Yuletide 2023 Letter

[snowynight]

My AO3 name: snowynight

Dear Creator,

Thank you so much for creating a fanwork for me! I'm sure I will love it anyways, but here are some details about what I like/dislike, in case you like to do your research. Although the fandom sections are of varying length, I love all my requested fandoms equally.

First off, I would rather receive a work that the creator was enthusiastic about than one that fulfilled every detail of my request. Prompts can be altered, combined, twisted, and bent as you see fit.

I am happy to receive a fic of any rating and welcome treats. I love fanwork in canon setting, a missing moment, canon divergent AU, story set in the past or future of canon.

I love gen just as much as romance. For romance, I love first time, established relationship, as well as a work that a couple goes on adventure/solve problems/enjoys themselves together.

General like:

I like stories with: action/adventure, banter, capture and rescue, competence, the edge between civilization and the unknown, formation of friendship, history affecting the present, humour, hurt/comfort, longing, love or friendship expressed in atypical ways, moral ambiguity, attraction between opposites, outsider POV, people telling stories, people who have each other's backs, people who flat out like each other's company, people suffering stoically, power exchange, people being resolute, secret identity (or lack of it), strong and competent characters, sense memory, time travel, traveling, slow burn, missing scenes, friends to lovers, fixing failed relationships, changing fate, things going wrong and navigating the outcomes, intense long term patient genuinely selfless physical comfort

Though it seems unlikely, if you have not yet given up on my rambling and want to research me more, I've told more about what I like here.

Narrative style opt-in:

epistolary fic, diary entries, nonlinear storytelling, in-universe social media posts, or more experimental writing modes,

DNW:

• Major character death, Rape/noncon, graphic violence/torture,
• Fixation on racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, or transphobia as the main theme of a fic, Severe homophobia or transphobia being portrayed as a cultural norm in fictional societies that aren't canonically shown to have it.
• Real life tragedy/serial killers/pandemic, Religion bashing, Serious long term/life threatening illness (e.g. Covid, cancer or AIDS), Self-harm
• Pregnancy/mpreg/kidfic, Infidelity, sexuality/gender/neurodivergence headcanons, poly conventions,
  unrequested mundane AU
• For porn: underage (character under 16)*, scat/watersports, vore, body fluids besides blood or sexual fluid, bestiality, 24/7 BDSM lifestyle (*Aging up or not specifying age is okay.)
  
  Fandom specific DNW and exceptions will be listed in fandom section

Mini-challenge

Crueltide Wanted Tropes:

Horror, emotional manipulation/emotional vulnerability, kidnapping/captivity/stockholm and lima syndromes, unhealthy relationships, fucked-up society/dystopias, satisfying acts of revenge, there are no good guys, characters willing to do morally ambiguous things presented as the sympathetic ones | characters who "only do what's 'right'" presented as unsympathetic/fake/hypocritical, evil is sexy, the lure of corruption, obsession, possessiveness

Queering the Tide:

The characters I request in A Study in Steampunk: Choice By Gaslight (Visual Novel), Top Villain: Total Domination (Visual Novel), Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén and I the Forgotten One (Visual Novel) can be selected to be queer and have same sex love interest in canon. Please feel free to write them as gay/lesbian/bi/poly/trans (including non-binary and gender fluid)

For Severed, It's text that Zahndrekh and Obyron love each other. Romantic interpretation of their relationship is welcomed. It's intriguing to me that one of Obyron's comrade confessed to him that he wanted to die by his side (and now a mindless robot). Please feel free to explore it.


Yuleporn

In case you're inspired to write anything more smut based as well, here are some ideas:

• Bondage and restraint
• sensory deprivation e.g. blindfolds
• Teasing, edging, orgasm denial/control
• Biting/marking, leaving small reminders that someone is theirs
• Characters wearing luxury jewellery, with or without clothing.
• Cuddling, slow and sweet sex, wanting to create better memory of sex for their partner
• Rough sex, celebration sex, manhandling
• quickies, wall sex, semi-public sex
• First times, kink exploration, focus on the sensory details,
• Body worship, praise kink, consensual foot kissing/massage as a sign of worship/adoration
• Non-penetrative sex: intergluteal / intercrural sex, frottage, etc (I love penetrative sex too, but I also like variety in my smut)
• Humour, laughter and banter during sex, awkward sex

General Genre Preference

General Horror Tropes I like:

• Memory control/Mind occupation & sharing, Psychological horror, nightmare, the feeling of being stalked/watched, unreliable narrator, hallucinations/nightmare, hidden horror in seemingly ordinary situation, claustrophobia
• Supernatural creatures, Ghost and what happens when people die, people who are dead don't realize they have and continue to go about as if they're alive, come back wrong, Cursed artifact
• Dream realm, characters abducted to another realm, creepy locations, atmospheric descriptions
• folk horror/folklores/old wives' tales, existential horror, cosmic/eldritch horror, dark fairy tales, dark fantasy

General Sci-fi and fantasy tropes I like:

• Time Travel,
• Body Transformation,
• Technology (Invention, application & controversy), Cyberspace
• Memory control/Mind occupation & sharing,
• First Contact, non-human characters with very different cultures/biology from humans, Mythology, Multiple planes of reality, Magic (learning, theorizing, application), Supernatural creatures, Ghost, Dream realm

Hurt/Comfort tropes:

• noble self sacrifice,
• stoic character revealing their secret weakness because of feverish dream/nightmare/hallucination/etc to friends/loved one and get comforted,
• bandaging wounds
• hypothermia and cuddling for warmth•
• characters adapting to loss with help •
• skin hunger

Romance tropes:

Pining and the feeling ends up requited • incredible level of trust and loyalty, battle couple, one character rising above the challenge to help someone they love, characters appreciating the sight of the other at work, characters touching a lot

For this exchange, I have requested:

• Severed - Nate Crowley
• A Study in Steampunk: Choice By Gaslight (Visual Novel)
• Top Villain: Total Domination (Visual Novel)
• Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
• I the Forgotten One (Visual Novel)

Severed - Nate Crowley

Requested Characters: None [Character in the tagset: Obyron (Severed), Zahndrekh (Severed)]

About the Canon

Severed is a standalone novella set in the grim dark Warhammer 40K. Zahndrekh and his bodyguard Obyron are both necron (living killer robots). When they try to crush a rebellion, they face their biggest crisis. The necron society is a rigidly military society with a lot of degradation and abuse. Even a well decorated bodyguard like Obyron is supposed to be disposible to Zahndrekh. They are fascinating for the body horror of getting stuck in a robotic body, irreversible memory loss and the highly cutthroat culture.

Obyron is both loyal and resentful of Zahndrekh, who seems to be blind to the fact that he's now a robot. However, Obyron is also willing to cover up the brutal reality for Zahndrekh to protect him. They both at different points openly admit that they feel love towards the other, and essentially defeat the villains due to the power of love.

Where to read about them: Severed

Fandom Specific DNW: Obyron and/or Zahndrekh explicitly declaring they aren't into each other at the end of the story

Prompts

Pre-canon: a glimpse of what their lives are like before turning into necrons (Zahndrekh growing up in a cutthroat society, Obyron rising to the ranks with his comrades), how they get to know and trust each other, how they deal with having to turn into robots.

Present: Zahndrekh and/or Obyron dealing with their memory loss and being stuck in robot bodies forever, going on adventures, dealing with politics, etc, what're they like when alone vs with each other vs in public, demonstration of loyalty and trust, Fallout of canon event.

While it's not necessary to include romance, I ship Obyron/Zahndrekh. First time, established, basically married murderous robots are all great to me. If you write sex between them, please feel free to take advantage of the fact that they are shapeshifting robots: non-penetrative sex, melding their “flesh” together, transformation of metal body parts for sex purpose, molding a digit precisely to each and every last crevasse of their partner’s form to commit them to sense-memory, etc.

A Study in Steampunk: Choice By Gaslight (Visual Novel)

Requested Characters: Main Character (A Study in Steampunk: Choice by Gaslight)

About the Canon

A Study of Steampunk is a text based choice of game, which you play an expy of Watson in a steampunk world also inspired by Dracula and Jack the Ripper. (Finch is the Holmes expy). In this world, some people are born with the potential to absorb life force to heal (healer) or harm (light eating). People who currently practise using life force to heal as a religion practise are called Sun worshippers and are feared and maligned in the society. Christopher Taggart is their leader which believes in peaceful protests & labour reform.

I don't have specific preference for Main Character's name

Link to the game: https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/study-in-steampunk/

Fandom specific DNW & Exception:
- MC/Grace (mention of past Grace/MC is fine)
- depiction of the canonical cholera outbreak and its impact is fine

Prompts

Pre-canon, canon missing scene, future fic, or canon divergent AU are totally fine. Gen is perfectly all right. If you want to write romance, I like MC/Finch or MC/Christopher.

Here are some suggestions, but please be reassured that I want anything.

• a glimpse of MC's life (his past as a battle surgeon, his past association with sun worshippers, watching opera, his job as police surgeon/doctor/healer/etc, hanging out with others, etc )
• More exploration of MC writing stories to shape public opinion and/or memorizing Finch. Story within a story, in-universe fanclubs, etc are great.
• general adventure, a glimpse of case investigation, character study, MC hanging out with other characters
• MC's time as a (recovering) light eater: a moment of his treatment with Taggart,
• Light Eater!MC playing cat-and-mice game with Finch. (Canon AU that MC hides his identity from everyone including Finch at the end of the story and doesn't kill Finch is appreciated too.).
• Hurt/comfort: taking care of wounds, continue the mission despite injury, self sacrifice, forced to let a cared one hurt to maintain cover, the years Finch is assumed dead, finding comfort in desperation, etc

Top Villain: Total Domination (Visual Novel)

Requested Characters: Main Character (Top Villain: Total Domination)

About the Canon

A choice of game which captures the spirit and humour of Saturday superhero cartoons with surprisingly deep characters. You play a supervillain with parents' issues who's going to conquer the world... and dealing with henchmen's strike, a superhero nemesis who you could choose to be a crush, a brilliant reporter and the sincerest imitator.

Link to the game (with a free demo of the first three chapters)

Fandom Specific DNW & exception: character as kids or temporarily transformed into kids is fine

Please feel free to write MC as male/female/non-binary, and cis/trans.

Prompts

supervillain fights, exploration of MC's parental issues, MC going on dates and /or exploring the boundary of romantic relationships, general adventure/heist/investigation, or MC working on tech, dealing with another strike/minion betrayal/interview/alien invasion/etc, MC trying to corrupt anyone to their side, partner in crime, tropey scenarios (body swap, animal transformation, identity porn, etc), MC's rule of the world, etc

Outsider POV and in-universe social media post/documents/etc or AU that Matchless Man and MC grow up together (while both trying to corrupt each other) can be great too.

I am fine with a lot of tone: humour, angst, unsettling , suspense, fluff. etc, but I prefer optimistic/happy endings Please feel free to ship MC with any combination of other nominated characters. I have no preference for MC's gender or pronoun

Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén

Requested Characters: Sidestep (Fallen Hero)

About the Canon

Fallen Hero is a series of text based choice of games with identity porn, exploration of the cost of being superheroes, people with obsession and dealing (or not dealing) with trauma and loss, angst, and the MC can lie/manipulate through the game (or gets one-upped). I've played both the games and please feel free to use or ignore anything from the author's Q&A.

I don't have preference for Sidestep & Ortega's gender, but please keep Sidestep male if there's Sidestep/Steel. Sidestep can be cis or trans. If you include any romance, first time, pre-relationship, friends with benefit, dating, PWP are all OK. I like all the romance path in the game. (eg: Steel/Ortega/m!Sidestep, Sidestep/Ortega, Sidestep/Herald, Sidestep/Herald/Ortega, Sidestep/Dr. Mortum, Sidestep/Lady Argent, etc

Fandom specific DNW & Exception
Please don't ship Steel with female characters. The infidelity DNW doesn't apply (eg Sidestep can date Dr. Mortum as Puppet while dating Steel/Ortega/Herald at the same time)

Prompts

General Likes: Identity porn, Sidestep's telepathy used for dubious/dubcon purposes; hurt (with or without comfort); competency porn; antagonistic relationships; touch-starved characters and overstimulation dark and spooky atmosphere; body horror; Lies and secrets, Sidestep not knowing how to deal with someone/people genuinely liking them, emotionally co-dependent relationship.

For a telepath, Sidestep is often blindsided by the hidden sides of people. I really like more exploration of that, or Sidestep from others' POV. Please feel free to throw in other characters like Mia, Lady Argent, Hollow Ground. I really like Sidestep's interaction with them. If you want to explorer Sidestep vs Puppet, Heartbreak scars and the psychological horror, or other possible theories, be my guest!. Canon divergent AU that Sidestep choose to be other than a supervillain when escaping from the Farm is great too.

I the Forgotten One (Visual Novel)

Requested Characters: Main Character (I the Forgotten One)

About the Canon

"You are the late King's eldest child and royal bastard. Disinherited and tossed aside, you were sent off as a child to fight in the distant frontier of the kingdom, to die forgotten and unknown. Now your country is going to fall to a rebellion led by your old comrade. It's up to you to save the country (or let it burn.)"

It's a text based interactive fiction about a traumatized veteran miserable iron woobie. They're an unloved bastard, used by their father, consumed with PTSD and disgust for themself, clawing at their own skin just to feel something.
Link to the game


Fandom Specific DNW & Exception: If there's romance/sex, please no shipping MC with opposite sex character . Depiction of aftermath of violence is fine. (character dealing with their injuries/covered with blood/etc)

Opt-in: Depiction of MC canonical self harm is fine.

Prompts:

Please hurt the woobie! Physical and/or emotional hurt/comfort are both great! I love tropes like but not limited to: accepting injury to protect someone,

• adapting to canon permanent injury,
• After injuries are patched up character A falls asleep on character B (or pretends to fall asleep on B to get tenderness without having to talk),
• aftermath & comfort for canon typical violence/betrayal/assassination attempt(s),
• A and B comfort each other while in C's captivity,
• a hurt and/or sick MC winning a battle/successfully escapes but still get comforted/etc,
• MC overworking themselves to exhaustion,
• body worship focusing on the scars and aftermath of trauma, etc

I love both action/adventure & character study. I also love story set pre-canon, during the canon, future fic, or canon divergent AU. Please feel free to throw in other characters! I have a soft spot for Darin and Valinor

MC / or & Elya: I love MC's intense, affectionate but potentially conflicted relationship with their sister. I love how devoted they are to each other. It's fine to write them as platonic, or one where everyone is clinging desperately to plausible deniability about whether they've officially crossed into taboo territory.

MC / or & Obren: I love Obren's quiet support to the MC and the development of trust to affection. I also loves how MC is totally clueless about his own feeling.

MC / or & Rade: Former comrade & friends to enemy who mutually respect each other is my catnip.

Rade has some true affection of MC, but he's also ruthless, ambitious & will manipulate MC for his benefit. More of the dark fucked up dynamic is great.