corpsebrigadier | Entries tagged with exchange: yuletide

Yuletide Letter for CorpseBrigadier on Ao3

Dear Author,

Hello, author! Let me open by offering my thanks and enthusiasm that you've opted to write for one of these microscopic fandoms that have captured my imagination this year. This exchange has long been one of my favorite ways of interfacing with fandom, and I'm very psyched to see your creation for one of these canons so full of medievalesque violence and angst. I've done my best to offer some info as to what I find compelling about each one and to throw out some prompts and ideas, but please known that if my thoughts on these works aren't quite calling to you, I'm a firm believer in optional details being optional, and I would love to see what compels you as an author about the canons/characters!

Note: I am open to treats on ao3 and should have them activated.

[NOTE: This letter will be functionally complete at the time it is made public, but it may be tweaked through the end of sign-ups.]

General (DNWs, Likes, Opt-Ins) | Flesh + Blood | She is Conann | The Wizard's Shadow | Mini-Challenge Specific Prompts

General (DNWs, Likes, Opt-Ins, Etc...)

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Flesh + Blood

The Canon: This hornt-as-hell, shlocky, excessively edgy medieval film is a mess of trauma bonding, romantic mandrake harvesting, over the top violence, and grossly inaccurate portrayals of how the bubonic plague works, and it apparently inspired Berserk which then went on to inspire virtually everything else. I love it because its unrelentingly brutal and full of gloriously toxic and twisted dynamics between the three major characters. I also love it because it speaks deeply to my id and I think that more films should have Rutger Hauer groping somebody's fiancee in front of them while they are chained up in a spiked dog collar.

Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): This film is free to view (with ads) on Tubi.
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She is Conann

The Canon: I first saw this film a year or so back and was completely haunted by it. I love both of its grotesquely uncomfortable cannibalism scenes. I love the conceit of murdering your old self to bring in the reign of a new self. I love how artsy and hot and indulgent it feels. I love the surreal weirdness of the whole narrative, which never explains the time hopping nature of Conann's later incarnations and never apologizes for it.

Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): It's available for free (with ads) on Roku.

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The Wizard's Shadow

The Canon: This was my absolute favorite novel at around age twelve, and I revisited it recently to discover that twelve-year old me had great taste. There's so much to love about this canon: fraught sibling relationships, cool takes on magic, a harrowingly violent opening chapter, an enchanted snakebaby gunning for the throne. I really love all the tropes Dexter is dealing in in this novel and I love how this piece ended up as a standalone entry in her world with the promise of Crocken and Miall enjoying future adventures never explored in a sequel.

Where to Find It: The book is available on OpenLibrary for loan if you have an account.

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Extra Challenges

Art Prompts (for the Wrapping Paper Challenge)

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IF Prompts

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Yuletide Letter for CorpseBrigadier on Ao3

Dear Author,

Hiya! Let me thank you for taking the time to write for me this fine Yuletide, and let me offer you my earnest congratulations on your great taste in 1990s interactive media. 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: I am open to treats on ao3 and should have them activated.

[NOTE: This letter will be functionally complete at the time it is made public, but it may be tweaked through the end of sign-ups.]

General (DNWs, Likes, Opt-Ins) | Betrayal at Krondor | Final Fantasy VI | Final Fantasy Tactics | Mini-Challenge Specific Prompts

General (DNWs, Likes, Opt-Ins, Etc...)

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Betrayal at Krondor

The Canon: This game was pretty influential in my youth, and the two main characters (Gorath and Owyn) were one of my earliest ships, even if they were visually portrayed by what seemed to be Dynamix office workers pulled aside to wear cheap Halloween wigs. I adore this canon's sense of an expansive, varied world, its focus on the growing relationship between two unlikely friends, and its willingness to brutalize the player with both unforgiving status ailments and a thoroughly crushing finale.

Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): The game used to be legally free via Sierra's website, but this was back in the 90s. You can get it on GOG for $5.99 though. There used to be a very helpful website called BAK Help Web that contained numerous pieces of information, walkthrough materials, 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.
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Final Fantasy VI

The Canon: I have a deep and profound nostalgia for the final Final Fantasy before Final Fantasy VII (and all the changes it wrought), and I think it remains one of the strongest installments in the series. I love how well it combines hard-hitting character drama with the complete absurdity of RPGs in general, and I love its sweeping, poignant explorations of human relationships in equal measure to its willingness to embrace that sometimes those relationships are offset by a talking purple octopus.

Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): I am not super up-to-date as to the best and most accessible version of the game these days, as it has been ported many many times. If you want a script refresher, however, there are a number of scripts up on GameFAQs (the SNES version being the one with which I'm most familiar). If you have an emulator and wish to skip to specific save states, somebody put together a nice collection of them here.

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Final Fantasy Tactics

The Canon: This is a 1998 tactical RPG by Square-Enix that I just really really like. I love how immensely unrepentantly bleak it is, how it's full of Church-flavored horror, and how it is just filled to the brim with unhappy families. I'm entirely here for political backstabbing and endless misery, 24/7, in this sad little world of grid-based warfare. I love pretty much everything within it, and I would frankly be happy to receive almost anything for this fandom.

Where to Find It: If you haven't played FFT for a while or are unfamiliar with it and want to get an idea of what it's like, you can check out scripts of the dialogue here (PSX translation) and here (PSP translation). I also have a big, comprehensive list of scene-by-scene script comparisons on my personal website. 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.
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Extra Challenges

Art Prompts (for the Wrapping Paper Challenge)

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IF Prompts

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Current Mood: hopeful

Yuletide 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

General (DNWs, Likes, Opt-Ins, Etc...)

( Read more... )

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.
( Read more... )

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.
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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.
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Extra Challenges

IF Prompts

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With 2020 finally behind me, I've recognized that my exchange steam is running even lower than it was earlier in the yea.r (December was also just a complete mess of grading and holiday management, and I also ended up expending a lot of effort into other fandom projects.)

That being said--dang--it was a phenomenal Yuletide for me. I only ended up posting this rather belatedly, and I ran out of energy to browse the collection for more recs. However, I had a marvelous time with this exchange, even if I might have to take a break from exchanges in general for a time.

My Gifts

"The Urchins in the Tower" by UrsulaKohl (The 13 Clocks | The Golux & OCs, General, Interactive Fiction): a breathtakingly beautiful and bittersweet twine prequel to my favorite childhood book, featuring absolutely spot on to Thurber prose (It's in iambic meter!) and a route where you can get eaten by geese. It's definitely accessible to canon-blind readers, and I would advise anyone who likes dark fairytales, sibling relationships, or just really nice writing to check it out.

"A Matter of Survival" by misura (Betrayal at Krondor | Gorath/Owyn, Mature, 1.8K | Rape/Non-con): A brutal, bad-guy-made-them-do-it take on one of my earliest ships; a perfect piece of angst that played into some of the wonderfully tropey character dynamics for a canon that's been sadly underexplored in fandom until now.

"Dycedarg Portrait" by chacusha (Final Fantasy Tactics | Dycedarg Beoulve, Art): a delightfully schemey looking portrait of my favorite 1998 JRPG's schemer-in-chief.

"Speak Only the Most Convenient Truths" by FireEye (Final Fantasy Tactics | General, 0.5K): A delightful little scene taking place in one of those unexplored gaps in the game narrative, featuring my incredibly niche headcanons as House Beoulve and the royal family have an awkward encounter.

"Whispers and Moans" by moemachina (Final Fantasy Tactics | Dycedarg/Ruvelia, Explicit, 2.7K | Rape/Non-Con): Intense, hot, messed up pornography featuring my insanely rare rarepair; it's filled with political intrigue, reproductive angst, villains softening ever-so-slightly, and brutal demon-fucking--all of which are things of which I heartily approve.

My Fic

"The Unbroken Wheel" for Toft (16th Century CE RPF, Young Lady With Unicorn - Raphael | General, 2.2K): This was my take on a lost history behind Raphael's enigmatic painting "Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn." I got to flex a few research muscles on this one, and I drew heavily on the scholarship in this short volume of essays about the painting.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Run River North - Mr. Brightside

Yuletide Letter for CorpseBrigadier on Ao3

Dear Author,

Hello! Thank you so much for taking the time to create something for me this Yuletide, and congratulations on your great taste in whatever cool canon it was that we both enjoy. This is an exchange for which I have a great deal of love, and I am exceedingly excited for whatever it is you end up making for me. I've tried my best throughout this letter to give some prompts/ideas for a wide range of writing styles. However, I really want to emphasize that I'm very interested in you feeling free to flex your creative muscles. If the prompts listed aren't quite doing it for you, I am a genuine believer in optional details being optional, and I would love to see whatever creative production you are inspired to make out of these canons/characters.

[NOTE: This letter is functionally complete at the time it was posted, but it may be tweaked through the end of sign-ups.]

General (DNWs, Likes, Opt-Ins) | The 13 Clocks | Betrayal at Krondor | Final Fantasy Tactics | Mini-Challenge Specific Prompts

General (DNWs, Likes, Opt-Ins, Etc...)

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The 13 Clocks

The Canon: This is one of my absolute favorite children's books, and it was quite possibly both the first book I read on my own with the intimidatingly adult reality of chapter divisions. I adore its phenomenal ability to intermingle both the absurd and the bittersweet, I love its witty, exuberantly playful use of language, and I love how it treats the inevitability of time and its passing.

Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): The book is available as an online library loan via the Open Library, and it is generally available at a not too hefty price from various booksellers.
( Read more... )

Betrayal at Krondor

The Canon: This game was pretty influential in my youth, and the two main characters (Gorath and Owyn) were one of my earliest ships, even if they were visually portrayed by what seemed to be Dynamix office workers pulled aside to wear cheap Halloween wigs. I adore this canon's sense of an expansive, varied world; its focus on the growing relationship between two unlikely friends; and its willingness to brutalize the player with both unforgiving status ailments and a thoroughly crushing finale.

Where to Find It (and Canon Review Resources): The game used to be legally free via Sierra's website, but this was back in the 90s. You can get it on GOG for $5.99 though. There used to be a very helpful website called BAK Help Web that contained numerous information, walkthrough material, and NPC transcripts, but it is now offline. You can still find it in largely archived form here via the Wayback Machine. The "Text Web" section is very useful for finding story content.
( Read more... )

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.
( Read more... )

Extra Challenges

Art Prompts (for the Wrapping Paper Challenge)

( Read more... )

IF Prompts

( Read more... )

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Lokki - High

So yeah... my Yuletide was absolutely insane in how good it was. I loved what I made. I adored what I got. I really just feel like I won the exchange all around, and I've been left entirely psyched about my decision to get back into fandom last year.

My Gifts

"The Release of Selinuntius" by Nedrika (Hashire Melos! | Melos/Selinuntius and Melos/Selinuntius/Raisa, Explicit, 19K | Graphic Violence, Non-Con, Underage): a brilliant post-canon piece featuring tons of smut; mind-bogglingly perfect, edutaining research into the ancient world; all sorts of whumptastic descriptions of injury and angst, and a general fix-it for the less than satisfying elements of the film's end.

"He Bearing Ill Tidings" by FireEye (Final Fantasy Tactics | General, 5K): A lovely, angsty short about Alma greeting Zalbag after the events at Ft. Zeakden and confronting him over Teta's death.

"ostentatio vulnerum" by moemachina (Final Fantasy Tactics, Wiegraf/Zalbag, Mature, 9K): a pre-canon piece set during the Fifty Years War and featuring my favorite, completely bizarre rarepair (in addition to pretty much every other character in the game I deeply love); features absolutely breathtaking characterization and worldbuilding, insanely hot/awkward sexual encounters under a blasphemous icon, and the best portrayal of Boco I have ever encountered.

My Works

I wrote four stories and drew one Madness Treat. They are all Final Fantasy of some flavor, because that’s just how I roll these days.

"Poisons" for

Phlyarologist (Final Fantasy VI | Teen, 2.8K | Character Death): A sort of experimental double drabble sequence examining the planned game event in which Sabin had the possibility of dying at Tzen.

"Mantra" for Phlyarologist (Final Fantasy VI | General, 2.1K): A short post-canon piece about life at Mobliz, the death of magic, and Gau’s reactions to potatoes.

Bloom for Lirillith (Final Fantasy VI | Sabin/Cyan, General, Art): I’ve joined what seems to be the increasingly exchange-active crowd of people who ship Sabin and Cyan and filled somebody’s Wrapping Paper request to draw these guys.

"Like There’s No Tomorrow" for Rethira (Final Fantasy Tactics | Delita/Ramza, Teen, 1.4K | Character Death): A post-canon Delita/Ramza piece set around the time of Olan’s execution.

"Fetters" for

noahfronsenburg (Final Fantasy Tactics | Mature, 10K | Graphic Violence, Character Death): Very dark darkfic (character death and graphic violence archive warnings) focusing on Wiegraf in an AU in which he wins the boss fight at Riovannes.

Other Recommendations

"Guacamole Excitement Hyperbole" by cartesiandaemon (General, 1.6K) and "Your New Ship and You!: An Owner’s Manual" by merriman (G, 2.5K): Hilarious takes on the frustration inherent to the phone game Spaceteam.

"Metamorphosis" by Lirillith (Final Fantasy VI | Teen, 2.5K): An exploratory take on Terra in the World of Ruin.

"The Falconer" by GwendolynGrace (Ladyhawke | Etienne/Isabeau, Etienne/Bishop, Teen, 13K): A long pre-canon piece rife with historical research and messed up power dynamics.

"The Wrecking Crew" by Kahvi (Blackwell Games | Roseangela/Joey, Teen, 5.4K): Wonderfully true to canon casefic

"4.66920[...]” by karanguni (Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia | Thomasina/Septimus, General, 1.8K): Holy heck, it’s mathematically-based Arcadia fix it fic.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Sigur Ros - Festival

Yuletide 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.]

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