Chocolate Box 2019 letter

[adigeon]

Dear chocolatier: thank you so much for writing for me!

It’s been a long time since I’ve letter-written, so my apologies if this is either overly wordy or sparse. I’ll start with a quick disclaimer: my tastes are wide-ranging. Outside of DNWs, I’ll be delighted with anything you choose to write me. Also, I’m really fannish about everything that I’ve prompted. If we’ve matched on something that has fewer prompts than another section, I promise I wasn’t hoping to be matched on that fandom instead; I’m just out of practice writing prompts!

Definitely don’t feel obliged to stick to the prompts; they’re absolutely intended as inspiration or jumping-off points, not limitations.

General DNWs and Likes

DNW:

• A/B/O or Mpreg
• Ageplay
• Character bashing
• Issuefic
• Non-canon character death
• Non-canon non-con
• Second-person POV
• Unhappy endings (melancholy or bittersweet is fine, but please no darkfic or pure whump)
• Unrequested AUs that change canon setting
• Untagged self-harm or substance abuse (either in fic is fine, but I need a warning)

General likes:

• Character studies
• Competency! Characters who know what they’re doing and are good at their jobs.
• Focus on characters’ relationships/trust/chemistry. How characters’ relationships/trust/chemistry changes over time; how characters realize their relationships are changing with each other (or don’t!).
• Hurt/comfort! Characters who didn’t expect comfort receiving comfort; characters surprised by being offered comfort; characters overwhelmed and grateful to be receiving comfort, but trying to conceal it and keep a stiff upper lip. This is a bulletproof trope for me.
• Mutual pining, in all its forms. I love characters feeling guilty for their romantic attraction to someone else and trying to be noble and restrained. Especially since this exchange has a low wordcount, I figure it’s useful to mention that I would absolutely be happy with fic where one character realizes they’re in love with (or on their way to in love with!) another, but it doesn’t go farther than that.
• Touch-starvation
• Trope likes, generally: bed sharing; mistaken for a couple; characters stranded somewhere together

Fandom-specific prompts and likes

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate - Evie Frye/Henry Green
I love the over-the-top swashbuckling London of this game, and Evie and Henry’s nervous courtship happening in the background is just so good. I love how badass Evie is and how into it Henry is; I love that Henry’s a meticulous planner who arrived in London and figured everyone out, ready for the Frye twins from the moment they arrived. I love Evie and Henry’s mutual high regard for each other and that there’s never any competition between them. And canon mutual pining!! What’s not to love.

The background characters AC:S are wonderful as well, so if you feel like including anyone else or any background ships, please feel free.

I think AUs could be super interesting for this canon and ship, so this is one where I’m completely fine with AUs that change the setting!

Ideas:

• Anything related to canon or post-canon hijinks:
  • Henry and Evie showing each other their favorite rooftops in London
  • Henry introducing Evie to his network
  • Henry and Evie gently complaining about Jacob
  • Henry and Evie going on patrol together just as an excuse to spend more time with each other
  • When Henry first moves onto the train, Evie offers to help him move his things; maybe - gasp! - their hands brush on a box? Scandalous.
• AU prompts: modern Assassins (as in, fighting Templars); modern assassins (just the normal sort); fantasy AU; sci-fi AU; cyberpunk AU; spy AU; Fallen London AU; a florist AU could be especially interesting!
• Riffing off of florist AU: Henry’s a secret agent undercover as a florist, and Evie is the secret agent who gets intel from him?

Broadchurch - Alec Hardy/Ellie Miller
I adore this show, and I love everything about Hardy and Miller’s chemistry. I love Hardy’s guilt and lack of social skills; I love Miller’s optimism and then her losing her optimism and then her refusing to be broken by it all. In season three, I love their restrained comfort with each other: Miller being unafraid to tell Hardy off for being rude, Hardy admitting he doesn’t know how to handle his daughter… There’s this lingering way they could be friends if Hardy put the effort in, but he won’t put the effort in and Miller doesn’t mind, that really intrigues me. (Hardy’s general restraint/guilt and non-stop repression and self-recrimination is kryptonite for me in a character; bless him.)

As a side note: plenty of my favorite fic for this ship was written in the gaps between seasons. If you’re writing this for me, feel free to set something that diverges from the canon after season 1 or 2. And if you haven’t seen later seasons, don’t feel obliged to worry about canon compliance with later seasons!

Ideas:

• Hardy manages to leave his jumper at Miller’s house somehow - maybe after staying late to work on a case, or maybe after bringing Daisy over for a dinner. Miller finds herself oddly reluctant to return it.
• Sickfic! Either Hardy or Miller getting sick and the other one awkwardly insisting on looking after them.
• Anything about one of them realizing for the first time that they’re interested in the other.
• Bedsharing, redux. They’ve been forced to share a bed before, and it was awkward but nothing more than that -- this time, it’s awkward for a different reason.

Jurassic Park Original Trilogy - Alan Grant/Ian Malcolm/Ellie Sattler
This ship was my first OT3, and I’ve loved it since the first time I watched the first movie. Alan, Ellie, and Ian all have such distinct personalities and voices, and I love how well they bounce off of each other. Alan and Ellie’s easy trust of each other is really compelling, too; I love the way Ellie doesn’t mind Ian flirting with her, and the way Alan clearly never views Ian as a threat.

Ideas:

• After the first movie, Ian runs into Alan and Ellie at an academic conference, and he’s a little too pleased to see them again. Maybe it’s because, well, they are a good-looking couple, or maybe it’s because it makes him feel a little less crazy for still having nightmares about dinosaurs.
• I’m open to any AU where Ian, Alan, and Ellie’s jobs don’t change too significantly, e.g. academia AU, grad student AU, scientists/academics who met on a press tour AU, scientists/academics who meet because they’re all being interviewed for the same documentary AU, professors/researchers at the same university AU… Anything where they’re all still involved in science or academia for their fields.
• Anything about how they all cope with what they’ve just been through - how it was surreal now that it’s behind them, but that doesn’t make the nightmares any less frightening.

Marvel Cinematic Universe - Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
These two characters might be my favorites from the MCU. I love the way their journeys mirror each others’. They both start out as geniuses, famous (at least in their field, for Stephen), and after being humbled, they dedicate themselves to protecting others. They’re both too snarky for their own good, and at least to my mind they both carry an interesting sort of self-loathing/self-doubt that’s the shadow of their extraordinary abilities.

Feel free to play fast and loose with whatever will happen in Endgame; if you’d like to set something post-canon and just handwave what happened, I’m completely fine with that!

I’m totally fine with mentions of past relationships for both Tony and Stephen, although I prefer no character bashing for Steve. (Bitterness/lingering betrayal on Tony’s part or Tony feeling burned is absolutely okay! I just prefer Steve and Tony as two people who once respected each other, who both had hard decisions to make and who both made mistakes.)

Ideas:

 

• Stephen saw millions of futures while working with the time stone; what did he learn about Tony? Does Tony pick up on the fact that the way Stephen regards him has changed?
• Post-Endgame, Tony realizes he doesn’t know anything about Stephen Strange, which bothers him. And he’s very confused by the fact there’s more on Google than there is his old (hacked) S.H.I.E.L.D. files about Strange, which makes him curious. Stephen is not amused by Tony’s sudden insistence that they get to know each other.
• Post-Endgame, Stephen and Tony accidentally getting over their mutual antagonism by geeking out over something they have in common: some scientific breakthrough, or Tony’s teenaged vinyl collection, or a band they both like doing a reunion tour. Something lighthearted that reminds them both they have personalities and interests outside of, well, saving the world and/or reality.