Yuletide Letter 2022

[firebatvillain]

Dear Yuletide Author,

Thanks for writing - I’m really excited for this Yuletide. I hope you’re excited as well! I’m FireBatVillain on Ao3 and Tumblr.

The stuff I’m including in this letter is optional, but I hope you consider them as you work. Whatever you make, I’ll appreciate it regardless, and I look forward to whatever comes. Prompts are just suggestions.

Things I like:

Happy stories, bittersweet stories, and stories that end with a spark of hope even if they are angry or sad. I like good communication, wordplay, honor, pointless heroism or love even if it won’t succeed. Probably one of my favorite ideas in fiction is the idea of heroism in the face of hopelessness.

I'm a fan of explorations of fandom meta, and I've often enjoyed canon-compliant off-screen fics that explore things are great! Some of my favorite stories of all time fit into the category of "AU - Canon Divergence" and I would say I am a common fan of "what if things were different in X way" type AUs. I do not usually enjoy modern or mundane AUs that much, but I've liked a few.

I like fics that have a lot of frantic energy about them, or with a focus on revolution or social change. I am a fan of fics that are about characters being ruthless in pursuit of an ideal, and giving something up or even becoming worse as a result.

Things I don’t like / DNWs:

My DNWs are mpreg, authorial monarchist apologia, vivid descriptions of needles, and extreme underage.

Regarding the monarchism thing: I’m okay with characters in a feudal or monarchist setting, and even protags who are monarchs, and even these characters triumphing as monarchs as long as the story itself isn’t apologia for monarchism. Characters who like monarchism, who think of themselves as good kings, who want to restore the throne, etc - all good by me. Saber or Iskandar in Fate/Zero, Reinhard von Lohengramm from LoGH, etc is excellent. I just would prefer not to read a work where the final moral of the story is that democracy is bad and we should all be ruled by a single person with absolute unchecked power, as presented by the author.

Some other notes:

Unrequested characters, ships, and ideas are A-OK with me, as is explicit content. Please feel free to use whatever prompts you like and don’t feel constrained by my suggestions here. I do not mind darkfic.

Requested Fandoms:

Request 1: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes (Anime 1988) - Reinhard von Lohengramm, Yang Wenli

I’ll admit to not having watched nuLOGH! I’m just here for those deleted scenes that you could imagine playing out as Reinhard von Lohengramm and Yang Wenli clash in terms of ideals and minds. This could happen any time between when they first meet on the field of battle to the end (or beyond). The politics and ideas of this series are kind of A Lot so there’s no need to encapsulate it all, but I always found the conflict between these two fascinating - and I’m not just talking about spaceships blowing up. Though if it's just something about spaceships blowing up, count me in for that, too. The battles and interactions that happen in this anime are great and anything that reminds me of that is also neat.

Here's a few prompts if you're looking for something to inspire you.

• After the battle at Amlitzer, Yang fails to withdraw, and is captured by imperial forces. In the following proceedings, he meets Admiral Reinhard.
• As the Treaty of Barlat is formed, Emperor Reinhard succeeds in offering Yang a position in the Imperial government - as an admiral or in some other role.
• At the fortress Iserlohn, the last bastion of freedom, Yang Wenli receives a diplomatic party from Emperor Reinhard, in an attempt to defuse things before a battle between the two fleets.

Poor Yang Wenli, all he wanted was to retire with a pension in a comfortable and free society.

 

Request 2: かぐや様は告らせたい | Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai | Kaguya Wants to be Confessed To (Manga)  - Odajima Saburo, J Suzuki of Koenji, The Glutton Girl of Jinbocho, Tanuma Takahiko

These four characters are the Four Ramen Emperors of Tokyo and they represent one of my favorite side plots in Kaguya-Sama. Since the Manga is ahead of the Anime and has more content featuring them, I've nominated this under the Manga tag this year.

I encourage you to write whatever you want as long as it features at least one of the Four Ramen Emperors. You can use a subset of the characters rather than using all four if you prefer. Some prompts:

• The Four Ramen Emperors gather in one place for the first time in a long time, and have a ramen related competition.
• San of Shibuya, aka Odajima Saburo, runs into Fujiwara again, and comes to the aid (or perhaps, causing problems for) our heroes on account of feeling he owes Fujiwara a debt of gratitude.
• The Immortal of Sugamo, aka Tanuma Takahiko, actually turns out to be related to Dr Tanuma Tsubasa, and Tanuma Shozo, and his family places him directly in the line of fire with the main plot.
• The Glutton Girl of Jinbocho, reminded of her history with San of Shibuya, and feeling that perhaps their beliefs aren't in such conflict any more, meets with him again - will they rekindle their romance?

 

Request 3: Charles Henry Higgensworth III Amazon.com Reviews - Charles Henry Higgensworth III

In the incredibly unlikely event that you matched me on this fandom: you're awesome! Of course, you're awesome either way, but I think the odds of anyone even having heard of this fandom are pretty low. Still, it's yuletide. Rob Reid wrote these reviews over the span of a year and they tell the story of Higgensworth, his failing estate, his relationship with his wife and brother-in-law, etc. It's kind of the opposite of a "frame story" - each episode is actually an excuse to talk about the frame.

You can read them all here, in case you can't find them: https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHNQ2VDUI4RVUIV4M7QOUC3BNCLA/

So, what do I want out of this? Well, the reviews themselves are a bit hit or miss, with some being lame or just being mean about some kind of current event or celebrity, but some give us interesting glimpses into the life of Charles and his family. Anything that expands on that (whether formatted as an amazon.com review or not) would really be interesting to me!

Here are a few prompts if you're looking for some:

• Charles III reviews these bath crayons and describes awful shenanigans that Charles IV and Priscilla get into with them: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FD7QRPG/ - in the bathtub or around the house.
• Carlotta Higgensworth is using the account this time, to leave a review of The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts https://www.amazon.com/Love-Languages-Secret-that-Lasts/dp/080241270X - she got it for Charles III to try to get him to be a better husband.
• Charles III has gotten yet another home improvement tool for himself, a magnetic wristband: https://www.amazon.com/HANPURE-Tool-Gifts-Stocking-Stuffers/dp/B07VXCN5KK/ and has had to deal with this actually being a truly impractical item.

 

Request 4: Robot Series - Isaac Asimov - Susan Calvin, Greg Powell, Mike Donovan

This was one of my favorite novels (or I guess, collections of short stories) when I was a kid. Of course, my favorite character was Susan Calvin, who would often come in and address an impossible issue when Powell and Donovan couldn't work it out on their own. I don't mind Powell and Donovan either, though, they deserve a bit of respect. As for what I'm looking for, I think I'd be happy with anything about these characters, but I would love anything like the classic dilemma/mystery scenarios about robots we saw in I, Robot. Or, maybe these three just deserve a chance to get a drink after work sometime! Not that I think Calvin does a lot of drinking, heh.

Some prompts if you're looking for them:

• A competitor has released a new brain they claim is even better than a Positronic brain, putting U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men in a tough spot.
• Powell, Donovan, and Calvin are investigating traffic flow systems under direct positronic brain control, looking at strange efficiency losses and trying to figure out the cause
• It's the company holiday party, and everything comes to a halt when the positronic brain running the building puts it into a lockdown, leaving Calvin the most capable person on scene to solve whatever happened.

–

Thanks for reading this!

Hopefully this gives you some ideas. Avoiding the DNWs is significantly more important than any of this. Please consider this paragraph a blanket permission to ignore the specifics of my prompts, and do what makes something good, what inspires you, if that conflicts with these requests.

Thank you.