Chocolate Box 2017 Letter
Dear Chocolate Box Writer or Artist,
This is my first chocolate box! Thank you for writing or doing art for me. My likes, DNWs, and requested fandoms (The Magnificent Seven (2016), Dragonriders of Pern, Gentleman Bastards, and Nirvana in Fire are below the cut.)
Things I like:
Hurt-comfort, worldbuilding, adventure, action, heroism, self-sacrifice, hard choices, camaraderie, luscious descriptions or illustrations of food and landscape, loyalty, tenderness, trauma and recovery, bands of brothers (or sisters, or brothers and sisters) and a strong sense of place. I'm fine with original characters. I prefer happy or bittersweet endings to doom and despair. I like canon AUs ("What if this plotline had happened differently?") but not mundane AUs (coffeeshop, high school, etc.)
So, hurt-comfort: Characters helping each other to walk or eat or bathe. Desperate stumbles through the wilderness in search of aid, bedside vigils, delirious confessions of long-held secrets, and stoically soldiering on with a task until total collapse, perhaps while concealing an injury.
Settings where everything is lush and beautiful. Settings where everything is trying to eat you. (Or both!) Wilderness. Big bustling cities. Hostage or imprisonment scenarios. Desperate last stands. Clever escapes. Con artists. DRAGONS. Mist. Mountains. Journeys, into the known or the unknown. Ships or portals that will take you somewhere, who knows where, or make you vanish forever. Space explorers. Space Marines. Westerns. Trapped in an evil lab. People with powers, whether mutant or magical. Martial arts. Dragon hatching, cub bonding - anything where people bond with animals, that is my favorite thing ever.
Things I find hot:
Strong men and their muscles. Strong, lean, boyish or butch women and their muscles. Voluptuous women. Slim petite women with wings. Collarbones. Breasts. Elegant hands. Long, graceful feet. Built arms and shoulders. Long flappy leather coats. Elaborate clothing with ribbons and complicated ties. Carnival masks. Passionate sex up against the wall. Corsets. Half-clothed sex. Writing on bodies.
Do Not Wants
Vomit and other detailed gross descriptions, non-canonical character death, death of requested characters, cancer, brain damage, radiation sickness and nuclear war (generations post-war is fine), mundane AUs, A/B/O, mpreg, and human baby or pregnancy-centered stories. (Kittens and puppies, wee baby rats, baby dragons, and alien lizard babies are fine.)
My Requests
The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Goodnight Robicheaux/Billy Rocks
Sam Chisolm & Red Harvest
Sam Chisolm & Goodnight Robicheaux
Sam Chisolm & Emma Cullen
Sam Chisolm & Billy Rocks
Fanart or Fanfiction
I really enjoyed this movie and the characters in it. As you can tell, Chisholm was a particular favorite in terms of friendly relationships. He had great platonic chemistry with pretty much everyone, and I'd love to see that explored. My big ship, of course, was Billy Rocks/Goodnight Robicheaux. I loved how unabashedly married they were and how smoothly they worked together and how intimate they were, while also being unabashedly fucked-up killers.
For everyone, I liked how all of them had different skill-sets, how they discovered each other's, and taught and learned from and came to respect each other. Also, I loved all the fight scenes and the scenes where they work together to fleece the rubes. Anything along those lines would be fun. Feel free to AU the hell out of the ending. Hurt-comfort for anyone would be great. Also, this is one canon where an AU that's still western but adds AU elements without losing the western-ness would be cool if you felt like adding magic or powers or steampunk mecha or dragons or some such. (No non-western AUs please.)
As far as art goes, I thought everyone was super-hot and great to look at, and would enjoy anything showing that off, whether it's shippy or not. In terms of visuals, I especially liked Billy's knives and martial arts moves and hair, Sam's hat and archetypal gunslinger look and poses, and Red Harvest's body and paint and bow.
DNWs: If possible, no requested character death. If you do a post-movie story that doesn't AU the ending, that's okay, but please don't dwell on grief and death. That also goes for the characters I didn't request - if you keep them dead, it's OK, but please don't show them dying or dwell on the fact that they died. A little sorrow or bittersweetness is fine, a whole story focusing on death is not. (Of the characters I didn't request, Faraday is my favorite.) Also, please don't do a partial AU where one of a pairing survives and one doesn't. Either they both live or neither does.
I thought the movie handed some aspects of race issues (like Chisholm's backstory) better than others (some of the race-based teasing - yeah, it was in-character, but sometimes tipped over into unintentionally uncomfortable.) I'm not saying to avoid mentioning race because the casting diversity was absolutely one of the best parts of the movie, and it's integral to some of the characters and their backstory. However, I DNW movie-style race-based joking and anything issue-ficcy (which also goes for gender if you matched on Emma.) Just give me the badass, ruthless, sexy characters being their deeply loyal (or deeply in love) selves, and you'll be fine.
Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Lessa & Ramoth
Lessa/Kylara
Fanart or Fanfiction
I like how prickly and stubborn and brave Lessa was in Dragonflight, more than in later books where some of her edge wore off. I was also very intrigued by her psychic abilities, which mostly got forgotten after that. And I adored her relationship with Ramoth, so any dragon bonding or riding scene would be lovely.
Lessa/Kylara hatesex strikes me as very hot and I would enjoy it. Dubcon is 100% fine for this pairing, as is BDSM, Kylara's canon thing for rough sex and bruising, etc. It would also be interesting to see if there's any circumstance where it wouldn't be hatesex. I think they have more in common than they realize - ruthlessness, a drive to succeed at high cost, the will to gain power - and that would be interesting to explore. Kylara isn't a particularly nice person, but in some ways Lessa isn't either - she has much more of a moral compass and a willingness to sacrifice herself for the greater good, but she's good rather than nice. I have a lot of sympathy for Kylara. A lot of the bad things she does seem to come from not fitting into a culture that probably should have accepted her more than it did. Lessa is just as sexual as Kylara, she just expresses it in a more socially acceptable way.
I'd be interested in anything in the Dragonflight/Dragonquest time. Maybe weyrling training together. Feel free to AU the timeline to put them together more. I'd also enjoy a canon AU where, for instance, their dragons are switched, Lessa is a Lady Holder and Kylara is Weyrwoman, or they ride totally different dragons (like, Lessa has a bronze and Kylara has a gold, or some such), which might enable dragon mating sex. Or what if things were just SO HOT AND ANGRY AND HOT that there was an unprecedented gold-gold mating? Perhaps an averted mating battle, like the one between Wirenth and Prideth, that became a mating instead of a tragedy?
DNW: Issuefic or requested character death. I'd prefer a story where Prideth is still alive but if you have a good idea for a post-queen battle story, go for it.
Gentleman Bastard Sequence - Scott Lynch
Nazca Barsavi & Locke Lamora
Locke Lamora & Jean Tannen
Gentlemen Bastards Gang- Relationship
Father Chains & Locke Lamora & Jean Tannen
Fanfiction
I love the whole melodramatic, wisecracking, loyal, messed-up gang. Nazca too. She got a raw deal in canon; feel free to AU it. I'd like to see them in their younger years, or if you matched on Locke and Jean, no later than Red Seas. But I love the Camorr days best, when they were... not innocent, exactly, but happier and less beaten down by life. I love all the details of the food and the absurdly complex plots and how much everyone cared about each other even while they hazed the hell out of each other. Any little adventure or just bit of camaraderie with some atmosphere would be great.
DNWs: Please no death of requested characters. I was not big on Sabetha as depicted in the third book, and that went double for her relationship with Locke as depicted in it. So I'm not saying definitely don't include her, but if you do, I'd prefer that you base her more on what was suggested in book one than shown in book three. That mostly comes down to her relationship with Locke having more camaraderie and less hostility/pining, and no lectures about sexism. On that note, please no issuefic.
琅琊榜 | Nirvana in Fire (TV)
Mu Nihuang/Xia Dong
Mu Nihuang & Xia Dong
Consort Jing & Lin Shu | Mei Changsu | Su Zhe Mu
Fanart
This is an art-only request as far as matching goes. There's great fic for the show (and feel free to treat fic if you're so moved, I would love that too), but it's so beautiful that I would really love to get art for it. Everyone is so gorgeous - Mei Changsu's eloquent hands and "I'm smarter than you" expressions and fur cloaks and penchant for being coddled and wrapped up snugly, Consort Jing's subtly-showing inner power and exquisite face, Mu Nihuang's easy alternation between sweet emotion and badassery, and Xia Dong's toughness plus the prettiest eyes I have ever seen on a human being.
So, if we matched on this, show me a tender moment or moment of mutual plotting between Consort Jing and Mei Changsu (or her feeding him cookies or tucking him into bed or in a fur cloak, anything!), Mu Nihuang and Xia Dong fighting side by side or back to back or a moment from their army days or patching up injuries or making out. I ship Mu Nihuang and Xia Dong but I also like them as buddies.
Hurt-comfort would be awesome in this fandom.
DNW: I'd like Mei Changsu, not young!Lin Shu. No non-canonical character death, but I'm OK with canonical. This is one canon where you can feel totally free to make me sob like a baby.
Crossposted to http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1281285.html. Comment here or there.
This is my first chocolate box! Thank you for writing or doing art for me. My likes, DNWs, and requested fandoms (The Magnificent Seven (2016), Dragonriders of Pern, Gentleman Bastards, and Nirvana in Fire are below the cut.)
Things I like:
Hurt-comfort, worldbuilding, adventure, action, heroism, self-sacrifice, hard choices, camaraderie, luscious descriptions or illustrations of food and landscape, loyalty, tenderness, trauma and recovery, bands of brothers (or sisters, or brothers and sisters) and a strong sense of place. I'm fine with original characters. I prefer happy or bittersweet endings to doom and despair. I like canon AUs ("What if this plotline had happened differently?") but not mundane AUs (coffeeshop, high school, etc.)
So, hurt-comfort: Characters helping each other to walk or eat or bathe. Desperate stumbles through the wilderness in search of aid, bedside vigils, delirious confessions of long-held secrets, and stoically soldiering on with a task until total collapse, perhaps while concealing an injury.
Settings where everything is lush and beautiful. Settings where everything is trying to eat you. (Or both!) Wilderness. Big bustling cities. Hostage or imprisonment scenarios. Desperate last stands. Clever escapes. Con artists. DRAGONS. Mist. Mountains. Journeys, into the known or the unknown. Ships or portals that will take you somewhere, who knows where, or make you vanish forever. Space explorers. Space Marines. Westerns. Trapped in an evil lab. People with powers, whether mutant or magical. Martial arts. Dragon hatching, cub bonding - anything where people bond with animals, that is my favorite thing ever.
Things I find hot:
Strong men and their muscles. Strong, lean, boyish or butch women and their muscles. Voluptuous women. Slim petite women with wings. Collarbones. Breasts. Elegant hands. Long, graceful feet. Built arms and shoulders. Long flappy leather coats. Elaborate clothing with ribbons and complicated ties. Carnival masks. Passionate sex up against the wall. Corsets. Half-clothed sex. Writing on bodies.
Do Not Wants
Vomit and other detailed gross descriptions, non-canonical character death, death of requested characters, cancer, brain damage, radiation sickness and nuclear war (generations post-war is fine), mundane AUs, A/B/O, mpreg, and human baby or pregnancy-centered stories. (Kittens and puppies, wee baby rats, baby dragons, and alien lizard babies are fine.)
My Requests
The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Goodnight Robicheaux/Billy Rocks
Sam Chisolm & Red Harvest
Sam Chisolm & Goodnight Robicheaux
Sam Chisolm & Emma Cullen
Sam Chisolm & Billy Rocks
Fanart or Fanfiction
I really enjoyed this movie and the characters in it. As you can tell, Chisholm was a particular favorite in terms of friendly relationships. He had great platonic chemistry with pretty much everyone, and I'd love to see that explored. My big ship, of course, was Billy Rocks/Goodnight Robicheaux. I loved how unabashedly married they were and how smoothly they worked together and how intimate they were, while also being unabashedly fucked-up killers.
For everyone, I liked how all of them had different skill-sets, how they discovered each other's, and taught and learned from and came to respect each other. Also, I loved all the fight scenes and the scenes where they work together to fleece the rubes. Anything along those lines would be fun. Feel free to AU the hell out of the ending. Hurt-comfort for anyone would be great. Also, this is one canon where an AU that's still western but adds AU elements without losing the western-ness would be cool if you felt like adding magic or powers or steampunk mecha or dragons or some such. (No non-western AUs please.)
As far as art goes, I thought everyone was super-hot and great to look at, and would enjoy anything showing that off, whether it's shippy or not. In terms of visuals, I especially liked Billy's knives and martial arts moves and hair, Sam's hat and archetypal gunslinger look and poses, and Red Harvest's body and paint and bow.
DNWs: If possible, no requested character death. If you do a post-movie story that doesn't AU the ending, that's okay, but please don't dwell on grief and death. That also goes for the characters I didn't request - if you keep them dead, it's OK, but please don't show them dying or dwell on the fact that they died. A little sorrow or bittersweetness is fine, a whole story focusing on death is not. (Of the characters I didn't request, Faraday is my favorite.) Also, please don't do a partial AU where one of a pairing survives and one doesn't. Either they both live or neither does.
I thought the movie handed some aspects of race issues (like Chisholm's backstory) better than others (some of the race-based teasing - yeah, it was in-character, but sometimes tipped over into unintentionally uncomfortable.) I'm not saying to avoid mentioning race because the casting diversity was absolutely one of the best parts of the movie, and it's integral to some of the characters and their backstory. However, I DNW movie-style race-based joking and anything issue-ficcy (which also goes for gender if you matched on Emma.) Just give me the badass, ruthless, sexy characters being their deeply loyal (or deeply in love) selves, and you'll be fine.
Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Lessa & Ramoth
Lessa/Kylara
Fanart or Fanfiction
I like how prickly and stubborn and brave Lessa was in Dragonflight, more than in later books where some of her edge wore off. I was also very intrigued by her psychic abilities, which mostly got forgotten after that. And I adored her relationship with Ramoth, so any dragon bonding or riding scene would be lovely.
Lessa/Kylara hatesex strikes me as very hot and I would enjoy it. Dubcon is 100% fine for this pairing, as is BDSM, Kylara's canon thing for rough sex and bruising, etc. It would also be interesting to see if there's any circumstance where it wouldn't be hatesex. I think they have more in common than they realize - ruthlessness, a drive to succeed at high cost, the will to gain power - and that would be interesting to explore. Kylara isn't a particularly nice person, but in some ways Lessa isn't either - she has much more of a moral compass and a willingness to sacrifice herself for the greater good, but she's good rather than nice. I have a lot of sympathy for Kylara. A lot of the bad things she does seem to come from not fitting into a culture that probably should have accepted her more than it did. Lessa is just as sexual as Kylara, she just expresses it in a more socially acceptable way.
I'd be interested in anything in the Dragonflight/Dragonquest time. Maybe weyrling training together. Feel free to AU the timeline to put them together more. I'd also enjoy a canon AU where, for instance, their dragons are switched, Lessa is a Lady Holder and Kylara is Weyrwoman, or they ride totally different dragons (like, Lessa has a bronze and Kylara has a gold, or some such), which might enable dragon mating sex. Or what if things were just SO HOT AND ANGRY AND HOT that there was an unprecedented gold-gold mating? Perhaps an averted mating battle, like the one between Wirenth and Prideth, that became a mating instead of a tragedy?
DNW: Issuefic or requested character death. I'd prefer a story where Prideth is still alive but if you have a good idea for a post-queen battle story, go for it.
Gentleman Bastard Sequence - Scott Lynch
Nazca Barsavi & Locke Lamora
Locke Lamora & Jean Tannen
Gentlemen Bastards Gang- Relationship
Father Chains & Locke Lamora & Jean Tannen
Fanfiction
I love the whole melodramatic, wisecracking, loyal, messed-up gang. Nazca too. She got a raw deal in canon; feel free to AU it. I'd like to see them in their younger years, or if you matched on Locke and Jean, no later than Red Seas. But I love the Camorr days best, when they were... not innocent, exactly, but happier and less beaten down by life. I love all the details of the food and the absurdly complex plots and how much everyone cared about each other even while they hazed the hell out of each other. Any little adventure or just bit of camaraderie with some atmosphere would be great.
DNWs: Please no death of requested characters. I was not big on Sabetha as depicted in the third book, and that went double for her relationship with Locke as depicted in it. So I'm not saying definitely don't include her, but if you do, I'd prefer that you base her more on what was suggested in book one than shown in book three. That mostly comes down to her relationship with Locke having more camaraderie and less hostility/pining, and no lectures about sexism. On that note, please no issuefic.
琅琊榜 | Nirvana in Fire (TV)
Mu Nihuang/Xia Dong
Mu Nihuang & Xia Dong
Consort Jing & Lin Shu | Mei Changsu | Su Zhe Mu
Fanart
This is an art-only request as far as matching goes. There's great fic for the show (and feel free to treat fic if you're so moved, I would love that too), but it's so beautiful that I would really love to get art for it. Everyone is so gorgeous - Mei Changsu's eloquent hands and "I'm smarter than you" expressions and fur cloaks and penchant for being coddled and wrapped up snugly, Consort Jing's subtly-showing inner power and exquisite face, Mu Nihuang's easy alternation between sweet emotion and badassery, and Xia Dong's toughness plus the prettiest eyes I have ever seen on a human being.
So, if we matched on this, show me a tender moment or moment of mutual plotting between Consort Jing and Mei Changsu (or her feeding him cookies or tucking him into bed or in a fur cloak, anything!), Mu Nihuang and Xia Dong fighting side by side or back to back or a moment from their army days or patching up injuries or making out. I ship Mu Nihuang and Xia Dong but I also like them as buddies.
Hurt-comfort would be awesome in this fandom.
DNW: I'd like Mei Changsu, not young!Lin Shu. No non-canonical character death, but I'm OK with canonical. This is one canon where you can feel totally free to make me sob like a baby.
Crossposted to http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1281285.html. Comment here or there.