Canon Promo
Tuesday, 1 April 2025 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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auctionsasthreatenedWe had a lot of recs for the Festival of Very Short Canons, but of course lots of us have canons longer than 45 minutes that we'd like to recomment! This is a post for doing that—you can promote any canon that you'd like to request or offer for AAT and let us know why it's great and why we should consider consuming it and requesting or creating for it!
What to put in your promo
- Fandom name: Also make this the title of your comment below. If you're promoing a certain ship or section of your fandom, include it after your fandom name.
- Media type: What kind of thing is it?
- Length: How long does it take to consume the canon?
- Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.)
- What is it/what is it about?
- What do you love about it? Also, what are you planning to request for it?/What do you want to create for it?
- If it's a big/complex/long/scattered fandom, where should people start? Also, are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfill your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?
- Do you have any content warnings? These are at your discretion and don't need to be comprehensive. Some content "warnings" might also help attract people who deliberately look for that kind of thing!
How to post your promo
Comment on this post by clicking "reply" in the bottom right corner. You do not need a Dreamwidth account to post.
Put your fandom's name as the comment's title.
Copy the code in the text box below and fill it out. Fields can be removed if you don't need them/aren't interested in filling them out.
Tags:
G Gundam
1 April 2025 09:39 pm (UTC)Fandom name: G Gundam
Media type: Anime
Length: 49 half-hour episodes
Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.) Crunchyroll for the sub, Internet Archive for the dub
What is it/what is it about? Setting: Earth has been ravaged by war, so all the nations created space colonies, and everyone who could afford it fled to them. In order to try and 'fix' the problem of war, they have decided to settle their differences by way of the Gundam Fight. The Fight happens every four years, and calls for every country to send a Gundam and a fighter to control it, and they spend a year battling it out, and the last one standing gives his nation the right to rule all the others for the next four years.
Earth is the ring.
The other thing to know is the presence of a secret quasi-mystical society called the Shuffle Alliance, which has existed throughout time for the purpose of overseeing wars and making sure humanity survives. There are five at any given time, mapped to card ranks, and they are magically 'chosen' rather than deciding to join.
What do you love about it? I have a post summarizing the characters, who are so dang charming, you guys. This show celebrated its 30th anniversary last year. It's very hot-blooded power-of-friendship/love stuff, and even at its most logically ridiculous really lands the emotional beats. Also it's chock full of hot dudes in latex fight suits.
Where should people start? I'd love you to start at the top, but I do have some episode guides for some of the requested tags! Episodes 2, 18, 31, and 35 are highlights for Chibodee, with all of those but 31 also being go-tos for the Chibodee/Domon dynamic. (Not that 31 doesn't have moments, but it's very much a spotlight episode.) The episodes for Argo/Nastasha would be 5, 8, 19, 38, and 46.
Do you have any content warnings? Death, animated violence, PTSD, brainwashing, a nanotech-virus, occasional zombies, some dystopian elements
Debrief RPG
1 April 2025 11:01 pm (UTC)Media type: 2-player tabletop RPG, designed to be played by video chat
Length: 1 hour to play (this is a hard limit!), less than that to read your character sheet/backstory
Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.) Free from Paracelsus Games!
What is it/what is it about? George Russell is a Cold War MI6 agent with the rare ability to see ghosts. Robert Alderidge is his best friend, who has just been killed and unmasked as a Soviet spy. So Russell gets to/has to summon Alderidge's ghost for one last conversation.
What do you love about it? The Paracelsus game page describes it as "centered on themes of loyalty, ideology, memory, obligation, and the difficulty of interpersonal knowledge," which I think is an excellent encapsulation!
More recs here and here, but do not read spoilers if you have any interest in playing the game.
No specifics, but potentially spoilery for character dynamics
There are characters who can pass the broccoli test. There are characters who fail the broccoli test. And then there are characters who would be extremely confident in their capacity to pass the broccoli test, but actually, would fail it spectacularly. At least in my playthrough, I firmly believe these characters are of the third type. They have so many shared experiences and memories to use as touchpoints for comparison, and yet the more they talk, the worse it can get.
What could you request/create for it? There's so much potential. Every game is different, so a straightforward retelling of what happened in one particular playthrough could easily be fic. Backstory about different moments in the characters' friendship. Fix-its? Fix-it that actually makes it worse? Worldbuilding about the OUC's research into ghost technology, the Soviet efforts to duplicate it, spirit mediums in other parts of the world...
Do you have any content warnings? Not comprehensive, but the blurb page notes "a setting of Cold War espionage and mid-twentieth-century British social norms," "Contains some mature content." There are depictions of violence and warfare, and also, obviously, major character death.
Under Plum Lake - Lionel Davidson
20 April 2025 09:49 am (UTC)Media type: Novel
Length: 136 pages
Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.): Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Under-Plum-Lake-Lionel-Davidson/dp/0394512529
What is it/what is it about? When 12 year old Barry explores a cave in the cliffside, he met a 99 year old boy Dido, who led him into a hidden advanced civilization Egon.
What do you love about it? The description of Egon is fun and gorgeous but also unsettling and dangerous.
I like how dark and compelling Dido's dynamic with Barry is. At first he thinks of Barry like a dog and taking him to increasingly dangerous activities, and Barry is aware of that. But his feeling changes when Barry nearly dies
As a human, Barry has to leave and his memory of Egon completely wiped upon his departure. But he still retains part of the memory and yearns to return to Egon. There are a lot of space for fixit or breakit.
Where should people start? from the beginning. It's a short book.
Do you have any content warnings? N/A
Identity V
27 April 2025 08:15 pm (UTC)Fandom name: Identity V
Media type: Video game
Length: live service game, no proper length still preset for the whole story, current one is approximately 4-5 hours
Where can it be found? - game can be found here
What is it/what is it about? Identity V is an asymmetrical horror game set in the Victorian era, focusing on a mysterious manor and the invitations coming from the owner, promising their most wanted thing if they participate in a game.
What do you love about it? The eerie atmosphere and the characters. There are so many of them that there will be someone you enjoy a lot.
Where should people start? The original prologue that's not in the game anymore since the 2.0 update, but can be watched here. After that, Time of Reunion and after that Ashes of Memory, continuation of the story. it can all be played in game or watched here Note that it contains some additional events related to in-game characters and is connected to the main lore, will mention it underneath next.
After the main story, "closing night" story related to the Hullaballo game. After that, game 4 diaries and winter game diaries (this is an old format and is a little outdated. can also be played in the game like main story and hullabaloo one).
Besides this, there are character day/birthday letters that give you something about characters and their games. They are all present on the game wiki, as you need to do the character day event quest to obtain it, and that will take a while if you start playing the game now.
Do you have any content warnings? A lot of these are only heavily implied due to the game being Chinese and having censorship in a lot of aspects, but some warnings are: grooming, incest, mentions of brutal ways of death, child abuse, implied one-sided attraction of an asylum victim and child abuse victim being in love with her doctor, fictional cults. Some of these will require a lot of reading between the lines to see and some are more obvious.
Noblesse
27 April 2025 08:19 pm (UTC)Media type: manhwa. There's also an anime.
Length: more than 500 teensy chapters.
Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.)
Webtoon for the manhwa. Crunchyroll or Youtube for the anime.
What is it/what is it about? Vampires But Different, Werewolves But Different, but most of all, it's about a hypercompetent, selectively vicious, and ride-or-die (and he's immortal) mad scientist who went from kindasorta vampire hunter to kindasorta vampire thrall and his beloved master, an invalid executioner who can pass for a high school student.
What do you love about it?
Colorful cast of characters (including The Children, obvious anime protagonists whom the adults /will/ keep from becoming anime protagonists, so help them), culture shock, forgiveness, but most of all... FRANKEN! https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lVjm_Njt8ms. Look at him. He loves Raizel (in whatever way one chooses to interpret that) so freaking much
Where should people start? At the beginning of the manhwa. If going the anime route, def watch Awakening first.
Do you have any content warnings? The violence pushes my theshhold at times, but my having to not pay attention to parts doesn't necessarily mean it's what other people would consider incredibly extreme in its graphicness. Blood is a /major theme/, though, that's for sure, as is mental manipulation and trauma.
Wave Jacked
28 April 2025 03:33 am (UTC)Media type: Webseries
Length: ~1 hour for the main series
Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBSxubd6xefLAW4FZc7QSf-H-qsPhSgd8
What is it/what is it about? Wave Jacked is about Jamie, a college student who loses her dream radio show to the station manager's girlfriend. They do hijinks to get it back. Said hijinks are assembling a motley crew of wacky folks to do a old-timey radio play and hijacking the station.
What do you love about it? Unashamedly wacky. There's an imaginary(?) friend. There's sock puppets. There's entirely implausible and played-straight despite their horrible construction tech devices. There's a companion podcast of the show-within-a-show. And lesbians.
Where should people start? The first episode!
Do you have any content warnings? None that I can think of.
Side Story of the Fox Volant
29 April 2025 02:10 am (UTC)Media type: Live Action TV
Length: 40 episodes, 45 minutes each ~30 total hours
Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.) Viki, YouTube, AppleTV, WeTV
What is it/what is it about? Side Story of the Fox Volant (2022) is a 40 episode wuxia tv series adapted from one of Jin Yong’s lesser known novels — The Young Flying Fox/Young Fox — and follows the story of Hu Fei as he struggles to piece together the mystery of his parents’ murder. This is a Qing Dynasty novel set during the later Qianlong Era (1700s) so it also has GUNS and POLITICAL CORRUPTION and some of the coolest characters known to man.
What do you love about it? God I love everyone in this bar and I adore the world they live in with all its grief, violence, societal upheaval, and political corruption. This is a really modern looking wuxia with very classical genre roots, which is very very atypical and the fight scene choreography here are amazing. There's a LOT of use of environment and physical force. Injuries actually look like they hurt here! They really gave this their budget all, so if you come from MDZS/CQL or xianxia where fight scenes are mostly a light show, let it be known that these fights are cool but they’re definitely martial arts focused. (I also probably have an essay in me somewhere about how Jin Yong writes about power and heroism and his commentary on social systems bc that's something he does really deftly but it's a bit difficult to do without writing tons of spoilers!)
I also adore the characters. Yes all of them. Even trash son. Also the characters are really cool. Did I mention the fashion sense aesthetics are stunning and the production quality is wonderful?
Do you have any content warnings? torture, rape, a child being disemboweled by their own parent(not shown on screen), and references to child prostitution, general wuxia brand violence, murder, poisoning, adultery, violence towards children, amputation, imprisonment, kidnapping, other potential items I've forgotten.
FFXIV Astrologian Questline
29 April 2025 02:14 am (UTC)Media type: PC/Playstation/Xbox game, OR a text LP style dreamwidth post series (script, screenshots/GIFs, commentary)
Length: The whole game? 1000+ hours. For our purposes, 59,800 words across two dreamwidth posts.
Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.) My dreamwidth! Alternately, here's someone's video LP on youtube, or if you're really dedicated, all but two quests from my writeup (Lv. 80 Love, Astrologically, and Lv. 80 A Literary Delivery) are included in the free trial, but you do have to complete the first expansion's Main Story Quests (Lv 1-50) in order to unlock this questline.
What is it/what is it about?
A buddy comedy of, ah, astronomical proportions.A young woman who calls upon the stars to see the future and magically heal wounds follows in her dead father's footsteps to bring her field of study to the wartorn country that had his heart. There, she meets a hapless and infamously frivolous nobleman who has allegedly devoted his life to the same cause and failed utterly. Forced by circumstances to work together, they discover the stars may have just aligned to bring them together.What do you love about it? Everything. The characters are incredibly charming, the story balances a funny and lighthearted tone with incredibly tragic circumstances, and my little shipper heart is utterly taken with the protagonists as well as a tragic backstory ship.
Where should people start? Right here! No knowledge of FFXIV necessary, and I will so, so gladly answer any questions you might have.
Do you have any content warnings? Death of a loved one; war; familial abuse; a few mentions of human trafficking in the context of piracy.
The Cemeteries of Amalo
29 April 2025 02:27 am (UTC)Media type: Books
Length: 3 short novels (200-300 pages); set in the same universe as The Goblin Emperor, which is a somewhat longer standalone novel (450 pages), but you don't have to read it to understand what's going on in the Amalo trilogy if you don't want to!
Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.) Anywhere books are sold! Or your local library! Probably in EPUB or MOBI format through your library's website, too!
What is it/what is it about? A gay necromancer detective drinks tea, grieves his dead lover, visits the opera, and battles the undead.
What do you love about it? Gorgeous worldbuilding and a slow burn fan-favorite but noncanon ship that provides a great jumping off point for fix-it or canon divergence fic. There's a formal/informal pronoun distinction, and you will get excited when someone gets 'thee'd for the first time!
Where should people start? It's a spinoff/sequel to The Goblin Emperor, so you could start there if you want (the protagonist of the Amalo trilogy is a minor character in TGE), or else start with The Witness for the Dead
Do you have any content warnings? Death of a loved one; fantasy racism; homophobia; misogyny; spousal and child abuse, including references to CSEM; minor character death, including child death; some light zombie-typical body horror
no subject
30 April 2025 05:31 pm (UTC)Media type: Written word science fiction
Length: 8900 words
Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.) https://reactormag.com/the-girl-that-my-mother-is-leaving-me-for-cameron-reed/
What is it/what is it about? Future dystopia trans woman gets disowned from her corporate adoption and finds new work and love and maybe adventure
What do you love about it? It doesn't go where I expected but it goes really good places, also the characterization is engaging and the worldbuilding is subtle but clear and the shipping is f/f
Where should people start? Just read it at link above, free on reactor magazine online
Do you have any content warnings? pregnancy, mentions of miscarriage, cloning, body swapping
Solstice (Moa Cube Visual Novel)
11 May 2025 10:52 am (UTC)Title: Solstice
Media Type: Visual novel (for PC)
Length: 4½ hours for the main story according to How Long to Beat, 7½ hours for main + side stories.
This is the kind of visual novel that makes you want to try different routes; however, playing all the routes is not necessary to write my ship (M/M between a main character and his canon love interest). It's fine if you only finish the main story once! Suggestion: after your first play, you can use CTRL to skip fast the dialogue you already saw; this way you'll be able to see different routes without replaying the entire game. If you have time and you like the story, I'd recommend to do it!
Where to find it: On Steam. There's also a shop on the official site.
A few Let's Plays are available on YouTube.
What it is about. A mystery story in a dystopian/fantasy setting where a group of characters spend the entire winter in a city inside a dome in the middle of a frozen wasteland. There are two main characters who are trying to solve the mystery and you play as both: Yani (the woman in the first picture) and Galen (the man on the left in the second picture).
Each main character has their own optional love interest, and they're men in both cases, so F/M for Yani and M/M for Galen (the ship in the second picture is the one I'm requesting). They can also become friends with each other and work together.
There are a lot of choices that will unlock multiple endings. In the same ending, the fate of the characters can also be different depending on other minor choices (for example, a character can survive as single, with their love interest, etc.)
Every character is morally gray in some way. They also all have secrets that you have to find out.
What I love about the canon. First of all, the art is stunning! I also love the diverse group of characters and the way they feel real when it comes to their motivations and the way they act in general. They're also all adults with different ages and backgrounds, just the way I like. I love that Galen and Kasiya are gay no matter what you choose to do about their relationship. There are also great female characters and interesting platonic interactions.
What I love about my ship. Well, first of all, I love that Galen/Kasiya is canon! I love that they can kiss on-screen and it's implied they have sex. Both characters have dark secrets and plot twists related to them, so their relationship has so much potential that can be explored in fics! They also have different origins and backstories; Galen is a doctor/magician and Kasiya is a guard/ex mercenary, and it's just good to imagine how they would be in a serious relationship. Also, sometimes they call each other "Doctor" and "Captain", and let's just say that I am very much into that :D
Kinds of Things I Ask For. Missing moments and post-canon! Honestly, this ship is so tiny that I'm not really picky, as long as they have a happy ending together. There are a lot of things we don't know about them, and I'd just love more! I'm fine with any rating, and smut is welcome!
Content Warnings. Characters unsympathetic about mental health issues, hallucinations, self-harm, suicide, (optional) main character getting high on magical drugs.
no subject
12 May 2025 11:00 pm (UTC)Media type: Manwha
Length: 100 chapters (main story)
Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.) https://www.webtoons.com/en/romance/not-your-typical-reincarnation-story/list?title_no=5556
What is it/what is it about? (from the webtoon summary) When Suna Choi reincarnates as Edith Rigelhof, the villain from her favorite novel, she is determined to change Edith’s life around and treats everyone with kindness. Although she marries the handsome Killian Rudwick, he is madly in love with the original protagonist of the book and mistrusts Edith because she is from a rival family. Will her marriage survive the whirlwind of family feuds, love triangles, and more? Will Edith find her happy ending?
What do you love about it? For the main character, I love watching Edith Rigelhof's spirit be crushed <3 She comes into the story thinking she can change things. It's simple! She's a different person so obviously that will impact how other's react to her. Unfortunately, it is not that easy. The moment she gives up is so fun, for us - the readers. I also love the flipside of seeing her regain hope too and still try despite the odds against her.
SPOILERS:
the reveal that it is ORIGINAL RHYSE that caused the transmigration and has been. just to save edith has me at a chokehold. rhyse loves her so much and doesn't regret the suffering she caused!! i love how they are mirrors. original edith doesn't believe she can love and i want her to get to that point where she can. and the fact that she decides to STAY for rhyse when freedom is within her reach got me. it got me good. and how she was willing to take the fall for her. willingly. they CARE so much about each other.Where should people start? Webtoon only! For the main ship, you should start from the beginning. The webtoon wildly diverges from the original work which is pretty meta.
Do you have any content warnings? Domestic violence
The One With The Villainness
12 May 2025 11:13 pm (UTC)Media type: Manga
Length: 27 chapters (main story)
Where can it be found? (Only legal links for this, please.) N/A
What is it/what is it about? (summary from mangadex) In order to clear the name of 'Emi', a girl who had reincarnated as Remilia, the villainess of an otome game, the real Remilia who had been watching all along inside awakens.
What do you love about it? Her revenge is primarily living well! The art is so pretty. It is THEE biggest selling point to me. I love how obsessive Remilia is.
Where should people start? The beginning of the manga! There are some divergences from the novel.
Do you have any content warnings? Dubious consent, capitalism in a positive light, slutshaming, weird politics, fantastical racism