Dear Yuletide Writer

[carabas]

Hello! Thank you for writing for me and for sharing one of these fandoms!

I'm DeCarabas on AO3 and carabas on tumblr. I hope this letter is enough to give you a starting point if you need one, but if you’ve got your own idea for this fandom already, fantastic, do that - what I really want here is to see someone else's spin on my favorite characters.

I'm easy to please - I like gen and shipfic equally, I like fluffy and lighthearted fics, bittersweet fic, dark and twisted fics, and everything in between, any rating, long or short, plot-filled adventures or trope-filled pining or worldbuilding or introspective character studies or smut - whatever style of fic you like to write, anything with these characters will make me happy.

Some general likes/prompts: Shapeshifting, possession, magical mishaps, mad science mishaps - pretty much anything playing with the quirks of magical or supernatural settings. Dreams. Altered states. Telepathic connections. Crossovers with history or mythology or fairy tales. Folklore references. Holiday fic, any holiday. Road trips. Immortality. Reincarnation. Identity porn, playing with secret identities and alter egos. Fake dating. Established relationships. One-sided pining. Loyalty, and oaths of loyalty, and conflicted loyalties. Competency, admiring someone's skills. Sharing a bed. Huddling for warmth. Possessiveness, marking, bite marks. Voyeurism and exhibitionism. Mirrors. Body worship. Voice kink. Blood kink. Nonpenetrative sex. Blindfolding as an expression of trust.

Some things I'd rather not get/DNWs: Anything set in the year 2020 or about COVID. (If you're writing Vampyr, anything about the Spanish flu that's going on during canon is fine and encouraged, just not 2020). Mundane AUs.

If you're completely stuck on whatever fandom we matched on and want to try picking up another, all my requested fandoms are plot-heavy video games and not super quick to play through, but they do all have let's plays on YouTube. Vampyr is about a doctor-turned-vampire in the 1918 flu pandemic; Animamundi is a BL visual novel about demons and the occult and Jack the Ripper; and Chrono Cross is a fantasy JRPG about alternate timelines where you spend half the game in the body of the villain, a sequel to Chrono Trigger but can be played on its own.

 

Chrono Cross

Characters: Harle, Serge

I love Serge and Harle and all the oddities of the sort of not-quite-villain-and-henchman relationship that Serge fell into when he swapped places with Lynx. Whether as a pairing or as something more platonic, I'd simply love to see more of these two.

There's something about stories of a character who becomes trapped in the role of their enemy that appeals to me - fighting their friends, living and working together with their enemy's old companions, I don't know what it is but it presses my buttons in just the right way. And when Harle started talking about the nature of identity and reality, screwing with Serge's head and yet also acting as this constant supportive presence at a time when all his previous companions have abandoned and/or tried to kill him - well, all my buttons have been thoroughly pressed. And then she turns out to have her own reasons to have issues with the nature of identity and reality, between Schala and the dragons.

So tell me more about these two. Tell me about the extra ending where they stay in Marbule, rebuilding; some slice of life would be wonderful here. Or show me any situation where Serge has to play the role of the old Lynx, or else interacting with people or places from Serge's past while he's in Lynx's body, with Harle always at his side. Or tell me about the moment she left the party without explanation, and "Monsieur Lynx" finds himself without her for the first time since the identity swap. She keeps telling him to dream of her, so tell me about his dreams, or tell me about hers.

Or anything incorporating any of the quirks of the game setting, elemental affinities that change when you bodyswap and saving the world through music and running around a ship as cats - anything with these characters and this world, I'll love.

Animamundi: Dark Alchemist

Characters: Germant Cassel, Lucifer

I'd love to see any kind of encounter between St. Germant and Georik's demonic alter ego, whether that's after Lucifer's taken over Georik's body or when St. Germant's a damned soul in the underworld. Maybe something with Lucifer showing some twisted affection for St. Germant due to Georik's influence? Or something with St. Germant looking for traces of Georik in Lucifer?

I love the atmosphere of this game - elegant gardens and hidden tunnels and dusty forgotten laboratories, the tarot and alchemy and all the namedropping of occult figures and texts, and all the secrets and alternate identities that the characters have. And I really wish this particular alternate identity of Georik's had managed to interact with St. Germant a bit.

I'd love to see something after the ending where St. Germant becomes an immortal alchemist, with Lucifer physically reminding him of Georik long after all the mortal characters have passed away. Maybe it's just good to know someone else around who's been alive for centuries, even if that someone is the devil. Or maybe they only finally meet by chance when someone asks the immortal alchemist to help them with a demon problem. Or maybe he deliberately summons Lucifer up - maybe they form a contract? Or something set after the ending where Lucifer winds up married to Sylvie and ruling the country - maybe something where St. Germant thinks Georik's personality can still be restored?

I also like all the other characters and ship everyone with everyone, so feel free to include whoever else you'd like. Or I'd also love a more gen focus on the tarot or alchemy or demonology or anything similar from this setting - work in a namedrop of St. Germain's Trinosophia and I'll love you forever - or this game also lends itself really easily to crossovers with history or mythology, and I'd love to see damned soul!St. Germant travel through other versions of the underworld.

Vampyr

Characters: Edgar Swansea, Jonathan Reid

I love Edgar's delight in all things vampire and in the accomplished Dr. Reid specifically, and I'd love to see more of their relationship, platonic or otherwise.

On my first playthrough, I assumed Edgar was a romance option and that I'd just somehow picked the wrong dialogue options to have gotten locked into a different romance. With his enthusiasm over morbid subjects, his vampire fannishness is thoroughly endearing, and he's just so giddily delighted that the great Dr. Reid has become a vampire. "A gift from heaven"! And meanwhile here's Jonathan, lost and confused and abandoned by his maker and wandering about covered in bloodstains, the perfect time for Edgar to swoop in to his rescue, offering him shelter, acting as a source of information he desperately needs and welcoming him into Pembroke - giving him a place safe from the people who hunt him, a job that lets him blend into the mortal world, a houseplant in slight need of watering, and a whole building full of patients whom Edgar's trusting Jonathan with in full knowledge of Jonathan's endless vampiric thirst situation. Completely charming. And their odd power dynamic - Edgar in charge at Jonathan's hospital and with more knowledge of the world of vampires, and Jonathan as the actual vampire here and Edgar's eventual maker - is fun too.

So I'd love to see more of their dynamic in any form. Something early in the game playing on the fact that Edgar is one of the very few mortals in on Jonathan's secrets, knowing he's alive while Jonathan's own family believes he's dead, aware enough of Jonathan's killings (if any) to comment on them and yet never throwing Jonathan out of the hospital for them? Or some scene from an alternate version of the game where Edgar is a romance option, where he gets to indulge in his vampire kink or simply finds Jonathan's looming intimidating vampire monologue routine inappropriately hot? He's part of a vampire-watching club and all, so let him have some vampire-watching voyeurism.

Or vampire!Edgar, with the voice of Jonathan as his maker in Edgar's mind? Myrddin had some ominous comments about the likelihood of Edgar causing trouble in the Brotherhood now that he's been turned, was he right about that or is Edgar just Myrddin's least favorite of Jonathan's progeny? Something following up on one of the endings where Jonathan doesn't stay with Elisabeth, or one where he does and Edgar remains fascinated by all Jonathan's research, as he always has been?

As far as pacifism/evil goes, any version of Jonathan is good, please feel free to go as pacifist/evil as you like or as your story needs. But my favorite version of Jonathan is when it's not a completely pacifist or completely evil run, the ending where he's left alone and brooding - so when Jonathan has his share of civilian blood on his hands but still has enough of a conscience not to revel in indiscriminate slaughter, how does he relate to his progeny, with Edgar's slight mad scientist tendencies and his refusal to treat vampirism as the punishment Jonathan intended it as? And if you don't go completely pacifist, I'm really fond of the game mechanic that rewards you with more XP the more you've gotten to know an NPC's secrets before eating them, sort of incentivizing Jonathan to become the kind of vampire who stalks an intended victim over time - I'd love anything exploring how that plays with Jonathan's personality, or with Edgar's once he's turned. I'm also a fan of all the edible NPCs, so please feel free to include any of them if you'd like. I also really like the theme of living with the consequences of your choices, even and especially consequences you didn't predict, even and especially when you were trying to do the right thing (apologies to the pillars I tried and failed to spare in my first playthrough). Or really, absolutely anything with these characters.