Generic exchange letter

[chacusha]

Hi, this is a generic letter with details of my DNWs/likes/generic prompts for exchanges, in case people want a more detailed reference of what I generally like/don't like than what tends to be in my exchange-specific letters. Details in exchange-specific letters generally supersede this if they conflict.

DNWs

General DNWs:

• Non-canonical pregnancy.
• Kidfic. By this I mean either a focus on original child characters, or adult characters being de-aged to children. Backstory/characters depicted during childhood is fine. Art of characters as children or as parents with children is fine.
• Character bashing. By this I mean things where the narrative clearly doesn't like a character I've requested, especially things where generally good/heroic characters have been depicted as villains who all the other good characters hate. Things where characters who canonically are friends with or civil/respectful toward a character I've requested just inexplicably not be that way anymore and this being seen as the right way of things/"fixing" canon are usually very hard for me to read. Tension, conflict, and flawed heroes are great, though. Good characters doing bad things is perfectly fine. Leaning in on the villainy of villain characters and making them even darker/worse is always welcome for me too.
• Feces, urine, or cannibalism.
• (Sometimes) Trans headcanons. Mainly applies to character-centric exchanges for the character(s) being requested. If I put this as a DNW, I'd prefer if the requested character being trans isn't a plot point but it's fine if it's just a background fact/minor references are made. When I have this DNW, trans headcanons and/or plots are fine for side characters; when I don't have this DNW, they are also fine for requested characters (usually in ship exchanges).

Smut DNWs:

• The DNWs above for pregnancy/children as the result of sex and feces, urine, or cannibalism also apply here.
• Body modification in a romantic or sexual context.
• For non-con, very bleak endings like mindbreak, permanent damage, or death.
• (Soft DNW) Medical kink. I can read things with this in it but it doesn't do anything for me. So if you were to write a PWP focused around medical kink, I could read it but I would unfortunately not be the best person to appreciate it.

Art DNWs:

• Gore / innards. Injury and blood are fine; I just don't like viscera.
• Creepy textures. This doesn't come up often in art -- I've never seen a piece of fanart with textures that gave me a creeped out feeling but in theory it is possible to creep me out with irregular bumpy/holey/wormy textures with strongly-defined edges (trypophobic imagery).

Likes

General notes:

Just because this list of likes is generic doesn't mean I like them less than my exchange-/fandom-specific prompts I might leave. I love these things so much that they are always a prompt!

I am interested in:

• All ratings from G to E. Blood/violence/injury is fine. Explicit sex is fine.
• All genres. This includes fluff, crack, darkfic, angst, smut, etc.
• Writing style and art style experimentation, if that's your thing. This includes all POVs (1st, 2nd, 3rd, outsider, switching, etc.), poetry and songs, weird formats, etc.

General likes:

• 🌟 AUs of all kinds. 🌟 Canon divergence, modern/mundane AUs, wild/wacky AUs -- it's all good! If you have an idea for an AU, I want to see it.
  • Some of my favorite AUs: IN SPACE! AU, roleswap AU, superhero (or magical girl) AU, coffee shop AU, high school or college AUs (includes teacher AUs), western AU, regency AU, characters sorted into Hogwarts houses, Avatar nations, Westeros houses, Starfleet divisions, etc.
• Friendly sparring between warrior characters and also fight scenes more generally if they fit.
• Contrasts and opposites.
• Character or relationship study.
• Psychodrama / characters working out their Issues (maybe with help from another character!).
• Romance likes:
  • Silly/light-hearted love triangle drama.
    More tl;dr details for those curious

    I like a variety of love triangle elements in fiction -- sometimes when it's for drama, and certainly when it's for comic relief. Probably my favorite type for humor purposes is two people (or chains of people) interested in someone else who is oblivious/uninterested, or (if you can pull it off) a perfect love loop where A likes B who likes C who likes A (or generalize it to larger groups) -- it takes a bit of work but I love the neat symmetry of everyone being involved but thwarted. From a more drama angle, I adore love chains or two people in a relationship and one outside, for the pining. I like feelings of jealousy, especially if it prompts a character to confess when they otherwise wouldn't. However, I don't like when the narrative treats the character who inspires jealousy as clearly evil or having done something wrong by doing that. The only other things I tend to be iffy about re: love triangles is if a character pingpongs between relationships with multiple partners/switches between being warm and cold toward someone multiple times (if the character is consistently loving toward both or has a consistent preference for one, or if the whole arc of the story is focused on going from one to the other as the big change, no issue for me), or if the love triangle makes a character become villainous. But if it feels right for the characters, feel free to include whatever love triangle dynamics you like.
  • Flirtation, crushes, pining, blushing. For a list of pining likes, see here.
  • Puppy love (proto-crushes between young characters).
  • Protectiveness/putting oneself in danger in order to protect someone else/bodyguard crush/rescue romance.
• Sex with feelings -- positive or negative (or conflicted!).
• Awkward situations / situational comedy: misunderstandings that get blown out of control; characters caught in a compromising situation; accidentally blurted-out words that change the nature of a relationship before characters are ready; etc.
• Two characters going on a roadtrip/adventure/mission together.
• Close platonic relationships. I love very close platonic relationships generally, but I think I especially love characters whose relationship could go platonic or romantic; all they know is that they Mean Something Important to each other. I also love emotional family relationships of all kinds including ones that are contentious/fraught and ones that are affectionate and loving.
• Epistolary fiction. Letter correspondence, narratives nested within narratives, chatfic, diaries and logs, newspaper clippings, scholarly manuscripts, etc. Love all that, either as the full work or incorporated within/beside more conventional narration.
• For video game canons, incorporation of game mechanics in fanworks/worldbuilding.
• 5 things / 5+1 format.

Smut likes:

General note: I don't really have particular things I'm looking for in smut. I'm open to all kinks aside from the ones listed in my DNWs. In general, whatever you see working for/appropriate to the characters, I'd like to see. I am interested in:

• Any sex act. PIV, anal, oral, handjobs/fingering, frottage/scissoring, masturbation, non-penetrative sex as the main event, sex so alien it doesn't register as sex, etc.
• Any sex position. Whatever you think makes sense for the characters.
• Any sex terminology/language. I'm up for any words used for sex acts/parts. Make it as ridiculously purple or as bluntly profane as you like.

That said, if you want a list of things I always adore:

• Sex with feelings or as a vehicle for character/relationship study. Always so good! For example, combining this with my love for psychodrama, a character's neuroses or hang-ups affecting the way they experience sex/intimacy.
• First times. First times are great, and so are second times, established relationship, etc. But first times often present the opportunity for character study, ramped-up emotions, awkward situations and fumbling, culmination of pining, etc. All things I like.
• Tentacles. I love tentacles as a vehicle for multiple penetration and physically overwhelming sex. I also like fuck machines for similar reasons. See also: my love for fantastical/impossible sex more generally.
• Only one bed / forced intimacy scenarios. See also: my pining likes.
• Sex pollen, heats, aphrodisiacs/love potions. I like many different flavors of sex pollen -- fluffy, cracky, dismaying/conflicted, outright traumatizing. Things I like: loss of control and desperation, physically overwhelming sex, consent issues, fantastical sex, characters pining before/during/after sex, awkward situations, etc.
• Non-con, especially with a villain as the aggressor. Creepy villains are great.
• More generally, I like consent issues of all kinds. I like dub-con and "something (villains, pollen, drugs, brainwashing, demon possession, etc.) made them do it" type scenarios. I like characters blackmailing, coercing, tricking, or grooming others into sex. I like mistaken identity dub-con. I enjoy characters who are conflicted about sex but get swept up in it anyway.
• Fantastical / physically impossible sex. One of my favorite things about fiction is that it lets you explore the emotions of situations that aren't actually possible in real life. This applies to many things, sex included. Consider: Dream sex. Selfcest. Sex with ghosts/demons/supernatural creatures/invisible people/shapeshifters/deities. Psychic sex. Sex involving use of magic or superpowers. Sex with two people/personas sharing a single body. Etc.
• Sex that is emotionally or sensually overwhelming.
• Sex from behind (doggy style, bent over a desk, etc.). Probably my favorite position.
• Masturbation, especially if it involves fantasization or is the result of UST.
• Voyeurism, especially of the accidental variety (see also: my love of awkward situations).

Art likes:

As mentioned above, I'm open to: art style experimentation (if that's your thing); all ratings from G to E (blood/violence/injury is fine; explicit sex is fine); any genre/tone.

• 🌟 Costume (re)design 🌟 / putting character in outfits of your own making/interpretation. Probably my #1 favorite thing.
• As mentioned above:
  • AUs of all kinds.
  • Fight scenes/sparring.
  • Contrasts and opposites; symmetry/mirroring. Two characters facing away from each other, for example. Or one right-side up and the other upside-down.
• Romance likes: Flirting/seduction, holding hands, blushing/flustered characters, kisses (some ideas).
• Gratuitous visual symbolism. Characters color-coded meaningfully; characters represented by an object/animal/plant/etc. that they get compared to/nicknamed; elements in the art referencing things from the character's story; etc.
• References to memes.
• Flowers and flower symbolism.
• Colors: I like bright colors; saturated pastel colors like in Impressionist art; limited palette drawings; etc. If you want some random suggestions, I've bookmarked some color palettes I like at my Tumblr.
• Cute art and chibis and toony art.
• Ink drawings or black and white art.
• Stylized art. I especially like art nouveau.
• Tarot cards.
• The whole concept of "the beach episode" -- characters on vacation, at the beach, wearing swimsuits, etc.
• Fake anime screenshots.
• Human versions of animal/non-human characters and vice versa. (I'm a fan of Animal Crossing style art!)

Opt-ins

Just as a general note, I don't have a lot of DNWs for the reason that, if I'm requesting a fandom, I usually read extremely broadly in that fandom and do not mind a wide variety of content, and so I tend to err on the side of wanting my creator to go all-out with whatever idea they have without worrying too much about tripping over a DNW I have. In case it helps, here is a (non-exhaustive) list of things that are not necessarily likes, but things I don't mind included in a gift if that's where your creativity takes you, even if not mentioned anywhere in my requests:

• Body fluids other than feces and urine: Includes vomit, blood, saliva, semen, sweat, etc. and kinks involving them.
• Dark content: Includes non-con (including between the ships I request), unhappy endings, major character death, dark/heavy themes, suicide/suicidal ideation, eating disorders, infidelity, incest, underage, racism/bigotry, etc.
• Experimental styles/format/media: Includes 1st POV, 2nd POV, outsider POV, chatfic, scriptfic, poetry, songs, interactive fiction, nonlinear narratives, very purple prose, Reddit posts, in-universe documents, etc.
• Generally wacky/unusual elements: Includes bizarre/niche AUs including omegaverse, genre shifts to canon, out-there fic premises, etc.
• Background pairings: I have few NOTPs, so I'm happy for people to toss in another ship I haven't requested. Just please don't make them more prominent/central than a ship I actually am requesting! Also, please no unrequested poly versions of ships I'm requesting, if I'm only requesting ships, as that would be featuring a different ship. The exception is if I'm requesting a solo character as well, then that indicates I'm open to poly involving that character unless I've DNWed or otherwise ruled that out through my requests. (Sorry if this is complicated, but tl;dr as long as the gift is still clearly a fill for the thing we matched on, I don't mind background pairings.)

Otherwise, I hope/believe that I have covered everything that is likely to make me lukewarm about a gift in my DNWs, so if you don't see it there, feel free to include.

Also, this is more of an exchange behavior opt-in rather than a gift content opt-in, but:

• (Self) Recs: If you see a prompt in one of my requests/letters that matches something you've already made in the past (or something you've enjoyed) but which I don't seem to have seen before, I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to point me to it outside an exchange or in work notes or something like that.

Some small fandoms that appear in my requests sometimes:

Bravely Default & Bravely Second (video games)

High-level pitch: Bravely Default (2012/2013/2014) (AKA Bravely Default: Flying Fairy AKA Bravely Default: Where the Fairy Flies) is a Final Fantasy spin-off game that goes back to some older JRPG roots with simpler chibi graphics, turn-based gameplay, and a jobclass system that resembles that of Final Fantasy III, V, Tactics, etc. Your party throughout the game consists of four characters: Tiz, a boy who lost his brother in the calamity that opens the game; Agnès, a young priestess tasked with restoring the world's four crystals with the advice of her fairy sidekick; Edea, a callow knight with a strong sense of justice who turns against her own country to help Agnès in her quest; and Ringabel, an amnesiac flirt in possession of a mysterious diary describing events from the future.

A sequel called Bravely Second: End Layer was released in 2015/2016 that takes place three years after the events of Bravely Default. The main four characters this time are Yew, a bookish scholar from a distinguished noble house; Magnolia, an alien from the moon whom he accidentally proposes to; and Tiz and Edea from the previous game. Agnès and Ringabel are not in the main party but they show up on the side. The sequel reuses a lot of the same characters from the previous game but also adds a set of new characters, mostly aligned with the Glanz Empire, the antagonist organization in this game. It's not as good a game as the original IMO but it adds some interesting characters I like to play with (mainly Janne and Yew).

The main things I like about this game series are: the characters (Edea and Ringabel are especially fun, hilarious characters, and the main four get a lot of interesting interaction throughout the game that really invests you in their friendship); the FASHION (I love the Final Fantasy-referencing jobclasses in this game, and the costume designs here are really fun, including the way the costumes look slightly different for each party member); and somewhat raunchy T-rated humor (do see the content warnings, though).

Note: Bravely Default II is a separate canon from Bravely Default/Bravely Second in the same way that Final Fantasy II is a separate canon from Final Fantasy I. They share elements/branding/broad gameplay style, but take place in different worlds with different characters. So yeah, just to be clear, Bravely Second is the direct sequel to Bravely Default but Bravely Default II is a different game entirely!! I therefore tend to abbreviate this canon as BD/BS (or BDFF/BSEL).

How long to consume: 18 hours minimum (cutscenes only) for just Bravely Default; a typical playthrough takes 60-70+ hours. For BD+BS, 30 hours total for both games at a minimum (cutscenes only), or an extra 35-50+ hours (~100+ hours total) for a full playthrough.

Read more about Bravely Default & Bravely Second

Where to find it: Note that both of these games are for the Nintendo 3DS, which is no longer supported, and there are currently no ports of the games to other consoles. So you can either buy this secondhand, or (more practically) the best option for consuming this canon is by viewing a let's play.

• Bravely Default:
When canon-reviewing, I tend to use this Let's Play by HCBailly (60 hours): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeZSRkjynvkvv4HkKzMn-ayqqZ-oud7Hr
It contains both gameplay and cutscenes and has commentary. I like this one because it's quite thorough and complete. However, if commentary annoys you, this playthrough by Hiks BR (70 hours) may be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9WSTaRxJnSclyuxa6bS7mud3mSIdeIPC
If you want to skip gameplay and just go for story-relevant cutscenes, you can drastically cut down on the time it takes to consume this game. YouTube user Quirinus has collected the game's cutscenes into a set of videos (18 hours):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7X5ZBz-9h-2NdZCD1p24p4RP9FBcqdho

• Bravely Second:
Playthrough by HeroVoltsy (35 hours):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-ec1vuqoUzYPoF0B3rdCO4cVIHQTHMAB
No-commentary playthrough by Hiks BR (50 hours):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9WSTaRxJnSdD32JqK8GjYH2WHf7YduDs
The best I could find for a cutscene compilation for Bravely Second is this set of videos uploaded by Games' Art (11 hours). Japanese voices + English text:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_IILYwb6D0AiSw9fgpOXcm6-abqp8AuL

For quick canon review, Bravely Default has a pretty comprehensive wiki, which includes the full contents of the game's in-universe encyclopedia, D's Journal.

Content warnings: The major content warning here is that this game involves a LOT of sexual harassment of the two main female party members (Agnès and Edea), who are both quite young (20 and 18 in the non-JP localizations, but 17 and 15 in the original game). This harassment is done mainly by characters who are intended to be good/heroic/helpful ones and the behavior is not really questioned or undermined in the text aside from being experienced as annoying/unpleasant by the recipients of the harassment. The repeated harassment and comments on their bodies/appearance can make the game uncomfortable to play. There are some dark themes touched on in the game related to war, exploitation, etc. but mostly in a kid-friendly, non-explicit way.

What I like about this canon; what I tend to request for this canon: So some things I find neat about Bravely Default (warning: this section contains major spoilers for the game):

- Alternis Dim, my beloved: Alternis is a character who hits my id a lot. The childhood friend of Edea Lee and quasi-adopted son of her father Braev Lee, he's a major side character who shows up every so often in both games. I love his repressed pining for Edea who, like, basically never even acknowledges his feelings. 😂 Perfect. His intense devotion to Braev Lee is also great for some loyalty kink.

- Time-twistiness: This is a canon that has canonical alternate universes with travel in between worlds (involving time travel as well) being possible! This is so good for fic. All those wild time travel/alternate universe plots -- like time travel fix-it, married in an alternate universe, doomed time loops, a character being caught between different versions of the same character originating from different universes -- are completely canonically plausible without need for any handwaving. Both games in the series also feature quite a lot of fourth wall breaking, which can lend itself well to meta or self-aware, trope-y sort of plots.

- Asterisk-holders: This game has a large cast of characters who are "asterisk-holders," that is, the person responsible for holding the particular jobclasses such as White Mage, Thief, Conjurer, etc. This set of characters all have quite exaggerated personalities and designs, which make them quite fun, and they don't get a lot of screentime either, which makes them fun to flesh out a bit more in fic. In particular, I'm quite a fan of Holly Whyte and Barras Lehr. Holly Whyte is a subversion of the stereotypical White Mage character who is often a gentle, kindly healer. Holly Whyte instead is a sadistic dominatrix who enjoys healing up her victims so that she can whale on them some more. Kinky. Barras Lehr, the Monk asterisk-holder, is... probably her himbo boyfriend? I've also latched onto Mephilia Venus quite a bit -- she's a fairly minor character in the scheme of things but I think it's really cool that she's one of the few characters who has awareness of the world outside the game, and I find her connection/relationship to Yulyana as his apprentice quite interesting, and I think her tragic backstory could stand to be explored more!

- Identity issues: I love identity issues (includes: character studies and psychodrama, the effect of memory/experiences on one's sense of self, characters meeting alternate versions of themselves, mistaken identity shenanigans, etc.), and a setting where there are parallel universes, plus Ringabel's canonical amnesia are just very fun for that!

- Agnès/Edea: Speaking of loyalty kink, something about Edea being an impulsive knight who betrays her own country to protect a reserved priestess just, like, really pushes my id buttons, and it gets even more so in Bravely Second when Edea drops everything to rescue Agnès. If you like intense loyalty relationships that straddle the boundary of platonic and romantic...

In Bravely Second:

- More Alternis: BSEL does some fun things with Edea's relationships with both Alternis and Ringabel that just adds more interesting plotbunnies to the pile. The game also ends on a pretty unresolved note regarding Edea/Ringabel, which also adds some interesting Alternis and Altdea ideas to the pile.

- Janne/Yew and JanYewNolia: BSEL adds some interesting new characters to the roster. The ones that compelled me the most, though, were Yew Geneolgia and Janne Angard. I wasn't particularly a fan of the romantic plot between Yew and Magnolia, but it's one of those ships where fic could probably sell me on it better than canon did, to be honest. Conversely, the game did sell me on Janne and Yew's relationship, and I am kind of in love with their canonical Enemies to Friends to Enemies to Friends betrayal-full relationship. Throw a couple of "to Lovers" in there in places for max angst and/or healing and I am a happy woman. There's also plenty of places pre- and post-canon to flesh out their relationship (they spent years offscreen at a boarding school together??). Janne/Yew/Magnolia as a throuple also feels kind of... well-balanced to me, somehow? Magnolia's straightforward romanticism balances out Janne's jaded sarcasm. I'm a sucker for trios that work with Sun/Moon/Star kind of imagery and that kind of works here (okay, admittedly, BOTH Janne and Magnolia are "Moon" types in different ways, but let's give one of them Star instead).

Mobius Final Fantasy

High-level pitch: Mobius Final Fantasy is a discontinued mobile gacha game by Square Enix that ran roughly from 2015-2020. As the player, you control a nameless warrior summoned from another world to fight and become a hero worthy of the name/title "Wol" (Warrior of Light), and defeat Chaos to save Princess Sarah's kingdom and the world of Palamecia. The game is constantly throwing all these grandiose hero's journey tropes and prophecies and references to the original Final Fantasy I story at the main character who is very cynical and suspicious of the grand promises of the glory of saving the world, and doesn't know who to trust of the many entities eager to guide/mentor him in the workings of Palamecia (Vox (a mysterious narrator-like voice welcoming warriors to Palamecia), Echo (a greedy fairy sidekick), Garland and Meia (independent individuals who reject the story/prophecy, branded as heretics by Vox), and Sarah (an earnest but somewhat naive central figure of the world, who might be manipulating you)). And yet he finds he doesn't have much choice other than to keep moving forward, getting stronger in battle and repelling the forces of Chaos, while slowly unraveling the mysteries of Palamecia.

How long to consume: 4-14 hours.

Read more about Mobius Final Fantasy

Where to find it: So... This game is discontinued so there's no ability to play it and there were (e.g.) time-limited events that are probably lost to the sands of time. To be honest, I have only very briefly played the actual game itself -- mainly, I have actually just watched compilations of story cutscenes created by Dark Cloud on YouTube. So as far as I'm concerned, that's all the canon that exists to me.

The story actually proceeds in two seasons. Some characters/relationships I request (like Garland) are only in Season 1 and have absolutely no role in Season 2 so only Season 1 is needed for Garland-related requests. Season 2 introduces some new characters, has a new villain/threat/world mechanic than the previous season, and takes place in a world kind of rebooted after an apocalyptic event, where everyone except the main character has lost their memories of what the world was like before that apocalyptic event. There are some characters/relationships specific to Season 2 that I'm interested in (Wol and Meia/Sarah), but those characters are introduced in and have character arcs that start in Season 1.

Season 1 (4.5 hours): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv69dg0_dUc
Season 2 (10 hours): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5IL5XK_4RI

What I like about this canon; what I tend to request for this canon: So some things I find neat about Mobius Final Fantasy:

- It's a postmodern mindfuck. The game is constantly breaking the fourth wall by having the fact that there are multiple players playing through the same story, all of them believing themselves to be controlling the main character ("Wol"), actually be a feature of the story itself. The characters are constantly made aware that they are characters in a story, forced to play the roles assigned to them, experiencing events that have seem to have been pre-scripted, emotionally manipulated by other characters tugging on their heartstrings. Is this destiny? Prophecy? Or people just doomed to a karmic cycle of making the same mistakes over and over?

- Garland(/Sarah): So do you like loyal knights pining repressedly over a princess who can never love them back? Well, I do. It's strongly implied (although AFAICT, not explicitly stated) that Garland was a Wol who saved the world in a previous cycle who fell in love with Sarah. The world reset; Sarah forgot him; Sarah kept on playing her scripted role over and over with new Wols; but Garland somehow retained his memories (or did he) and now won't stop until he uproots the world that keeps Sarah prisoner in neverending cycles of pain and heroism, all while being too bitter and jaded about Sarah's false feelings for him that he can't even admit that that's what drives him. There is a lot to flesh out here. What is Garland's backstory? What happens at the end? Does he ever find happiness with (a different) Sarah?

I've collected all the relevant scenes about Garland's attitude toward women in general and Sarah in particular for quick viewing (sorry, no end timestamps but you can usually tell when the story is moving on to non-Garland/Sarah-related things):
https://youtu.be/vv69dg0_dUc?t=2235
https://youtu.be/vv69dg0_dUc?t=2815
https://youtu.be/vv69dg0_dUc?t=4705
https://youtu.be/vv69dg0_dUc?t=4859
https://youtu.be/vv69dg0_dUc?t=5074
https://youtu.be/vv69dg0_dUc?t=13796
https://youtu.be/vv69dg0_dUc?t=14151
https://youtu.be/vv69dg0_dUc?t=14662
https://youtu.be/vv69dg0_dUc?t=14840

- Meia &/ Sarah: Meia and Sarah are both cool, important Season 1 characters who start out as NPCs before being upgraded to player characters complete with their own set of collectable gacha costumes. In Season 2, what tickles my id is that Meia becomes Sarah's mentor/caretaker and they spend a lot of this season adventuring together, with Meia training Sarah and working to gradually build up her confidence as a warrior. I LOVE female/female mentoring relationships that could go either platonic or romantic, and Meia and Sarah are perfect for that. Another interesting dynamic to their relationship is that, after the world reset, Sarah pretended to lose her memory like everyone else... but she didn't. So she's pretending to be clueless and unburdened by painful memories. It's been a while so I actually forget if Meia knows that Sarah is lying about her memory loss, or just strongly suspects, but in any case there's a lot of identity porn-adjacent things to play with here, with Sarah pretending to be something she's not and Meia either being sharp enough to see through that or being one of the few people that Sarah trusts with her secret. Lovely identity issues and intimacy!

- Wol as an "Obi-Wan Kenobi" figure in Season 2: One funny dynamic I enjoyed a lot in Season 2 is that the story is like Star Wars if told from Obi-Wan Kenobi's point of view. In Star Wars and other media inspired by it, there often is an older mentor figure who was a party in the last climactic battle to determine the fate of the world; this figure has now retired and is a cranky old man that people just think is a normal dude, but in actuality this guy's power level is way beyond anyone else around him. Because, you know, he once saved the world. But no one knows that. Anyway, that's Wol in Season 2. He's just there pretending to be, you know, one of the guys while taking out strong monsters with ease. And everyone keeps on being like, "Wow, you're really strong!" and he's just like, "Oh. Really? You think so?" Anyway, I love this feature of the main character of the previous world-saving hero quest kind of enjoying his retirement surrounded by amnesiac people who have no idea who he is or what he did, except you know, not really able to enjoy it because he created this world and therefore feels responsible for how everyone fares in it. So many fun emotions (guilt, secret knowledge, pretending to be someone you're not, "I saved the world once, can't I relax?!") to play with!

Content warnings: There's nothing that comes to mind.

Pinocchio (1940)

High-level pitch: Pinocchio (1940) is Disney's second animated film: a fairy tale featuring a woodcarver's puppet who longs to be human (a "real boy"). The movie has popularized so many elements that you are likely to be aware of them even if you have not watched the film: Pinocchio's nose growing whenever he tells a lie; the song "When You Wish Upon a Star," which has become Disney's anthem of sorts; Jiminy Cricket's memorable "Victorian coattails" design; and the "in the belly of the whale" plot point/imagery, for example.

I find the film an enjoyable watch due to its music and art/animation, which I find very charming (the water effects in this film honestly blow me away even 80 years later, as does the amount of loving detail put into Gepetto's clockwork creations and the physical comedy in the animation of various characters), and the way the world comes off as having a lot more going on all around it than what we see. This latter thing is mainly accomplished by having the world operate on rules that are left unexplained, and by having a large, colorful cast that tends to exit the story shortly after being introduced. The movie is also (to me) shockingly dark in a way that I find interesting and fun to explore.

I also think the movie is worth watching because a lot of other media builds on the trait that Pinocchio has of being a quasi-AI character -- Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation and the main character from A.I. Artificial Intelligence both reference Pinocchio, for example. It is also easy to read a trans narrative in Pinocchio's desire to be a "real boy." For these reasons, I think this movie is a classic that is worth the watch and has a lot of potential to be expanded in fanfiction.

How long to consume: 2 hours.

Where to find it: It is currently available on Disney Plus.

Read more about Pinocchio

Content warnings: This movie features mild threat and elements of body horror. The depiction of Stromboli is also (I'm guessing) based on some racist stereotypes about "gypsies" and can be pretty uncomfortable to watch. It's a children's movie (albeit a somewhat dark one), though, and so pretty "general audiences" in its content.

What I like about this canon; what I tend to request for this canon: Here are various things I like about Pinocchio:

- Darkness: One thing I like about this movie is that it's strangely dark for a children's film. What starts out as a fairly simple task (go to school) ends up with Pinocchio lost and far from home, in the company of various people who would like to exploit him. It's funny when you see people trying to do round-ups of Disney villains from various Disney movies and then you see them struggle with which character to list as the villain from Pinocchio because there are SO many villains who could conceivably claim the villain mantle for this movie:

• Honest John and Gideon: While they're two characters, they act so much as a team, I feel bad splitting them up, so here: consider them as together counting as one villain. While clearly two-bit crooks low down on the criminal totem pole, they have the distinction of setting Pinocchio off on his dark journey and appearing multiple times throughout the film, each time with an important role.
• Stromboli: A villain who appears early, and starts out fairly nice and pleasant, before locking Pinocchio in a cage and refusing to let him go home. An intimidating villain although far from the most villainous.
• The Coachman: A man who collects runaway boys and sells them as donkeys... Probably the creepiest and most evil villain of the film, who never gets any plot punishment either (none of the villains in this film do!).
• Monstro: The whale that eats Gepetto. Morally neutral, but nevertheless a terrifying presence and has the distinction of being the final antagonist of the film and so feels a bit like the Big Bad.

There is just so much magical darkness in this film -- aside from Pinocchio being treated as a puppet when he's a sentient being, there's the whole "turning bad/truant boys into donkeys and selling them for their labor" plot point that is all kinds of dark and messed up, as well as the morality-based magic, where being untruthful leads to body modification, while being brave, truthful, and unselfish can not only lead to becoming human but also having a second chance at life. I don't know if it was intentional or not, if my modern sensibilities make this film so much more horrifying than it was intended to be, but there's so much horror embedded into this movie as well as a recurring theme of humanity vs. dehumanization (the body horror of gradually losing one's ability to speak!), plus so many forms of child endangerment and exploitation and stranger danger, which I find fascinating and interesting to explore.

- Unexplored characters: Another aspect of this film I find interesting is that it has a large cast of interesting but undeveloped characters. All of the villains above, for example, give the impression of having a lot more going on than what we see in the film, and could easily be fleshed out in fic. There's also Gepetto, an old man longing for children at the time we meet him, which makes you want to know more about who he is and his life experiences; Figaro and Cleo, Gepetto's pet kitten and goldfish who have a lot of personality despite not having any lines, and who have a background romance (Cleo flirts with Figaro who kind of has an "ew, girl cooties" reaction to her); Lampwick and the other Pleasure Island boys, who have a horrifying donkey transformation and piteously ask for their mothers or to be allowed to go home before you NEVER HEAR FROM THEM AGAIN; the Blue Fairy who admittedly is a bit more of a plot device than a character, popping in and out of the story to get Pinocchio unstuck or deliver him information he needs, but nevertheless a mysterious force of nature; and then of course Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket themselves, whose relationship starts off as strangers and then develops into something like parent/guardian/adviser/friend over the film. Even Pinocchio raises a lot of questions about the experience of being a human boy vs. a living puppet, while Jiminy's wise-cracking personality + starting the movie off as a homeless bum with dilapidated clothing also makes you wonder about his life experiences before the start of the film.

- Relationships: For this canon, I tend to request various romantic pairings, mostly Pinocchio/Lampwick (great friends-to-lovers dynamic) and Blue Fairy/Jiminy Cricket (has kind of the vibes of Gimli's admiration of Galadriel lol), but I also find Cleo/Figaro and Honest John/Gideon interesting. Romantic elements in this movie are very light but enough there to pique one's interest. There are also some interesting platonic relationships: Gepetto & Pinocchio, and Pinocchio & Jiminy Cricket are the main relationships that drive the movie.

- Finally, worldbuilding opportunities: A lot of the movie (and the book it's based on) operates on an interesting kind of fairy tale logic. For example, why do boys turn into donkeys on Pleasure Island...? This is never at any point explained. Do the people buying the donkeys know they used to be boys?! Who is the Coachman and how did he (come up with? get involved with?) this donkey-boy trafficking operation? Who is the Blue Fairy, and does her name imply the existence of other fairies? Does she set the stipulations of the wishes she grants and the magic aid she provides, or is that just how magic works in this universe and her hands are tied here? The movie kind of lampshades this bizarre plot element, but: why are talking puppets odd in this world but talking animals are not? And why do some animals talk (Honest John and Gideon, who are a fox and cat; Jiminy Cricket) and some do not (Figaro and Cleo; the Pleasure Island donkeys)? What in this odd fairy tale world comes off as magical and implausible and what does not?! Can puppets given life really die (drown)? Under what circumstances? It is very mysterious!

Supplemental canon/materials: While very much optional, there are two pieces of related media that I think have enriched my appreciation for this film: the first is the original book and the second is an album of covers of Disney music called Stay Awake, which I think is great listening.

- The original book, The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi is public domain and available for free on Project Gutenberg. The length is approximately 50-60k words, or ~200 pages. I like it because it adds a bit more detail to the story, and more happens over a longer period of time (although the worldbuilding remains mysterious!). Pinocchio is a different kind of person in the book (naturally naughty, lazy, and mean-spirited); the Blue Fairy has a much larger role while the (unnamed) Cricket has a smaller role; various characters end up with darker fates than in the movie; and the relationship between Pinocchio and Lampwick gets a bit more detail to it (there is a scene between them on Pleasure Island in the book but not the movie that I find very funny and shippy) while being largely the same as the movie: extremely affectionate, close friends. Also, unlike in the movie, you do actually find out what happened to Lampwick after Pleasure Island. (Spoilers:) Pinocchio comes across him, still a donkey and working on a farm. Overworked and underfed, he dies right in front of Pinocchio's eyes. L-lol... :')

- The album, Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films can be listened to for free on YouTube and is a little over 1 hour long. I really love this album because (1) it features a very eclectic mix of music from older Disney movies, which don't really get covers or remixes, (2) it is very Pinocchio-heavy, featuring some truly bizarre but interesting spoken-word interludes that are all Pinocchio-themed as well as covers of some classic Pinocchio songs, including its instrumental music (very rare!), and (3) going along with the Pinocchio-theming, this album is creepy/sinister as fuck, which is an incredibly bizarre choice for an album of Disney music, but I am not complaining! I personally think whoever put together this album must have seen and really appreciated Pinocchio, and I find listening to it sparks so many ideas for this fandom!

Soulcalibur

High-level pitch: Soulcalibur is a fighting games series set in the late 16th century, centered around a demonic sword called Soul Edge, which is sort of locked in a primal struggle against its "good" counterpart, Soulcalibur. Basically, a bunch of people from around the world are on a quest, seeking out one or both of these legendary swords for whatever reason, and they get into fights with each other. One of the unusual features of the series (for a fighting game) is its historical setting and the fact that all characters use some kind of weapon in combat.

The main draws of the game series to me are: (1) Huge cast of larger-than-life characters -- lots of corners of fandom to play around in, rarepairs and interesting dynamics to toy with, etc. (2) The ridiculous amount of lore -- my first game was Soulcalibur II and I went *hearteyes* at the fact the game not only had lengthy bios for each character (including birthday, name of their fighting style, etc.), but also had paragraphs detailing the history/significance of every STAGE you fight in, and also names/descriptions/backstories of every WEAPON a character uses (in each game, each character usually has ~8 options of weapons they can use, usually including a joke weapon option). Many of the games also have a museum featuring galleries of character illustrations. I could browse these forever... (3) The series strikes a balance between giving a sense of being situated in a historical context and also being willing to throw historical accuracy out the window entirely if it means making things Cooler (like, you know what? having this woman in leather dominatrix lingerie and also a George Washington-esque outfit inspired by Takarazuka drag would be cool, actually).

How long to consume: Complicated. Because Soulcalibur is a fighting game series, it's not heavy on story and most of the gameplay hours are spent in generic fights between two characters. Therefore, the biggest bang for your buck in terms of absorbing characterization details needed to make narrative fanworks would be to read the in-game bios of characters you're interested in, which luckily have been painstakingly compiled within the Soulcalibur Fandom wiki. The amount of time needed to consume this canon therefore depends on how many characters/topics you're researching. There are a couple of other ways to consume the relevant parts of canon for fanworks, but reading bios gets you pretty far.

More detailed time estimates for my specific requests

- For the OTP I predominantly request (Hong Yun-seong/Seong Mi-na), I recommend taking roughly 1 hour to review these basic bios and this list of canon interactions I put in my broader ship manifesto, and that pretty much gives you a rundown of their dynamic.
- Sometimes I request characters from Soulcalibur V, which is a "next gen" sort of installment that takes place 17 years after the previous game and focuses on the children of some of the major characters in previous games. This game is pretty standalone for that reason, and if I'm requesting any characters for it, the best way to consume canon is probably by watching a playthrough of the story mode, which is roughly 2 hours, although some of that time could be shaved off by scrubbing past fight scenes.
- Otherwise, you're kind of on your own in terms of time estimates, but I recommend starting with the character's wiki page (focusing on the "Original Timeline" tab (everything before SCVI) and the "New Timeline" tab (SCVI only) if they exist).

Read more about Soulcalibur

How to consume this canon: If you want to actually play the game (can be helpful if you want a general sense of the world and want to shop around for characters who might be interesting to you), Soulcalibur VI is the only game still in print and it's available for PS4, Xbox One, and Steam. It's quite a good place to enter the game series because it's somewhat of a reboot/retelling mainly of Soulcalibur I, but with a large character roster and elements taken from all the games. Very newbie friendly while containing a significant portion of the series' characters/lore/story -- the only downside is that it's not great for my OTP that I request the most frequently, but if you're consuming canon to write that ship, it's better to canon review using my advice above! If you're able to get hold of and play older games and want a rec of which game in the series to play, Soulcalibur III is my personal favorite of the series for various reasons!

Otherwise, however, I think using online resources is probably the best way to consume this canon. I mentioned the character bios in the Soulcalibur Wiki (also, I recommend switching between games in the character's profile box / checking out the gallery to see how the character's looks change from game to game). On top of that, there are some other sources of lore that can be found either on the Wiki or through playthrough videos uploaded on YouTube.

Some other ways to consume canon/find lore

1) Watch story mode playthroughs for specific characters to get an idea of their story/ending and significant interactions with other characters.
2) Some characterization can be gleaned from the typical pre- and post-battle quotes the characters say, which do a good job of conveying their general personality. Also, some characters have special quotes they say only when facing a specific character. The wiki collects a sample of these battle quotes, including special quotes, and you also will get a taste of them by watching a story/arcade mode playthrough for that character.
3) If you want to go even deeper, you can also take a look at the movelists, because these games often have like 70 moves for each character, each of which has a name, so that gives you an idea of their fighting style and general aesthetic. You might be able to find lists of move names on Gamefaqs (for example, here is one that shows the names of moves for all Soulcalibur III characters, I believe). In particular, throws, taunts (SCIII onward), and special finishers (Critical Finish (SCIV) or Critical Edge (SCVI)) tend to convey a bit of the character's personality. There are some videos that will demo a character's moveset including throws and special moves, so that might be of interest.

Content warnings: There is quite a bit of fantasy violence and some characters have fairly dark backstories, but the series overall is very Teen-rated. There is some sexualized fanservice (e.g. boob jiggle physics, panty shots possible/common for characters with skirts) including for characters who are fairly young.

What I like about this canon; what I tend to request for this canon: Oh boy, writing this section is a bit hard because the series has so many characters and corners of canon, it is pretty much guaranteed that someone getting into this fandom will latch onto a different set of characters than who I latch onto. But let me try for some general selling points and then maybe I'll list a few of my blorbos:

- Fashion! The outfits in Soulcalibur are ridiculously elaborate, characters' costumes/looks change every game (some only slightly, some quite dramatically), and most games also have an alternate outfit/look as a 2P option (and sometimes even a 3P option). It's fun to play around with outfits and design different outfits in line with a character's personality/sense of fashion.


Just some of the outfits featured in this game (featuring Ivy).

- Sexual suggestiveness: These games have a lot of suggestive and fanservicey elements to them (for example: boob jiggle; Ivy and Voldo just casually wearing thongs with their butt cheeks hanging out; Sophitia giving her opponent a faceful of her crotch in one of her throws... also, try playing this game without looking at it to be treated to a stream of sex-like grunts and cries...); however, at the same time, the games do keep things pretty strictly PG-13 rated. That combination of suggestive but not actually explored makes me interested in all the unexplored potential of the series. When one character says to another, "Over already?" or "Haven't you had enough?" or "You shall make a fine pet for Amy" or "Taste... my blade!" or "Scream! Squirm!"... doesn't that just beg for a porny interpretation? And Soulcalibur is a canon that works REALLY WELL for porn logic because it just doesn't take itself very seriously.

- Silk Road vibes: Soulcalibur takes place over a really big geographical span, with characters frequently traveling all around Europe and Asia on their quest to find this sword or information about the sword. The stages of the game are pulled from a variety of places and the roster is from all over so you get a strong sense of "East meets West" in the stories. There's a lot of room to play around with culture, languages, characters exploring an unfamiliar city for the first time, etc., and there's a lot of SC fic out there that leans into these historical and cultural aspects of the games.

- Taki: Taki was the first blorbo I latched onto playing this game, because she's an interesting combination of somewhat contradictory traits. She's a ninja (not just any ninja, a demon-hunting ninja); she has a distinctive habit of letting out a high-pitched cry or whoop when she does attacks or techniques; she wears a skin-tight bright red bodysuit; her fighting style is very fast and athletic; she's on the run from her own ninja clan due to her mentor being possessed by a demon that covets Taki's demon-power-infused kodachi (oh yeah, she's a talented blacksmith who has crafted her own blades); she has a very rude/curt style of speaking and is constantly glaring at people scarily, but also she is consistently one of the most principled/heroic characters in the game -- just a total loner who never feels the need to travel with anyone or ask for help. She is such a great character and I instantly got obsessed with her.

- Mi-na/Yun-seong: I have a ship manifesto for these two, but to summarize: this is a forever ship I've been shipping for, like, two decades. Mi-na is a spirited rebellious tomboy running away from home to avoid marriage and prove her worth to her father. She acts as a senior/coach to Yun-seong, a brash but talented upcoming swordsman obsessed with surpassing his hero, Hwang (who is Mi-na's other love interest). Their relationship is playful, flirtatious, bullying, and full of sexual tension. I love it!

- Ivy/Zasalamel: Similar to Taki, Ivy has a lot of things going on. She's an alchemist, adopted into a noble family but finds out her birth father is the Dread Pirate Cervantes, a previous host of Soul Edge, while her adopted father went insane seeking Soul Edge in vain (her story is very Gothic/Romantic). To destroy Soul Edge, she creates a living weapon with the help of (unbeknownst to her) Nightmare, the host of Soul Edge, and works for him. Once she realizes what has happened, she leaves his service and seeks to atone for her sins by destroying all traces of Soul Edge for good, which she now realizes includes both herself and her sword. Her whole vibe is dominatrix-themed, which, aside from the fact that her living sword is also a whip, kind of has nothing to do with the rest of her character? But it's cool I guess! Zasalamel (introduced in Soulcalibur III) is a man from an ancient time who used sorcery to make it so that he reincarnates whenever he dies. The problem is, he's tired of reincarnating and now wants to die for real, and the only way he can think of to do this is by harnessing the power of both Soul Edge and Soulcalibur. Except when he does that, he gets a vision of the modern world and decides he wants to keep living until then after all. He's a bit of a manipulative, self-centered bastard, but he's also developed into someone who manipulates events of history behind the scenes in order to promote humanity's flourishing (which seems to be the main thing he's doing in Soulcalibur VI). Zasalamel and Ivy only have significant interaction in Soulcalibur III and I don't know how many people other than me really see the appeal of the pairing. But it's often not easy when you have an immortal character to find other characters you think would be on their same level but I really think Ivy is such a character.

- Tira/Pyrrha: Tira (introduced in Soulcalibur III) is a fun character -- a trained assassin, mentally unstable, uses a hula hoop of DEATH to fight, looks like the lovechild of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. She finds purpose in her life by serving Nightmare, the current wielder of Soul Edge, and at one point captures Pyrrha, Sophitia's daughter who is infected with Soul Edge's energy due to the fact that Sophitia gave birth to her with shards of Soul Edge still in her body. Pyrrha is a minor non-playable character in most SC games but then becomes a major, playable character in Soulcalibur V when Tira, annoyed at the current Nightmare, decides to find and groom an older Pyrrha into becoming a perfect host for Soul Edge, manipulating the timid Pyrrha into killing person after person in order to survive so as to mold her into a suitable Nightmare. When Tira fights Pyrrha, her special opening quote is, "You're in for a spanking if you don't obey!" It's the most toxic of toxic yuri and I love it.



- Vercci/Voldo: Vercci was an arms merchant who sought Soul Edge but was never able to find it. Voldo is his loyal servant who was entombed in Vercci's money pit to guard over Vercci's treasures after his death. Voldo goes out into the world to seek the legendary sword his master could never find. While Vercci is dead in the games' timeline, he is nevertheless very present, with Voldo often hallucinating that he sees or hears Vercci's ghost speaking to him. Voldo wields a pair of three-pronged katars and has some of the wilder costume designs, appearing in each game dressed as a gimp (in the BDSM sense), complete with a blindfold, gag, and codpiece, and he never talks, instead only making hissing noises and grunts. His fighting style is hard to describe but it's wild with a lot of snakelike and contortionist movements. He's a good illustration of what I mean when I say Soulcalibur is extremely suggestive and yet not explicit -- for example, his Soul Blade ending features a No-input/Bad ending where he presents Soul Edge to the ghost of Vercci and gets praised and entrusted with ruling over Vercci's treasures (nothing unusual here); OR there's the Input/Good ending, which is somewhat of a joke ending, where Voldo gets a bit TOO into caressing Soul Edge and it shatters, and he despairs, having nothing to show his master. The whole thing is extremely suggestive. Anyway, if you like loyalty kink (heavy on the KINK, if you know what I mean), Voldo's total devotion to Vercci is very good for that.



This is just a sample of my favorite characters/dynamics -- it's a huge game and I've only scratched the surface here, but these are ones that stand out to me as some of my favorite parts.

聖剣伝説３ | Seiken Densetsu 3 | Trials of Mana

High-level pitch: Trials of Mana (also widely known as Seiken Densetsu 3) is a standalone JRPG with a classic save-the-world fantasy adventure plot. It originally came out for SNES in 1995. However, despite the popularity of its predecessor, Secret of Mana, the game was unexpectedly never localized, leaving the work of doing that to fans, who released a high-quality fan translation patch in 2000. However, the game would remain unreleased outside of Japan for over 20 years, when it was finally translated (given the official name of Trials of Mana for the first time) and released as part of Collection of Mana in 2019. In addition, a full modern remake of the game was made in 2020 for Switch/PS4/Windows. So there are two major options for consuming this canon (not to mention, two different translations, fan and official), which I will give more advice about later.

Long ago, the creator of the world, the Mana Goddess, sealed away eight legendary beasts and then went to sleep in the form of a Mana Tree. However, war and conflict threaten the dwindling supply of mana in the world, and it's up to a hero chosen by an emissary of the Goddess to set the world right before the seals on the beasts weaken and they are unleashed on the world again.

The main draw of this game is that, at the beginning, you get to pick your main character and two others who will join your party during the game, out of six total character options. Each character has their own opening where they experience a tragedy that sets them seeking out the Priest of Light in Wendel for advice. Your choice of main character also determines the final antagonist at the end, with Angela and Duran facing the Dragon Lord, Hawkeye and Riesz facing Dark Majesty, and Charlotte and Kevin facing the Masked Mage. During the course of the game, you will also have the opportunity to upgrade your characters' classes twice, with two options each time. Depending on your choices, you unlock a different set of skills and special moves for each character. Because of all these choices, your experience of the game, especially in terms of gameplay but also a little bit in terms of story, changes dramatically based on who you picked, and the game is highly replayable, with small details changing between runs. The game has an amazing soundtrack and the mix of cutesy graphics plus bittersweet story makes for a memorable experience.

How long to consume: HowLongToBeat estimates a playthrough takes 25-40 hours. You can probably consume the canon quicker through videos, but for this particular game, I recommend playing it (at least once) rather than just watching it!

Read more about Trials of Mana

Where to find it: This depends a bit on which version you want to play. If you're a fan of old SNES games and don't mind the graphics and sometimes frustrating gameplay aspects that come with them (level-grinding, simplistic combat, etc.), I highly recommend playing the original SNES game, which is available on Nintendo Switch as part of the Collection of Mana. If you don't have a Switch, though, the game is easily emulated in both fan and official translation forms. The original game has gorgeous pixel art, and the best way I can think of to sell this game to someone is just get a ROM, start up the game, go through the character selection process, and then play through the opening of your chosen character. To me, the experience from the start to the opening credits is gripping and enchanting.

If older games are not for you, I recommend the 2020 Trials of Mana remake (available on a variety of platforms: Switch, PS4, Steam, Xbox Series X/S, and also mobile (Android/iOS)). The remake does a really good job of modernizing the graphics and gameplay while otherwise remaining very true to the game. Aside from the graphics, the experience playing the remake and original are very interchangeable.

In terms of which translation is better (for the SNES version; there is only official localization for the remake), I don't really have a preference. The fan translation is quite high quality, so very playable. The official translation tones down some of the more suggestive lines but keeps the spirit. There are minor differences in the way names are localized, but I'm not sure one is clearly superior to the other. If you don't have a preference, the official translation is probably best by default.

For quick canon review, I have not been able to find an English language game script, unfortunately, but there is a complete one in Japanese here if that helps. Otherwise, I tend to use YouTube playthroughs to revisit scenes quickly.

Content warnings: Pet death. Some mild suggestive aspects, but it is a pretty clean/kid-friendly game.

What I like about this canon; what I tend to request for this canon:

- The story pairs: There are three pairs of characters who have the same antagonist and whose countries are on the opposite side of a conflict. These pairs are Angela & Duran, Hawkeye & Riesz, and Charlotte & Kevin. For each of these, the story contains VERY light hints that the two characters are potentially interested in each other. For example, for Hawkeye/Riesz, if you have Riesz in your party but not Hawkeye, there is a scene during the retaking of Laurent/Rolante where he'll kiss Riesz and she panics. I instantly shipped them after that. XD Anyway, while there are light suggestions, the endings aren't really conclusive or anything, which tends to make me want to see more of their relationship and interactions in fanfiction. (As I mentioned here, I'm actually also interested in the story pairs turned into a love triangle too: Angela/Duran/Crimson Wizard, Hawkeye/Riesz/Jessica, and Charlotte/Kevin/Heath.)

- Angela and her mommy issues: I love characters with mommy/daddy issues / very fraught relationships with their parents that begin to get mended by the end of the story. And Angela's character/storyline has that in SPADES. (Angela in the remake going "Mother..." just before getting KO'd is a perfect characterization choice lol.)

- Worldbuilding: Geopolitics is a pretty big part of the game, but also the game doesn't really go into it that much. Like, the Beast Kingdom is all fired up about attacking humans, but why? And where does Kevin, the half-human son of the Beast King fit into that? What happens to Altena post-canon when it can't keep itself warm and green using magic anymore? How big is Nevarl/Navarre, and how many resources does it have at its command, and how does it relate to the surrounding cities/towns? Why does being in a relationship with an elf affect someone's lifespan? There's a lot of magical/fantastical/fairy tale-like oddities in the world, but embedded in a somewhat realistic political drama that doesn't really go into any of it in depth. It means lots of opportunities to delve deeper into the history and cultures of various kingdoms or regions in the world in fanfiction.

- Travelogue/novelizations of the story: Going along with the above, the storytelling of Trials of Mana is pretty minimalistic. Your party travels together, but they don't get fleshed out a lot or have a ton of character development or dialogue with each other -- the main dialogue only happens in story-relevant cutscenes. It feels like the game could benefit from a more novelistic way of describing the characters' adventure and the world they live in. The world is interesting but it doesn't feel fleshed out, and fanfiction could help with that.

- Party dynamics: And going along with what I just mentioned, I feel like it would be a bit more fun if the game had the time/space to lean into specific three-party dynamics -- how would certain characters get along? What do they argue about? How do they work together in battle? Another tantalizing aspect of the game is that there are six main characters, but it's only ever possible for there to be three of them in your party at any one time, which opens up the obvious potential of fanfiction to explore what the story would be like if you had a six-person party. Even more character dynamics to play with, which are impossible to have in the game itself!

Supplemental canon/materials: While Trials of Mana is a standalone game, there have been some materials published later that might be considered quasi-canon. Personally, I don't view these as canon and so consider them optional, but I also don't mind if you include elements from them either.

- Heroes of Mana is a 2007 Nintendo DS real-time strategy (RTS) game that is a prequel to Trials of Mana. This game is out of print and in any case, the gameplay is pretty mediocre, so the best way to consume it is probably by watching Let's Plays on YouTube (this playthrough is roughly 25 hours of watching). Despite being a prequel to Trials of Mana, it is very different in art style, gameplay, tone, and also cast -- while many of the parents of Trials of Mana main characters appear here as party or guest characters, the main five characters are all entirely new characters drawn from a culture that is not at all present in the original TOM, so the connection between the two games is pretty tenuous. It is also a bit controversial because it retcons two characters who are very close friends in TOM to be related (this doesn't affect my particular set of romantic ships but could affect how you see the characters). That said, I think it has a decent amount of backstory on Gauser (Kevin's dad), Belgar (Heath's dad), and Flamekhan, if those characters are of interest. Riesz's parents, Alma, and Angela's parents also appear although there is not much fleshing out of them beyond what you got or could extrapolate from TOM.

- Echoes of Mana is a mobile gacha game collecting characters from the various games in the Mana series into one crossover game, which ran from 2022-23 and is now discontinued. However, one of the main story chapters of the game featured a kind of pre-canon depiction of Angela and the Crimson Wizard before he got magic. In addition to displaying his personality before he became the Crimson Wizard soulbonded to the Dragon Lord, it also for the first time gives his character a name: フランマ (Furanma, localized as Framaus). Like with Heroes of Mana, I don't mind if you incorporate these elements as canon or throw it out. Because this game is no longer active, the best way to view this story is via YouTube videos (time to consume: 1 hour).

Comments

[tjs_whatnot]

Wow. I am blown away by this document! So many great details. ❤️

[chacusha]

Thank you! :D