Yuletide 2021
Oct. 20th, 2021 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marsdragonYuletide Once Again (HD remake of Yuletide Again, sequel to the hit Yuletide)
So anyway we're back. Maximal amount of this is copied from last year's letter.
General notes first:
I left all the character request fields blank this time so just do whatever you want.
I like: gen, worldbuilding, and noncon*, so let that guide you as you will. You pretty much can't go wrong by investigating some aspect of the world in a canon-typical fashion. I also enjoy canon-divergence AUs (what if this happened instead of that), unusual formats (epistolary, in-universe documents, interactive fiction, etc), in-universe history, and thinking of how game mechanics work in-universe.
*prompts not listed here for brevity, but check out my nonconathon letters for ideas.
I dislike: non-canon-divergence AUs (coffeeshop, etc), fluff with zero conflict or tension, M/f noncon, sex/gender headcanons, characters being passive or weepy messes.
In general I try to not be too demanding, and if you want to write something that ignores all my prompts, go for it. I'd rather you write something you enjoy than force yourself into a prompt you don't care about. Everything not explicitly forbidden is allowed and yes I know what I'm setting myself up for here.
Check the other entries for previous letters; I've asked for all these canons before and would still be into all those prompts. If I didn't ask for something again here that doesn't mean I don't want it, it means I forgot.
If you need to pick up a canon quick, here's a rough order of time investment from least to most: Fatal Fury (minimum) > Giant Robo > Fatal Fury (deep) > Voltes V
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Gebel, Johannes, Miriam, Zangetsu
Okay it says Ritual of the Night but I'll also accept Curse of the Moon. I don't think anyone will notice.
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned this is my new favourite Castlevania game, so go hog wild. Any sort of character interaction would be great, especially characters that didn't get a chance to bounce off each other in-game. Maybe tie CotM into RotN? Would be a good way to bring Zangetsu back (as they were blatantly planning). Like CV I love the monsters here, so characters hanging out with monsters would be great.
For Miriam, running around the castle, hanging out with her familiars (Buer is so incompetent it's moe), what she does post-game, what her childhood was like... How does she explain what happened to Dominique to Anna, lying or telling the truth? Does she ever learn more about alchemy? I'd love something about her, Gebel, and Johannes running around as kids, either sweet or sad.
For Johannes...well, more about alchemy, and what he does post-game when alchemists are not all that popular. Or just how he's getting around the castle for plot scenes when it's explicitly stated he can't fight... Something cute with him and Dominique or the villagers would be nice for fluffy.
For Gebel, how he met up with Gemory, what he was up to during the time skip, more running around with Miriam and/or Johannes, or any sort of divergent AU you feel like exploring, because there's potential here. It's not completely implausible that Johannes could figure out a way to reverse the curse (or at least I'd buy whatever magibabble explanation you went with), which opens up fun post-game possibilities.
Zangetsu...any sort of backstory, bringing in CotM, or bouncing off other characters in silly or comedic ways are all good. I just love angry samurai Solid Snake.
How to experience: It's on like every platform. Go buy it. It's the best Metroidvania since the indie boom kicked off.
Fatal Fury
Terry, Rock, Geese, Kain
So most of these are very directly related to the main plot and all of them have some sort of connection to each other. I'd love to see those explored more. Kain trying to recruit Billy? Geese and his rogue body double? Just pick some characters and throw them together. I'm always here for more stuff exploring the fact that Terry adopted the son of the man he killed, or Grant and Kain's friendship, etc etc.
Exploring Southtown a bit would be really fun. It's a setting that really gets built up over the course of the games, so I'd love to see anything expanding on it. Local issues, tourist's guides, reporters trying to chase characters down for interviews, why there's a Second South a few miles east...go for it.
Or just characters and the weird bits of bio that SNK gave them. I really like that SNK gives everyone favorite foods, music, hobbies, skills, etc, so just pick one of those. Does Kain read the high-brow stuff his character design would suggest, or is it all doorstopper fantasy novels? Rock learning to play guitar, Geese picking up and dropping a dozen hobbies, Terry evolving from his regular series bio to his MOW bio...it's all good.
I really like how fighting games can get kind of "choose your own canon" with each character having contradictory stories, so feel free to explore that. What if Gato won Maximum Mayhem? I bet Kain and Rock would be mad.
And if all else fails, there are two ten-year timeskips where everyone would've been wandering around. Explore that.
How to experience:
The covered games are Fatal Fury, Fatal Fury 3, Real Bout Fatal Fury, and Garou: Mark of the Wolves. These are all available via Arcade Archives or by emulation (MAME, WinKwaks), but be warned: SNK knew damn well their job was to eat your quarters and tuned the difficulty accordingly. WinKwaks has a cheat file that will help, but MAME or Arcade Archives are just set the difficulty down and do your best.
Memories of Stray Wolves will catch you up on the important stuff up to Mark of the Wolves.
Playthroughs:
Fatal Fury: Terry
Fatal Fury 3: Terry, Geese
Real Bout Fatal Fury: Terry, Geese
Garou: Mark of the Wolves: Rock, Terry, Kain
Additional wrinkle: SNK got...creative with their translations in the 90s. I've done a lot of comparison work on my personal site, and rest assured that Mark of the Wolves doesn't really lose meaning so much as tone/phrasing.
Just ignore King of Fighters, it's a different continuity. ...but fans mix them up constantly so if you look at the wiki they're not going to really bother splitting out the timelines. Sorry.
Giant Robo
Alberto, Cho-Katsu Komei, Genya, Worldbuilding
Giant Robo is my favorite anime of all time and I will be there for literally anything you want to do. Go wild. If you have any story sitting in the back of your mind, bring it out. I want to hear it.
Any sort of character interaction would be great, either with the other nominated characters or anyone else in the OVA. We just get glimpses though the OVA, so just expand on it.
Or any sort of character backstory: how did they get to where they are in the OVA? Even though we see a lot of, say, Genya backstory, there's still so much more that's left unsaid. What was anyone doing before they joined BF/IPO? Fill in the gaps a little!
Or I love the GR world, so anything exploring that would be wonderful. A bit of daily life? What's everyone doing when the world isn't in danger? How about using psychic powers or robots in an ordinary way? Or explore the inner workings of BF or the IPO: there must be so much in the way of logistics that go on behind the scenes. How about training? We have kids growing up on both sides of the conflict, how are things like education handled? Just pick a bit of the world and go for it.
Or how about a character going on a smaller mission than we see in the OVA? The Ginrei OVA has a normal mission for Ginrei and Tetsugyu, I'd love to see something like that for any of these other characters. Either a successful mission or a failed one, they'd both be interesting.
How to experience:
There's a Blu-Ray available in the US/Canada and it's gorgeous. If you're outside the US, it's out of stock, or don't want to drop 60 bucks on my say-so, there's always other means. (you want the E.G rips)
Laserdisk linear notes, with lots of extra details about the characters and setting.
Extra info that's literally friend-of-a-friend, so take or leave it as you will. Might inspire some ideas, though.
Voltes V
Kentarou, Kenichi, Heinel
I can't explain why I suddenly got really obsessed with a show I watched years ago, but I did and here we are. I'm for any sort of exploration of what happens after the series - a lot goes down in the last episode, and a lot kind of gets glossed over as a part of that! Like the part where all these characters find out they're related in the last 10 minutes of the last episode and then Heinel kills himself three minutes later. Let everyone deal with that, either in terms of immediate aftermath or some time afterwards. Who goes and gives Heinel's grandparents the news? Because that's gonna be awkward. Or heck, let Heinel live and actually deal with everything he did. Or don't and just let him chill with his family I'm totally fine with that too. (Let Kentarou hug all his kids! Let the Gou boys play with Heinel's horns!)
Or just Kentarou/La Gohl trying to set up this new revolutionary government and dealing with all those troubles/challenges, because there's going to be a lot. Any local rulers taking the opportunity to try and split off? How to handle any planets that Sanbasil did manage to conquer during that expansionist phase? Dealing with the old bureaucracy now t hat everything's been turned upside down, but the thousands of civil servants necessary to run a space empire don't just appear out of thin air?
Kenichi (and brothers) dealing with being half-Boazanian after things settle down a bit would also be interesting. Any interest in weird space France culture? Do they get to go visit regularly? What happens on Earth now everyone knows there's aliens?
Or backstories, worldbuilding, everything I asked for in the rest of my letter.
How to experience:
Free streaming in the US/Canada on RetroCrush. Outside US/Canada (or just don't want to see ads) there's archive.org! Finally!
So anyway we're back. Maximal amount of this is copied from last year's letter.
General notes first:
I left all the character request fields blank this time so just do whatever you want.
I like: gen, worldbuilding, and noncon*, so let that guide you as you will. You pretty much can't go wrong by investigating some aspect of the world in a canon-typical fashion. I also enjoy canon-divergence AUs (what if this happened instead of that), unusual formats (epistolary, in-universe documents, interactive fiction, etc), in-universe history, and thinking of how game mechanics work in-universe.
*prompts not listed here for brevity, but check out my nonconathon letters for ideas.
I dislike: non-canon-divergence AUs (coffeeshop, etc), fluff with zero conflict or tension, M/f noncon, sex/gender headcanons, characters being passive or weepy messes.
In general I try to not be too demanding, and if you want to write something that ignores all my prompts, go for it. I'd rather you write something you enjoy than force yourself into a prompt you don't care about. Everything not explicitly forbidden is allowed and yes I know what I'm setting myself up for here.
Check the other entries for previous letters; I've asked for all these canons before and would still be into all those prompts. If I didn't ask for something again here that doesn't mean I don't want it, it means I forgot.
If you need to pick up a canon quick, here's a rough order of time investment from least to most: Fatal Fury (minimum) > Giant Robo > Fatal Fury (deep) > Voltes V
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Gebel, Johannes, Miriam, Zangetsu
Okay it says Ritual of the Night but I'll also accept Curse of the Moon. I don't think anyone will notice.
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned this is my new favourite Castlevania game, so go hog wild. Any sort of character interaction would be great, especially characters that didn't get a chance to bounce off each other in-game. Maybe tie CotM into RotN? Would be a good way to bring Zangetsu back (as they were blatantly planning). Like CV I love the monsters here, so characters hanging out with monsters would be great.
For Miriam, running around the castle, hanging out with her familiars (Buer is so incompetent it's moe), what she does post-game, what her childhood was like... How does she explain what happened to Dominique to Anna, lying or telling the truth? Does she ever learn more about alchemy? I'd love something about her, Gebel, and Johannes running around as kids, either sweet or sad.
For Johannes...well, more about alchemy, and what he does post-game when alchemists are not all that popular. Or just how he's getting around the castle for plot scenes when it's explicitly stated he can't fight... Something cute with him and Dominique or the villagers would be nice for fluffy.
For Gebel, how he met up with Gemory, what he was up to during the time skip, more running around with Miriam and/or Johannes, or any sort of divergent AU you feel like exploring, because there's potential here. It's not completely implausible that Johannes could figure out a way to reverse the curse (or at least I'd buy whatever magibabble explanation you went with), which opens up fun post-game possibilities.
Zangetsu...any sort of backstory, bringing in CotM, or bouncing off other characters in silly or comedic ways are all good. I just love angry samurai Solid Snake.
How to experience: It's on like every platform. Go buy it. It's the best Metroidvania since the indie boom kicked off.
Fatal Fury
Terry, Rock, Geese, Kain
So most of these are very directly related to the main plot and all of them have some sort of connection to each other. I'd love to see those explored more. Kain trying to recruit Billy? Geese and his rogue body double? Just pick some characters and throw them together. I'm always here for more stuff exploring the fact that Terry adopted the son of the man he killed, or Grant and Kain's friendship, etc etc.
Exploring Southtown a bit would be really fun. It's a setting that really gets built up over the course of the games, so I'd love to see anything expanding on it. Local issues, tourist's guides, reporters trying to chase characters down for interviews, why there's a Second South a few miles east...go for it.
Or just characters and the weird bits of bio that SNK gave them. I really like that SNK gives everyone favorite foods, music, hobbies, skills, etc, so just pick one of those. Does Kain read the high-brow stuff his character design would suggest, or is it all doorstopper fantasy novels? Rock learning to play guitar, Geese picking up and dropping a dozen hobbies, Terry evolving from his regular series bio to his MOW bio...it's all good.
I really like how fighting games can get kind of "choose your own canon" with each character having contradictory stories, so feel free to explore that. What if Gato won Maximum Mayhem? I bet Kain and Rock would be mad.
And if all else fails, there are two ten-year timeskips where everyone would've been wandering around. Explore that.
How to experience:
The covered games are Fatal Fury, Fatal Fury 3, Real Bout Fatal Fury, and Garou: Mark of the Wolves. These are all available via Arcade Archives or by emulation (MAME, WinKwaks), but be warned: SNK knew damn well their job was to eat your quarters and tuned the difficulty accordingly. WinKwaks has a cheat file that will help, but MAME or Arcade Archives are just set the difficulty down and do your best.
Memories of Stray Wolves will catch you up on the important stuff up to Mark of the Wolves.
Playthroughs:
Fatal Fury: Terry
Fatal Fury 3: Terry, Geese
Real Bout Fatal Fury: Terry, Geese
Garou: Mark of the Wolves: Rock, Terry, Kain
Additional wrinkle: SNK got...creative with their translations in the 90s. I've done a lot of comparison work on my personal site, and rest assured that Mark of the Wolves doesn't really lose meaning so much as tone/phrasing.
Just ignore King of Fighters, it's a different continuity. ...but fans mix them up constantly so if you look at the wiki they're not going to really bother splitting out the timelines. Sorry.
Giant Robo
Alberto, Cho-Katsu Komei, Genya, Worldbuilding
Giant Robo is my favorite anime of all time and I will be there for literally anything you want to do. Go wild. If you have any story sitting in the back of your mind, bring it out. I want to hear it.
Any sort of character interaction would be great, either with the other nominated characters or anyone else in the OVA. We just get glimpses though the OVA, so just expand on it.
Or any sort of character backstory: how did they get to where they are in the OVA? Even though we see a lot of, say, Genya backstory, there's still so much more that's left unsaid. What was anyone doing before they joined BF/IPO? Fill in the gaps a little!
Or I love the GR world, so anything exploring that would be wonderful. A bit of daily life? What's everyone doing when the world isn't in danger? How about using psychic powers or robots in an ordinary way? Or explore the inner workings of BF or the IPO: there must be so much in the way of logistics that go on behind the scenes. How about training? We have kids growing up on both sides of the conflict, how are things like education handled? Just pick a bit of the world and go for it.
Or how about a character going on a smaller mission than we see in the OVA? The Ginrei OVA has a normal mission for Ginrei and Tetsugyu, I'd love to see something like that for any of these other characters. Either a successful mission or a failed one, they'd both be interesting.
How to experience:
There's a Blu-Ray available in the US/Canada and it's gorgeous. If you're outside the US, it's out of stock, or don't want to drop 60 bucks on my say-so, there's always other means. (you want the E.G rips)
Laserdisk linear notes, with lots of extra details about the characters and setting.
Extra info that's literally friend-of-a-friend, so take or leave it as you will. Might inspire some ideas, though.
Voltes V
Kentarou, Kenichi, Heinel
I can't explain why I suddenly got really obsessed with a show I watched years ago, but I did and here we are. I'm for any sort of exploration of what happens after the series - a lot goes down in the last episode, and a lot kind of gets glossed over as a part of that! Like the part where all these characters find out they're related in the last 10 minutes of the last episode and then Heinel kills himself three minutes later. Let everyone deal with that, either in terms of immediate aftermath or some time afterwards. Who goes and gives Heinel's grandparents the news? Because that's gonna be awkward. Or heck, let Heinel live and actually deal with everything he did. Or don't and just let him chill with his family I'm totally fine with that too. (Let Kentarou hug all his kids! Let the Gou boys play with Heinel's horns!)
Or just Kentarou/La Gohl trying to set up this new revolutionary government and dealing with all those troubles/challenges, because there's going to be a lot. Any local rulers taking the opportunity to try and split off? How to handle any planets that Sanbasil did manage to conquer during that expansionist phase? Dealing with the old bureaucracy now t hat everything's been turned upside down, but the thousands of civil servants necessary to run a space empire don't just appear out of thin air?
Kenichi (and brothers) dealing with being half-Boazanian after things settle down a bit would also be interesting. Any interest in weird space France culture? Do they get to go visit regularly? What happens on Earth now everyone knows there's aliens?
Or backstories, worldbuilding, everything I asked for in the rest of my letter.
How to experience:
Free streaming in the US/Canada on RetroCrush. Outside US/Canada (or just don't want to see ads) there's archive.org! Finally!
