Yuletide Letter 2021

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, FFN, 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:

Bittersweet endings, angry or sad endings with a spark of hope in them, happy endings. Good communication, wordplay, honor, pointless heroism or love even if it won’t succeed. Meta, canon-compliant off-screen fics that explore things are great! So are non-canon-compliant fics that fiddle with the story and its premises. Any AU! I also love fics that are allegories for other things or where there’s some kind of idea or lesson that’s left unsaid. I’m cool with any seaworthy ship. I also like revolution! Death to kings! No gods no masters!

Things I don’t like / DNWs:

Mpreg, authorial monarchist apologia, vivid descriptions of needles, and extreme underage.

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:

Mother of Learning - Kirielle

I know MoL is a real niche fandom, so I’m shooting in the dark here. If you happened to match with me on this fandom, I’m game for anything, though my favorite character who I think needs more love is Kirelle. I really feel for her. There was so much in her life that she had to struggle against, and we only get a glimmer of the person she could be and the determination beneath the surface as she chafed beneath the oppressive expectations of the Kazinski parents. I’d love something about Kirielle making friends or finding a future, an AU where she's the looper brought in by accient somehow, or any little story about Kirielle.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes - 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.

Fate/Zero - Waver, Iskandar

I really like the emotional core of the relationship Waver and Rider develop over the course of the story. Fate/Zero is about tragedy that, once set in motion, seems inevitable, and you can't look away, knowing how bad it will go for everyone. Waver, at least, gets away clean, and even grows as a result of the events of the 4th HGW. If anyone can be said to have won it, it would be him. I want to see more of him and Rider interacting, or doing something together, in whatever context - during the war, during the run-up to it, or maybe even somehow beyond it, whether an AU or a missing scene or anything that might work. They deserve more time together.

The Masquerade Series - Any

I'm leaving this one completely untagged character wise, just write what you want! Here are some of my likes in case you need inspiration.

I love the Masquerade. The novels are dense with ideas and ideology and ways society might be structured. Power, control, betrayal, and thoughts - the idea of incrastic thinking, the qualms. I like the bits about power and how institutions work and I like the world that has been built and revealed to us over the course of the story. I spent two books wanting to see Tain Hu's name written across history and blood, and a thousand pages mourning her. If you want somewhere to start, show me anything about Baru, and how she loved Tain Hu, or even just Apparitor mourning and hating. I think I'd be happy with anything you wrote in here, so I've got this tagged for anything. If you selected this as what you want to give, I'm guessing you had something in mind as well, so think of my thoughts here as just preferences and things I like, something that might inspire you or give you direction if you lack it, but otherwise, write something you'll love - I'm sure I'll love it too.

–

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 other requests, and do what makes something good, what inspires you, if that conflicts with these requests.

Thank you.