Chocobox 2022 Letter
Hello Chocobox Creator!
Thank you for creating for me! Most of this info is already in my signup, other than my general likes, but I hope having it all somewhere is helpful to you! While I might ask for a lot, I'm really very easily satisfied, so don't be too worried. I hope you enjoy writing!
General
General Likes:
I am always open to treats!
General Dislikes:
In general, I don't take well to crack fic, soapbox fic/issuefic, amnesia fic, body swaps, cringe comedy, and plots based on miscommunication or jealousy. If there is hurt, I would like comfort, or I often just can't get through it-same goes for angst (unless explicitly requested, of course!). That said, these are general dislikes--they're not DNWs, I’ve liked fics with all these themes, and if you have an idea that you’re worried might come close to one of these but where these aren’t the focus, don’t worry and go for it.
Hard DNWs:
Please note that these are my general hard DNWs. In some cases, there may be sections where some (or all!) of them won't apply, and in that case follow what was in the sign up.
REQUESTS
Nodame Cantabile (Chiaki Shinichi/Noda Megumi)
I was so thrilled to see this in the tagset! I’d love pretty much any light slice-of-life between these two, anything that went into their (slightly disastrous) dynamic, music, hijinks, etc. Maybe Nodame is embarrassing Chiaki by being very openly a tourist in a new city?
Horimiya (Hori Kyouko/Miyamura Izumi)
I love these two and I was thrilled to see them in the tagset! I’d love pretty much any light fluffy fic between them-slice of life, etc. School hijinks, a classic Valentine’s Day date, anything.
Scholomance (Arjun Sharma/Gwen Higgins, Galadriel "El" Higgins/Orion Lake, Hu Zixuan/Wang Yuyan/Yi Liu)
I just finished reading TLG recently, and one thing that struck me was that even if El and Orion were together, there were precious few moments of them being together. El harasses him about his work, Orion is much sad about the lack of mals to kill, and there’s that one bit at the end but more casual, grumpy “okay, I guess we’re together and I like you” would be Appreciated. El only has like, one shirt-maybe Orion gives her another one? I don’t know.
For the other pairings, I want to see Gwen and Arjun and their romance-obviously this was the romance for centuries, and I want to see that! Arjun sacrificed himself for Gwen and El, and Gwen apparently never moved on, so whatever their romance was, it had to have been intense.
Finally, I was weirdly a little disappointed that Liu and Zixuan didn’t end up together because I thought Zixuan was very sweet with his gifts-so clearly the answer is a threesome. Please, make it work!
Tortall (Domitan of Masbolle/Keladry of Mindelan, Ersken Westover/Kora Ingensra, Nealan of Queenscove/Yukimi noh Daiomoru, Numair Salmalín/Veralidaine Sarrasri)
I’ve spilled much ink about my thoughts on Neal/Yuki and Numair/Daine in my Heart Attack 2021 letter, which can be found here. That said, for each of these, I’d really be delighted with domestic fluff. All the domesticity. Also, babies are much loved, and I generally like Modern and Mundane AUs for this canon for some reason.
For Dom and Kel, how does Dom handle being in a relationship with a Lady Knight? Most of his circle would of course be entirely supportive, but there would be comments from Kel’s enemies. Does he laugh it off entirely? What about his relationship with Toby?
Kora and Ersken come from such different worlds-Kora is a mage in the Court of the Rogue, while Ersken comes from a respectable family and serves as one of the Provost’s Dogs. Where do they draw the line between home and work? How does Ersken’s family react to Kora if he ever takes her home?
New Amsterdam (Casey Acosta/Lauren Bloom)
I love Lauren because she’s such a hot mess of a character (and while I love Leyla, I kind of super hate the ending of s3 on this, and prefer we not talk about it), and I really love her relationship with Casey. I love Casey in general because he’s such a steady character, and he’s a vet from Iraq (which we know because he directly mentions it, and he talks about his deployment all of once). Anyway, I’d love a scene of them in the ED, or affection after a really hard day in the ED, or getting together fic.
Numb3rs (Colby Granger/Liz Warner)
I love Colby-I love his self-reflective lines (“Colby, go down the elevator shaft. Colby, jump in the bay. Hey, Colby, climb the Sixth Street Bridge”), and his general personality. Basically, I’m not super picky on my ships if they involve Colby, though I like him with Liz. I’d love something on them getting together, some domestic fluff, how they negotiate their relationship around working at the FBI, etc.
Prodigal Son (Malcolm Bright & Edrisa Tanaka, Malcolm Bright/Edrisa Tanaka)
I like Prodigal Son because Malcolm Bright is so fucked up, and Edrisa Tanaka is so awkward. Please. Just have them being fucked up and awkward and somehow still managing to connect.
Wheel of Time (Alanna Mosvani/Ihvon/Maksim, Original Aes Sedai/Original Warder)
I want Alanna or another Aes Sedai being awesome, plus their Warders. Smut completely welcome here, because that scene of Alanna leading off her two Warders with a come hither look and a finger was fantastic.
We Are Lady Parts (The Band)
I want to see madcap hijinks, basically. The band goes on tour! The band gets a record label and shit happens! I don’t know, road trip adventures would be awesome, stuff with music would be awesome, yelling about political issues would be awesome, I don’t know, I just want all five of my girls being happy and successful musicians and taking down some racists while they’re at it!
OW (Successful Coup Leader/Heir to the Throne They Married To Secure Their Position, Victorian Lady Seeking Annulment/Doctor Examining Her For Proof Of Virginity)
For the Coup Leader/Heir to the Throne, I’d love see them negotiating the relationship and marriage in the downfall of the civilization-I’d prefer they both had some agency in the negotiations, since the Coup Leader is winning something (being the quelling of likely ongoing rebellion) while the Heir is settling and agreeing not to continue fighting the coup. Why? What’s the political background to this? I’m also down for smut here.
For the Victorian Lady/Doctor, let’s be real, I just want smut. I love the dubious consent of this scenario, plus fingering. For this, I also explicitly opt into noncon.
Thank you for creating for me! Most of this info is already in my signup, other than my general likes, but I hope having it all somewhere is helpful to you! While I might ask for a lot, I'm really very easily satisfied, so don't be too worried. I hope you enjoy writing!
General
General Likes:
- Fics that are character-focused, character-driven, and deal with character exploration or character development. Show me aspects of a character I never considered before, or explorations of how a character's upbringing influences their worldview!
- Fics as challenge, whether it be a challenge on canon, on fanon, on fandom, or a comment on our own reality! This is a zone where rage-driven spite-fic has its place.
- A focus on relationships, particularly how a character interacts with the world around them and other characters based on their upbringing and worldview.
- Thematically, I love when characters are put in a tough spot, moral ambiguity, and themes around honour, duty, and responsibility.
- All flavours of AU. Canon-divergence, Modern AUs, Mundane AUs, crossovers, etc, especially if it interacts with one of the above.
- Worldbuilding, especially through in-universe documents (please consider this an opt-in to pretty much whatever in-universe document or weird in-universe storytelling device you can dream up).
- Alongside the worldbuilding, I really like accuracy and real-life details. I’ve fucking adored fic that involve a deep understanding of 9/11, I’ve written fic where R2P is a big deal, I suspect I’m known for my legal shit, and so-if you have specialized knowledge of something, I love seeing it!
- Romance of all varieties: fluff, happy endings, drunken confessions, friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers, fake dating, fake marriage, arranged marriages, established relationships, slow-burn, shovel talk, and pining (mutual or otherwise). In general, I prefer M/F pairings, but I don’t mind M/M or F/F pairings and prefer them if canon (I just enjoy them differently because I’m cishet).
- Smut-wise, I love first times, gentle sex, rough sex, possessive themes, mild BDSM (e.g. bondage, spanking with a hand), D/s with femsub, impregnation and pregnancy.
I am always open to treats!
General Dislikes:
In general, I don't take well to crack fic, soapbox fic/issuefic, amnesia fic, body swaps, cringe comedy, and plots based on miscommunication or jealousy. If there is hurt, I would like comfort, or I often just can't get through it-same goes for angst (unless explicitly requested, of course!). That said, these are general dislikes--they're not DNWs, I’ve liked fics with all these themes, and if you have an idea that you’re worried might come close to one of these but where these aren’t the focus, don’t worry and go for it.
Hard DNWs:
Please note that these are my general hard DNWs. In some cases, there may be sections where some (or all!) of them won't apply, and in that case follow what was in the sign up.
- Character bashing. In general, I like to imagine that all characters are like people-they're complex, and they have an array of good points and bad points.
- Except otherwise indicated, non-canonical major character death, graphic violence and torture (graphic being “more than what is in canon”), non-con or dub-con, PWP or large age differences (>15)
- Adultery or infidelity (specifically, this is mostly about the betrayal--if you have a plot where two people are married for convenience and happen to have other relationships, that wouldn't trigger as long as everyone knows and doesn't care)
- Smut-wise, unless it’s indicated above in my likes, I’m likely not going to appreciate anything kinky. To be more specific, I DNW A/B/O, age play, humiliation, bloodplay, cannibalism or vore, watersports, scat, mpreg, snuff, or underage (<15).
REQUESTS
Nodame Cantabile (Chiaki Shinichi/Noda Megumi)
I was so thrilled to see this in the tagset! I’d love pretty much any light slice-of-life between these two, anything that went into their (slightly disastrous) dynamic, music, hijinks, etc. Maybe Nodame is embarrassing Chiaki by being very openly a tourist in a new city?
Horimiya (Hori Kyouko/Miyamura Izumi)
I love these two and I was thrilled to see them in the tagset! I’d love pretty much any light fluffy fic between them-slice of life, etc. School hijinks, a classic Valentine’s Day date, anything.
Scholomance (Arjun Sharma/Gwen Higgins, Galadriel "El" Higgins/Orion Lake, Hu Zixuan/Wang Yuyan/Yi Liu)
I just finished reading TLG recently, and one thing that struck me was that even if El and Orion were together, there were precious few moments of them being together. El harasses him about his work, Orion is much sad about the lack of mals to kill, and there’s that one bit at the end but more casual, grumpy “okay, I guess we’re together and I like you” would be Appreciated. El only has like, one shirt-maybe Orion gives her another one? I don’t know.
For the other pairings, I want to see Gwen and Arjun and their romance-obviously this was the romance for centuries, and I want to see that! Arjun sacrificed himself for Gwen and El, and Gwen apparently never moved on, so whatever their romance was, it had to have been intense.
Finally, I was weirdly a little disappointed that Liu and Zixuan didn’t end up together because I thought Zixuan was very sweet with his gifts-so clearly the answer is a threesome. Please, make it work!
Tortall (Domitan of Masbolle/Keladry of Mindelan, Ersken Westover/Kora Ingensra, Nealan of Queenscove/Yukimi noh Daiomoru, Numair Salmalín/Veralidaine Sarrasri)
I’ve spilled much ink about my thoughts on Neal/Yuki and Numair/Daine in my Heart Attack 2021 letter, which can be found here. That said, for each of these, I’d really be delighted with domestic fluff. All the domesticity. Also, babies are much loved, and I generally like Modern and Mundane AUs for this canon for some reason.
For Dom and Kel, how does Dom handle being in a relationship with a Lady Knight? Most of his circle would of course be entirely supportive, but there would be comments from Kel’s enemies. Does he laugh it off entirely? What about his relationship with Toby?
Kora and Ersken come from such different worlds-Kora is a mage in the Court of the Rogue, while Ersken comes from a respectable family and serves as one of the Provost’s Dogs. Where do they draw the line between home and work? How does Ersken’s family react to Kora if he ever takes her home?
New Amsterdam (Casey Acosta/Lauren Bloom)
I love Lauren because she’s such a hot mess of a character (and while I love Leyla, I kind of super hate the ending of s3 on this, and prefer we not talk about it), and I really love her relationship with Casey. I love Casey in general because he’s such a steady character, and he’s a vet from Iraq (which we know because he directly mentions it, and he talks about his deployment all of once). Anyway, I’d love a scene of them in the ED, or affection after a really hard day in the ED, or getting together fic.
Numb3rs (Colby Granger/Liz Warner)
I love Colby-I love his self-reflective lines (“Colby, go down the elevator shaft. Colby, jump in the bay. Hey, Colby, climb the Sixth Street Bridge”), and his general personality. Basically, I’m not super picky on my ships if they involve Colby, though I like him with Liz. I’d love something on them getting together, some domestic fluff, how they negotiate their relationship around working at the FBI, etc.
Prodigal Son (Malcolm Bright & Edrisa Tanaka, Malcolm Bright/Edrisa Tanaka)
I like Prodigal Son because Malcolm Bright is so fucked up, and Edrisa Tanaka is so awkward. Please. Just have them being fucked up and awkward and somehow still managing to connect.
Wheel of Time (Alanna Mosvani/Ihvon/Maksim, Original Aes Sedai/Original Warder)
I want Alanna or another Aes Sedai being awesome, plus their Warders. Smut completely welcome here, because that scene of Alanna leading off her two Warders with a come hither look and a finger was fantastic.
We Are Lady Parts (The Band)
I want to see madcap hijinks, basically. The band goes on tour! The band gets a record label and shit happens! I don’t know, road trip adventures would be awesome, stuff with music would be awesome, yelling about political issues would be awesome, I don’t know, I just want all five of my girls being happy and successful musicians and taking down some racists while they’re at it!
OW (Successful Coup Leader/Heir to the Throne They Married To Secure Their Position, Victorian Lady Seeking Annulment/Doctor Examining Her For Proof Of Virginity)
For the Coup Leader/Heir to the Throne, I’d love see them negotiating the relationship and marriage in the downfall of the civilization-I’d prefer they both had some agency in the negotiations, since the Coup Leader is winning something (being the quelling of likely ongoing rebellion) while the Heir is settling and agreeing not to continue fighting the coup. Why? What’s the political background to this? I’m also down for smut here.
For the Victorian Lady/Doctor, let’s be real, I just want smut. I love the dubious consent of this scenario, plus fingering. For this, I also explicitly opt into noncon.