esmenet | Yuletide letter!

And this time, actual Yuletide letter! :D

Dear Yuletide Author,

Hello! First of all, I think it's wonderful that other people love these tiny little fandoms and are willing to write fic in them. I will be immensely happy even if it's not perfect. :D

Second of all, please have a look at this post before you begin writing. I hope that you already know to treat all characters' identities, cultures, orientations, religions, and histories with respect, and to do at least a fairly good amount of research (Google is your friend!), but a well-written reminder never hurts.

I like het and slash, and a good femslash fic can make me squee for hours at a time, but my true favourites are gen and asexual relationships. Sex, as a whole, is really not my thing -- if you write me a thousand words of scorching-hot porn I will most likely end up slightly disappointed.

Things I love: characters hanging out and having fun with each other, the relationships of siblings or close friends, details of a character's hobby or profession ("they play the violin" isn't good enough; I want to know about the feel of the strings against their fingers, the moment right before a concert when they realise they forgot to cut their nails and have thirty seconds to do it in or risk having to flatten their knuckles the entire time, the one note they can never quite get right), context (cultural, social, geographic, religious, historical), quiet yet intense moments, culturally appropriate clever references or turns of phrase, stylish prose, music-making, discussion of or reference to sexuality and gender issues, cultural and religious(if applicable) references (can't say it too many times), domesticity, saving the world one mind at a time, meta, social commentary, vivid imagery, created families, and linguistics.

(Don't worry; you don't have to fit all of that in.)

And to c&p from

fulselden 's letter: I should say upfront that if you have to make a choice between writing the story OF YOUR HEART that you really want to write and following one of the prompts I give below, I would far prefer you to write the aforementioned story OF YOUR HEART.

1. Land of the Blindfolded | Mekakushi no Kuni

Land of the Blindfolded is about a few future- and past-seeing teenagers who go to high school and hang out together. For people who can see other times with a touch, they're surprisingly ordinary; most of their long-term problems revolve around their school or family life. They don't use their powers to change the world or spy on people -- their most common usage of them is to help someone who is about to have a painful accident. Even their Tragic Pasts are pretty normal -- Arou's mother died when he was young and he still misses her, Namiki is on bad terms with his family and lives alone, with only a few adorable animals and his rough-looking-yet-kind business partner to console him outside of school hours.

I love it all. Arou's gardening, Kanae slowly finding her own way in life, Namiki's insistence that he'll come back every day and eat lunch with them when he's in college. Even the romance, over-sappy as it is sometimes. Eri and Ezawa's relationship, based on honesty instead of tact. Mekakushi no Kuni is what it is: slow-paced and gentle and positive, even when the events going on are less than happy.

Will Sou ever come to care about people other than his dead sister and Arou? Will Namiki really come eat lunch with them every day? (Of course he will.) What's up with Arou's disappearing act? Will Kaichou ever get a real name? Does everyone stay friends after high school? (Please yes.) Will Namiki's business partner ever meet the other characters? What about Arou's friend who wanted to go into politics?

This is my happy manga, and it shows.

Availability: Nine volumes long, licensed by CMX in North America. Should be easy to find, if not cheap to buy -- I'm sure you can -- *cough* -- get hold of a copy long enough to read it all. Well worth your time.

2. Kokinwakashuu

Aka the Kokinshuu, a collection of Heian-era (mostly) tanka, commissioned for the purpose of re-popularizing an older and more native form of poetry than the Chinese form that dominated the literary scene at the time. I highly recommend you read at least some of the poems, even if you don't write anything for it -- they're absolutely beautiful. (As is the prologue. Ki no Tsurayuki, I grovel at your amazing feet. The seeds of Japanese poetry lie in the human heart and grow into leaves of ten thousand words.)

Write about the circumstances the poems were written in, or use them as prompts for stories set in the Heian era, or stories about Shinto deities (mmm, Tatsuta-hime). Anything for this fandom would be amazing.

Availability: Laurel Rodd & Mary Henkenius' translation is pretty easy to find -- I don't know about bookstores, but my local community college has a copy, and the local university has several different translations including this one -- and has lots of useful footnotes. Failing that, a lot of the poems can be found with a little googling.

lnhammer is translating it for fun -- here are some of Ki no Tsurayuki's, if you want to start with him.

3. Gokusen (manga)

The tale of a dorky badass yakuza math teacher and her cool-looking (but secretly dorky) brilliant student.

Basically it is the BEST THING EVER. And here is a picspam to prove just how awesome and hilarious and badass and feminist it is. Including much emphasis on the fact that, while Shin may be all cool and intelligent, he is in fact the non-badass love interest and will have to put up with getting kidnapped and being left out of the fights just like every other love interest in high-school-delinquent manga. (Quote from the picspam: Sometimes, if there are other people around that she needs to hide her badassery from, she will graciously allow him to punch out a bad guy that she's already defeated.)

I'd love to see fic about Shin going to Tokyo University. How do his class- or dorm-mates deal with the occasional intrusion of his yakuza acquaintances into their peaceful, entirely-legal lives? (Or are they?) How does he deal with being away from his friends? Does Yankumi ever visit?

Or crossovers! Crossovers would be AMAZING. And easy! Yankumi probably knows Kasanoda from Ouran High School Host Club, and Shin is probably related somehow to Yotsuba's dad. Gokusen is ridiculously easy to cross over with things -- Detective Conan, KHR, almost anything could work.

Availability: Here are all fifteen volumes. Warning: may cause inability to sleep until finished.

4. Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends

A tale of a young man who gradually learns how to open his heart to others. You know, just like all the others -- except this one is actually sweet and entertaining. I love it! Even more than Mekakushi no Kuni, this is a series I want to hug to my heart and never let go.

I don't know quite how to recommend it to someone who isn't already interested in this kind of thing -- it's like the quieter bits of early xxxHOLiC, with its focus on Natsume learning how to let people close to him. And juicy moral dilemmas -- do you kill the ayakashi that's going to hurt people? Even if it's your friend? Do you let your friend the exorcist kill ayakashi?

This is another one where I basically want more of canon. I love Natsume and his slightly distant friendships, the way he's gradually starting to reach out to people instead of drawing away in politeness to protect them. What fic I've seen tends to focus on him and Tanuma and Madara/Nyanko-sensei -- but I want fic about Taki and Kitamoto and Nishimura and Hinoe-san and Touko-san and Shigure-san and Natori (I love that Natsume is sarcastic to him so often. He's usually so polite) and Reiko and everyone.

I'd love to see someone finding out about Natsume seeing ayakashi. The Fujiwaras, maybe? Kitamoto and Nishimura? Or more of Natsume hanging out with Natori/doing exorcist things himself. (Or Taki and Tanuma spending time together! I don't know if they actually have much in common other than Natsume, but for some reason I think it would be fun watching them get together and make Plans about things.)

Or just something about any of the not-Madara characters. (I don't have anything against Madara! But Natsume does have other people in his life.) Also, even though I'm a genfic girl at heart, I would not make strenuous objections to romance for this fandom. ;)

Also also also if you manage to write a good crossover between this and Land of the Blindfolded, I will love you forever.

Availability: Licensed by Viz in the US. The first two volumes are easily found in chain bookstores; the rest can be found for download here.