Dear Yuletide Writer 2021
Oct. 21st, 2021 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsIt's Yuletide time again! Thank you, kind writer, for volunteering to write a story for me, or for considering writing a treat for me!
I've been doing Yuletide every year since 2011 and it's a precious annual tradition for me. I hope my prompts inspire you and you enjoy Yuletide this year, too!
See under the cut for the things you need to know…
I'm![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
foxinthestars at Ao3, same username as on DW.
LIKES:
Sympathetic Protagonists, people being good-hearted
Happy or Hopeful Endings
Competence
Explorations of Issues and Ideas
Character Pieces
Genfic (but I’m also fine with het, m/m, f/f, or poly)
Drama, Hurt/Comfort
Fluff and WAFF
AUs
Cuddling (cute fluffy cuddling or intense romantic cuddling, it’s all good)
Sensuality and Description Porn
Representation (Women/LGBTQ+/People of marginalized ethnicities/People with disabilities/et. al. being awesome)
DO NOT WANTS:
(Note that these are not necessarily things I disapprove of or even dislike, but they are things it’s not safe to give me in an exchange)
Humiliation/Embarrassment (the Embarrassment squick can be triggered vicariously by, e.g., a character acting stupid or being set up to fail as an object lesson)
Rape, Non-con, Dub-con
Incest
Infidelity
Fat-shaming, Fat jokes
Christocentrism
Zombies
Crossovers (unless specifically noted)
Gritty/Grimdark
Sad/Bad/Tragic Endings
Actual Porn
Character/Ship Bashing
Directly speculating about future events in an open canon (This one’s weird. Writing in a timeframe beyond current canon with vague or absent explanation of how it turned out the way you’re depicting it is fine, but if you directly invent or handwave, e.g. “they got out of the current arc like thus and such,” or “the prophecy turned out to mean this,” I tend to bounce off.)
Suffocation in any form is acceptable but I need you to tag/warn for it.
Special note: Around Yuletide Story-Time I tend to be in the mood for winter-themed stories — things with sensuous descriptions of long dark nights and bracing winds and deep snows, cold-reddened skin, getting warm by fires and sipping hot beverages and bundling up in cozy clothing, that kind of thing. If you want to get some characters into adorable and/or highly-charged body-heat-sharing situations, that’s fine, too, just note the “do not want” on porn.
Or just don’t worry about it. If it doesn’t grab you or doesn’t fit with an idea that does grab you, I don’t want you to feel like you have to shoehorn it in.
(This is a seasonal thing, so to anyone here looking for New Years Resolution prompts, a) thank you! and b) don’t worry about it unless you just want to.)
And the prompts, roughly in descending order of canon length:
Fiber Arts Anthropomorphic
Characters: Spinning, Weaving, Knitting, Crochet
You don't necessarily have to use all of the characters on this one. If I had to name what my main fandom has been this year, honestly it's been fiber arts. So when Yuletide came around, I was curious what someone could do with this. How do the fiber arts interact? How do they see their own history and order of seniority (with Spinning being the oldest and Crochet relatively young)? Maybe the others all depend on Spinning but take them for granted, or Knitting and Weaving learn to appreciate their own and each other's unique fabric qualities. I'd like to see some interaction, but like I said, you don't need to use every listed character. (You also don't need to limit yourself to the listed characters. If you want to work in, e.g., an appearance by Felting or Nalbinding, go for it!)
Canon Review and Notes
I considered this one "longest" because Fiber Arts are not so much a canon as a Way Of Life. I learned to crochet at my mother and grandmother's knees, taught myself to knit in college, and have been doing both for over half my life off and on. Spinning has been more sporadic, but I enjoy it and always feel like I should do more. For some time I thought weaving was the one fiber art I wouldn't do, but then the temptation of a Rigid Heddle loom got the better of me. So yeah, here we are. The fiber arts are such an important and unsung series of developments in human history, and if you're interested in writing for this prompt you probably have a fiber arts arc in your own life, so I think there's a lot of potential here and I hope you have fun with it. This one could also play into the "winter-themed story" angle with the making of cuddly warm things.
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War & Thracia 776
Characters: Altena, Lewyn
You don't have to use both of the requested characters; they're selections from my grab-bag of interesting people, so just use at least one:
Lewyn - He starts out interesting as a royal drop-out with his own mix of not caring enough and caring too much, and then in the second generation, what is actually going on with him and Forseti? How much of each of them is it? How long has Forseti been involved with him? What was Lewyn's own experience like through all that? (And maybe, how does this hash out in the fraught relationship with his kids?)
Altena - A dislocated princess, her arc is really interesting, and the game's take on it was a bit simplistic, so this is an opportunity to go deep. She had viewed Travant as her father for as long as she could remember, but she turned on him too easily for it to have been all warm and fuzzy there. Perhaps more interesting, at this point I have to imagine Altena is culturally (South) Thracian, with revived memories from and a sudden role in Leonster/North Thracia, so kind of a between two cultures thing. At the very least, she's a badass lady with a pet dragon. I also found her reunion with Finn touching if you want to focus on that (I don't even object to shipping them post-canon, they're both adults now).
Canon Review and Notes
Reviving and adapting a prompt from my Fire Emblem phase a couple years ago. OMG, the Jugral arc --- what a wonderful epic mess! And although we never got the game in the States in my actual youth, the look and sound of the SNES and the anime-of-a-certain-era character designs strike a powerful nostalgic chord for me.
The playthroughs I watched:
Genealogy of the Holy War - However, this uses an older translation patch that never got to the ending, so I had to dig up another video: Project Naga translation ending.
And if you want more context there's the other sort-of-parallel Jugdral FE game, Thracia 776; you shouldn't need it, but it's there if you want.
BTW, since Genealogy of the Holy War began the FE tradition of player-directed shipping, I don't have really strong opinions about pairings that the canon doesn't weigh in on.
Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty
Characters: Duo Erla
Seriously, I am here for Duo Erla. I admit, I dropped the series not long after she exited the stage. But a woman of marginalized ethnicity being awesome --- yes please! You can write a Bechdel Test pass with another female character, or something exploring her culture, maybe a case where something really does need to be taken care of her way and she has to teach Tang Fan the norms of how people resolve things in that context. I'd rather not see her pining over Arras, but any other kind of balm you want to prepare for my Duo Erla-loving heart will be welcome.
Canon Review and Notes
The series on Viki.
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Character: Zelda (Zelda II: The Adventure of Link)
I made sure to specify the particular Zelda who appears in this game, because she is not the same Zelda who appears in the first game — and with this being such a closely-spaced direct sequel, it would stand to reason that post-canon, the two of them would be around at the same time. Wouldn’t it be neat to get them together and pass the Bechdel test? I like to think they’d get along.
It doesn’t have to be that specifically, though; any kind of this-Zelda post-canon would be good. How does she find a place for herself in what to her is a new time? Was she in any way aware of what was happening while she was asleep? How does she look back on her brother, who got her into this (and what history books might say about him afterward)?
There’s also the whole “blood sacrifice” thing in this game. When you get right to it, that wasn’t really connected to the main plot and the ending addresses it very obliquely if at all. What I’m saying is, if you want to write more of an adventure, we’ve still got a pretty good setup for Link to be rescued by Zelda — or even by two Zeldas.
Legend of Zelda stuff in general, I prefer it more “storybook” than gritty, and I’m particular about Link being a Silent Protagonist. He doesn’t need to be literally mute or shy about getting his point across, but if he has more than minimal actual dialogue, it sounds wrong to me. I'm also not committed to the official timeline, so use it or not, as you like.
Canon Review and Notes:
Playthrough on Youtube: Part 1 and Part 2
And since this game is literally TVtropes’ poster child for “All There In The Manual,” here you can find the instruction manual to actually tell you what the story's about. Ah, the NES era...
This one confounds my "in order of canon length" scheme. You could just watch the playthrough and read the manual and be up to speed in a few hours --- or you could dive deep into the myriad delights and confusions of the Legend of Zelda mythos. It's really up to you. Honestly, I think this series is more about iterating on archetypes than trying to find one true something to tie it up all neat and tidy, so do that iterating in your own way.
I'm reviving an old prompt here. I've gotten fics on this one before, and I've always enjoyed them. There are so many possible takes on this I'm always happy to see another.
Pui Pui Molcar
This series is so fun! Maybe a winter holiday molcar story, or more about how people meet their molcars (like a used-car-lot/pet-rescue). But really, I'd just like to see more in this world --- anything you want to do that's in keeping with the canon atmosphere.
Canon Review and Notes
The series is available on Netflix (or nyaa). A collection of feel-good funny shorts about a world where all the cars are stop-motion animated guinea pigs, it's a quick watch and well worth it.
Toshokan Rocket (Minna no Uta Music Video)
No characters specified
This two-and-a-half-minute music video is just packed! So many characters! So many fascinating images! So cute! Much epic! The basic "plot" seems to involve four little birds (in their whale starship and their corgi shuttle!) running a kind of pan-galactic bookmobile for great justice and everlasting peace, but... well, you just have to see it. I want to see what somebody can do with this, anywhere you want to take it that's in keeping with the canon atmosphere.
Canon Review and Notes:
I keep an emergency backup of the video here (sorry for the jacked-up aspect ratio).
And, since it's not subtitled, here's my own quick-and-dirty translation of the lyrics.
My perpetual "gimme" prompt returns! If nothing else grabs you, take two-and-a-half minutes and see if you can do something with this. Heck, take the two-and-a-half minutes anyway, you deserve it!
Yeah, for a while there I had a gadget of questionable legality that let me watch streams of NHK-E(ducational). Sadly no longer works, but I ran across some real gems, particularly in NHK's "Minna no Uta" all-ages music video series. I think this one takes the cake. (Fire-breathing feathered dinosaur!)
And that’s it! Happy writing and a Joyous Yuletide to you!
I've been doing Yuletide every year since 2011 and it's a precious annual tradition for me. I hope my prompts inspire you and you enjoy Yuletide this year, too!
See under the cut for the things you need to know…
I'm
LIKES:
Sympathetic Protagonists, people being good-hearted
Happy or Hopeful Endings
Competence
Explorations of Issues and Ideas
Character Pieces
Genfic (but I’m also fine with het, m/m, f/f, or poly)
Drama, Hurt/Comfort
Fluff and WAFF
AUs
Cuddling (cute fluffy cuddling or intense romantic cuddling, it’s all good)
Sensuality and Description Porn
Representation (Women/LGBTQ+/People of marginalized ethnicities/People with disabilities/et. al. being awesome)
DO NOT WANTS:
(Note that these are not necessarily things I disapprove of or even dislike, but they are things it’s not safe to give me in an exchange)
Humiliation/Embarrassment (the Embarrassment squick can be triggered vicariously by, e.g., a character acting stupid or being set up to fail as an object lesson)
Rape, Non-con, Dub-con
Incest
Infidelity
Fat-shaming, Fat jokes
Christocentrism
Zombies
Crossovers (unless specifically noted)
Gritty/Grimdark
Sad/Bad/Tragic Endings
Actual Porn
Character/Ship Bashing
Directly speculating about future events in an open canon (This one’s weird. Writing in a timeframe beyond current canon with vague or absent explanation of how it turned out the way you’re depicting it is fine, but if you directly invent or handwave, e.g. “they got out of the current arc like thus and such,” or “the prophecy turned out to mean this,” I tend to bounce off.)
Suffocation in any form is acceptable but I need you to tag/warn for it.
Special note: Around Yuletide Story-Time I tend to be in the mood for winter-themed stories — things with sensuous descriptions of long dark nights and bracing winds and deep snows, cold-reddened skin, getting warm by fires and sipping hot beverages and bundling up in cozy clothing, that kind of thing. If you want to get some characters into adorable and/or highly-charged body-heat-sharing situations, that’s fine, too, just note the “do not want” on porn.
Or just don’t worry about it. If it doesn’t grab you or doesn’t fit with an idea that does grab you, I don’t want you to feel like you have to shoehorn it in.
(This is a seasonal thing, so to anyone here looking for New Years Resolution prompts, a) thank you! and b) don’t worry about it unless you just want to.)
And the prompts, roughly in descending order of canon length:
Fiber Arts Anthropomorphic
Characters: Spinning, Weaving, Knitting, Crochet
You don't necessarily have to use all of the characters on this one. If I had to name what my main fandom has been this year, honestly it's been fiber arts. So when Yuletide came around, I was curious what someone could do with this. How do the fiber arts interact? How do they see their own history and order of seniority (with Spinning being the oldest and Crochet relatively young)? Maybe the others all depend on Spinning but take them for granted, or Knitting and Weaving learn to appreciate their own and each other's unique fabric qualities. I'd like to see some interaction, but like I said, you don't need to use every listed character. (You also don't need to limit yourself to the listed characters. If you want to work in, e.g., an appearance by Felting or Nalbinding, go for it!)
Canon Review and Notes
I considered this one "longest" because Fiber Arts are not so much a canon as a Way Of Life. I learned to crochet at my mother and grandmother's knees, taught myself to knit in college, and have been doing both for over half my life off and on. Spinning has been more sporadic, but I enjoy it and always feel like I should do more. For some time I thought weaving was the one fiber art I wouldn't do, but then the temptation of a Rigid Heddle loom got the better of me. So yeah, here we are. The fiber arts are such an important and unsung series of developments in human history, and if you're interested in writing for this prompt you probably have a fiber arts arc in your own life, so I think there's a lot of potential here and I hope you have fun with it. This one could also play into the "winter-themed story" angle with the making of cuddly warm things.
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War & Thracia 776
Characters: Altena, Lewyn
You don't have to use both of the requested characters; they're selections from my grab-bag of interesting people, so just use at least one:
Lewyn - He starts out interesting as a royal drop-out with his own mix of not caring enough and caring too much, and then in the second generation, what is actually going on with him and Forseti? How much of each of them is it? How long has Forseti been involved with him? What was Lewyn's own experience like through all that? (And maybe, how does this hash out in the fraught relationship with his kids?)
Altena - A dislocated princess, her arc is really interesting, and the game's take on it was a bit simplistic, so this is an opportunity to go deep. She had viewed Travant as her father for as long as she could remember, but she turned on him too easily for it to have been all warm and fuzzy there. Perhaps more interesting, at this point I have to imagine Altena is culturally (South) Thracian, with revived memories from and a sudden role in Leonster/North Thracia, so kind of a between two cultures thing. At the very least, she's a badass lady with a pet dragon. I also found her reunion with Finn touching if you want to focus on that (I don't even object to shipping them post-canon, they're both adults now).
Canon Review and Notes
Reviving and adapting a prompt from my Fire Emblem phase a couple years ago. OMG, the Jugral arc --- what a wonderful epic mess! And although we never got the game in the States in my actual youth, the look and sound of the SNES and the anime-of-a-certain-era character designs strike a powerful nostalgic chord for me.
The playthroughs I watched:
Genealogy of the Holy War - However, this uses an older translation patch that never got to the ending, so I had to dig up another video: Project Naga translation ending.
And if you want more context there's the other sort-of-parallel Jugdral FE game, Thracia 776; you shouldn't need it, but it's there if you want.
BTW, since Genealogy of the Holy War began the FE tradition of player-directed shipping, I don't have really strong opinions about pairings that the canon doesn't weigh in on.
Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty
Characters: Duo Erla
Seriously, I am here for Duo Erla. I admit, I dropped the series not long after she exited the stage. But a woman of marginalized ethnicity being awesome --- yes please! You can write a Bechdel Test pass with another female character, or something exploring her culture, maybe a case where something really does need to be taken care of her way and she has to teach Tang Fan the norms of how people resolve things in that context. I'd rather not see her pining over Arras, but any other kind of balm you want to prepare for my Duo Erla-loving heart will be welcome.
Canon Review and Notes
The series on Viki.
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Character: Zelda (Zelda II: The Adventure of Link)
I made sure to specify the particular Zelda who appears in this game, because she is not the same Zelda who appears in the first game — and with this being such a closely-spaced direct sequel, it would stand to reason that post-canon, the two of them would be around at the same time. Wouldn’t it be neat to get them together and pass the Bechdel test? I like to think they’d get along.
It doesn’t have to be that specifically, though; any kind of this-Zelda post-canon would be good. How does she find a place for herself in what to her is a new time? Was she in any way aware of what was happening while she was asleep? How does she look back on her brother, who got her into this (and what history books might say about him afterward)?
There’s also the whole “blood sacrifice” thing in this game. When you get right to it, that wasn’t really connected to the main plot and the ending addresses it very obliquely if at all. What I’m saying is, if you want to write more of an adventure, we’ve still got a pretty good setup for Link to be rescued by Zelda — or even by two Zeldas.
Legend of Zelda stuff in general, I prefer it more “storybook” than gritty, and I’m particular about Link being a Silent Protagonist. He doesn’t need to be literally mute or shy about getting his point across, but if he has more than minimal actual dialogue, it sounds wrong to me. I'm also not committed to the official timeline, so use it or not, as you like.
Canon Review and Notes:
Playthrough on Youtube: Part 1 and Part 2
And since this game is literally TVtropes’ poster child for “All There In The Manual,” here you can find the instruction manual to actually tell you what the story's about. Ah, the NES era...
This one confounds my "in order of canon length" scheme. You could just watch the playthrough and read the manual and be up to speed in a few hours --- or you could dive deep into the myriad delights and confusions of the Legend of Zelda mythos. It's really up to you. Honestly, I think this series is more about iterating on archetypes than trying to find one true something to tie it up all neat and tidy, so do that iterating in your own way.
I'm reviving an old prompt here. I've gotten fics on this one before, and I've always enjoyed them. There are so many possible takes on this I'm always happy to see another.
Pui Pui Molcar
This series is so fun! Maybe a winter holiday molcar story, or more about how people meet their molcars (like a used-car-lot/pet-rescue). But really, I'd just like to see more in this world --- anything you want to do that's in keeping with the canon atmosphere.
Canon Review and Notes
The series is available on Netflix (or nyaa). A collection of feel-good funny shorts about a world where all the cars are stop-motion animated guinea pigs, it's a quick watch and well worth it.
Toshokan Rocket (Minna no Uta Music Video)
No characters specified
This two-and-a-half-minute music video is just packed! So many characters! So many fascinating images! So cute! Much epic! The basic "plot" seems to involve four little birds (in their whale starship and their corgi shuttle!) running a kind of pan-galactic bookmobile for great justice and everlasting peace, but... well, you just have to see it. I want to see what somebody can do with this, anywhere you want to take it that's in keeping with the canon atmosphere.
Canon Review and Notes:
I keep an emergency backup of the video here (sorry for the jacked-up aspect ratio).
And, since it's not subtitled, here's my own quick-and-dirty translation of the lyrics.
My perpetual "gimme" prompt returns! If nothing else grabs you, take two-and-a-half minutes and see if you can do something with this. Heck, take the two-and-a-half minutes anyway, you deserve it!
Yeah, for a while there I had a gadget of questionable legality that let me watch streams of NHK-E(ducational). Sadly no longer works, but I ran across some real gems, particularly in NHK's "Minna no Uta" all-ages music video series. I think this one takes the cake. (Fire-breathing feathered dinosaur!)
And that’s it! Happy writing and a Joyous Yuletide to you!
