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Dear Yuletider
Hi, thank you for writing a story for me!
Firstly, if there's a story about the characters we got matched on that you really want to write, please don't feel like you need to write something that's a better match to my letter instead. An idea you're excited for is almost always going to be a better story than one written when you want to be writing something else. But if you're looking for ideas to spark off, here are some things I like (and a few things I'd rather not receive).
Generally: I love happy or somewhat hopeful endings. I love stories that hinge on relationships - romantic or family or friendship or antagonism or difficult respect. I love clever magic and plottiness and monsters and desperate codependent huddles. I love amnesia and memory shenanigans, and communication troubles, especially with a magical or SFnal bent, and In Vino Veritas and truth spells and deception and telepathy. I love charming plot-lite banter and cute animals, especially if they're a little weird. I love robots and AIs. I love listfic - 20 facts, care and feeding instructions, fic in the form of recipes etc. I love AUs, especially with self-indulgent tropey settings - high school, space, band AUs etc. I love canon fic too, but just to say that if you were wondering about AUs, I am cool with them :) (The one caveat I'll add there is that I don't like seeing characters' nationalities changed for AUs.) If you're writing shipfic, I prefer getting together to established relationship, unless the characters are canonically together.
Femslash, slash, het or gen are all fine, and I don't mind about rating - you can go as high as you like, or you can write the G-est of G-fics, whatever works for the story.
I would rather not get: Tragic or unrequited endings, noncon or dubcon, omegaverse, infidelity, pregnancy and babyfic, or marriage and weddings. If there's a canon character - other than villains - that you dislike for any reason, I'd rather you not include them in the fic.
My fic recs are here if that is helpful.
The rest of the letter is identical to the optional details in my sign-up, except for an extra paragraph for Disney Princesses.
Chihayafuru
Characters: Chihaya, Shinobu
I'd love to see future fic about them playing one another, or maybe something from Shinobu's POV about her growing awareness of Chihaya. Or the process of Chihaya falling first for Shinobu's karuta and then for her. I'd love it if their relationship - whatever it is - was difficult, because Shinobu is spiky and lonely and aggressively ambitious and an arrogant jerk and also pretty knowingly charismatic, and Chihaya is oblivious and sometimes a bit of a steamroller and sometimes really uncertain, and also a weird mixture of socially inept and effortlessly charming/delightful, in a way that might be baffling or aggravating to Shinobu. And also because they are, of course, rivals.
I'd also love to see them in an AU setting where their karuta obsession and ambition is changed into obsession with something else.
I'd love femslash about them, but platonic rivalship/friendship would also be great.
Bonus points for Chitose and Shinobu in a scene together, because I think they would be hilarious.
Spoiler note: I'm caught up on the manga. (If you only know the anime, don't worry about contradicting the manga for future fic or anything, that's fine.)
The Church Mice Series - Graham Oakley
Characters: any
These picture books were one of the highlights of my childhood. They were hilarious and witty and charming and I used to stare for hours at the illustrations of dozens of mice being flighty and self-involved in their own activities all over the page. I would love literally anything in this universe.
I would be especially delighted with something G-ratedly shippy between Arthur (the original church mouse) and Humphrey (the school mouse), because I ship them about as hard as you can ship children's book mice. I love the way they start out working at cross-purposes in the first book and end up best friends, and the way they team up to involve Sampson and all the mice in mad schemes for entirely different reasons, Humphrey fired up by his reading and in love with his own cleverness and Arthur puffing up with leaderly self-importance and common sense.
But I would equally love interaction between any of the other characters. Anything with a sense of the ensemble - other mice doing playful/self-important/sneaky/romantic/sleepy things in the background of scenes that are not about them, like the canon illustrations - would make me really happy. (Don't worry about whether you know or can remember enough canon - I've only read the ones that I had as a child or have happened to find in libraries.)
Possible prompts: Arthur and Humphrey and a near-death experience (possibly in-canon during e.g. The Church Mice Spread Their Wings?) Humphrey attempting to read something edifying to Arthur, with interruptions. Arthur and loneliness - something comparative about what it was like for him before the series, as compared to now? Arthur or Sampson learning the tricks to herding mice. Top times that Sampson nearly broke his vow of peace and brotherhood. Top times that Sampson would have much preferred to be napping. First time Humphrey had a conversation with the Vicar.
Disney Princesses
Characters: Belle, Megara
I didn't want to overload my request with characters, to help with matching, but I would love to receive any combination of Belle, Mulan, Megara, Ariel or Tiana. (They weren't nominated, but I would also be delighted with fic centring on/including Jane from Tarzan or Tiana's friend Charlotte.)
I don't dislike any of the princesses, so feel free to include any of the others as secondary characters (although I have a bit of a mental block about envisoning 2D-style and 3D-style animated characters together, so as much as I love Merida, I would rather neither she nor Rapunzel be major characters.)
I would love a super-tropey AU setting, like high school (studious good girl Belle with a crush on motorcycle-riding bad girl Meg! Tiana exhausted from her part-time job falling asleep in history, while Naveen dedicates himself to covering for her!) or college/university or a sports AU or a band AU (lead singer Ariel losing her voice right before the biggest gig their band has ever had!) or a space AU or a period AU of some kind or or or. Because it's not a single canon, Disney Princesses is the one fandom where I'm cool with characters' nationality being changed for an AU, so long as their heritage remains e.g. French for Belle, Greek for Megara etc.
I would love something that feels like an ensemble, with other Disney characters having cameos or appearing in the background of scenes or being mentioned in conversation.
I would really love femslash, about any of the characters I listed in any combination. If that's not your thing, friendship or rivalry between any of them would be cool. My favourite of the canon ships is Tiana/Naveen, so I'd love to see some of that. Megara/Hercules and Mulan/Shang charm me a lot too. My favourites of the princes in general are Naveen, Aladdin and Shang, so I'd love to see any of them too. I also love the villains, especially Ursula.
If you're not keen on AUs and ensembles, some canon-compatible stories I think would be cool to read are: Something about Tiana and Charlotte as children, because I love their friendship, and Lotte is hilarious. Tiana meeting Naveen's family, maybe. Something with Meg and Hades together, her giving back as good as she got, because as awful as Meg's servitude is, they do have a fun dynamic. A crossover with Belle and Ariel, since they're both in Europe in approximately the same timeframe. Something about Belle's childhood, little girl with her head in a book weaving her way through her dad's loopy inventions, before she got old enough to draw attention from jerks for her beauty; I'd like to meet that girl.
Gate 7
Characters: Chikahito, Tachibana
I would honestly be delighted with just about any Gate 7 fic that isn't Tachibana/Sakura (I don't object to them as a pairing, but I also don't ship them). But I requested Tachibana and Chikahito in particular because I'd love to see pairing fic for them. I love the way Tachibana's attitude towards Chikahito is shifting; he still calls him freeloader and side-eyes Hana's attachment to him, but he's also started fussing over him not leaving the house without his lunch etc.
But I would also be into Hana/Chikahito - especially in a way that highlights Hana's androgyny - or just Hana & Chikahito in a non-shippy way. (Or Tachibana & Chikahito in a non-shippy way, because I think they have a fun dynamic either way.) Masamune is also hilarious and I love him, both his grand-standing and his ridiculous love for Hana and the way Hana responds to that, so I'd love to read something about him, with Hana or Chikahito or anyone. Hidetsugu and Mikoto are really fun, and I love Mikoto and Hana together, and would love to read more of their interaction. Feel free to swap out Chikahito and/or Tachibana for any of those characters, basically.
On a more general note, I'm super into the things Gate 7 is doing with gender and gender roles, so anything written with an eye to that, in a thinky way or just any kind of gendered trope subversion, would please me to pieces.
(Just ... Hana is neither a boy nor a girl. Chikahito is basically this passive ingenue heroine: he's meek and a sweetheart, and the things we see him doing are basically cooking, holding hands with Hana, responding with wide eyes and fluttering pulse and sweet delighted smile to all gestures of affection, being ordered around, and being rescued; the only active thing he's done that I can bring to mind is jumping protectively in front of somebody, and even that was the feminine-coded kind of protection, the you-will-have-to-hurt-me-to-get-to-this-person kind, with wide flung arms rather than any kind of fighting stance. Sakura and Tachibana are specifically associated with yin and yang respectively, and Sakura is an excellent cook and works in a geisha house, but then Tachibana is the one who grumpily fusses over everybody in the house remembering their lunches and being prepared for the weather and studying enough, and there are jokes about Sakura managing Tachibana like a husband comforting his hysterical wife. And that's just the central cast, there's all this interesting gendered stuff in the extended cast too. I mean damn.)
Gunnerkrigg Court
Characters: Kat, Annie
Again, I limited my character requests to help with matching, but I would be equally delighted with fic about Robot and Shadow (adorable anthropomorphic companions in love!), Kat and Paz (giddily pleased new girlfriends goofing around playing video games and secretly making out in corners!), Zimmy and Gamma (desperately intertwined and needing each other so bad and using each other and deeply in love), Parley and Smitty (maybe especially something incorporating before they got together, when Parley was flirting by joking and shoving Smitty around and Smitty was sort of quietly pining), or Winsbury and Janet (their insane adorable secret relationship, oh my god).
For Kat and Annie, I would dearly love femslash if that's your thing. In terms of specific prompts, it would be fun to see Annie realise her feelings and then just get to see what she would do with them. Like, what the Antimony Carver version of pining and courtship would look like, because it would probably be super weird. And also she's quite secretive, so she would probably be really stealthy about it. Alternatively, I'd like to see Annie be super, super oblivious and just not get Kat's feelings at all for the longest time.
I would also be delighted with friendship fic for Kat and Annie, especially in a way where their friendship is maybe threatened or strained, because of secrets or misunderstandings. Or one of them rescuing the other, or finding out the other is in danger/has been hurt.
Alternatively, I think some kind of magical or SF trope would be really fun, for any of these pairs of characters - body swap, sudden telepathy, amnesia, etc.
No. 6
Characters: Shion, Nezumi
I love all the No. 6 characters, and would be delighted with anyone else you chose to incorporate, but it's Shion and Nezumi's relationship that breaks me into delighted and battered pieces. You can make that relationship as explicit or as full of vague and inarticulate yearning as the canon, whichever you prefer - I am equally down for explicit scenes or significant touches on the cheek.
I adore reunion fic, in a completely unapologetic way, especially if it's preceded by loneliness and missing each other. I love all permutations of their reunion, but maybe especially if the reunion isn't easy, at least at first. If it's unexpected, or if they thought they were prepared but find they're not; if the things that were terrifying about each other are still terrifying, or if things feel too new; if they don't know how to touch, or don't know how to talk to each other. If Shion wants to welcome Nezumi with love but finds he's so twisted up with the angry loneliness that his first impulse on seeing him again is to strike him or cry, rather than kiss him, and so doesn't know how to respond at all. If Nezumi is still frightened of Shion, still resents him for making Nezumi need him, or for dying, or for working towards the rebuilding of No. 6. If this kind of life-changing love is still terrifying and difficult and too important.
I will also, unusually for me, read domestic established Shion/Nezumi all day every day, whether it's set post-reunion or in West Block during canon. Anything with that touchstone of love between them, tea and books and mice and sarcasm and dancing and adjusting to life in the West Block/in the new No. 6, will make me a very happy camper indeed.
I would also love to read something immediately pre-reunion, about the lead-up to Nezumi deciding to go back - what he's thinking about, what he's doing.
AUs also welcomed, especially with settings that mirror the danger and desperate situations of canon in some way.
Feel free to incorporate canon from the anime, manga or novel, if you've read/watched more than one of them. They're all mixed up in my head anyway.
Firstly, if there's a story about the characters we got matched on that you really want to write, please don't feel like you need to write something that's a better match to my letter instead. An idea you're excited for is almost always going to be a better story than one written when you want to be writing something else. But if you're looking for ideas to spark off, here are some things I like (and a few things I'd rather not receive).
Generally: I love happy or somewhat hopeful endings. I love stories that hinge on relationships - romantic or family or friendship or antagonism or difficult respect. I love clever magic and plottiness and monsters and desperate codependent huddles. I love amnesia and memory shenanigans, and communication troubles, especially with a magical or SFnal bent, and In Vino Veritas and truth spells and deception and telepathy. I love charming plot-lite banter and cute animals, especially if they're a little weird. I love robots and AIs. I love listfic - 20 facts, care and feeding instructions, fic in the form of recipes etc. I love AUs, especially with self-indulgent tropey settings - high school, space, band AUs etc. I love canon fic too, but just to say that if you were wondering about AUs, I am cool with them :) (The one caveat I'll add there is that I don't like seeing characters' nationalities changed for AUs.) If you're writing shipfic, I prefer getting together to established relationship, unless the characters are canonically together.
Femslash, slash, het or gen are all fine, and I don't mind about rating - you can go as high as you like, or you can write the G-est of G-fics, whatever works for the story.
I would rather not get: Tragic or unrequited endings, noncon or dubcon, omegaverse, infidelity, pregnancy and babyfic, or marriage and weddings. If there's a canon character - other than villains - that you dislike for any reason, I'd rather you not include them in the fic.
My fic recs are here if that is helpful.
The rest of the letter is identical to the optional details in my sign-up, except for an extra paragraph for Disney Princesses.
Chihayafuru
Characters: Chihaya, Shinobu
I'd love to see future fic about them playing one another, or maybe something from Shinobu's POV about her growing awareness of Chihaya. Or the process of Chihaya falling first for Shinobu's karuta and then for her. I'd love it if their relationship - whatever it is - was difficult, because Shinobu is spiky and lonely and aggressively ambitious and an arrogant jerk and also pretty knowingly charismatic, and Chihaya is oblivious and sometimes a bit of a steamroller and sometimes really uncertain, and also a weird mixture of socially inept and effortlessly charming/delightful, in a way that might be baffling or aggravating to Shinobu. And also because they are, of course, rivals.
I'd also love to see them in an AU setting where their karuta obsession and ambition is changed into obsession with something else.
I'd love femslash about them, but platonic rivalship/friendship would also be great.
Bonus points for Chitose and Shinobu in a scene together, because I think they would be hilarious.
Spoiler note: I'm caught up on the manga. (If you only know the anime, don't worry about contradicting the manga for future fic or anything, that's fine.)
The Church Mice Series - Graham Oakley
Characters: any
These picture books were one of the highlights of my childhood. They were hilarious and witty and charming and I used to stare for hours at the illustrations of dozens of mice being flighty and self-involved in their own activities all over the page. I would love literally anything in this universe.
I would be especially delighted with something G-ratedly shippy between Arthur (the original church mouse) and Humphrey (the school mouse), because I ship them about as hard as you can ship children's book mice. I love the way they start out working at cross-purposes in the first book and end up best friends, and the way they team up to involve Sampson and all the mice in mad schemes for entirely different reasons, Humphrey fired up by his reading and in love with his own cleverness and Arthur puffing up with leaderly self-importance and common sense.
But I would equally love interaction between any of the other characters. Anything with a sense of the ensemble - other mice doing playful/self-important/sneaky/romantic/sleepy things in the background of scenes that are not about them, like the canon illustrations - would make me really happy. (Don't worry about whether you know or can remember enough canon - I've only read the ones that I had as a child or have happened to find in libraries.)
Possible prompts: Arthur and Humphrey and a near-death experience (possibly in-canon during e.g. The Church Mice Spread Their Wings?) Humphrey attempting to read something edifying to Arthur, with interruptions. Arthur and loneliness - something comparative about what it was like for him before the series, as compared to now? Arthur or Sampson learning the tricks to herding mice. Top times that Sampson nearly broke his vow of peace and brotherhood. Top times that Sampson would have much preferred to be napping. First time Humphrey had a conversation with the Vicar.
Disney Princesses
Characters: Belle, Megara
I didn't want to overload my request with characters, to help with matching, but I would love to receive any combination of Belle, Mulan, Megara, Ariel or Tiana. (They weren't nominated, but I would also be delighted with fic centring on/including Jane from Tarzan or Tiana's friend Charlotte.)
I don't dislike any of the princesses, so feel free to include any of the others as secondary characters (although I have a bit of a mental block about envisoning 2D-style and 3D-style animated characters together, so as much as I love Merida, I would rather neither she nor Rapunzel be major characters.)
I would love a super-tropey AU setting, like high school (studious good girl Belle with a crush on motorcycle-riding bad girl Meg! Tiana exhausted from her part-time job falling asleep in history, while Naveen dedicates himself to covering for her!) or college/university or a sports AU or a band AU (lead singer Ariel losing her voice right before the biggest gig their band has ever had!) or a space AU or a period AU of some kind or or or. Because it's not a single canon, Disney Princesses is the one fandom where I'm cool with characters' nationality being changed for an AU, so long as their heritage remains e.g. French for Belle, Greek for Megara etc.
I would love something that feels like an ensemble, with other Disney characters having cameos or appearing in the background of scenes or being mentioned in conversation.
I would really love femslash, about any of the characters I listed in any combination. If that's not your thing, friendship or rivalry between any of them would be cool. My favourite of the canon ships is Tiana/Naveen, so I'd love to see some of that. Megara/Hercules and Mulan/Shang charm me a lot too. My favourites of the princes in general are Naveen, Aladdin and Shang, so I'd love to see any of them too. I also love the villains, especially Ursula.
If you're not keen on AUs and ensembles, some canon-compatible stories I think would be cool to read are: Something about Tiana and Charlotte as children, because I love their friendship, and Lotte is hilarious. Tiana meeting Naveen's family, maybe. Something with Meg and Hades together, her giving back as good as she got, because as awful as Meg's servitude is, they do have a fun dynamic. A crossover with Belle and Ariel, since they're both in Europe in approximately the same timeframe. Something about Belle's childhood, little girl with her head in a book weaving her way through her dad's loopy inventions, before she got old enough to draw attention from jerks for her beauty; I'd like to meet that girl.
Gate 7
Characters: Chikahito, Tachibana
I would honestly be delighted with just about any Gate 7 fic that isn't Tachibana/Sakura (I don't object to them as a pairing, but I also don't ship them). But I requested Tachibana and Chikahito in particular because I'd love to see pairing fic for them. I love the way Tachibana's attitude towards Chikahito is shifting; he still calls him freeloader and side-eyes Hana's attachment to him, but he's also started fussing over him not leaving the house without his lunch etc.
But I would also be into Hana/Chikahito - especially in a way that highlights Hana's androgyny - or just Hana & Chikahito in a non-shippy way. (Or Tachibana & Chikahito in a non-shippy way, because I think they have a fun dynamic either way.) Masamune is also hilarious and I love him, both his grand-standing and his ridiculous love for Hana and the way Hana responds to that, so I'd love to read something about him, with Hana or Chikahito or anyone. Hidetsugu and Mikoto are really fun, and I love Mikoto and Hana together, and would love to read more of their interaction. Feel free to swap out Chikahito and/or Tachibana for any of those characters, basically.
On a more general note, I'm super into the things Gate 7 is doing with gender and gender roles, so anything written with an eye to that, in a thinky way or just any kind of gendered trope subversion, would please me to pieces.
(Just ... Hana is neither a boy nor a girl. Chikahito is basically this passive ingenue heroine: he's meek and a sweetheart, and the things we see him doing are basically cooking, holding hands with Hana, responding with wide eyes and fluttering pulse and sweet delighted smile to all gestures of affection, being ordered around, and being rescued; the only active thing he's done that I can bring to mind is jumping protectively in front of somebody, and even that was the feminine-coded kind of protection, the you-will-have-to-hurt-me-to-get-to-this-person kind, with wide flung arms rather than any kind of fighting stance. Sakura and Tachibana are specifically associated with yin and yang respectively, and Sakura is an excellent cook and works in a geisha house, but then Tachibana is the one who grumpily fusses over everybody in the house remembering their lunches and being prepared for the weather and studying enough, and there are jokes about Sakura managing Tachibana like a husband comforting his hysterical wife. And that's just the central cast, there's all this interesting gendered stuff in the extended cast too. I mean damn.)
Gunnerkrigg Court
Characters: Kat, Annie
Again, I limited my character requests to help with matching, but I would be equally delighted with fic about Robot and Shadow (adorable anthropomorphic companions in love!), Kat and Paz (giddily pleased new girlfriends goofing around playing video games and secretly making out in corners!), Zimmy and Gamma (desperately intertwined and needing each other so bad and using each other and deeply in love), Parley and Smitty (maybe especially something incorporating before they got together, when Parley was flirting by joking and shoving Smitty around and Smitty was sort of quietly pining), or Winsbury and Janet (their insane adorable secret relationship, oh my god).
For Kat and Annie, I would dearly love femslash if that's your thing. In terms of specific prompts, it would be fun to see Annie realise her feelings and then just get to see what she would do with them. Like, what the Antimony Carver version of pining and courtship would look like, because it would probably be super weird. And also she's quite secretive, so she would probably be really stealthy about it. Alternatively, I'd like to see Annie be super, super oblivious and just not get Kat's feelings at all for the longest time.
I would also be delighted with friendship fic for Kat and Annie, especially in a way where their friendship is maybe threatened or strained, because of secrets or misunderstandings. Or one of them rescuing the other, or finding out the other is in danger/has been hurt.
Alternatively, I think some kind of magical or SF trope would be really fun, for any of these pairs of characters - body swap, sudden telepathy, amnesia, etc.
No. 6
Characters: Shion, Nezumi
I love all the No. 6 characters, and would be delighted with anyone else you chose to incorporate, but it's Shion and Nezumi's relationship that breaks me into delighted and battered pieces. You can make that relationship as explicit or as full of vague and inarticulate yearning as the canon, whichever you prefer - I am equally down for explicit scenes or significant touches on the cheek.
I adore reunion fic, in a completely unapologetic way, especially if it's preceded by loneliness and missing each other. I love all permutations of their reunion, but maybe especially if the reunion isn't easy, at least at first. If it's unexpected, or if they thought they were prepared but find they're not; if the things that were terrifying about each other are still terrifying, or if things feel too new; if they don't know how to touch, or don't know how to talk to each other. If Shion wants to welcome Nezumi with love but finds he's so twisted up with the angry loneliness that his first impulse on seeing him again is to strike him or cry, rather than kiss him, and so doesn't know how to respond at all. If Nezumi is still frightened of Shion, still resents him for making Nezumi need him, or for dying, or for working towards the rebuilding of No. 6. If this kind of life-changing love is still terrifying and difficult and too important.
I will also, unusually for me, read domestic established Shion/Nezumi all day every day, whether it's set post-reunion or in West Block during canon. Anything with that touchstone of love between them, tea and books and mice and sarcasm and dancing and adjusting to life in the West Block/in the new No. 6, will make me a very happy camper indeed.
I would also love to read something immediately pre-reunion, about the lead-up to Nezumi deciding to go back - what he's thinking about, what he's doing.
AUs also welcomed, especially with settings that mirror the danger and desperate situations of canon in some way.
Feel free to incorporate canon from the anime, manga or novel, if you've read/watched more than one of them. They're all mixed up in my head anyway.