Dear Yuletide Writer letter 2023

[stayloose]

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you for writing for me, or for looking at my letter. My AO3 account is hisen, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you create! All the prompts and ideas I've listed are just suggestions and you can use them or not as you wish.

I also have gifts enabled, if you're reading this and you felt like treating me :)

General likes:

• Pining
• Denial of feelings
• Getting together
• Canon divergence AUs
• Missing scenes from canon
• Angst
• Miscommunication, mixed messages, reasonable misunderstandings
• First impressions that turn out to be wrong or misleading (positively), e.g. someone comes across as very cold but actually feels deeply, they just doesn't express their emotions much.
• Accidental physical contact, hands touching unexpectedly
• Fixing a canon typical problem/situation while falling in love.
• Fixing a canon typical problem/situation while already being in a relationship!
• Communication without using words
• Characters who are very good at what they do with their powers, smarts etc., but bad at social interaction/emotional stuff etc.
• Time loops/time travel
• Accidentally fucking up reality somehow and needing to fix it.
• They thought nobody was coming but they were.
• On-screen switch from a formal name basis to informal basis, possibly in a meaningful moment but also just casually happening too.
• Fake-out make-outs
• Bed sharing
• Slow burn
• Hot Springs episode (if canon has one: why not more? If it doesn't, it should have one!)
• Nature
• Changes in seasons, weather and the passing of time
• Sharing an umbrella
• Kabedon, particularly when played for laughs because of genre savvy characters, character is not actually cool enough to make it work, the other character immediately reverses it and does it much better etc.
• Tsunderes
• Characters being forced to work together in difficult circumstances
• Hurt/comfort
• Canon smokers smoking
• Taking comfort together in desperate situations
• Nightmares, unusual dreams, visions

Smut likes:

• Desperation
• Unintentionally turning their partner on
• Sex so enthusiastic that it's kind of clumsy and messy
• Dirty talk
• Praise kink
• Bickering during sex (with couples who already bicker all the time)
• Semi-public sex
• Semi or fully clothed sex, or just one piece of clothing stays on
• Solo masturbation
• Mutual masturbation
• Denial of feelings even in the middle of sex
• Fingering
• Frottage
• Oral sex
• Anal sex
• Come play
• Sexting/phone sex
• Reading dirty books (or outright porn) that leads to sex (either out loud to their partner or by themselves and it gets them in the mood)
• Sharing a bed together turns into sex (doesn't have to be penetrative!)

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DNWs:

• Unrequested AUs (canon-divergence and canon AUs requested for all canons)
• Death of canon characters
• Unrequested non-canon pairings
• Current events
• Any reference to COVID-19
• For 'For Your Love' only: serious injuries, violence, sickness or torture
• Graphic description of serious injuries, violence, sickness or torture
• Body horror
• Cannibalism/vore
• Bodily fluids apart from sexual fluids and blood (including canon-typical bodily fluids)
• Sexual content with characters under 16
• Intentional violence in sex (rough sex is okay)
• Non-con
• Age play
• D/s
• Omegaverse
• Breath play/choking

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Fandom: 飴色パラドックス | Ameiro Paradox | Candy Color Paradox (Manga)

Medium: manga
Length: 6 volumes in English (on-going)
Estimated reading time: 9-10 hours.
Sources: The manga is licensed in English by Viz in its SuBLime imprint, it's available digitally and in print.
Further information: Candy Color Paradox

At a weekly magazine, eager beaver journalist Onoe gets unexpectedly thrown onto the stake-outs team and paired up with photographer Kaburagi, who Onoe considers his rival and also happened to steal his girlfriend away the previous week. Sparks immediately fly as they bicker and drive each other up the wall, before finding a grudging respect and perhaps...love?

It's a BL manga, of course it's love. It doesn't stop the bickering through.

I enjoy how this manga has romance but also, the characters' jobs are really important to the plot. Onoe being a bit naive in a profession that's prone to pessisism is quite fascinating!

Characters: Kaburagi Motoharu, Onoe Satoshi

I'm a big fan of 'two people who appear to have nothing in common actually share common ground' and also 'I love you but we are destined to bicker a lot too', and these two deliver on that. I also appreciate how over the course of the series, they both increasingly appreciate each other's qualities and value them a lot (especially Kaburagi of Onoe's less obvious qualities!). Even if they still argue a lot because that's just how they are and they're both equally stubborn in their own ways.

So! These two are very different people, particularly in their outlook in life with Onoe's being relentlessness optimistic (and just a little naive) and Kaburagi's real self being an apathetic realist (although he starts to change, just a little, over time in the series). I also like how people usually end up telling Kaburagi he's the lucky one once they get to know Onoe, and that he agrees too. The contrast between Kaburagi being superficially charming (on purpose) and Onoe being charming once you get to know him is something I enjoy a lot. The gap between first impressions and what's actually going on is something I find fascinating in general, which is a big theme throughout this manga and also with the characters.

I'm happy with fic set at any point of the manga, from when they're both still get used to each other and fighting a lot, to when they've mellowed out a little later on (okay, Kaburagi has. Onoe's actually an inmovable object of optimism but I like that about him). If you'd like to include any of the supporting cast, please do! I like all of them.

Ideas:

• Case fic. I like how dedicated they are to their jobs, even if they started out for different reasons, and how it's an important part of their relationship that they're journalists. The hunting down of scoops is always fun! I would be interested in the silly, gossip rag style ones and also in more serious scoops as well. They don't have to work out, either, not every lead does for them.

• Having to go undercover as a couple, while being an actual couple already. The potential here! Onoe would be so terrible at it, somehow, despite the fact they are actually dating. Kaburagi could be so weirdly out of character (for Onoe) that it actually creeps him out and ruins their chance of being convincing. Or perhaps it turns out to be the best undercover operation they've done together (unless Onoe blows it at the last minute).

• Two words: fake-out make-out. This FINALLY happened in one of the extra chapters for Volume 5, but it is a classic and I would like to see more. As a feint on a real stake-out? In a situation where there was a clearly better alternative? Or perhaps, they get caught when they are just getting handsy together in semi-public (again) and the person who catches them thinks it's a distraction and they end up in trouble for it? Wherever you think, I am interested.

• Related, the two of them have a thing for semi-public sex in canon and I would be happy to see more of it. They still haven't done it in Kaburagi's car on-screen in canon, by the way. You could correct this oversight.

• Anything dealing with the fact that sometimes they do good in their jobs, but they also spent a lot of time following people around purely because they have a new partner and they're famous. It's ethically questionable stuff, and I like that canon doesn't shy away from that.

• I love Kaburagi going "I'm tired so I'm crashing at your place (and have a key)", and Onoe going to see him when he's feeling vulnerable too so, more, more!!!

• Usually it's Onoe getting into trouble and Kaburagi has to pull him out of it, so a situation where that's reversed would be fun. Either with Onoe being unexpectedly competent, or just making it significantly worse than it was before.

• The two of them end up trapped in a dangerous situation, and someone gets hurt. It could be Kaburagi going ape-shit because Onoe got hurt (it's happened in canon!) or Onoe protecting and doing his mostest for a hurt Kaburagi. Or maybe they're both hurt but they're both trying to put a brave face on it because they're so worried about the other. I eat this stuff up. Go for it, as long as they do eventually get out at the end.

• Onoe's family and background. We know a bit about Kaburagi's past (Vol. 2 and 5), including a high school flashback, but we've seen none of Onoe's. I'd be really interested in finding out about him too! I feel that he probably grew up in a loving envirnoment, with how open and optimistic he is, but I could see it not being the 'normal' nuclear family of two parents and their kid(s). Maybe he was raised by a single parent, or his grandparents raised him, or other relatives, or maybe a family friend? I'd be really interested in your take!

• They finally switch to being on a first name basis! It's supposed to be only at home and then Onoe calls him Motoharu at work and everyone goes 👀.

• I would be interested in a crossover with False Memories, also by Natsume Isaku. Maybe Onoe and Kaburagi end up chasing a lead in the toy industry? I think the dynamics between the characters would be really fun, and I also feel Nakano would immediately see through Kaburagi and hate him on sight, ha ha ha.

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Fandom: 너의 사랑에 대하여 | For Your Love (Webcomic)

Medium: webtoon
Length: 85 chapters (complete)
Estimated reading time: 40 hours
Sources: This is licensed in English as 'The Shape of Your Love' by Pocket Comics and is available through its app, which you can get here.
Further information: For Your Love

It starts out simply enough: Yohan, who saw his older brother get rejected by another man as a child, thinks unrequited love is pointless. When he sees his club senior, Park Moogyeong, has a crush on Lee Junseo, the only other member of the club, he decides to step in and help him avoid the same fate.

Naturally, none of this goes to plan.

I love this series for its slow burn romance (and it really is a slow burn), how heavily character focused it is, the excellent pining and longing, the central relationship having difficulties and false starts without spilling over into ridiculous melodrama, and for the character development of its two leads. There's also Yuri, Yohan's best friend, whose entertaining rudeness, shit-stirring and foul mouth makes Yohan look like a fine, outstanding citizen. (He's also got his own issues but that's for the spin-off...)

The art is really great too, it's simple and the flat colouring gives a different atmosphere to a lot of other webtoons. While it's not 'shiny', it's very expressive, and also has drawn backgrounds – no 3D backgrounds here! Yohan also has hilarious facial expressions. So do the other characters (particularly Yuri) but nobody can beat Yohan.

I've read Form of Sympathy as well, so if you want to use anything from that as well, I'm open to it.

Characters: Jung Yohan, Park Moogyeong

I love how these two struggle to get to the point they are at the end, where they are properly together and starting to really understand each other, from their deeply inauspicious start. They both grow so much as people over the course of the series and it wouldn't have happened if they hadn't met each other. Like Yohan says at the end, if he had to do it over, he'd still tactlessly out Moogyeong and take that punch so they'd end up together again. I am an absolute sucker for that.

Yohan goes from a tactless, rude brat for who everything's too hard work to bother with, to valuing and putting in an effort with others (and also with his schoolwork) and while not as fearless as he thought he'd be, still brave. Moogyeong also grows, if not as radically as Yohan. He has so much more courage than he did at the start, he learns what it's like to have his love returned and to have something he wants beyond just studying and fulfilling the expectations everyone else has for him. As the author states in the final notes, Yohan is the physically strongest character by far, but Moogyeong is by far the strongest in the cast in terms of being a good person. It's a super charming contrast.

Ideas:

• How they manage that year when Moogyeong is at college and Yohan is supposed to be studying for his college entrance exam. I feel that there might be some jealousy and insecurity again but it works out okay in the end.

• Yohan gets extra motivation for his college entrance exam by getting Moogyeong to agree to do something special if he passes. Maybe a sex thing, or maybe something really minor that's still kind of difficult for him to do. (Okay, but. Yohan asking him if he can call Yohan hyung in bed and he's just. Why. And possibly does it anyway because he's weak to his pleading.)

• Finally moving in together! It's maybe a little awkward but it's really nice to be staying together like this again. Plus Moogyeong did miss his cooking.

• 'I am going to text you for three hours straight, hyung, please stop ignoring me because you're doing an assignment.'

• They take another trip together. Maybe it's more successful than their previous ones, or maybe a new, exciting disaster happens on it.

• Double date with Leo Junseo and his girlfriend. Maybe Yohan spends the whole time pulling faces, Junseo spends the time trying to sell Moogyeong on Yohan's charms because he hasn't yet realised that they're in a relationship, while Moogyeong is trying not to die of embarrassment. It is maybe a miracle that Junseo doesn't get dumped afterwards.

• Yohan crying (I fully respect Park Nodeok's goal of 'I want to write a story with a crying man' aka Yohan), either about something serious or something completely ridiculous.

• I'm so curious about why Yohan decided to pick out architecture as his college major.

• Moogyeong has to soothe the bad vibes he accidentally causes when he says that Jung Joohan is attractive again and Yohan is a little pissed off that he keeps thinking his older brother is hot.

• Yohan does the spontaneous "marriage proposal while just lying in bed together one day" thing and then immediately freaks out. Orrrr...Moogyeong does it and everyone is very surprised, especially the man himself.

• One of them (seemly?) vanishes from existence and the other is the only one who remembers them.

• The two of them just doing things together, basically.

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Fandom: 돈 터치 미 | Don't Touch Me (Webcomic)

Medium: webtoon
Length: 50 chapters (complete)
Estimated reading time: hours
Sources: This is licensed in English by Tapas Comics.
Further information: Don't Touch Me

A young man can see strange black smoke coming off people that causes people to get hurt. One day, he runs into a man who's covered in this black smoke, who turns out to be his sunbae who's infamously anti-social. But when your touch literally injures people, it's not surprising. Until it turns out that Dokyung not only doesn't get hurt when he touches him, but can reduce the smoke coming off Woohyun too with his touch...

I really enjoyed the central conceit, and the two main characters (beyond the occasional poor communication issues). Weird powers! Lots of intense touching!

I found the ending a little unsatsifying, as I understand that the series got cancelled and so they had to rush the ending, so feel free to diverge or just to ignore it altogether. Feel free to diverge at any point from canon too, I'm not particularly attached to the love triangle plot either.

Characters: Kang Dokyung, Park Woohyun

Weird powers! Two outcasts due to their powers, and a guy who is, unsurprisingly, struggling with the fact his touch can cause serious injury. I always appreciate characters who cause misleading first impressions, and both of these two are good at that.

I feel like Woohyun's occasional possessiveness tracks with his life experience, so I don't mind him being quite possessive of Dokyung, as long as it doesn't feel suffocating to Dokyung.

Ideas:

• I would love something that explored the black smoke more. What is it? How come Dokyung can see it, and why is Woohyun covered in like that? Perhaps there's even an answer to what is it, and why it's happening. I don't need it to be something that could be cured, but if you wanted to go down that route, I would be interested too!

• Any alternative ending would be great.

• Woohyun being so absolutely, incredibly touch-starved because he will literally hurt anyone he touches who isn't his mother until Dokyung shows up sits around in my brain a lot. I would enjoy more exploration of this. Just lots and lots of weird, tender touching because literal first!

• More weird cult stuff? More weird cult stuff. I feel like both of their powers would attract people wanting to exploit their power for their own ends, and could lead to some really interesting situations. I would like them to come out okay on the other side, but some hurt/comfort, imprisonment and angst? Absolutely!

• Basically, any outstanding plot points (apart from the love triangle)? Let's go there!

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Fandom: サムライフラメンコ | Samurai Flamenco

Medium: anime and a spin-off, not entirely canon manga
Length: 22 episodes, 11 chapters (both complete)
Estimated watching/reading time: the anime is 11 hours, and the manga is 1-2 hours.
Sources: The anime might be available on Crunchyroll again? I've lost track (and actually, yes, own the Blu-Rays for this one! You know, the things nobody in Japan brought for the show). The manga was never officially licensed in English but fan translations are available.
Further information: Samurai Flamenco - Another Days (manga)

Samurai Flamenco is about Hazama Masayoshi, a guy who's watched too much tokusatsu and wants to be a hero for real, while having no special abilities or physical talents. After a fateful (naked) encounter with an off-duty cop, Gotou, Masayoshi starts to work towards making his dream come true, within what appears to be the bounds of reality and while working/competing against an idol singer who wants to be a magical girl to kick guys in the nuts.

And then the last ten minutes of episode 7 happen, and nothing is the same afterwards.

A show summed up by 'I want to get off Samurai Flamenco's Wild Ride', it's a mess of twists, turns, some pacing issues and an overall vibe of 'what the fuck am I watching'. It's glorious and I geninuely love it for its sheer vision and just going for it, even if it's kind of a mess. For me, the heart of it is a love of tonkusatsu and how Masayoshi grows and develops over the course of the series.

Characters: Gotou Hidenori, Hazama Masayoshi

I like how these two look like complete opposites at the start but by the end of the show, it turns out they have way more in common than it initially appeared. Their relationship is right at the heart of the show, from the very first episode. They're super important to each other and I love that. It's only when Haiji threatens Gotou that Masayoshi actually loses his cool, after all.

In terms of what I like about them as a ship, I like how these two are oblivious to their own feelings and their attraction to each other for the majority of the series. I like how they are, without doubt, the most important people to each other, and deeply care about each other even if Gotou would rather die than admit it most of the time. While a lot of my ideas below are ship focused, I'd also be happy with gen fic as long as their friendship is still important to them in it.

If you want to involve Gotou/his girlfriend in your story, I am definitely up for that! I'm also happy to see other characters showing up too, like MMM.

Ideas:

• "What are we to each other?" after the show-down with Haiji. I can see them just avoiding talking about it initially, because well, a lot happened and they both need to think about what to do next. I'd really like it if Masayoshi ended up redoing his marriage proposal in less hectic circumstances, too. Or it's meant to be less hectic, anyway...

• Pining. I love pining, so give me all the pining.

• Making up a romantic partner who turns out to be real, either via magic or by chance. This could be Masayoshi making another Flamwenco wish, but honestly Gotou making up a fake partner, while being in a different fake relationship, who turns out to be a real person is a LOT. I would like both the humour of it (seriously, what are you doing man?) and the tragedy lying under it (seriously, what are you doing?). Maybe he has to go back home and facing questions about if he's got over his girlfriend, already, and makes up a fake partner who just happens to fit Masayoshi's profile, despite not meeting him yet. And then he shows up.

• Hurt/Comfort. You can whump these two hard, I'm down for it. I'd like anything from minor hurt to aliens have them captive and one of them is alarmingly close to death. Gotou insisting that he's fine when he's most definitely not.

• Getting married! I could see them ending up with a very big, fancy wedding despite not really wanting it because Masayoshi's future president of the world status. Disastrous wedding planning? Unhelpful 'helpful' suggestions from MMM? Deciding to eventually elope because they can't cope with the strain of a big fancy wedding? Going through with it regardless because of a sense of duty and it's kind of a disaster, but they make it through the day with each other's support?

• One of them appears to have vanished from existence and the other is the only person who remembers him. Maybe aliens did it, maybe someone else got their wish granted by saying ‘flamwenco’ enough, maybe reality just warped weirdly again. Ideally I'd like the other to return. If it's Gotou, he might even end up believing the whole thing was just his imagination. I feel like Masayoshi would not quit, despite all odds and everyone else being convinced he imagined Gotou.

• Masayoshi is terrified he's accidentally forced Gotou to fall in love with him because he loves him enough to warp reality to make it happen. Either treated seriously or more lightly.

• Trapped in a fake, perfect world. I'd be really interested in Gotou's girlfriend still being present in that world and how that affects his decision to resist or not, torn between wanting to stay to save her or protecting Masayoshi in the real world.

• Gotou being haunted by his missing girlfriend, possibly like he is in canon, or much more literally. Is she really a ghost? A hallucination caused by his guilt increasing as he gets closer to other people again despite himself? Or something else entirely? Something much more sinister...

• Undercover as a couple. It was probably not Gotou's idea, he did not want this, but now they're undercover together as a couple and Masayoshi is enjoying it more than he probably should.

• AU where Masayoshi has a different obsession and that ends up making him warp reality differently. This could be something with a similar vibe (Actual samurai? Medieval knights? Science fiction? JRPGs!) or something very different (Dating games! Cryptozoology! 19th Century Paris??? Maybe even your own personal favourite topic!). I'd like to see them coping with a very different set of challenges, particularly if he accidentally shifts the city into a completely different country or time period.