anything pastoral and pleasant in Melos' home village. I would love art of Serinentius doing art again. I'm very open to them being gross and injured/depressed as they are for good portions of the canon, but this is the one work for which I've very into things being hopeful, and its the one for which I'd dig things being fluffiest and cutest. Also, if you want to experiment with medium, I'm totally here for doing something stylish with red figure amphora or classical mosaics.
Dear Author,
Hello! I congratulate you on having the good taste to enjoy something I enjoy and I thank you in advance for being willing to write a complete Internet stranger something. I've done my best to give you a rough sketch of why I like the things I've requested, how you can find more info about them, and what you might write depending on your inclinations as an author.
[NOTE: This letter was tweaked several times prior to sign-ups ending. It will not be altered in the future save to correct typos.]
General Likes: angst; bittersweetness (I honestly am a fan of a lot of sweet and lighthearted stuff, but I like it even more when it's framed by a dark past or future); character death (particularly examinations of canonical character death); complex family relationships; hurt/comfort; illness and injury; found families; non-kinky explorations of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood; religious, mythological, and/or plant-based symbolism; whump
Opt-Ins: Interactive Fiction
Smut Likes: awkward, bad or inept sex that's still enthusiastic; blasphemy and religious kink; dub-con; first times; knives at throats; messed-up, unhealthy incestuous relationships; strangulation/breathplay; torture; non-con
Do Not Wants: ageplay; incest written as being consensual and happy; omegaverse; pregnancy-related kinks; scat; watersports
Yuletide-Affiliated Challenges I'm Up For: Crueltide (darkfic), Interactive Fiction, Wrapping Paper (art as treats), Yuleporn (smut)
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: The game used to be legally free via Sierra's website, but this was back in the 90s and one now typically has to shell out a few bucks on GOG to obtain it without pirating (sigh). 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)
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!
If you want to write smut: 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
Canon DNWs: Material unique to Krondor: The Betrayal (the game's lackluster novelization); exact narrative replication of game mechanics (I'm cool hearing about having to drag your half-dead friend to a temple for healing. I'm less keen on detailed descriptions of pushing those those floaty polygons around to disarm traps. Feel free to world build a bit for game mechanics you might allude to.)
Final Fantasy Tactics
The Canon: This is a 1998 tactical RPG by Square-Enix that is presently my favorite obsession. 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). As you are my potential writer, I would like to remain in your good graces, which may not happen if you attempt to do a canon review on my account and find yourself having to confront the Dorter Slums.
Characters: Yuletide doesn't have OR matching. If it did, I would have selected Dycedarg, Zalbag, Wiegraf, and Miluda. I have instead opted to select Zalbag, as he's my favorite character, but feel absolutely free to write anything about either of the older Beoulve brothers or the Folles siblings. Feel free to even push Zalbag into the background or to exclude him entirely if you are genuinely interested in doing something with any of the other three. I love all of these tragic boss-battleable losers, and I would like to read something about any or all of them. (I chose to sign up for one rather than all four as AND matching makes it a little weird to select four characters who did not all meet in canon. Absolutely do notfeel that you have to write for anyone other than Zalbag though.)
In any event, since you presumably matched on him, let me say that I love Zalbag as one of the more frustratingly complicated characters in the game, given how a fair portion of the narrative's political plot hinges on both Ramza and the player not realizing how fundamentally different he is from Dycedarg until things are pretty irrevocably fucked up. I'm interested in takes that neither fully exonerate or fully condemn him for his actions at Ft. Zeakden (although lbr, he should still be condemned pretty damn hard), that explore his relationship to religion, or that look to how he relates to any of the other members of his family. One of the things that needles me most about Tactics is that we never really see in great detail how the fallout from Zeakden impacted the Beoulves who aren't Ramza. There's no real sense as to how everyone functioned as a family in the aftermath and when Ramza and Zalbag meet in Chapter III, the game doesn't have them discuss either Teta's death or Ramza's decision to murder a bunch of Hokuten and flee into the snow. Zalbag, in addition to having a wonderfully tragic character arc, seems like a really good character through which to explore this narrative gap.
Ships: Wiegraf/Zalbag is my incredibly obscure rarepair, and some insane bastard (*cough*) wrote a 10,000 word ship manifesto explaining why they go well together for another exchange (seriously... do not feel obligated to read this). I am also very into the idea that Dycedarg is Orinus' father (and hence hooked up with Ruvelia), as I feel this amps up the political drama significantly (and lbr, Dycedarg is 110% the BFF you call up if you are Bestrada Larg and you need somebody to knock up your sister). Honestly, though if you ship Zalbag or any of the three non-requested characters with anyone (including each other), I will be totally down for it.
If you want to write something lighter: If you're willing to write about characters as children or adolescents, I'd love some fic exploring the games' messed up sibling relationships when said siblings were younger and (presumably) less messed up. I also just really really would love things that flesh out the feel of the various Ivalician kingdoms. One of the things that makes me sad about Tactics is that all the cities have a tiny piece of flavor text and maybe a neat battle stage but they all boil down to the same tavern and the same shop with slightly different items/quests. I'd enjoy things that just explored characters interacting with the world around them, fleshing out what it's like to live in Gallione or what Ordallia or Romanda are actually like.
Specific Prompts (Zalbag)
- What's it like for a pre-game Zalbag to interact with his family (any of them, although I feel like Balbanes and Dycedarg would be the richest starting points) before everything turned awful?
- Ruvelia and Zalbag are around the same age and would have grown up in Gallione in close proximity; how do they relate to one another?
- What is Zalbag's relation like to his faith before he knows its incredibly evil and full of conspiracies?
- What's it like for a pre-game anyone to interact with their family before everything turned awful?
- Dycedarg was apparently childhood friends with Larg. What was it like for him to have friends before he wanted to stab them to further his ambitions
- Miluda probably joined the war later than Wiegraf, being seven years younger than him; what was it like to be thrown into military together when one sibling is (presumably) a teenager?
- Less depressing times with the Death Knights/Death Corps
If you want to write something darker: Final Fantasy Tactics was made for darkfic. Ivalice is just not a happy place, and every character I'm interested in dies horrifically. Please just... lean into that if you go this route. Even though the game takes place during another war altogether, I would love anything set in the painful slog that is the Fifty Years War. I am also here for all sorts of melodramatic stuff on top of what happens in canon to have transpired. Religious angst, traumatic wartime experiences, and dysfunctional family dynamics are all things I live for with this canon.
Specific Prompts (Zalbag)
- Fifty Years War trauma, particularly with regards to the Romanda phase of the war that would have threatened Gallione.
- Religious angst, possibly in relation to being a sort of terrible person, possibly in relation to finding that religion is a lie and you are a zombie.
- Actually having an emotional reaction to Zeakden, being forced into conflict with former allies, or having his younger siblings declared heretics
- Fifty Years War trauma, particularly with regards to the Romanda phase of the war that would have threatened Gallione (All the cool kids grew up in Gallione).
- Dycedarg presumably didn't always have a father he wanted to poison to further his ambitions. How did he get to that point?
- Gustav (depending on the translation you use) either committed a bunch of war crimes or was transferred for objecting to a bunch of war crimes. War crimes happened, and they happened in relation to a person that any of the four characters in which I'm interested might have known at the time. Reactions to those war crimes.
- Being in the Death Corps/Templarate is actually genuinely terrible most of the time. More depressing times in either organization.
If you want to write smut: I am game for everything from finding moments of meaningful human connection via sex before characters die horribly to violent horrifying non-con before characters die horribly. As long as you mind the DNWs and try to vaguely glance at my likes, you are free to craft whatever FFT porn your heart desires, and I will read it with enthusiasm.
Specific Prompts (Zalbag)
- Zalbag/Wiegraf is a tenable pairing, I swear.
- Generally awkward/emotionally fraught encounters in relation to the military and/or church.
- If you are into super darkfic like me, I am absolutely down for incredibly awful, potentially incestuous non-con in relation to the end of his story arc, what with his brother becoming an eldritch demon and him becoming a zombie with no bodily autonomy and everything being terrible.
- Dycedarg and Ruvelia and emotionally weird sex to produce a seemingly legitimate heir
- Golagros Levine is hot and has very little established personality and would be an ideal hook up for either or both Folles siblings
- Wiegraf/Izlude seems to be an actual pairing real human beings other than me ship, and I'm game for it.
- I'm also game for the fucked to hell, almost certainly non-consensual sex one has when you're a member of an evil Church organization comprised mostly of demons.
Hashire, Melos! (1992)
The Canon: This is a tragically little known anime film with gorgeous animation, art by a youngish Satochi Kon, and a massive amount of my favorite tropes. There's a tragic, alcoholic artist; a good-natured oafish strongman; loads and loads of injury, physical suffering, and other whumptastic features throughout this little known masterpiece of animation, and I would love to see pretty much any fanwork for it. This film is pretty much as perfect as a film could be for hitting the emotional notes I enjoy in fanworks.Where to Find It: You can watch it here on YouTube, although the quality isn't astounding.
Characters: I am totally completely smitten with both characters, their desire for trust, and the lengths they are willing to go to to find a meaningful human connection for a functional stranger they are willing to die for. I love pretty much everything about them and their relationship. I cannot really articulate how completely well these guys fit every contour of my aesthetic sensibilities. Just keep them in character and you can't really go wrong.
Ships: SERINENTIUS/MELOS; Serinentius/Raisa; Serinentius/Melos/Raisa (Note: There is no obligation to include Raisa, but if you want to, I'm here for it.)
If you want to write something lighter: Melos is a beautifully simple country boy who lives in bumblefuck nowhere. Go all pastoral mode if you like. Have him and his weepy artist boyfriend wear flower crowns and compose poetry about the sheep. Have Serinitus rediscover the joy of creation and sculpt again. Have Melos be a dork at his newly married sister and probable crop of nephews/nieces. I am normally very reserved in the amount of fluff I enjoy, but I am very willing for you to go hogwild if fluff is your thing.
Specific Prompts
- Serinentius visiting Melos post-canon in his village, meeting his friends and family, being generally happy.
- Serinentius being able to create again. Melos being trusted in his village at last. Both characters finally moving forward in the ways they wanted to.
- Canon lies; either man totally gets to meet Raisa again and she gets to know both lived.
If you want to write something darker: Serinentius' adoptive dad tried to murder him when he was a teenager, plunging him into a spiral of despair and the abandonment of his artistic passions. That really sucks. Melos gets beaten, nearly drowned, stabbed, etc... all while trying to run to his own death. That also really sucks. I'd love for pretty much any exploration of how very brutal their story arcs are. Anything that dwells on Serinentius' deep-rooted psychological angst and Melos' intense physical suffering are all great. If you want to go really dark, the fact that Serinentius was given a girl's name on account of his extreme beauty as a boy could be a starting point for an exploration of the abusive dynamics of Greek pederasty, and that would be even angstier if it involved his murderous "father."
Specific Prompts
- Melos being disregarded and made to feel incompetent prior to canon, feeling bad about it and out of place in his village
- Serinentius' relationship to his biological mother and/or adoptive father just gets dark anyway you slice it. I'd love for an exploration of his relationships to them pre-canon.
- The inevitable "I am very stabbed and about to collapse" and "I am about to have a psychological breakdown" post-canon fic that might naturally follow the end of the story
If you want to write smut: Just have them fuck, man. Once you've had a man run for three days straight to tap you out of your own crucifixion, there is very little set up that needs to be done to move things to fucking. This is ancient Greece. Serinentius/Melos having jubilant oh-god-we're-not-dead-and-I-love-you sex = Perfect. Serinentius and his girlfriend somehow meeting up again despite the film's claims to the contrary and possibly inviting this sublimely good-natured beefcake over for a threesome = also perfect.
Specific Prompts
- Joyous post-canon sex
- Joyous post-canon sex + Raisa
- Less-than-joyous non-con episode of some sort with either character in the midst of all the awfulness that already happens or has happened to them.
Canon DNWs: Setting AUs (I really dig the ancient Greek setting here)
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 Hashire Melos!) 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)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'm game for any artwork featuring either of the older Beoulve brothers or the Folles siblings or a set of them or (if you can manage it) all four. Anything set during the Fifty Years War would be fantastic, as would anything showing either set of siblings just generally interacting (as children or as younger adults). I am 110% here for dramatic/dorktastic uses of goat or sheep imagery. 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.
Hashire Melos!: I am really easy to please with these guys. I really just want to see them together, being happy and not being crucified. I would love anything pastoral and pleasant in Melos' home village. I would love art of Serinentius doing art again. I'm very open to them being gross and injured/depressed as they are for good portions of the canon, but this is the one work for which I've very into things being hopeful, and its the one for which I'd dig things being fluffiest and cutest. Also, if you want to experiment with medium, I'm totally here for doing something stylish with red figure amphora or classical mosaics.
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Date: 2023-11-20 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-20 08:53 pm (UTC)https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/ok-so-betrayal-at-krondor-is-awesome.56027/page-4#post-1555740
Specifically regarding the "sequel in development at Dynamix, Thief of Dreams, that continued the storyline about Owyn's eventual rise as the magical advisor to the Kingdom of the Isles (to be told over two games) serving in a capacity as both magician and spymaster." If you haven't come across it yet, I feel that might be the kind of thing you might lose your shit about
Take care :)
(Yes, RPGcodex is a cesspool, but back when it was maybe 10% more respectable, gamedevs did used to hang out there a bit)
Edited Date: 2023-11-20 08:52 pm (UTC)
EDIT:
Thoughts on the one (1) good scene in the novelization, where Dolgan and Gorath get drunk together?
I've always liked that addition for the vibes of "Maybe it's not Gorath being so DARK and ALIEN that he has trouble getting along with humans, maybe it's the humans" it added. Meeting a fellow Guy In Leadership Position Of a Long-Lived Race and becoming (comparatively speaking) instant besties was an incredibly good element.
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