straightforwardly | Yuletide 2020 Letter

AO3: straightforwardly

Table of Contents
★ General Likes
★ DNWs

Requested Fandoms
★ Child of Light
★ Epistory - Typing Chronicles
★ Gris
★ Roguelight

General Likes [↑]

blood, blood-drinking, characters coughing up blood.
canon settings.
canon divergence AUs.
castles, shrines, abandoned ruins, dark forests, haunted locations, places with a deep sense of atmosphere and/or history.
competency & competency kink.
dysfunctional or otherwise complicated relationships, especially if the people involved genuinely care about one another.
fevers, feverish confessions.
ghosts ghosts ghosts GHOSTS.
grief/mourning
hair kink, loving descriptions of long hair, hair brushing, hair petting.
hand-holding, casual touching, any focus on hands.
hurt/comfort, especially when it features:

catching someone as they collapse
characters not realizing how bad shape they’re in until they’ve collapsed
characters coughing up blood
exhaustion
loneliness
physically injured character having to comfort character who’s emotionally distressed about that injury
silent suffering that’s forced out into the open
well-earned emotional breakdowns

outsider POV.
pet monsters, monsters that inexplicably decide that they like you, pet cats, cats that invite themselves into your life and never leave, pet snakes, foxes (wild foxes, foxes as friends and companions, just foxes in general! ♥), bees & beekeeping.
tea and tea-drinking.
trapped together / huddling for warmth scenarios.
any time-related shenanigans: time travel, time loops, peggy sue, etc.
unusual formats (e.g., epistolary, interactive fiction, non-linear storytelling, second person POV, etc.)
winter/autumn settings and atmosphere (e.g., snow, autumn leaves, pumpkins, fog, tea, etc.)
worldbuilding.

Do Not Wants [↑]

explicit sex scenes / focus on sexual content—for this year’s fandoms, I’m mostly looking for gen
eye injuries
zombies / any of the rotting undead
cannibalism, anything getting eaten alive
rattlesnakes
pregnancy, requested characters having children, kidfic, small children & babies in general
first person POV (exception: I love epistolary!)
unrequested setting-change AUs, mundane AUs, a/b/o, sci-fi/IN SPACE settings
characters who are young in canon growing old and/or dying of old age

Child of Light [↑]

Aurora, Norah

I find Norah’s relationship with Aurora so interesting! Her betrayal was actually what got me invested into this game’s story—before then, I’d been mostly playing it for the music, gameplay, and art direction. Even before the betrayal I was having some feelings about how her skillset revolves around defense/protection, which I read as “defense/protection of her little sister”, but the betrayal sent my interest skyrocketing. I love that one of the last things Norah says to Aurora before she betrays her is actually a compliment + some advice, and I’m definitely not convinced that Norah actually hated her, though I do think that Norah tried to convince herself that she did.

I actually thought that the game was gearing up for a redemption arc for her, and was pretty surprised when that didn’t happen. So… redemption arc, please? I’d love for something where she didn’t actually die after her battle with Aurora, whether it’s a more canon-compliant take where Aurora just thought that she died but she didn’t, or something where everyone involved was just badly injured. I’d be into so many different takes on this: something set while Norah is healing under Aurora’s care and bitter about it, something where they run into each other by accident months or years later, something where Norah’s been nursing some pretty complicated and bitter feelings and seeks Aurora out herself, Norah having to deal with living under Aurora’s rule in the new Lemuria… anything you can think of, really.

I was also actually pretty disappointed with how the game handled Aurora’s reactions to her sisters’ deaths. She seemed genuinely fond of them before, and her pleas to Cordelia right before that boss battle seemed so heartfelt, but she didn’t seem to care at all about their deaths afterwards. That didn’t sit right with me, and I’d definitely be interested in something dealing with that. Maybe Aurora finds herself struck with grief at odd moments? Or has to deal with a delayed grief setting in once the dust is settled? This can be combined with my above fix-it prompts (Norah suddenly appearing while she’s mourning!) or not. Or maybe she finds herself haunted by Norah’s ghost? Does she end up reconciling with her that way, or—?

You definitely don’t have to mimic the rhyming structure of the game’s dialogue. I’d rather their dialogue be closer to 19th century language structure than the 21st (since Aurora is from the 19th century), but as long as there’s not any glaringly modern slang/phrases, I’m not going to be fussy about it at all. In regards to the rest of the cast, I’d be happy to see most of them appear if needed, and am particularly fond of Óengus and Gen. That being said, I’d rather not see Robert appear / play any large role in the fic, though mentions of him are fine.

Epistory - Typing Chronicles [↑]

Protagonist, The Fox

For this fandom, I don’t want anything dealing with the real world.

I’m in love with this game's aesthetic and atmosphere. I love its take on magic and how words are used to shape it, I love the way the world literally unfolds around the protagonist as she explores it, I love the piecemeal way we’re given the story of this world and how that story literally etches itself into the earth, and most of all, I loved how exploring this world gave me a sense of there having been a great history to this world and the feeling of civilizations lost—of exploring a place where people once had been but no longer were, for reasons mysterious and strange.

What is the fox, exactly? A familiar? A spirit made flesh? Who is the protagonist, and why is she exploring this place? How did she come here? Was it deliberate? Or an accident? Did the fox summon her, somehow? Was this once her home, or is she a stranger to this place? Anything that plays with the magic system would be a delight, as would anything that takes any of the locations in the game and digs deeper into its atmosphere, its story, and the time that the fox and the protagonist spend there.

You can leave the protagonist nameless; I also like the name Audrey for her, which is what she’s called in the script (though please disregard its take on the game’s events).

As everything that I’ve written above might imply, I didn’t particularly like framing story or the ending for this game. I’ve read the script, and I know what the canonical explanation for the narrator’s story is, but I’m not interested in that aspect of the game at all. I’m purely interested in explanations for the world and story which focus on what we see in the origami world itself.

Gris [↑]

Gris, Forest Friend

I’m on Team “Yes, Video Games Do Count As Art” (as my Yuletide requests for this year might imply), and this game might be the strongest argument in favor of that position that I’ve ever experienced. The way that the game play and art direction combine to craft this incredibly moving metaphor for grief/mourning just leaves me in awe, and playing it was easily one of my favorite gaming experiences this year.

That all being said, for this Yuletide, I’m looking for a fic that takes the events of the game literally, not metaphorically. You can explore the themes of grief/mourning as much or as little as you like, but what I want above all else is for a fic that treats the world of the game as though it were a real world, and the events of the game as though they were something that were actually happening.

I have such a deep affection for the Forest Friend—to the extent that I had a minor meltdown of cuteness on twitter about it while I was playing the game. Let the Forest Friend eat all the block-apples! HUG THE CUTE FOREST FRIEND. I would love to receive anything about Gris interacting with her Forest Friend, whether it’s during the events of the game or a reunion that takes place after she’s achieved her goal. They need to have a chance to have that hug that you see in the concept art, after all! If you’re going with the grief/mourning/depression themes, something about Gris taking comfort in the presence of her adorable friend would also be great.

And what is Gris’ goal, anyway, if we’re going to take the events of the game literally? I’m up for all sorts of takes—as long as the mood/worldbuilding matches the mood/implications of the game, I’m here for whatever you come up with! Relatedly, I also opt-into receiving a fic that doesn’t include the Forest Friend if it deals with Gris and the world around her and/or her relationship with the statue (who I forgot to nominate, whoops).

If you need firmer inspiration, something about the framing of the game makes me tend towards the thoughts of the divine. Maybe Gris is a (minor?) goddess who falls, and then spends the rest of the game trying to return to her place in the heavens. Or maybe she’s the faithful worshipper of a goddess who falls—the statue—and the game is about her trying to restore her deity to her proper place. Or maybe it has nothing to do with divinity at all! Could she be a witch who suddenly loses her magic due to—? To what? Because of grief—grief over the loss of a friend—the statue, perhaps? Or another event entirely? What is going on with her mirror self, anyway—could that play a role?

Roguelight [↑]

The Archer

Roguelight is a free indie platformer. It can be found here.

I was incredibly charmed and fascinated by this game when I played it a few years back. The graphics, the atmosphere, the interplay between darkness and light, the image of this archer girl slowly descending further into the dungeon, guided only by the light of her arrows—I loved it all.

I’d be interested in anything that explores her journey, especially if it captures the same atmosphere as the game. Worldbuilding is also always a plus. Why is she descending into this dungeon/cave/whatever it actually is? I have a vague idea of her village somehow being threatened by what’s down there, but if you have a different take on it, feel free to show me! What are those creatures she fights? What is that thing at the end, and why does breaking the cocoons kill it? Where does the fire she lights her arrows with come from? Is it magic, or something else?

I’d also love anything that focuses on the archer’s mental/emotional state as she descends. Does it get wearying and/or suffocating to be surrounded by such total darkness? Or maybe show me a moment where she takes a brief rest before continuing on. I’d also be interested in those moments where she runs out of arrows, and has to grope around in the darkness to find more before something attacks her. (Why are there arrows just lying all over, anyways? Did they belong to others who tried and failed to descend?)

As far as I know, the main character doesn’t have a canonical name, and I’d prefer it if you avoided giving her one. Referring to her only by pronouns, using second person POV, or simply referring to her by titles such as the Archer or the Rogue are all fine ways to do that.