Yuletide 2026 Dear Author Letter

[rynling]

Dear Author,

Thank you so much for offering to write for me!

I love atmospheric storytelling and worldbuilding, and what I want more than anything is the opportunity to spend more time in the fictional worlds that have captivated me. I’m equally delighted by slice-of-life, adventure, romance, and horror, and I also adore nonfiction meta essays and narrative concept sketches. Please feel free to dig as deep (or as lightly) into canonical lore and speculative theories as you wish.

I’m happy to read anything you’d like to write for my requested fandoms. I love most characters and ships, and I’m willing to be convinced on others. My fandom-specific prompts are just suggestions that I offer in the hope that perhaps they might be interesting to you.

I know that what you create will be wonderful, and I’m looking forward to reading your work!

I’m totally okay with:

- comedy
- tragedy
- horror
- romance
- adventure
- worldbuilding
- literary writing
- nontraditional formats
- experimental storytelling
- illustrations and comics

- as well as -

- canon deviation
- original characters
- personal headcanons
- non-canon relationships
- straight sexuality
- queer sexuality
- death and murder
- cute and silly fluff

I’d prefer not to see:

- character bashing or ship hate
- extended scenes of violence or assault
- explicitly sexual scenes with child characters
- a strong focus on the OC children of canon characters
- novella-length stories (of 10k+ words) with no chapter breaks

I promise that I always read stories in good faith, so please don’t worry too much about the details. Follow your heart, and please know that I will support and appreciate you.

Here are some of my fandom-specific interests:

Bravely Default

I put an untold number of hours into maxing out my party when Bravely Default first came out on Nintendo DS, and I recently fell in love with the game all over again while playing the remastered version on Steam Deck.

I think the game itself does an excellent job of exploring various scenarios, but I’m still very curious about the life of the characters before the story begins. I’m especially interested in the daily life of Agnès in the Temple of Wind, as well as Edea’s training and adventures before she joined her father’s military forces. I wonder if Agnès and Edea bonded over their childhoods once they met and became friends?

Chrono Trigger

I was totally charmed by Chrono Trigger as a kid; and, now that I’m an adult, I find that I’m interested in seeing more emotionally nuanced versions of the characters.

I always love depictions of friendships (or romantic relationships, if you like) between female characters, and I feel like Lucca and Marle might have an interesting dynamic. While Marle often behaves like an actual teenager, Lucca seems more emotionally mature. But I wonder if Lucca ever has moments of irrational selfishness and emotional vulnerability, and how Marle might react. Does Marle perhaps have a cold and “strictly business” aspect of her personality that would surprise the other characters if they saw it?

Also, though Magus is a classic edgelord character, his story is genuinely interesting. How did he react to being transported to the Middle Ages as a child? When he went back to the Kingdom of Zeal, what was it like for him to see that world through the eyes of an adult? And, all things considered, I’m impressed by how Magus handled his knowledge of a truly Lovecraftian horror. Where did he find the emotional fortitude?

Ender Lilies

I was thrilled to see Ender Lilies in the tagset this year! I enjoy this game so much that I play it every summer, and I’m a big fan of Ender Magnolia as well. I love the atmosphere, and I love the elegiac tone of the backstory in which everyone’s best intentions came to nothing.

One of the many brilliant things Ender Lilies does is to show Lily’s gradual transformation. Though she appears to become less human as the game progresses, Lily grows more powerful and capable. So I wonder, is her transformation truly such a bad thing? To a certain extent, might it actually feel good? And were there other people transformed by the blight who might have actually enjoyed the experience… at least before trauma and immortality took their toll?

Another truly amazing thing about Ender Lilies is that Lily can just walk away about 2/3 of the way through the game, and that this is presented as a legitimately good ending. It would be interesting to know how the Umbral Knight felt about Lily’s departure. Do you think Lily came back to the kingdom when she was older?

Based on the lore presented in Ender Magnolia, it’s likely that Lily can speak, but that she simply doesn’t (for whatever reason) after she first awakens. Whether you’d like to write Lily as speaking or not speaking, either is fine with me. Also, I don’t have any sort of preference regarding the Umbral Knight’s gender or pronouns. It’s all good.

Final Fantasy VI

Final Fantasy VI is the game of all time for me. I’ve been reading stories about the characters for years, and I still can’t get enough.

I don’t think everything needs a gritty reboot, but something I’ve been interested in recently is seeing the world of this game in a genre other than YA fantasy meant for a preteen audience. What I mean by this is that I’m fascinated by the real-world realities of themes like empire, industrialization, medical experimentation on humans, and apocalypse. I’d love to see a more nuanced understanding of psychology and politics applied to this game’s world and characters.

When it comes to Celes and Terra, I’m very curious about their time in the Magitek R&D Facility. I’m also interested in Edgar playing various types of roles in order to maintain his position. And also, though I love how gentle and sweet Sabin is, let us not forget that he spent a decade training to fight, and that our introduction to him involves murder. It would be fun to see a more “Game of Thrones” take on these two royal brothers, right?

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

I’m a giant nerd about the Legend of Zelda series, and I’ve been having a ridiculous amount of fun with Echoes of Wisdom for the past few years. I especially love how Zelda uses her echoes to navigate the world. There’s something so lovely and charming about a cute teenage girl summoning monster friends as she explores ancient ruins. Zelda really is living the dream.

If you’d like to write a story as sweet as the canonical tone of the game, that’s wonderful. I’d be very happy to see Zelda making friends everywhere she goes. On the other hand, if you’d prefer to explore the dark fantasy aspects of this game, that would be marvelous.

To give an example of the potential darkness in Echoes of Wisdom, something that’s stuck with me is how easy it was for people in Hyrule to blame Zelda for the rifts while accepting the story that their princess was an evil sorceress. Was there any substance to these rumors? And, even if there wasn’t, did Zelda ever become so dispirited by the way she was treated that she felt tempted to misuse the power she’d been granted?

Another potentially creepy way of looking at this game’s story is through the eyes of Tri, who attempts to understand human emotions but remains essentially nonhuman (and inorganic, for that matter). Does Tri perhaps see the world in a way that might be disturbing for a human reader?

Night in the Woods

I grew up reading Stephen King, and I’m a huge fan of small town gothic horror. I feel like Night in the Woods is a game made specifically for me. I once spent a summer housesitting in a small town outside of Pittsburgh very much like Possum Springs, and I’m amazed by how accurate everything in this game is, from the kids hanging out in the empty grocery store parking lot to the Lovecraftian monster in the abandoned mines to the people playing music in a condemned apartment building. I’m happy to live in Philadelphia (which, to be fair, has its own type of entropy and decay), but I always enjoy the time I spend in Possum Springs.

I’d be thrilled to have an opportunity to follow one or more of the characters as they make sense of their lives and find beauty in their liminal Rust Belt town before, during, and/or after the events of the game. My favorites are Bea Santello, Lori Meyers, and Selmers Forrester, but I love all of the characters. Now that Night in the Woods is (almost) ten years old, something that might be interesting to explore is how these Millennials are doing in their thirties. Did they leave Possum Springs; and, if they did, do they ever come back? Or did they ultimately decide to stay? Either way, I hope they’re doing okay.

Also, if this amuses you as much as it amuses me, it might be fun to include a local cryptid. Mothman is probably the best known, but there are all sorts of weird little guys out there in the woods of southwest Pennsylvania. One of the nice things about the fringes of civilization is that these areas are often quite comfortable for creatures (and people) who prefer the shadows, I think.