estirose

Dear Yuletide Writer (and other interested parties),

Hi! It's time for another Yuletide! Which means another letter. I've been doing this for a few years, so I think I've figured out this letter thing. I'm good with het, slash, femslash, and poly, and all ratings. (Incidentally, I'm estirose on AO3 as well, for those curious.)

Likes: Found family and team-as-family. Worldbuilding. Hurt/comfort (emphasis on the comfort). Fluff. Happy endings. I have a soft spot for the "I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached" absent minded person character type for OCs (including character types like Stardew Valley's farmer and Fantasy Life's player character).

DNW: Noncon, character/reader, death or injury to animals, humiliation for the sake of comedy.

Kinda-sorta stuff:
Sex: If you find your fic going that way, that's fine; I'm not going to give porny prompts, but it's not going to ruin my experience. I prefer vanilla sex (though I don't have an objection to knotting in the context of A/B/O and I actually like sex pollen).

Dubcon: Only okay with sex pollen type fics.

A/B/O and mpreg: Okay with both, but really would like worldbuilding rather than sex.

Incest: I don't think I have anything where this would come up as an issue, but the idea of two closely-related family members having a child squicks me. I'm much more accepting of pairings where they can't produce children.

Crossovers: I love them! I would really really prefer crossovers with stuff I'm familiar with and have written for. (That being said, I don't care if a cameo character is from a fandom I'm familiar with.)

Now, onto the fandoms!

For each of these, please read the requested characters as if they were "and/or", as I don't expect all my requested characters to show up (especially if you end up doing worldbuilding).

Fantasy Life (video game): Player character & Yuelia
(My fics)

A quick bit about the fandom: This is a 3DS video game where you - a young citizen of the city of Castele - end up meeting a very unusual butterfly, have adventures, maybe collect and make a lot of stuff, and save the world (and then save another world in the DLC). The game is distinct in that it has a variety of classes - some martial classes, some crafting classes, and some collecting/gathering classes that you can change at will. In fact, multiclassing is heavily encouraged, though you can, for example, beat the entire game without taking any other class than a crafting or gathering class (so yes, you can do a single class run as a carpenter if you want!).

My bit of squee: I love this game! You get so many choices about how to play through it - you can go heavy on the combat and almost ignore the crafting and gathering classes, balance them out, by leveling up evenly. (For example, my current PC Anthie is working on three related classes: mercenary, miner, and blacksmith, getting to a new level in all three classes, and then progressing in the main storyline.) The dialogue is fantastic, no matter what version you're playing. Yuelia has some of the best dialogue in the game, to be honest! But I love all the characters. I actually was still contemplating who else to nominate when I ran out of time because I couldn't make up my mind.

I have no preferred ships for this fandom, but I'm not really into Player/Yuelia.

Prompts:
* I would love some worldbuilding. There are only a small amount of houses to the amount of people you meet in each town (especially Porto Puerto!), for example. What do all these people do that aren't running shops (for example, the lady in Castele who has does the fish requests - does she stand and gossip at the fountain all day?) or otherwise busy? How did Pam inherit 50 batches of quiche? How does the player not fall off Terra Nimbus/Levitania like Bumbles did? What was life like while the Player Character and others were busy saving the world? How do you fish in clouds and lava, inquiring minds want to know.
* How did the player character choose the starting Life that they did? For example, had they always admired the clothing in Zippy's shop and decided to become a tailor? Heard stories about the deeds of mercenaries and decided to become one? Always wanted to mine? The possibilities are endless.
* The Player Character in his, her, or their old age, telling their grandkids stories about how they saved the world. (Who they marry or have a grandkid with is up to you.)
* A favorite of mine: Player Character has no interest in marrying Damien or being a ruler, but Arranged Marriage/Long Lost Heir tropes come into play.
* What was Yuelia's life like before she came into the plot? How were Celestia and Divinus as parents? What adventures did she get into?

Getting your hands on this: This is probably the hardest canon to learn quickly, to be honest. It's a Nintendo 3DS game, and while the main storyline itself isn't that long, doing sidequests to rank up in your classes does take a while. I've found one set of full walkthroughs, for the main game and the Origin Island DLC, both the European version of the game, and one set of videos covering the character making and introductory class quests for the North American version.

Hustle Cat: Avery Grey
(My fic)

A quick bit about this fandom: This is a visual novel with half a dozen romantic paths, including one that you only unlock afte getting all the rest. You play Avery Grey (gender and portrait chosen by the player) who ends up working in an extraordinary cat cafe and finds themselves facing a quite unexpected adventure involving magic and cats.

My brief squee: I got this as part of a Humble Bundle bundle, and I love it! I really like the fact that you can choose Avery's gender and at least some of how they look. I love all the coworker romances, and I can't really single one out as my favorite (Reese and Finley would be my strongest contenders). The only romance that doesn't do anything for me is the one for Graves - I like learning about him and more of the world on his route, but the romance just kind of doesn't do anything for me. I would prefer a female or agender Avery.

Prompts:
* I would like to see more of Avery developing their skills in magic. What can be done with trash?
* Take one of the endings and go on from it - for example, the Cat's Paw workers as superheroes, or Mason with her grandfather, or Reese and his plans. I want to see what adventures Avery gets into with the Love of Their Life!
* It's somewhat implied in the bad end that because Avery doesn't discover their magic (because they don't get the book or the bookmark) and therefore Nacht wins. But what if they do somehow recover from being hit with the curse and still manage to save the day somehow?
* Avery goes on vacation - who do they take with them and why? Do they take the love of their life to meet their parents? Do they meet their significant other's parents? Inquiring minds want to know!

Getting your hands on this: It seems to be available in several places, but if you don't want to go that route (no pun intended), there are quite a few playthroughs on Youtube.

In the Vanishers' Palace: Liên, Thông

A quick bit about this fandom: It's a novella, about a young failed scholar working as her healer mother's assistant becomes the tutor for a dragon's children. It's set in a Vietnamese culture inspired post-apocalyptic world where people die often of diseases brought about by the Vanishers, a race of beings who liked muddling around with things, including genetics. The dragon falls in love with the scholar, and many things are revealed about the family and what really happened.

My bit of squee: I ran across this fandom in the promo post and I love it! I love weird worlds and post-apocalyptic settings. I adore Liên and Thông, and their interactions with Yên and Vu Côn. I would love to see anything of this world and its inhabitants, both human or not. I chose Liên and Thông to focus on because, while I love the Yên/Vu Côn romance, I found that while I came for the romance, I stayed for the kids. (No romances for the kids, please!)

Prompts
* Liên and Thông, before Yên came. I want to see more of their lives and how they interacted with each other and Vu Côn. Maybe a little about how Vu Côn raised them.
* After the events of the story - how did things change for the two of them, now that they're adults? What do they do, what adventures do one or both of them have.
* I'd love to see a bit about this world - about the people that see Vu Côn sees, about some of how the world was like when the Vanishers were there, what the Vanishers were like. There's a lot of worldbuilding going on in this world, and we actually don't see much of it. Even their palace is amazing and I'd love to see more exploration of it. (It actually reminds me a bit of Castle Heterodine from Girl Genius, if it had a personality and was even more dangerous.)

Getting your hands on this: This is a novella that may be found for sale on ebook sale sites. I believe you can also get a physical book, and either version may be available via your local library.

Pokemon Detective Pikachu: Tim Goodman & Hide Yoshida
(My fics)

A quick bit about this fandom: Tim, a young man living in a world where Pokemon are real, finds out that that his father has disappeared. He goes to Ryme City to close out his father's life, and then a talking Pikachu shows up at the apartment. Tim gets involved in the mystery of what exactly happened to his father and ends up saving everyone from an unexpected fate.

My bit of squee: I wasn't going to see it, even though all the commercials were delightful, and then I found out that Ryoma Takeuchi was going to be in it (he's the red-costumed trainer in the video that Tim watches). So, feeling kind of shallow about my choice, I did go on the first day. I loved it! I really loved all the characters, both good and evil and inbetween, about how Tim started to understand his father's love while traveling about with Pikachu. I really loved Psyduck and Snubbull and Mr. Mime and even Charizard. I love this place where pokeballs aren't a thing and most people seem to have Pokemon partners. (I absolutely love Rymesonas!) And I love Hide, even though his part of the plot was small and there should be more about him. (Romance-wise, the only pairing I don't do is Hide/Harry.)

Prompts
* I would like to see Tim have more interaction with Hide, whether to have Hide as a mentor or just as a friend. If Tim doesn't end up as a detective, I'd like to see them go out for coffee/tea and just talk about Harry or being a detective or just about the world.
* Hide as a detective, possibly with casefic or something similar (the murkrow and the stolen jewels, involving a honchkrow? Or something similar, using one of the Pokemon we see in either commercials or movie.) I'd just like to see him in more than trying to placate Tim or getting merged with his snubbull. Though him trying to adjust to suddenly being in his snubbull might be interesting.
* What is Tim's life like before the events of the movie? Or give me a fluffy AU where his mom doesn't die and he does become a pokemon trainer along with his friend Jack. Now that he resolves some of his issues, does he get a partner (and how does one find a partner, anyway? Are there pokemon-human meetups or adoption agencies? Are breeders a thing in this universe? Him spending time with his father would be great and starting to reconcile with his father.
* I mentioned I love Rymesonas, so I'd love to see worldbuilding with an ordinary Ryme City person and how they go through their lives with their partner pokemon.

Getting your hands on this: There are a few ways of getting this, but the easiest is to pick up the DVD (renting or buying) or pick it up on one of the streaming video services.

Stardew Valley: Abigail & Maru
(My fics)

A quick bit about the fandom: This game is on a good almost dozen platforms and a lot of people have at least heard of it, but a quick summary none the less. You inherit a farm (your choice of name) from your grandfather, and it's up to you to do something with it - by growing crops, raising animals, both or neither. You can also fish, mine, and form relationships with villagers (including marrying one of twelve eligible bachelors or bachelorettes - including those of your gender!). One of the things you can do is to restore the community center to its old glory, a task that involves a lot of various and sundry skills. It's an incredible timesink.

My bit of squee: I adore this game! I love all the characters (and really have a soft spot for George). I love how you can - apart from getting the community center fixed - just do what you want with your farm and your social life. The townsfolk are interesting and I love learning more about them. This is a place where you just can't avoid running into people (unless you spend your whole time hanging out on your farm for some reason). Which is why I chose this year to request two of them - Abigail and Maru. (And I'm cool with pairing them with each other or anybody else in the village. Female or agender farmer preferred, if that comes up.)

Prompts:
* When you're married with a kid or kids, Abigail mentions a dream where the child becomes a monster hunter. This is actually a scenario I'd like to see: the son or daughter of Abigail and the Farmer become a famous monster hunter, having been taken with their parent(s) with them in the mines as soon as they could reliably swing a weapon. (Or grew up on the wilderness farm!)
* Abigail and Maru fall in love and have adventures aided by Maru's technical skills.
* What is the farm life like day-to-day, for Abigail or Maru married to a farmer?
* Maru gets to meet MarILDA again - maybe they talk about MarILDA's discoveries, and how Maru's life has been.
* For that matter, I'd like to see Maru interact more with Sebastian - maybe get him to realize she really does care about him. (This may be part of a Maru/Abigail plot.)
* Abigail finishes college and moves out of Pelican Town to be more than a grocer's daughter.
* Abigail finally gets the courage to adventure in the mines (with or without the Farmer's intervention) and ends up being quite the adventurer! Maybe she ends up in a cabin on the Farmer's farm just to have an independent life.
* If you are familiar with My Time At Portia, I'd love to have one of the MTaP characters as the farmer, or Abigail or Maru with the workshop in MTaP. (I realize that Maru and Petra are the same general character type, but Maru would love doing all the workshop stuff!)

Getting your hands on this: This is probably my second-easiest fandom to get your hands on in a hurry, but might not be the easiest to canon-review quickly. It's available on a ton of platforms - I tend to play on mobile as I have gotten used to the tool auto-switch and the lifesaver of an auto-attack in the mines, but I started with the computer version. There are tons of mods for desktop versions (some of which you can also load into Android, apparently). When I play the desktop version, I play the Stardew Valley Expanded mod and I'd welcome characters from that mod appearing in any story.

T.O.P - Fanxy Red (song): no characters

A quick bit about the fandom: Fanxy Red started out more or less in China as a group named FFC-Acrush (or Acrush, for short), where the main gimmick was that they dressed more masculine than feminine (thus being a female "boy band"). In time, they gained a member, lost two members, and were released by their Chinese company to work with TOV Entertainment in Korea, maybe not in that order. They became Fanxy Red and released an album (ACTIVATE) with songs in Chinese, Korean, and English. They still retain much the same concept as when they were Acrush. T.O.P is probably the most promoted song on that album with an MV (well, two, since there are Chinese and Korean versions) and live performances. From what I can tell, their fanbase is mostly female (I'm not sure if they're specifically marketing to a bisexual/lesbian fanbase, but that's what they seem to be getting).

My bit of squee: When I was introduced to this group, they were Acrush, but they've finally debuted as Fanxy Red! I really love their concept. This bleeds into my interest in getting something for T.O.P, which is a very typical love song, but given their concept and their fanbase, my mind goes to femslash for it (except for one prompt which is more gen-ish).

Prompts:
* Given some of the lyrics, I'd love it if the singer(s) happened upon a mermaid at the ocean shore and fall instantly in love. This is their attempt to court the mermaid.
* Take the lyrics and make it about one girl falling in love with another. Coffee shop and High School AUs are not normally what I write or read, but I'd be happy to see either of them in a story. It would also be interesting if the two girls spoke different languages and the object of their affection did not understand what they were saying.
* Given that this is a group, four girls trying to gain the affections of one girl would be interesting.
* Four friends (possibly some or all with feelings towards the recipient) try to cheer up a depressed friend.
* Soulmates! Your choice of type.

Getting your hands on this: You can find the music video for the song in both Korean and (Mandarin) Chinese, as well as a video with an English-language translation of the Korean lyrics (here's a text version), which is pretty much all you need to know to write for this fandom.

ETA: There's a translation video of the Chinese lyrics, which is still a love song but with a quite a bit different wording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-exumQHwlo . I don't know how accurate either is, but I like both sets of words so feel free to use either as it suits your purposes for the prompts.

Good luck with writing!