Dear Yuletide Writer (2020)

Hello, Yuletide author! I go by Eida on AO3. Thank you so much for writing for me!

To start things off, my do-not-wants are:

 

*Explicit sex (I'm fine with fade-to-black or implications of it happening offscreen)
*Mentions of child sexual abuse

In general, I enjoy a wide range of fic, and will almost certainly enjoy yours as well.

I would rather not have a 100% hopeless and unhappy ending, but other than that, everything from fluffy lightness to angsty-with-a-bittersweet-ending is fine by me.

I’m also open to “non-standard” fic formats. I enjoy epistolary fic and in-universe meta, I’m open to getting whatever style of narration (first/second/third limited/third omniscient) you think fits the story best, and I opt in to the potential of getting some form of interactive fiction. (Of course, more “standard” fic formats are much-loved as well!)

I am also open to canon-divergence AUs.

Other general likes:

*Competent people in their element

*Characters being protective of each other

*Found/Chosen family

*Missing scenes (including backstory)

*Bonds forged in adversity

*Excerpts from in-universe documents

*Exploring the ways in which non-human characters differ from humans

*Worldbuilding in general

Fandoms/Characters being requested:

Dinotopia – James Gurney (Any)

Dr. Franklin’s Island – Ann Halam (Semirah Garson, Miranda Fallow)

Feral Hearts - Kerli (Music Video) (Floating Girl, White Stag Woman)

Final Fantasy VI (Celes Chere, Terra Branford)

Ga1ahad and Scientific Witchery – Mili (Song) (Ga1ahad, Narrator | Witch)

Dinotopia – James Gurney

Characters: Any (Tagset contains Arthur Denison, Bix, Enit, and Sylvia Romano)

I really love this setting. I love the entire concept of a somewhat-utopian society of humans and dinosaurs living and working together; I love the rich and fascinating world that James Gurney created.  

I would be thrilled with basically anything set in this world. (And I love basically all kinds of dinosaurs, both the well-known and the obscure.) Anything with worldbuilding would be fantastic; I’m 100% fine with fic centered entirely around OCs for this fandom.

Prompts:

*Really, I’d enjoy anything focusing on any aspect of life in Dinotopia, even something that might seem relatively mundane in the “real world,” but has to be adapted for the wide array of species that call Dinotopia home. (I quite enjoyed the fic about dentistry in Dinotopia from a previous Yuletide!)

*I’d also be interested in seeing how Dinotopia might interact with the outside world once technology allowed for travel in and out of the island. Would any saurians decide to try life outside of Dinotopia? Would there be student exchange programs? What kind of cultural exchanges might take place? 

*I was also fascinated by the crystal-based technological society that was part of Dinotopia’s history—I’d enjoy seeing something that either features something about historians further researching/exploring the ruins of Dinotopia’s past or something set in Poseidos or the World Beneath during that past.

Dr. Franklin’s Island – Ann Halam

Characters: Semirah Garson, Miranda Fallow

I am fine with either a platonic or romantic relationship between these two.

I really loved this book--the idea of transformation has always been compelling to me, and I also really like seeing characters thrown together who are forced to deal with extremely difficult circumstances, and end up developing a deep bond because of it.

The ending of the book was intriguing. Not only are the three castaways having to adjust to a normal life after their ordeal on the island, Semirah states that she thinks that, Miranda, and Arnie have the capability to change back into their animal forms—in a way that is chosen and controlled by them, rather than forced. In the coda, Semi describes the possibility in positive terms:

I know that we can transform again. I believe it will happen, some way, somehow. I think about breathing water and swimming through the music of the ocean… I know that Miranda will never forget being able to fly. I dream of another planet, with an ocean of heavy air, where I can swim and she can fly, where we can be the marvelous creatures that we became; and be free, together, with no bars between us…

Of course, it’s possible that Miranda’s feelings about the possibility of turning back into a bird (even if she can change back at will) might be more conflicted—she came much closer to losing her human sense of self than Semi did. 

Prompts:

*A fic set in some portion of the book which explores Miranda's viewpoint (as the book itself is written from Semirah's POV). Semirah initially sees Miranda as the strong one, and Miranda does a lot to help Semi get through her ordeal, but Miranda clearly cares a lot about Semi, and admires Semi's inventiveness when the three (which becomes two, once Arnie disappears) of them are still trying to survive, and Semi becomes Miranda's rock just as much as Miranda was Semi's. 

*Semi and Miranda email back and forth after they both return home, discussing their experiences readjusting to normal life, and talking over their thoughts about their shared ordeal. The fact that they've had such a dramatic, transformational (in more ways than one!) experience that they can't share with anyone who didn't go through it will mean that they'll probably have quite a bit to say to each other, to let everything out.

*Semi toys with the idea of possibly being able to turn back; Miranda isn't sure what to feel about it—although she enjoyed flight, she still remembers what it was like to start losing hold of her humanity. And if Semi manages to succeed—what would happen then? Will they ever find a place where they can let their other sides out once more, and will Miranda even want to?

*The secret of Dr. Franklin's experiments get out, and Semi and Miranda find themselves the subject of media scrutiny, as they'd feared; they're forced to deal with the consequences. How do they react? Do they try to take control of the situation as much as they can (if they can get the public at large on their side, then perhaps they're less likely to be swept off to some secret government lab, for fear of backlash) or do they flee?

Feral Hearts - Kerli (Music Video) 

Characters: Floating Girl, White Stag Woman

The music video can be watched here.

I love the magical woodland setting of this video, and I feel like there might be a number of possible stories one could tell about it.

The video seems to center around a young girl who enters—and eventually leaves—the forest through a doorway made of branches. Shortly after stepping through, she begins to levitate off the ground, and she looks around the forest in wonder.

An antlered woman peers at her from behind a tree, watching the girl as she makes her way deeper into the forest, encountering various beings (all played by Kerli) as she goes along, each of which is supposed to represent a different element—a butterfly-winged fairy for air, a mermaid for water, a spider-woman for fire, and the white-antlered woman for earth.

Kerli also commented on a few other pieces of symbolism in the video. Regarding the mirrors, she said "The mirror symbolizes spiritual reflection - fearlessly looking at oneself... once the little girl catches the white stag/her vision, it is surrounded by nothing else but mirrors. Meaning, to achieve your highest potential, one needs to achieve complete and unapologetic self acceptance. The gold is not further outside. It is deeper inside." One could think of it as a sort of coming-of-age narrative for the girl; through her journey through the woods, she learns something about herself.

Prompts:

*Perhaps the girl is part of a family of human magicians who have served as guardians of a magic forest; once each child reaches a certain age, they are sent into the forest to become acquainted with the beings who live there.

*Or maybe the girl is an apprentice witch/wizard/magician/pick your favorite term for magic-user. She goes into the magic forest as part of her training, possibly to seek some particular spell reagent or to seek wisdom from the denizens of the woods. Or perhaps she has to travel through the woods as a test, or the final trial before she can complete this stage of her training.

*Alternatively, maybe the girl is part-fae; she travels into the forest in hopes of learning more about that side of her heritage. There may be some complications, depending on who the girl's fairy relations are. (Are they widely liked or disliked? Do they have enemies? Are they high-ranking members of some faerie court?)

Final Fantasy VI

Characters: Celes Chere, Terra Branford

I’m fine with either a platonic or romantic relationship between these two.

Final Fantasy VI is one of my favorites in the Final Fantasy series, and Celes and Terra are my two favorite characters.

They have a number of parallels—both teenagers around the same age, both raised in Vector, both turned into weapons for the Gestahlian Empire, both capable of using magic without the use of magicite (though in Terra’s case it’s inborn esper magic and in Celes’ Magitek infusions). 

By virtue of their shared background, they’d met before the events of the game, and in the GBA translation, at least, after Celes joins with the Returners in Narshe she says “Terra... Who'd have thought we'd meet again... like this?” This rather makes it sound like they had some level of familiarity with each other before Kefka put the Slave Crown on Terra, though Terra, due to Crown-induced amnesia, doesn’t seem to remember.

One of the major themes in Terra’s story is figuring out just who and what she is—between her loss of memory and her discovery that she’s not entirely human—the same theme is also present for Celes, in a way, in that Celes has to figure out who she is outside of the Empire and the warrior they made of her (given that she was made a full-on general by the age of 18, it seems like she’d already gotten a significant amount of battle experience as a teenager—and given that she got the Magitek infusions as a child, she was basically raised to be a soldier for the Empire).

Prompts:

*What interactions might Celes and Terra have had when they were younger, before Terra got the Crown put on her? What did they think of each other? And how did Celes react when she discovered that Kefka had put the Crown on Terra?

*In Narshe, Terra, worried that her magic sets her apart from other people, asks Celes if she’s capable of love—which Celes understandably takes as mockery. Do the two of them ever end up having an actual discussion about it?

*After Kefka wrecks the world, Terra winds up basically adopting all the orphans of Mobliz. It doesn’t seem like Terra or Celes had anything like a normal childhood—Celes at least had Cid as something of a father-figure, but even so. Still, Terra seems to be doing a pretty decent job at being a foster parent—and perhaps Celes helps babysit from time to time. (Though after Kefka’s defeat, perhaps Terra is able to get some of the kids adopted.) I’d be interested in seeing something with Terra and Celes interacting with the kids either during or after the game. 

*What other things do Terra and Celes get up to after the game? Even if Celes ends up traveling around with Locke (or with someone else, or even alone) post-game, she might wind up back at Mobliz to visit—or perhaps Terra might ask for her help if there’s an outbreak of monsters nearby, or some other issue Celes could assist with.

Ga1ahad and Scientific Witchery – Mili (Song)

Characters: Ga1ahad, Narrator | Witch

The song can be listened to here. The lyrics can be found here.

I’m good with an interpretation of Ga1ahad as being either male or female (I’ll admit I kind of like the idea of the witch/Ga1ahad relationship being F/F.)

There’s something compelling about the relationship between Ga1ahad and the Witch.

Going by the lyrics—the witch empowered (and perhaps created) Ga1ahad, and going off reference to “The magical potion of reanimation” in the first line, it sounds like the witch is resurrecting Ga1ahad after Ga1ahad dies.

Of course, a few lines later, there’s “Rise from bed my darling / So I can see you again / So I can kill you again.”

These two appear to have a… somewhat love-hate relationship with each other. After Ga1ahad tells the witch “Someday I’ll conquer the land and have you slain” and “I appreciate your thoughts / But you’ve given me too much to tolerate,” the witch replies “I’ve done so much for you / But you treat me this way,” followed by a lyric in which both say “No forgiveness for this endless love / My goddess never looked at me.”

The setting here is also fascinating—as the “Scientific Witchery” of the title implies, there’s a blend between fantasy and sci-fi elements (with Ga1ahad using lasers as weapons and one of the witch’s spells backing up Ga1ahad’s “thoughts to the cloud”). 

Prompts:

*It’s possible that Ga1ahad might have been techno-magically empowered by the witch for the specific purpose of fighting (other) witches (“The witches can’t be loved / so bravely I fought”). If that’s the case, why? Was the witch trying to get rid of the competition, or was there some other reason? Why did Ga1ahad eventually turn on her?

*Of course, there might have been some other original reason, with Ga1ahad taking up witch-slaying on their own after falling out with the witch. If that’s the case… what was the original reason the witch decided to enchant (or perhaps even create, if Ga1ahad is some sort of magically-created being or even a robo-knight—Ga1ahad is described as “the new upgrade,” after all) Ga1ahad? Why did Ga1ahad start on their anti-witch crusade?

*What happened with Lance10t, anyways? Did Ga1ahad know Lance10t personally, or only through stories/reputation? Why does the witch warn Ga1ahad to not be like Lance10t? (In Arthurian myth, Lancelot is Galahad’s father; whether or not this ties in at all with what you write is entirely up to you.)

*The final lyrics hint at the possibility of some sort of reconciliation—“There’s no return, and there’s no repeat / Can’t go back to how we used to be / There’s no restart, but only proceed / Take up from where we’ve left off and see.” What leads Ga1ahad and the witch to this point?