Yuletide 2023

 Thank you for writing for me. ♥

 

Please never consider my prompts as "must do", they're there in case you don't have ideas or would like to see what precisely I like about these ships. They're guidelines to make your life easier, not tracks you can't deviate from!

Treats are ok for all my fandoms.

Things I like!

 

I'm happiest when stories get into some in-depth character exploration. The plot of your story may be minimal (but if you really like plotty stuff, go for it, I love it too), it may be slice of life, small missing moments, I tend to not care as much as long as characterisation and interactions between people offer emotional depth. For smut, the same thing applies: hot action is good, but I like it better when there's something that happens, in an emotional sense, to the characters involved. This doesn't have to be romantic love by any means, I very much enjoy friends with benefits, conflicted feelings, toxic relationships, and the like. For any less wholesome ships, I am totally fine if they don't live happily ever after.

 

I like: banters between characters, historical attention to details, politics, clashing points of view, complicated relationships, UST, bittersweet endings where not all things are solved neatly. Hope for the future despite everything, moral ambiguity, explored dysfunctionality, love shown through subtlety, love that is not confessed, regret, hard-won redemptions and the distrust that comes with it, power dynamics, characters that won't ever relent in their goals and who feel things strongly and are larger than life. I like the consensual but not safe or sane too, and if you feel like playing with darker themes emotional manipulation is great; loyalty and betrayal themes, rivalries, enmities, even those that aren't entirely solved, and especially those that take a long journey to come to an understanding.

 

Themes of grief and mourning, trauma and recovery, fate, "the narrative", growing past hurts, but conversely also revenge quests, anger (especially towards gods, doom, the universe), generational and religious trauma, situations where everything is awful, sometimes even people, but the love is still there despite that, love that is deep and fraught and ride-or-die. Grey morality, unreliable points of view, deeply fucked up visions of the world and blind spots, ruthlessness, enthralling personalities, sacrificing things (and people) for one's goals, but also unrelenting, honest, down-to-earth goodness.

 

I enjoy explorations of social dynamics, especially classism, blind spots in one's worldview, and like I said above, power dynamics. Never worry whether you're making your noble/stableman story too "realistic", I'll always always enjoy how love/friendship or attraction or sex intersects with other life circumstances. I like to see how people move within the trappings of society and/or their beliefs, how they chafe against them or try to escape them, how they hypocritically justify their choices, or push against rules.

 

If you want a list of my smut likes that is as exhaustive as possible, you can find that here. This entry is very nsfw.

 

My requests, if it makes sense to do so within a given fandom, can always be combined and expanded on. You can include side characters I didn't request if it makes your story and world richer, and you can include OCs following the same concept. I only ask that the requested characters and relationships take centre stage. Combining means, for example, that if I request Frodo&Pippin and Frodo/Sam, it's ok to write a fic where both of those relationships meaningfully appear. For the purpose of Yuletide, you can add in any side characters, requested or unrequested, in the tagset or not, unless I specifically say that I don't want someone included.

 

GENERAL DNW 
 

AUs unless requested. • No BIG canon divergencies unless requested (if I prompt "what if...?" that counts as requested). • Crack fic. Fluff fic, kidfic (= focusing on caretaking of kids, on fluff about having children, on child characters doing cute child things, or on sweet fuzzy feelings about parenthood), in general stories focusing on cuteness and domesticity. • Focus on pregnancy or childbirth. • Focus on gender dysphoria; gender headcanons unless I specifically state I enjoy them for a given character. • Character bashing. Characters disagreeing passionately and having negative opinions of other characters are great, but don't use them to express your personal dislike. Also don't humiliate or belittle characters gratuitously, especially those requested. • Focus on excrements, piss, vomit. I'm fine with mentions of unsanitary things, but no focus on it; as in, nothing that is deliberately trying to squick the reader out or is kinking on these fluids. (Blood is perfectly fine.) • Second person writing. • "Educational" fiction. Some of the characters in my requests can be objectively wrong in their beliefs, we all know that, so when writing a pov that's wrong/prejudiced in some manner don't insert any "and that, kids, was morally a bad thing" in the text. • No writing out of canon-compliant various -isms or -phobias. If a world area or time period is e.g. homophobic, I don't want the struggles of characters who have to live with it written away. However, if such things are not present in a given situation, don't add them in for the sake of it. • A/B/O, genderswap, alien genitalia, m!preg, sex pollen, fake dating, fuck or die tropes. • Maggots, terminal illnesses, feederism and eating disorders, soulmates and hanahaki. • Daddy/mommy kink, de-aging of characters, ageplay and infantilisation, diapers, pet play, feet, enemas and urethral plays, insistence on how large a penis or breasts are, objectification. • Medical play and assorted medical kinks, as well as medical situations utilised to emphasise powerlessness or horror (such as unwilling experiments) unless requested or canon to the ships/story/character. Torture is otherwise ok if warranted. • Underage (= explicit sexual situations involving anyone below 18; anything with extremely underage characters; as well as sex, attraction, sexual situations between a minor and someone much older than them. A 16yo and an 18yo won't make me twitch, a 16yo and a 35yo will. Please just interpret it in good faith) • Noncon between requested characters (= violent noncon; situations where a victim is actively trying to get away and expressing their lack of consent. Dub-con is fine but only if requested or canon. For requested, I usually clarify in my prompts; if not clear, just reach out, and again just interpret in good faith). Rape experiences or trauma are fine as background or in the story as long as they're not detailed or the focus (but never between nominated characters unless requested or canon). Incest unless requested or canon (cousins okay). • Any variation of the word "come" spelled as "cum". • No X character is secretly a bastard of Y character unless requested or canon (relatedly, no non-canon cheating on a spouse). • Denial of structural power imbalances even/especially in positive and/or consensual relationships. • When a character has a canon love interest but I request a ship with someone else, please acknowledge the love interest/spouse and do not bash them or say the requested character hates them now. Poly and open relationships always preferred to breaking up canon couples to write a new one.


Prompts!

• Dragonlance - Raistlin Majere

I tried my absolute best to narrow this down to 4 characters only, but failed and decided to ask for Raistlin only. However, I also love the following characters in the tagset: Caramon Majere, Crysania, Dalamar the Dark, Kitiara uth Matar, Palin Majere, Steel Brightblade; so, if you have ideas that include them, go for whatever is in your heart. Dragonlance was the first fantasy series I read as a kid and it has a special place in my heart, so I would love to see what you could do with these stories and world. Missing moments in canon or a whole new adventure, or meetings that never happened but you think they should have, mended relationships, thinking about the past... all sounds very juicy. 
My absolute favourite character in the series was Raistlin, so he's the one I picked, and anything that revolves around him and his family, friends, enemies, and possible love interest(s) would be great; assume any gen fic involving Raistlin on his own is also cool in my book. For romantic options, I like both Raistlin/Dalamar and Raistlin/Crysania, both of them with gleeful turns into unhealthy if you feel like going there. Other ideas I got while looking at the nominated characters that you could potentially include as side relationships if you wanted to: Kitiara & Steel, Crysania & Kitiara, Kitiara & Laurana, Dalamar & Kitiara, Dalamar & Palin. Feel free to include any other member of the company in the Chronicles books. 

• Watership Down - Any

Another book that completely rewired my brain as a kid. This Odyssey-like adventures but with rabbits has characters so memorable and a worldbuilding so great that I've always been hooked to it. Once again, any character is fine. Do you want to write an El-Ahrairah mythical adventure? Or maybe any of our heroes meet the Black Rabbit, for a story with some magical realism. Some other ideas: What happens in Efrafa, while Woundwort rises to power, or after his death? What are the new developing relationships between Efrafa and Watership, and their rabbits? What happens in the warren of snares after Hazel and the others leave? My absolute favourite rabbit in the story was always Bigwig, but I promise I love all of them. I know romantic relationships are not a thing that MUST happen in Yuletide, and particularly for this request, while I don't mind reading about rabbits being lovey, I don't really... want to read about them banging lmao. So everything's good, just no rabbit sex.
Some suggested relationships: Silverweed & Fiver, Bigwig & Woundwort, Woundwort & Black Rabbit, Fiver & Black Rabbit, Silverweed & Black Rabbit, El-Ahrairah & Black Rabbit, Hyzenthlay & Bigwig, ...et cetera

• Doktor Faustus, Thomas Mann - Any

Bites fist, the LAYERS of this book. Serenus' repressed bisexuality! Adrian and Rudi being a thing, and the triangle with Marie Godeau (totally welcome to include her)! Rudolf's weird situation, and personality, and relationship with Adrian (particularly juicy to me their visit to Rome and Palestrina)! The entanglement of art, the devil, the tradition of German thought, love, and illness. I'm insane about it. I've blogged about it on tumblr (skyeventide. tumblr.com) where you can see exactly what makes me insane, if you're looking for prompt I can't recommend anything better than that tag. The medical horror DNW is waived in this request if it pertains to syphilis.
You could write about Rudi and Adrian going to the country villa after Rudi's concert, or Serenus' jealousy and unrequited feelings, or any of them on their own, reflecting on their lives and relationships. If you want, you could do a Serenus pastiche, maybe pages that he wrote and then decided to destroy instead of publishing them. But I would also love more traditional stories where the POV is internal, third person narrative etc.

• Third Crusade RPF - Any

So in the tagset I saw both The Lion in Winter AND Kingdom of Heaven, one of which in my brain was all about the relationship between Richard & Philippe (which I am more than down to read as sexual and romantic) while the other included Saladin, an incredibly fascinating figure. So I thought, I'm just gonna go for the historical rpf version, which has both. Ideally this is divided in two groups, one with Saladin (and anyone close to him during his life) and one with Richard, Philippe, and Alys, but you can mix and match as you see fit. Any one of them on their own is also good.
Politics, history, religion, all great themes to explore; if you wonder whether you're making this too focused on historical details, know that I love details and historical fiction, so you can go ham. Complicated dub con between Richard and Philippe is ok, and if you want further inspiration you can look at the two above mentioned movies too, they have great vibes. Brushing on themes of infidelity in the whole situation with Alys and Philippe and Richard is fine.
Suggested relationships: Richard/Philippe, Richard &/ Philippe & Alys

• Don Carlos, Schiller - Any

Also insane about this one. Honestly, if you've offered this, you probably are too. The drama, the bisexuality, the political mess, all these incredible characters, the tragedy, the love triangles. You can make it as psychosexual as possible, if you want, and politics or historical inspirations for additions are always welcome. I'd be very curious to see Carlos survive the end of the play too, and get to read what happens next (historical divergence is ok). Hell, even a Rodrigo lives AU, if you somehow knew how to make it work. A crossover idea that could be fun is crossovering Don Carlos with Goethe's Egmont.
I have a tag on tumblr for this too which is mostly me liveblogging my first reading of this play this past summer, and you can take a look if you're curious about what I was thinking as I read. It's a lot of screaming.
Suggested relationships: Philip & Carlos, Philip/Rodrigo, Philip & Duke of Alba, Rodrigo/Carlos, Rodrigo & Duke of Alba

• Faust, Goethe - Mephistopheles, Faust

So I would love to see something that also includes Gretchen or Helena, but I'm particularly interested in these two. Goethe's version of Faust and Meph is frankly one of the most fascinating ever, if not THE most fascinating, and I would love to see missing moments between them, during all those off screen situations we don't witness. I'd love to see more in-depth explorations of what we do see, and the moral struggle between the characters. Faint dub con due to one being a literal devil, and other such toxic details are great. Matters of salvation, ennui, ceaseless search for satisfaction and knowledge, Meph's nihilism, subtle cruelty, sexual moods. All the themes that Goethe put in the story. Literally have fun with any of it. Once again, tag for your perusal if you want it.
Both Faust/Mephistopheles and a gen version of it are cool.