mithrigil

Dear Yuletide Writer,

FUCK YES, someone who likes what I like, considering writing fic for me! You are literally an amazing person just for showing up and checking this letter out--and since you're into giant-killing, cowboy samurai in space, homoerotic glam rock, and/or longstanding game critics with chips on their shoulders, I'm excited that you're here. It's my tenth Yuletide anniversary, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for participating.

(A lot of this is copy-pasted from my earlier years, with some additions. I have never received a gift I didn't like, and last year's were both amazing, so I'm using a lot of the same DNWs and language. Feel free to check back and see my past requests if there's a kink you're not sure I'm into and go based on that, but all of the requested fandoms this year are new.)

As ever, my fandoms are a mixed bag: lots of different media, styles, and tones. I try to request fandoms that I don't have really set-in-stone headcanons or prompts for (if I did, I'd probably write it myself, ha), and I'm completely in the camp of Optional Details Are Optional for purposes of these four requests. If you have a story you want to tell about any of these losers--and odds are, you do--I would be thrilled to read it. So take my prompts as guidelines if you've got something in mind already. And if you don't, I'm glad to share all of these as springing-off points.


AO3 Username: Mithrigil
Tumblr: @mithingthepoint (I don't use it much, but if you're here for Star Wars: Rebels, I do occasionally babble about the Ghost Crew and a whole lot of prequel-era shenanigans)

Thoughts on smut: Yes, yes, excellent. Every nominated character in the following fandoms is someone I would love to see paired or triaded. I would also be fine with them not being into each other in the course of the fic. I run on UST and pining and complications, and often find that more interesting than the resolution itself.

If you do write sex or makeouts, I've got some specific kinks I'd like to see under their respective requests. If you don't and you're interested in my narrative kinks/squicks, here you go!

THINGS I LIKE
Deconstruction and Meta
Provocative topics
Writing in the voice of the canon (if there is one) - good pastiche and capturing the tone of the work always make me happy
Footnotes
Contracts and service
Music (especially applicable to the Velvet Goldmine and SotC requests!)
Wittiness, highbrow humor, and puns. Bad puns. REALLY bad puns.
Glorification of art and the creative process
Men in dresses (or glitter eye makeup. or platform boots.)
Difficult situations with no right answers, and the people who tend to get into those situations
Ghosts (and Force spirits, and disembodied eldritch horrors)
Faerie tales
Creepy and unnerving experiences
Intertextuality
Shenanigans and capers
Clothesporn (YES YES ALWAYS)
Devotion and oaths
Historicity
Faustian bargains
Semi-requited love, unrequited love, it's not you it's my enemies, and people with different definitions of love (especially when they're at odds)
Rituals
Culture shock
Duels
We Embody Our Ideological Disagreement
Symbolism
Snark
Priests
Otters (and their fantastical equivalents)

THINGS I DO NOT LIKE
Fluff
Gratuitous happy endings (happy endings themselves are okay, even wonderful!, but I don't want it to feel forced)
Protagonist infallibility / unsympathetic comedy protagonists
Lack of research
Mpreg. Please, just don't, it makes me really uncomfortable.
Scat/Watersports etc.
Incest presented as a favorable outcome. It’s okay to mention it if the canon I requested already contains it, but I’d rather not receive fic that centers around it.
Drug addiction presented as a positive thing. (This is mostly for the Velvet Goldmine request: Curt has struggled and survived, and if you have to depict it that's fine; if Arthur and Brian are dabbling, and have a good trip, that's fine too. But please don't have Curt regress or relapse.)
Ignoring the consequences of the source material.

Humor is great, darkness is great, play to your strengths! Some of my prompts totally work for Crueltide (Maul/Kanan/Ezra, helloooooooo~), and I'm not averse to you putting my choice characters through some horrible shit. By that same token, I'm fine with capers and shenanigans and humor, and if you'd rather write something uplifting I am entirely down.


And now for the requests!

ONE: Zero Punctuation
Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw (Zero Punctuation), Imp (Zero Punctuation)

Someone, somewhere, needs to give Yahtzee the survival horror experience he craves. The somewhere may be Yuletide: the someone may be you.

Missing episode or casefic or pastiche would be wonderful! There's never been fic for Yahtzee and I'm curious to see how the format works. And I think it would be cool to see something more outright narrative. Maybe review a game that never was! Or subject Yahtzee to a horde of imps and spiders. Or transport him into a Silent Hill of his own making.

Can Yahtzee survive immersion in a fannish culture not his own? Can his acerbic opinionated flash-animated self face a world without a yellow background and a nuanced perspective? I don't know! Neither does he. Get as meta- as possible with this, and give the games journalism world a Yuletide to remember.


Things I love about Zero Punctuation: the speed, the tone, the fact that I can disagree with Yahtzee and still find him hilarious, his crude sense of humor,how much he hates Swindon, his willingness to depict himself in a negative light for comic effect, and how much he immerses himself in the games he's critiquing. I don't want fic about Ben Croshaw the actual human being necessarily, but Yahtzee the persona. Or maybe something about Ben turning into Yahtzee as part of some meta horror spooky gamer hell dream. Comedic or otherwise. Go hog wild with whatever crass, terrible kinks you've got.

So when I say I enjoy his crassness and wit, I mean it, but he can also be something of a dudebro fucktard. If you write something that tries to capture his style I totally expect the creative expletives to rain down like mint green spooge in a Vulcan bukkake, but please don't feel the need to include any slurs about actual living people or groups. In fact, I'd rather you not.

If you're coming at Zero Punctuation for the first time, the YouTube Playlist is a great place to start! I particularly enjoy his year in review episodes, his BioShock review series, and his neverending gripe with the industry's risk-averseness and money-grubbing tendencies.



TWO: Velvet Goldmine (1998)
Curt Wild, Arthur Stuart, Brian Slade

CLOTHESPORN. I want to be inundated with glitter and leather and wig powder and sick lead riffs.

Curt and Brian have such potent images and Arthur's still trying to find his, and I'd love to read something about the artifice and the pageant versus the authentic alien self. Mandy's line at the press conference, about Brian thinking he was finally just telling it like it is, really stuck with me on my last rewatch, and I'd love something that examines how all three of them have their personae and their selves, and how connected they may or may not be.

Or you could just write the threesome that never happened, in which Curt is the only one sober.

OR OR OR you could write the fantasies about fucking Maxwell Demon as opposed to Brian Slade. With full-on xenokink.

A/B, B/C, C/A, and A/B/C are all entirely acceptable for this motley crew.


Okay where do I even start with Velvet Goldmine. This is a movie of my soul. There is legit a moment in this film where Arthur jumps up and down and points to the television and yells to his parents THAT'S ME!~ and I could honestly say the same about some of this. It's for me. And important to me. And I love damn near everything about this film, and these characters.

If you don't want to write something with sex in, I'd still prefer for the characters to have the acknowledged attractions and orientations they do in canon (which basically means self-avowed bisexuals all around). There's plenty else you can explore in this universe without going into pairings: the music, the poor life choices, Oscar Wilde (and if you put in a whole lot of quotes and bon mots I will LOVE YOU), the grey dystopic 1984 the world has become after the Death of Glitter. Take inspiration from the lives of Bowie and Iggy and Reed and Eno and all of the others, or from Ewan's tweet last year insisting that Curt and Arthur now own a studio in London and have kids and careers. What would they think about the industry today? Is Tommy Stone recently dead?

It's also a ripe ground for a whole lot of kinks. Onstage foreplay, body worship, drag, paintsex, a dozen forms of dubcon and roleplay and altered states, bondage, predicament bondage (Brian commanding Curt to keep singing or he'll stop blowing him, oh god yes please), scratching and bruising and bloodplay, asphyxiation, dreamsex, ghostsex (it just occurs to me, Curt/Arthur with the hallucination of Brian in between them HOLY SHIT), imagined or actual xenokink (Maxwell Demon with alien genitalia yessss), I'm just scratching the surface but I am down for any of this. Noncon, dubcon, or consensual non-consent (i.e. rape fantasy roleplay or anonymous partners) is fine if you want it, but please have both parties conscious.

Jack and Divine weren't nominated, but I'd be 100% with them showing up, or with Jack involved in the above proceedings.

If you're just hearing about Velvet Goldmine now, get your hot ass over to Amazon and rent it (or watch it free if you have Prime!), and settle in for an Experience.


THREE: Star Wars: Rebels
Darth Maul, Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger

The Temptation of Ezra Bridger.

Season 3 is setting us up for a grand clash of light and dark, with Ezra teetering on the brink of falling, Maul waiting to catch him, and Kanan trying in vain to pull him back from the edge. I crave Season 2.5. The Force visions, the premonitions, the nightmares, the voices in the dark, the Sith Holocron creeping out from under the helmet, why the hell Ezra cut his beautiful hair, and all of those terrible things that happened in the interim and set Ezra up for killing at least a dozen people in the season premiere.

Kanan/Ezra is great but not required (unrequited crushes and UST are even better, honestly). Maul/Ezra is creepy as hell but wonderful and also not required. Maul/Kanan is about fifteen different varieties of HELL YES AND ALSO HELL NO and I'd love to see how you pull it off. If you decide to go in a badwrong threesome direction, or give Ezra some extremely perverse meditation sessions, I salute you, valiant soul. And going the No Shipping route is 100% viable and wonderful and in the spirit of the show, and I'd be damned happy with that too.


Okay so I literally just watched S3e2 fifteen minutes ago and I am still screaming internally about all the Balance and the Caves and the Merging Holocrons and yes Master and our apprentice and aaaaaaaaaaah I love this show. I am here for anything that problematizes the Force and the binary nature of good and evil in that galaxy far away, and Ezra in the middle just hits every single one of my buttons. Every. Single. One. All of those narrative kinks I listed above, no right answers, devotion, rituals, are embodied in these three and their conflict and I am HERE for THAT.

I adore Actual Disney Princess Ezra Bridger, and the sweet part of him that speaks to the space whales, but he's evolving into someone who needs people and it scares the living shit out of him. I love Kanan Jarrus, failure knight, and how the Spoiler is forcing him to see things for what they are. I love Maul and his stupid grandpa polo shirts and his obsession, and how he never lies to Ezra, but never tells him the truth either. It's a complicated tangle of mores that hearkens back to the Mortis arc of the Clone Wars and I'd love to read a morality play for Ezra Bridger, Padawan of Two Masters.

I have a not-secret-at-all weakness for Padawans crushing on their Masters, and for that look, you know the one, where they look up through their eyelashes with both reverence and deference and say Master in that tone, and I love to see that trope both played straight and sullied. As I said above, I'm okay with a chaste reading of this prompt (and I'm huge into Kanan/Hera as well, so if you don't want to break them up I am totally happy), but if you do go the shippy route, please god yes this moment.

If you're not watching Rebels, I totally understand why, because you kind of need The Clone Wars first and that's a lot to get through. But if I've piqued your interest, check it out on Disney, and on Amazon Streaming.


FOUR: Shadow of the Colossus
no characters requested

This is a worldbuilding fic request. Feel free to involve any of the nominated characters, the colossi, Dormin, or the Forbidden Lands themselves.

I am fascinated by the culture of sacrifice in this world. How long have the priests of Wander's land been killing those with cursed fates? Why were the Forbidden Lands forbidden in the first place? Was Mono connected to them from the start?

I'd also be interested in a story that takes place in the Forbidden Lands before they fell. What kind of civilization built the rings that cage Phalanx in the desert? Who worshiped at Malus's tower? What games did they play in the coliseum? This is one of my favorite stories of all time, and cries out to be explored.


I LOVE THIS GAME. It is art. It is passion. It is clinging to the fur of a speeding snakemantisthing and stabbing it in the spine until it dies and wondering what kind of monster you've become to destroy the majestic creatures of this world. It is a game telling the player that she's become a reprehensible human being and the only way to win is not to play, but you want to play, you want to play SO MUCH.

I have read every fic for this on AO3, literally every one, and I still want more. And it can, and should, be about the parts of the Forbidden Lands that you love. I am totally fine with OCs, both in the past and future of that world. Tell an adventure, or a religious drama, or a supernatural mystery, or a love story. I will gobble it up like a lizard's tail.

If you haven't played SotC and this writeup intrigues you, you can get it bundled with ICO (remastered and gorgeous!), or watch an LP on YouTube. I highly recommend it. Highly. If you share any of my likes, you'll find them in the Forbidden Lands.


Thank you again, Yuletide Writer, and may your season be full of squee and otters!

Even if these lists seem to be going out of style, I really want to share my awesome gifts and a few other hidden gems with the world at large. SO. Here we go!

Fandoms: Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero, #GoGetThoseGeckos and related shenaniganry, Macross Frontier, Sengoku Basara, Sleepy Hollow (TV)


MY GIFTS

#GoGetThoseGeckos

You Can Stop Tumbling, a magnificent encapsulation of the experiences of five fucklizards as they live and die in zero-G. At turns poignant and erotic, this is the commemoration that the dear horny creatures deserve. It is also extremely Russian. Best read AFTER you have swallowed that thing you were drinking, or at least poured it out.

A Sestina for Awareness, or Six and a Half Stanzas for Five Lizards Fucking (in Space), exactly what it says on the tin, except so much more, because it is an immaculate sestina about space sex geckos. Best read aloud.


Sleepy Hollow

Bustability, in which poor Ichabod Crane suffers as Ben Franklin's apprentice. Oh, does he suffer. Hilariously. Beautifully. Brilliantly. I can't give any of the jokes away because they're that good. Best read without consulting an almanac.


OTHER THINGS THAT ARE AWESOME

Fate/stay night

懐石三人前 (translated: Prix Fixe for Three), in which Sakura puts her life and Shirou's body back together, and the two of them and Rider settle down for the finest helping of Nasuverse foodporn the world has ever seen. This is beautifully crafted longfic that deals with chosen family and abuse recovery in a beautiful, heartfelt way. Best read with a fully stocked fridge.


Fate/Zero

The Man of Many Devices, in which Waver Velvet had no idea that his Servant came with an entourage. And he gets used to it. Rider's ability to make friends is his greatest strength, and one that Waver completely lacks, so it's really fun to see this disparity stacked up for all to see. Best read with some knowledge of what The Way of the Greeks actually is, though the fic is Gen.

Living Arrangements, in which Gilgamesh takes over Kirei's life and Kirei likes it. You all know how weak I am to pretty much anything about these two assholes in heat, and how much I've written for them. This year, I didn't have to, because someone else did it BEAUTIFULLY. Best read with a good red wine or, failing that, some suffering.


Macross Frontier

Performance, in which Alto puts his onnagata face on again, Sheryl learns to share the stage, and Ranka makes them both more comfortable in-costume and out. I leaned over at my lovely wife, whose gift this is, and asked if it had been accidentally written for me instead. I love what it says about being onstage, and how your life in the wings can change what parts of yourself you show to the world. Best read with DECULTURE.


Sengoku Basara

Seasons of Conquest, Rated M for Manpain. In which Toyotomi Hideyoshi gains the whole world and loses his own soul. And by his soul I mean Hanbei. OH COME ON, YOU KNOW I'M GONNA REC IT.

In the Path of the Stars, in which Yoshitsugu chooses not to let anyone else make Mitsunari suffer. Key words: anyone else. Gyobu is such a twisted soul, and Mitsunai about as blindingly pure as a right hook to the face, and it's lovely to see them come together in a rain of slaughter and curses. heh. um. merry christmas? Best read in the company of those who share your sadism, or at least benefit from it.

So I somehow lucked out this year and scored five--FIVE--fics over a thousand words! I'm sharing them here, along with some other stories I enjoyed, because shit damn I got lucky.

Fandoms include: Catherine Called Birdy, DRAMAtical Murder, Fate/Zero, The Fox - Ylvis (Music Video), Gentleman Bastards series, Legally Blonde, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Nana (manga), Petshop of Horrors, Princess Princess (webcomic)

( Recs beneath! )

Since two people guessed right (and I owe them fic now!) I'll do these in the same order.

BRONZE TIER
Fics 1 and 2: Only fics in their fandom. I wrote both. If you follow me on tumblr you probably know what the canon is.

Commander of the Vanguard
Sengoku Basara
Mitsunari is more valuable to the Toyotomi army than he knows.

Engaged in His Employment
Sengoku Basara
Toyotomi Hideyoshi has burned all affection, all attachment, all weakness from his life. He has no friends, only allies and subordinates. He has no family. He takes no women or boys to bed. He killed his wife to prove his strength.

He has not killed Hanbei.


SILVER TIER
Fics 3 and 4: Also in the same fandom, with some character overlap. Also somewhat predictable given my recent fannish history.

A House of Dust and Darkness
Fate/Zero (and Fate/Stay Night)
After his brush with the Grail, Gilgamesh adjusts to life in the basement of the Fuyuki Church. The priest is not as accommodating as the King of Heroes deserves.

If Thy Hand Offend Thee
Fate/Zero (and Fate/Stay Night)
“Father,” the boy asks, “am I bad?”

“No,” Risei answers without missing a beat, and holds Kirei in his arms, pillow and all. “Never. You did something bad, but bad isn’t something you are. You’re beautiful and good and God loves you, and so do I.”


GOLD TIER
Fic 5: Not a fandom I have written in before, but one I have written about more than once. Nevertheless, the subject matter is something you would expect from me, if somewhat parodic.

Equus malus
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
He rides across the nation, the Thoroughbred of Sin.
He fights for subjugation, and of course he'll win.

(Of course.)


PLATINUM TIER
Fic 6: A fandom I have neither written in nor talked about before, and frankly one I don't think most people would immediately associate me with. But the canon is part of, well, the canon, of its source medium, by a creator universally respected, and deals with cultural themes and mythology that I'm really interested in.

The Age of Not-Believing
Spirited Away
Ten years after the bathhouse, Chihiro spends Golden Week vacationing with her real-world friends, but can't help keeping an eye out for some from the other side.

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This holiday has been busy as fuck (and also inclement), but neither rain nor sleet nor in-laws nor Megabus shall keep me from reccing the stories I enjoyed the most! A lot of the super-popular ones are absent from this list, and I'll admit that this year Puel and I have kind of an agenda for promoting anime and video-game fandoms, which have gone largely unrecced thus far, but this is a pretty comprehensive list of the things I have read and enjoyed so far! My gifts are asterixed, and mixed in with the recs because frankly they're so awesome I would rec them even if I hadn't received them!

Ten recs in the following fandoms: Erekos, Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night, Juuni Kokki (Twelve Kingdoms), Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, Moses und Aron, The Muppet Show, Stick It.

( Read more... )


Also, if you want to rec me something (especially in a game or anime fandom I might have overlooked), feel free to do so in the comments! I might make a second post, or forward them on to Puel for hers if she'd like them too!

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Sorry for the radio silence: I have had ridiculous(ly good) real world concerns for the past couple of weeks, and will continue to. But I thought the Suikoden fans on my flist would appreciate knowing about two new fics:

A Hasty Proposition, in which Flik names his sword and tells Odessa they're married now, with predictably awkward results.

And Grasping At Shadows by my beloved puella_nerdii, in which Jowy Atreides makes poor life choices.

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Years ago, I wrote a Futch/Sasarai epistolary epic and basically crack-shipped it.

Now, Puel and I are mucking around with Futch/Luc instead.

GO FIGURE.

It's actually really cute and they have a lot to say to each other and and and.

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So one day, Puel and I were tossing headcanon around, you know, like we do, and I made a comment about how Luca Blight probably has a fine-looking pair of hands. Like, classical-guitarist level of fine-looking hands, long fingers, strong fingernails. Puel misheard the "classical" part of classical guitarist and envisaged Luca Blight holding an axe up over his head and yelling THIS IS THE POWER OF ROCK!!!!!!! as he smashed the poor instrument down upon the nearest amplifier.

Then this happened, because apparently if you turn Suikoden II into a boyband AU, it kind of works.

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Once upon a time, in a recording industry near and dear to our hearts, there was a major company called Jowston Records. The recent financial crisis and differences of opinion as to the state of the industry fragmented Jowston Records into several genre-specific imprints. Highland Records, a rival company, has been exploiting these fissures in the hopes of taking Jowston Records down completely and dominating the scene. But Highland Records is involved in some pretty shady shit, and that corruption has spread down from the executives to the bands themselves.

One of the most popular bands on the Highland Records label, a power metal band (with a sizable mainstream following) called The White Wolves, is in the middle of its second North American tour. Two unfortunate roadies and amateur artists witness lead singer and guitarist Luca Blight involved in an incident of arson, possibly to cover up a drug-related murder, and flee before they’re caught at the scene. This incident is covered up in the press, and these boys are outraged. They run into an indie duo, Blue Lightning and the Bear, who bring them on board as they search for ways to save Jowston from what looks like an inevitable buyout from Highland.

But one boy decides to expose Highland Records’ corruption by promoting the Jowston label, and the other decides to take Highland down from the inside...

( Cast of Characters )

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SO YEAH. We want to poke around in this universe but don't want to write the whole thing, so we're more content to ramble and gossip and and make jokes about Fitcher giving Shu blowjobs under the desk and retell the time that Odessa Silverberg took Flik to the Rocky Horror Picture Show and and and and and. THROW PROMPTS. Backstory! Onstory! Ridiculous lyrics about getting knifed in the front! The perfect Shu latte!

And yes, he is also an expert at the pimpsmack in this universe.

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Sometimes there is adorable crack in this journal. Adorable, straightforward crack.

Clearly my girlfriend has been good for me.

Title: A Knight’s Service (AO3 version here)
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Suikoden III
Characters: Lilly Pendragon, Fred Maximilian
Words: 1150
Rating: PG. Maybe just PG-13 because Fred is oblivious.
Don’t know the fandom? You might still like this if you enjoy: Headstrong girls and airheaded boys, silly fun things people do before they go off to war, utter failure to get laid.

Summary: On the eve of the battle for the Ceremonial Site, Lilly Pendragon desires the company of a young man of appropriate station...


( Fred’s not sure what he would do with a “fine piece of tail” anyway. Is that something to sell? )

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This is a prequel, I guess, to a longer thing that Puel and I are going to be working on. The tentative series title is All Stars are Bound by Gravity, mostly because we've been calling it Suikoden All-Stars for short. And it's going to be a big post-III epic Nash thing with plot and rune theory and romance and awkward reunions out the wazoo.

But first, this has to happen.


Title: Pre-nuptial Agreements, and other forms of sacrifice (AO3 version here)
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Suikogaiden
Characters: Nash, Sierra.
Words: 1800
Rating: PG-ish R. A vampire wedding complete with turning, tasteless jokes, and poorly tuned organs.
Don’t know the fandom? You might still like this if you enjoy: Snarky couples, nonhuman definitions of love, gender-role play, desecrating churches, rebirth.

Summary: Nash and Sierra’s wedding night. In another faith’s church. With a corpse.


( They don’t play organs at weddings in Harmonia. )

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