Maybe World

Hello, writer!

First of all, I just want to say: Please don't worry if you end up discarding all my prompts, or if you can't see any way to fit a bunch of likes into one fic. (I'm going with a broad enough list of likes, including tone, that you're probably going to hit one, at least.) My letter, and my likes list, isn't meant as a checklist, it's just meant to give you ideas. Some of the best fics I've ever received have had nothing to do with my prompts. Some of my likes may contradict each other, I don't know. And honestly, I don't read tons of fic, so I'm sure there are things I love that I'm just forgetting to mention.

Basically, I love fic that digs into canon in some fashion, whether that's character study, worldbuilding, missing scenes or alternate explanations for canon events. I love teams and collaborations and adventuring parties and partnerships, which seems to be the theme of my requests this year. While I don't want something that ends on a dark and hopeless note, I'm more than open to fics digging into the angst before helping the character into a better place, and bittersweet endings are just as welcome as happy ones. I hesitate to say I want fluff, because I don't want all the rough edges sanded off the characters, but fic doesn't need to be high-stakes or super-angsty to make me happy, either.

In other words, there are a lot of things that could make me happy. I hope this letter helps you pick out something you'll enjoy writing, gives you ideas if you need any, or stays out of your way if you already have ideas!

Gen Likes:

• Missing scenes that slot seamlessly into canon
• Dialog, strong character voices, banter, flirting
• Character and relationship studies
• Worldbuilding, from small details that make the world feel more lived in to big elaborations on things canon just doesn't touch
• Magic meta, discussion of the minutia of learning and casting magic, how it feels to cast a spell or have one cast on you, studying magic from a scholarly or hands-on perspective
• Food porn and drink porn
• Ensemble/team relationships
• Seasonal themes — the weather, the mood, seasonal or holiday food and drinks (not just for winter, either, though I do really love winter)
• Humor
• Angst that ends up in a happy or hopeful place
• Bittersweet endings
• Happy endings
• Hurt/comfort
• Exploration of the subject a really dedicated character is into — whether that's a mage talking magic, an artist dealing with art block, an athlete discussing their sport or a baker getting really in-depth about bread
• The creative process, especially when it goes wrong, or when a character's struggling with it
• 5 Times fics, 5 + 1, other variants on that structure
• Epistolary fiction
• Outsider POV

Shippy/Smutty Likes:

• Pining! Oblivious mutual pining is the very best, unless the very best is pining leading into guilty fantasizing and masturbation, or pining + h/c, or... you get the idea. Pining tropes are good!
• Laughing during sex
• Holding hands during sex
• Hand kink in general: noticing the size of someone's hands, the shape of their fingers, their scars or calluses; wearing or removing gloves
• Facial hair, stubble, and shaving — feel free to imagine stubble or shaving routines for clean-shaven dudes, let men get scruffy at times, or run with Sabin's mountain man beard from some of the Amano art
• Hair in general, in a touch sense — washing hair, braiding it, scalp rubs, running hands through a partner's hair
• Clothing kink (one partner wearing some of the other one's clothing; a character wearing clothes that are unusual for them, more formal or more casual or more revealing or whatever; in a modern setting, men in suits)
• Partially-clothed sex
• Wall sex
• Awkward sex (the kind where it's ultimately good for both of them, after the one who got kneed in the throat by accident when they tried to 69 is able to breathe again)
• Non-dirty talk during sex — bickering, bantering, just trying to continue the pre-sex conversation though they're getting increasingly distracted from it

Do Not Want:

• Severe and graphic harm to children or real-world animals
• Embarrassment squick
• Focus on OCs
• Incest
• Sexual content featuring anyone under the age of 15
• Graphic or highly detailed descriptions of bodily fluids or focus on them
• Unrequested polyamory, open relationships, or infidelity
• Vividly described gore
• AUs other than canon divergence (no changes of setting, profession, etc.)
• Non-canon character death, particularly death of requested characters, or any children
• Non-canon or unrequested pronouns
• Identity headcanons (gender ID, sexuality, etc.)
• Unrequested crossovers
• Use of "mommy" or "daddy" in sex scenes
• Cockroaches

DNW explanations:

Severe and graphic harm to children or real-world animals. To clarify: if dealing with a character's dark, but non-specific, canon backstory, you don't need to lighten said dark backstory. Cyan's son is canonically killed, Gau is abandoned by his bio-dad and did not have an easy childhood — I'm not asking you to avoid that kind of detail. However, I don't want non-canonical child abuse added on to a canon character's backstory, and I don't want any young children (ten and under, let's say) being endangered, harmed or abused.

The same goes for animal harm. Brief, non-gory mentions of hunting, monster-slaying, preparing meals that include meat, etc. are all fine. If someone's dog hurts his paw or something, also fine. I just don't want evil people attacking someone by killing or endangering their pets, animal torture, or gruesome descriptions of an animal being torn to bits. Monster-slaying is fine!

Embarrassment squick. I realize this is incredibly subjective, so: I don't get upset over a character making a mistake and getting privately embarrassed about it, or the POV character thinking "omg I'm so stupid" while awkwardly flirting with their love interest. What I mind is other people laughing at, mocking, or cringing at someone's awkwardness or mistakes, or refusing to allow them a face-saving lie. (I hate this device that sometimes turn up where a person is being polite, or aloof, or professional, but they have a familiar or a sidekick or a telepathic AI necklace or whatever that can read their thoughts, and it keeps blurting out what they're really thinking.) And I particularly hate it when the person who's being called out, unmasked, mocked or cringed-at is the center of attention for their screw-up. The biggest nightmare is a whole bunch of people pointing and laughing as the main character fails at something, but "quietly sniping amongst themselves where the main character can't hear, but can notice them staring and giggling" is right up there too. As long as any embarrassing moments are mostly private, only seen by someone (a love interest, a close friend) who's going to view them charitably, or swiftly passed over without lingering emotional aftereffects, it's fine.

Graphic descriptions of bodily fluids or focus on them. Essentially, if writing explicit fic, it's fine to briefly mention ejaculating, or vaginal fluids, but I get squicked out by cumplay, or a lot of phrasings that emphasize that this vagina is just dripping, or by the buckets of fluids in a lot of omegaverse. Or, for that matter, sweat dripping onto the person who's on the bottom, or that anime/manga trope where a really horny person may start drooling. Using lube is fine and encouraged, a guy spitting on someone in lieu of lube is not. And while I don't think most people are writing unrequested watersports, scat, emetophilia or bloodplay, those are out too.

This one's porn-specific, I think; characters having their mouths water at the smell of food, or sweating on a hot day, does not bother me.

Focus on OCs. It's fine to have someone serve them coffee and say a couple of lines, or to give the barista or client or vizier or whoever a name. Beyond that, no. I don't want any OCs who are prominent or developed enough characters that the fic merits the "original characters" tag.

AUs other than canon divergence. I'm defining canon divergence as "an alteration to the major events of the plot." What-if AUs — what if X survived, what if Y made it in time for the fight with Z — are fine by me. Everything else is off-limits. ("What if A and B were secretly banging the whole time" is great too! But may not actually impact the plot much.)

Non-canon character death, particularly death of requested characters, or any children. I don't want characters being killed off, basically. This especially applies to my requested characters, and to children in general; no massacres, no plagues, no bandit attacks, no posthumous fic looking back at someone's life. In theory, if your plot calls for people to meet at the funeral of someone's never-named grandfather or something, it's not a big deal, but don't go out of your way to rack up a body count either.

Canon character deaths are fine, and this includes the canonical deaths of children (R.I.P. Owain) or of requested characters (Falin gets chomped on, what, the fourth page of the manga? And the rest of the party gets killed immediately afterwards.) I could technically have phrased this as "permanent death," since Delicious in Dungeon does have canon resurrection, but none of the other canons do.

Requests!

I've tried to be even-handed here! But I can't guarantee that all the sections will be equally long and detailed. I promise all my fandoms are equally beloved; I have agonized long and hard to be sure of that.

Final Fantasy VI

The classic RPG of my heart. I've been in this fandom since I knew what fandom was; the very first fic I ever read, and the first fic I ever wrote, were for FF6. Sometimes I move away from it for a while but so far I've always come back.

Request: Sabin, Cyan, and Gau

I've always thought of these three as a family unit, with Sabin and Cyan co-parenting Gau, but recently I made the leap from that to shipping Sabin and Cyan. I fell for this pairing hard. You don't have to write romance between them, but I'd prefer if you didn't have them rule it out — no "I would never, he's like a son/father to me" or either of them thinking about how very very straight they are, you know? But by the same token, I don't want anything non-platonic between either of them and Gau.

I wouldn't be averse to the two of them being platonic friends, involved with others — Sabin/Shadow? Cyan/Terra? — while still parenting Gau together, but that's your call. The Veldt trio are the ones I'm requesting.

I'm always into mid-canon fic, exploring the emotional fallout of canon events, or slice-of-life stuff set during all the downtime they have while we're flying around looking for Doomgaze. I don't tend to think in tropey terms for this fandom, but h/c and pining tropes are always welcome, and if you need a trope to hang a fic on, you could check my likes or the prompts for my other fandoms. You can go hard on the angst about Cyan's family, if you want. I don't want a downer ending, but Cyan's going through unimaginable amounts of pain and the game barely brushes the surface.

• Emotional h/c for Cyan in the aftermath of the Doma Castle dreamscape/Wrexsoul fight
• Cyan and Sabin trying to make it up to Gau somehow after meeting his bio-dad even though he's basically okay about it
• I cannot imagine that Cyan's totally cheerful and even-tempered during the entire Phoenix Cave sidequest, especially before it fails (this brigand gets to resurrect his lover and Cyan's wife and son are gone forever?)
• Interactions with people beyond the requested trio! Gau and Relm friendship is great, though I'd rather not see it written as a nascent crush or anything. Edgar and Sabin have one of my favorite sibling relationships ever. For Cyan friendships outside the core trio, I've always thought he and Celes would have a lot in common, though I go back and forth on whether they'd be friends, or be too much alike to get along.
• Post-canon fic — how do they make a life after defeating Kefka? Do they go back to Figaro, or try to rebuild Doma, or move to Mobliz? It might do Gau some good to be around all those kids, and Terra could probably use some help. Or maybe they go somewhere else, for a fresh start — there are a lot of places that need rebuilding.
• Cyan/Sabin smut. A first time, with angst and guilt about Elayne? I can't decide whether Sabin's been celibate for years or had a past thing with Vargas or what, but inexperience could cause varying types of angst too. "Angst and Fluff and Smut" is a good tag and I like it.
• Angst and Fluff without the smut is good, too!
• Not that you need to make it incredibly angsty, it's just that Cyan's been through a lot, and it's not like Gau and Sabin haven't, and one of my favorite things is characters finding hope despite the pain they've been through.
• Emotional h/c is good, but so is physical; healing magic, magic meta about how it feels to have a serious injury healed magically, and/or the contrast between that and having to recuperate the mundane way.

Right now I'm really into Cyan, in case you couldn't tell. I don't mean to play favorites! I love all three — Sabin's good cheer, soft heart, and optimism have always made him one of my favorites, and I have a fresh understanding of what it must be like to live with Gau now that I have a toddler. It's just that my prompts are leaning Cyan-wards. But if inspiration strikes for more of a focus on Sabin or Gau, you aren't going to disappoint me.

Fandom-specific DNWs:

• No mention of Locke/Celes, even as a background, past, or implied pairing.
• No implication of a crush or future relationship between Gau and Relm.

Ikemen Sengoku

I started mobile otome games on a whim. I'd never really played an otome, other than Hatoful Boyfriend, and I was curious. I didn't expect the delightful protagonist and witty writing on this game to grab me so thoroughly, and I sure didn't expect to start shipping a couple of the love interests, but when I was playing Nobunaga's route (otherwise not at all my speed) the MC stumbled onto Hideyoshi slamming Mitsuhide up against a wall, and she's all "oh no, they're fighting!" and I'm like, "no, honey, that's not fighting." Later on, she thinks, "come on, you two, kiss later," so I guess she caught on.

Request: Hideyoshi and Mitsuhide

These two! I've been playing this game since maybe a week after launch, and I've watched as the two of them started out shippy and just kept getting shippier. I didn't really expect this, and it's certainly not holding true for every otome I play — the guys of Midnight Cinderella certainly don't have this kind of chemistry — but here we are.

• Fic set at a particular point in a particular route would be fine by me — Mitsuhide pining during Hideyoshi's route as Hideyoshi falls for the protagonist? The two of them having wall-slammy UST during Nobunaga's route?
• Casual sex while Hideyoshi pines for more and Mitsuhide tries to keep him at arm's length because he can't afford to trust, he can't risk Hideyoshi blowing his cover, he doesn't deserve love, all the Mitsuhide stuff
• Wasn't there a time long ago when five-times fics were "five things that didn't happen," five miniature canon-divergence AUs? Something like that (not that there's a set canon to diverge from) or time-loop fic, where things keep happening in different ways, could be cool. I mean, canon already lives on time travel. For a prompt like this, you could bypass the character death DNW to write a version where Nobunaga dies, Hideyoshi blames Mitsuhide, and then kills him in battle, as in actual history (though I am relatively certain they weren't so young and hot and single in actual history.) Provided that it's just one of many outcomes, or that the time travel then undoes it.
• H/c after a battle, since "bleeding severely, barely conscious" might be what it takes to keep Mitsuhide from pushing away anyone who cares. Or maybe Hideyoshi's the one who gets hurt and for once Mitsuhide shows he cares. Trapped or imprisoned together, surviving in the woods? Fighting back to back? Canon is so freaking tropey as it is, I basically want all the tropes the protagonist goes through used for these guys.
• Mitsuhide makes a comment in Hideyoshi's route about having been thankful to be in restraints before, and while I think he means it in the non-kinky way, I know how I took it. (BDSM dynamics: not normally my thing, but when the characters just serve it up on a silver platter...)

I'm sorry for leaning so hard on the shippy prompts; if you wanted to write gen about their relationship without taking it explicitly romantic or sexual, that'd be fine, but I'd prefer you not explicitly no-homo it. I don't want to completely box you in, but I do want something that's about the two of them and their feelings for each other.

Speaking of which, the MC isn't nominated, but if you want to include her and you aren't using any particular route as your setting, I really love her with Masamune, Mitsunari, Sasuke and Shingen.

Delicious in Dungeon

You notice how my likes list includes things like food porn and worldbuilding and team or ensemble dynamics? This manga was basically made for me. I read the page where Laios points out that the dungeon has to have an ecosystem and I was SOLD. Sometimes when I'm feeling down, I think of Senshi fishing zombies out of the dungeon latrines to perk myself up.

I have a couple of fandom-specific general requests: no spoilers beyond the US releases (which should be the end of volume 7, as of Yuletide) and using the Yen Press translations of the names (Laios, Chilchuck, etc.)

Request: All (Marcille, Laios, Chilchuck, Falin and Senshi)

Honestly, part of what I want for this fandom is just MORE. More team interactions, more monster meals, more plot, more of everything! I do basically want gen here; I wouldn't mind background Marcille/Falin (or even foreground Marcille/Falin, provided there's food and worldbuilding and team interaction and adventuring jokes going on too) but I'm in this for more of what canon gave me. That doesn't mean "missing scene or bust." Nor does it mean that all the characters have to appear, if you have a stellar idea for, like, a solo encounter like Chilchuck's fight with the Mimic, or backstory when Marcille and Falin are at school, or Laios and Falin's childhood... Or if you want to write about an earlier adventure, without Senshi but with Namari and Shuro, that's all good too. After reading volume 7, I have to say Izutsumi isn't my favorite and I'd rather she not be the focus of a fic, but I'm awaiting character growth for her at the moment.

Some prompts:

• Early on, Marcille suggests several restaurants she likes on the surface; maybe a pre-canon fic set at one of those, with lavish description of the meal? The whole party grabbing dinner after returning from a pre-canon dungeon mission, maybe, or grabbing brunch before heading in. Or just Marcille and Falin on a date, or them + Laios on a day off, or she goes there alone and runs into Chilchuck...
• Solo encounters, like I mentioned: the Chilchuck/Mimic fight delighted me, both because I too hate Mimics and because I love to see a character use resourcefulness and sheer cussedness to pull off something they're not really cut out for.
• They're attacked by actual food that's been animated by magic — giant gingerbread men, literal flan and custard like the Final Fantasy enemies only without eyeballs, fruit trees that pull up their roots and march off to attack — and for once Marcille is the one most eager for the meal, while Laios and Senshi are kind of uninspired.
• Any kind of MOTW fic, honestly. Feel free to borrow from other sources!
• A different kind of worldbuilding via food: cultural dishes? It doesn't seem like there's any particular segregation between the races, but there still might be traditional elven/dwarvish/half-foot foods that are cooked only on certain holidays, or certain occasions (weddings, funerals, coming-of-age parties, victory celebrations, whatever) and it'd be nice to see something like that introduced to the party as a whole, maybe subbing in dungeon supplies for some of the traditional ingredients.
• Senshi's solitary dungeon-dwelling existence before joining up with the group, maybe? It means bypassing all the ensemble dynamics I like so much, but I'd kind of like to see him learning things through trial and error, since we rarely see him screw up with food or survival knowledge in the story's present. And now that I've read volume 7, I know canon touches on this subject, but only briefly; I'd be totally down with more.
• Or combine several; some kind of five-times fic about each of the party members cooking a meal, or enjoying a meal, in different circumstances?
• More stories of Chilchuck's Rogue Sufferings from traps, locks, and impatient party members?
• Laios and Chilchuck, pre-canon, having some beers together? We see that they're both drinkers (and Marcille isn't) and a good craft beer can merit at least as much talk about its complexities of flavor as a good meal. (Edit: Chilchuck at the brewery in vol. 7 confirmed my suspicions, and delighted me!) If you're not a beer person, feel free to ignore me, but I'm a sucker for a good chocolatey porter and I have yet to find a food manga that gets into beer that way.
• After volume 7 and the Senshi backstory there, and Laios's determination to help with the Significant Soup, I maybe kind of ship it a little? Probably in a pre-slash way, where Laios is having feelings but not putting two and two together, or Senshi is deeply moved by Laios's concern but not sure Laios meant anything beyond friendship by it...

A note regarding my character-death DNW: for this canon, where the adventurers are all kind of blase about dying and resurrection is readily available, just treat it as "no permadeath." I don't mind mentions of past deaths, especially since some of them are hilarious, nor do I mind a monster-of-the-chapter adventure in which someone gets killed and then raised before dinnertime (with monster-that-killed-them as the main course.)

Also, although it's too late to clarify in my sign-up, I just want to make clear that you're welcome to include any or all of the requested characters, to leave out any of the requested characters if need be, or to include other, non-nominated characters. I'd prefer you include at least one of the requested characters, but that's my only real restriction.

Shirobako

This is one of my favorite anime. I love the characters — all of them, even Tarou — and the insight into anime production, and the genuinely heartwarming view of creative work, and all the little details of setting and character and daily life, and it has an ending more satisfying than I would ever have expected or imagined for a workplace comedy.

Request: Kinoshita Seiichi

I did not go into Shirobako expecting this ridiculous, whiny manchild to be one of my favorite characters of all time, but here we are. He always makes me laugh, I love his working partnership with Aoi, and I really, really love him storming the manga publisher's office to reach Nogame-sensei.

I'd be happy with just about anything, whether it's something kind of absurd and magical-realistic (like storming the publisher's office) or more grounded and mundane, and while I'm mostly prompting and expecting gen here, if the ship bug bites you I'd be happy with that too. (Honda? Iguchi? Nogame?) Feel free to borrow, tweak and blenderize real anime and manga when writing about his working life, since looking for those references is one of the highlights of watching or re-watching Shirobako.

• Backstory fic about the disastrous production of Boing-Boing Paradise? Or one of his other, more successful anime, like Full-Naked Hypnotist? I'd love to see ideas about the plots and characters of some of his past works.
• Issues he's run into with other adaptations, or his next original work? Is he over the anime-original hump now, or does he hit some other creative snag the next time?
• Does he keep in touch with Nogame, after they have that brief creative mindmeld? Or are they both too busy? Maybe they keep up with each other's work. Am I talking myself into low-key shipping it?
• Kinoshita in his downtime? There have to be points in pre-production when things aren't quite so crazy. Maybe a snippet from one of the research trips we see them taking early in the production of the 3rd Girls' Wing anime, or just Kinoshita going about his day, turning over ideas for a new series, reading something he knows Nabe-P is trying to snag, whatever. I like a good character study.

I should probably note here that while I've been an anime fan since dinosaurs walked the earth and we traded fansubs on VHS tapes, and I did catch a lot of the references to actual anime sprinkled through the series, I don't know any behind-the-scenes gossip about industry figures, anime production horror stories, or infamous disasters. You can make shit up with impunity.

I can see my embarrassment squick DNW butting up awkwardly against this fandom, both because of Kinoshita's tendency to get too into his Imagine Spots — it'd embarrass me, anyway, though the way the series typically cuts away quickly without lingering on the reactions keeps it from bothering me — and because there are a lot of moments in this series where Kinoshita is kind of the butt-monkey. I wouldn't mind that element being softened up a bit, along with certain kinds of fat jokes. "SHOURYUU-BELLY!" is delightful, but all his coworkers teasing him about his weight is not.

So that about wraps it up for fics. I hope some of this is helpful to you, and if it's not, feel free to do your own thing! While keeping my DNWs in mind, I mean.

My AO3 name is Lirillith, spelled the same as in this URL. I'm posting this letter to both the Yuleporn and Wrapping Paper challenges, and while I think my prompts and likes, above, should be sufficient for Yuleporn, I wrote this not knowing that Wrapping Paper was even a thing! That's what I miss by not doing Yuletide for a couple of years. So, for any artists wandering by, the next section is for you.

Art likes:

• Limited palettes
• Art nouveau design
• Tarot card themes and designs (whether you want to put a character in a Rider-Waite card or come up with your own card design)
• Hair: one character brushing, braiding, tying ribbons in, or otherwise grooming the other's hair
• Hands (I know they're difficult, but still) - characters holding hands, the detail of what hands are doing and where they are while a couple kisses, etc.
• Characters laughing together
• Particularly for canons with graphics limitations, art where we see a mundane scene (the party at their base, or camping mid-adventure, maybe preparing a meal, grooming themselves, cleaning/repairing gear) illustrated in detail. A couple of examples: Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross
• Characters in alternate costumes: winter clothing (or bathing suits or kimono or lingerie or ballgowns or whatever) reminiscent of their characteristic designs; AU costumes (Western AU, space opera AU); characters wearing each other's clothes; characters wearing clothes or costumes from related titles (i.e. dressing everyone from FF6 in the job-system outfit that seems to best suit them)
• Specific alternate costume likes: Kimono and hakama; fancy lingerie (on men or women); magical girl outfits (on girls and women, Rule 63 perfectly acceptable); formal wear, masquerade balls, or wedding finery from any culture, real or imagined
• Relatedly, dancing! Especially paired dancing for couples.
• Elemental effects from magic or superpowers
• That thing where a man has a dress shirt and tie and a vest/waistcoat, and he has the sleeves rolled up to about his elbows, and it's the hottest thing a man can possibly do and yet men don't all dress that way all the time for some crazy reason? Yeah. That thing.
• Flowers and flower motifs; I know the language of flowers is complete nonsense, plus everything always means "love" anyway, but I enjoy it.
• There are a lot of AUs (Western, IN SPACE, sports team, whatever) that I'll enjoy in art but not want in fic
• Seasonal stuff! Snowball fights, making snowmen, characters in winter clothing.

Happy Yuletide! I'll see if I can enable anon commenting in the event of any questions (I know asking through the mods is encouraged, but if you can't figure out one of my DNWs, or whatever else...) One last note: I have a very active toddler who's turning three on December 26, a very hardworking husband who's turning *mumble* on December 23, and a mother-in-law who will not sleep easy at night until she's fed us all latkes. I will do my best to comment quickly (it might actually be easier on the 25th than on your average Wednesday) but please don't be alarmed if you get a kudos from me but no comment for a few days. Odds are I'll have time to read your fic well before I have time to comment on it.