dear chocolatier,

hi! i couldn’t be more delighted that you’re here to create a thing for me! whatever it is, i will be delighted to receive it. please do not take any any of the specifications (except for the dnws) as absolutes – these thoughts are only here if you want some kind of springboard. i want you to do you, follow your heart, and craft the thing that’ll make you happy! because that tends to show.

here are my dnws: ship/character bashing, graphic depictions of sexual assault or suicide, pregnancy/child-rearing focus if not a part of canon. if you feel like writing smut, kinks that aren’t for me include: bestiality, bodily fluids, daddy/mommy kink, A/B/O, and dub/noncon. 

you’ll probably have a sense from my tropes what sorts of things i’m into, but in general i enjoy: found families, banter, digging into/exploring the depths of characters in believable ways, assholes who like each other a lot, any kind of AU you can imagine (superheroes, office jobs, pirates, harry potter, a world with daemons, the universe of any fandom i’m into, etc. etc.), accidental domesticity, casual intimacy, fake dating, secret dating, polyamory was the answer all along assholes, characters relearning each other, a focus on choice, lots more.

also: a lot of my specifics refer directly to fic, because that's what i'm used to talking about, but if i asked for art in a particular fandom, I WILL LOVE IT. whether you want to take any of my vague musings as prompt material or whether you have ideas that have been percolating, do not hesitate!

now, to the fandoms –

critical role (vax/vex, keyleth/vex, jester/beau/yasha, jester/beau, jester/yasha, jester/caleb)

OH BOY. I LOVE TOO MANY THINGS ABOUT CR. jester/yasha is such an underrated, beautiful, inexplicably well-suited ship in ways that i think were summed up best by ashley talking about how yasha wasn’t going to make her room in the xhorhaus homey, she wasn’t going to put down roots, and then – before she could even get that far – jester had already painted the flower mural in her room. just, like: from the very beginning, from yasha’s immediate fondness over jester to her delight about jester rearranging everything in the dude’s shop to much, much later, confessing the truth of her backstory to jester? and, like: jester, visiting yasha's room all those times while she was gone. jester, committed as hell to proving to yasha that she's Good and she's Redeemable. i would love to see their dynamic explored, either from earlier along the path, or at some point in the future, or in some au way.

beau/jester is so! good! it doesn’t matter how many rooms there are they are ROOMMATES, GODDAMMIT. i love them growing steadily closer and closer; i i love that there wasn’t a second thought about them waking up in the same room; i loved when they were whispering together about what to do about dairon. (secret duo! undercover stuff! espionage! disasters!) also, i love that beau is just genuinely impressed by everything about jester, and i love jester’s constant NO BEAU YOU’RE PERFECT AND GREAT AND BEAUTIFUL anytime any suggestion to the contrary is made. they’re the epitome of quality friends to lovers??? I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE THE CRUSH IS OFFICIAL CANON CONTENT. and, like, how does beau handle it??? how does pretending it doesn't exist work out for her??? maybe there are Secret Missions??? maybe they fake date??? whatever it is, i love it.

as for beau/jester/yasha, it seems like the VERY OBVIOUS solution, and i'm interested in the potential of seeing this explored -- interested in jester's assumption that beau/yasha will Be A Thing, maybe, now that yasha's back, and how she feels about that, or yasha's careful observations that Maybe There Is Something Afoot re: beau/jester, or something entirely separate from all of those. i'm fascinated by the navigation of these dynamics!

jester/caleb is also just – super, super lovely. basically, EVERYONE IS FOND OF JESTER IT’S CANON. i love them always kind of being aware of each other’s emotional states (laura’s inclusion of “put the fire out” in honor of caleb on that jester playlist? still kills me), i love jester constantly bothering him while he’s reading and poking at him a little and doodling dicks in his books. <3 where does their journey take them from here? or is there maybe an au you want to write? what if one of their lives had taken a very different path? the undercover (in any way, really) trope with them seems like it’d be an absolute delight. also, there’s always room in my heart for more dancing. 

then there’s vex/keyleth!!! i am fascinated by ALL ASPECTS of this dynamic. if you want to go earlier, and dig into said dynamic from those days – uncertain beginnings, an uncertain (unpleasant, even) middle (re: vax/keyleth), the growing realization that keyleth is actually pretty fucking amazing. keyleth literally spending her whole life admiring vex. OR, ALTERNATIVELY: much, much later. i’ve really wanted to read a dive into vex/keyleth after vax’s death, coping and growing together and only really seeing the heaviness of their grief reflected in one another. i kind of love the idea of them ending up living together somewhere in the woods for a little while, away from everything, because pretending is hard and living is hard and they don’t have to be anything else to each other. alternatively, the possibility of their romance much, much farther down the line. or! something super au! (as a side note, i'm also into vex/keyleth/vax, with or entirely without a romantic vex/vax aspect, so if that happens to be a thing you're into, just throwing it in the pot.)

as far as vex/vax, i just? love them so much? they're literally a part of each other. whether you want to explore them pre-vox machina – or even in a canon adjacent world where they were never part of vm – or vex going to the ends of the earth to get him back from the raven queen, or something from right in the middle of the campaign. or even some kind of modern au! they were just all each other had for a very, very long time, and i have a lot of emotions about it!!! they will mean so, so very much to me forever.

bombshell (kayla/jess)

LISTEN. this movie was actually created so that margot and kate could invent chemistry in under 5 minutes, tyfyt. anyway: there's so much to explore here, because there's so little we actually get to see -- what i love so much abotu their dynamic is the lightness of it, the warmth suffused throughout it. somehow kayla finds out jess is a democrat and at leads to them giggling together, yk? kayla, compartmentalizing her sexuality 24/7. how does leaving fox news impact that?? what happens after she leaves? or, alternatively: are they both there, keeping whatever they're doing a secret? does this thing-that-definitely-isn't-a-thing-shut-up continue? i'm just throwing random ideas around; the truth is that i would love everything. that road trip margot talked about? give it to me. meeting later on? secret dating? kayla trying to prove to herself it's not actually happening? meeting much later down the road, both as journalists working for separate organizations? whatever!
 

carnival row (vignette/tourmaline)

i admit i'm not particularly committed to this series, but i found myself overwhelmingly fond of this dynamic the entire time i was watching, and would be happy to have it explored in any way -- whether that means their history, their possible future, a direct response to the finale, whatever. maybe a story from a different part of the universe? maybe something super au? space, or daemons, or modern and mundane or non-mundane? i admit to being super partial to an exes-to-lovers dynamic, but also feel free to mess with that. oh, and: i did technically listen to the whole audible original tourmaline backstory audiobook, but i only mention that in case you have a strong desire to include something that stems from that -- feel absolutely zero pressure to do so; i'm perfectly happy to ignore at will. (listening to it felt more like listening to fic than anything, if i'm being honest, so i have no skin in the game re: the bounds of "canon.")
 

once upon a time (emma/regina)

it's 2020 and i have fallen entirely back into my emma/regina emotions, so. whoops? here's the thing: their seasons-long arc brings me so much joy. enemies to friends to co-parents who would die for each other? it's chill. i would genuinely love to see anything explored -- i love moments captured that we don't get to see onscreen, things like holidays, or back-to-school nights, or touring colleges for henry, or what it might mean when henry leaves for college at all. i love them not knowing how to quantify their relationship. i love canon divergent stuff -- what if situations, from things has simple as a choice made differently to what if a zombie apocalypse???? and, for the record, feel free to take what you'd like from any points in canon and adjust what you don't want; for myself, i never got farther than season 6a, but if you'd like to take from a much, much earlier place, or if you'd like to see it all the way through and go out past s7 (i've been thoroughly spoiled, no issues there), then please: live your best life.


dragon age (josephine/leliana)

listen, they're girlfriends, i don't care what lies bioware wants to tell me. ahem, anyway, some things i'm into include: their backstory, including leliana dragging (a not-totally-unwilling) josephine into her shenanigans; josephine searching for the pieces of a younger leliana that inquisition leliana keeps tucked away (and perhaps finding them only to immediately regret it, e.g. her undergarments ending up strung up on a flagpole or whatever); leliana trusting josephine with parts of herself she doesn't trust with most other people; the quiet intimacy of a relationship that has stretched through as many years as theirs has; how seamlessly they're able to work in concert, after all this time and considering their own experiences (even if they sometimes take opposite stances on approaches/moral concerns, which is also interesting!); leliana's protectiveness (and sometimes josephine's oh my god please chill-ness); an established relationship -- or, alternatively, one that has been quietly cultivated and tended to for many years, perhaps without either of them realizing it; pining; what it means to love someone in a time of war; and lots and lots of other things.

 

wynonna earp (waverly/wynonna, waverly/wynonna/nicole, rosita/waverly)

i will follow you into literally every place you want to take wynonna/waverly. their arc has been a dream to watch unfold – from wynonna having to be dragged into a hug during their pilot reunion to the constant reciprocal physical (and emotional) affection between them now. not to mention the journey from wynonna working to keep waverly out of everything and out of danger to them constantly fighting side by side and keeping each other safe?? ("which is why I didn't take a sip of your dumb drugged whiskey" / "i didn't drug yours, waverly") they’re also both just SUCH DUMBASSES. ridiculous banter, terrible puns. 3x10 showed me everything that these two fools working a mission could be together, and i truly became better for it. i really don’t care where you take this from: there’s the option of taking it from present, of wynonna moving heaven and earth and journeying to the ends of the goddamn world and beyond to get waverly back. doing anything and everything, probably outside of any sturdy moral guardrails. (there’s the possibility of how long that could take, too – of a possible lengthy separation, or a shorter one.) or there are things like: them solving things together! them tracking demons together! them going undercover together! or maybe there’s an apocalypse, and they’re on the run together. maybe they’re road tripping together. maybe they have to undercover-as-a-couple For Reasons. point is: i will love it.

which leads me to waverly/wynonna/nicole, a dynamic i would love to see thoughtfully explored. it's complicated and messy as hell to imagine trying to navigate! i'm fascinated by things like: wynonna and nicole finding deeply foundational common ground in the fight to get waverly back, where even when they're arguing they're both kind of on the same page? it's get waverly back or die trying, and they're the only ones who can understand that? so they sort of fall together that way, or they end up in a complicated space together, and when waverly comes back it's to two people who would die for her but a dynamic that's changed and what does that MEAN and what does that LOOK LIKE. alternatively: they all end up getting stuck somewhere together and have to figure it out; something apocalypse-y; something set in an au; just tell me how this looks to you!!!

as for waverly/rosita, i would love! to see this explored as more than it was in the show! they’re both NERDS (waverly kissed her when she was talking about the science of champagne bubbles, COME ON), they both enjoyed each other so much, they’re both such different kinds of people. also, if you want to explore an au where waverly actually is half-revenant, and they navigate that together? cool. alternatively: waverly is half-angel a la canon, and they navigate that together. how do they come back from the revelations of season 2? or: maybe they have to work together again because there is A Very Bad Thing, and they need rosita, or maybe there’s an apocalypse thing, and they’re pretty much all one another has. or maybe they’re just solving a case together! whatever!

arrowverse (barry/kara/iris, kara/nora, alex/kara, beth/kate, mary/sophie, ava/zari)

i have loved barry/kara/iris for such a long time!!! i just love the concept of barry and kara both ott courting iris so much with absurdly superhero Grand Romantic Gestures. or just all being domestic together! is this an au where they all exist in the same dimension? does kara get stuck there and move in ~temporarily~ with barry and iris while everything gets sorted out? do barry and iris have increasingly complicated feelings about her presence there? i kind of love the idea of everything being Very Intense and Serious Because Missions and kara brightening up every room a little. or, who knows, maybe everybody’s on bit of a break? maybe kara + one of them has to go undercover as a couple and the third is like ……i don’t think i…hate this? i don’t know……what i’m feeling? honestly any take on them would make me very happy.

alex/kara: they anchor the show! they're so important! so, some thoughts: they end up temporarily in an alt earth where they’re dating, it thoroughly shakes their foundation in ways they pretend aren’t happening. OR they’re going undercover and solving mysteries together! or saving the world or whatever! OR there’s further exploration of alex losing her memory of kara as supergirl. i’m especially fascinated by some of the things the show didn’t dig into for more than a few minutes, e.g. alex being frustrated with supergirl??? them having kind of a fraught relationship, while kara struggles with the fact that she can’t just tell alex it’s her??? the ways that alex thinking kara is just human would impact their relationship??? also starting at rivals on alex’s end is so fascinating, especially if coupled with a growing attraction to a person she didn’t realize was kara. but there’s so much else that could be explored: you could go full au, you could have one fighting like hell to rescue the other, you could take it anywhere!

kara/nora just brings me SO MUCH JOY. they’re both so endearing and they’re both trying their hardest and i just think kara would make for such a delightful superhero guide for nora?? maybe there’s an au where nora ends up on kara’s earth, maybe they need kara to help them Solve A Thing and they meet on earth-1. maybe barry even thinks she would be a useful mentor! or maybe kara needs some help with some CSI Investigating and nora’s sent over as opposed to barry! it’s the superhero team-up of my my heart and i want it very much!!!

beth/kate is so MESSY and COMPELLING and i want disaster kids MESSING EACH OTHER UP. there's so much guilt and abandonment and MURDER tied up in everything for it to be easy, and i am fascinated by these ideas about how far kate is willing to go to ~save~ her sister and how far alice is willing to push her and how the line keeps moving and moving and moving. i'd love this explored from any point; i'd love to imagine what alice's plan is and the theatrics of her endgame. i would love to examine the things that kate has lost, and what the sacrifices way against the possibility of her sister. do they end up working together on a thing??? is there Undercover Work??? do we just go full au? you can set them on mars for all i care, i just want to see complicated! as hell! dynamics!

i just love mary/sophie as a concept! rmr that time sophie was mary's personal bodyguard for the day? and mary's out here playing mildly vapid non-serious player while actually secretly running an entire underground clinic while also attending med school? THESE TROPES RIGHT THEMSELVES. them discovering things about each other! sophie finding out about mary's lab! mary treating sophie? alternatively, the 2 of them maybe starting to work together in an off-the-books kind of way? mary is just such a goddamn delight -- and sophie could use a little joy! -- but she's also smart as hell, and sophie beginning to unravel all of that and learn about her as who she is and not as kate's sister is content! i! care! about! also, all the aus! one of them's a superhero? rich girl/personal bodyguard? give me anything.

as far as i can tell, the best thing about zari 2.0 will be more canon ava/zari things! which i’m very excited about. that being said, i know we don’t have access to that yet, so a couple of options here: you take the zari we know in canon and explore ava/zari possibilities from there. they’re such profoundly different people that i’ve always thought it’d be interesting to have an opportunity to actually see how they bounce off each other – jes/tala being adorable together aside – and how zari’s perspective on life meets ava’s lawful-but-now-neutral-post-legends-but-it’s-still-sometimes-hard alignment. banter? maybe zari joins book club? maybe there’s d&d shenanigans?? alternatively, feel free to explore the prospect of zari 2.0 and how you see her! from the little bit of ~footage~ we’ve gotten, it seems like, ah, there might be a little more bedazzling involved? but definitely imagine a 2.0 however you want and how you think that will fit in moving forward.

Rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. (For snowflake_challenge.)

In order to save myself some DECISION STRESS, I'm just going to go ahead and rec a few fanworks -- in this case, fic and vids -- off the top of my head that have led me down a path of Emotions recently.

i. fic: a spell that can't be broken (one drop should be enough) series / chilling adventures of sabrina, prudence/sabrina

Full disclosure: overall, I'm not overly invested in CAOS. But this fic series alone made me Care more than the show itself ever has. The character writing is fucking phenomenal -- it speaks so well and so fully to them as individuals, and also gives them space, and if this was the show I would DIE FOR IT. My personal favorite is probably kitchen witch, but they are all SO WORTH READING. I love, love, love it. God, i love it.

ii. vid: white blood / wynonna earp, wynonna & waverly

I'm liable to cry about any kind of Earp sisters-related content, but this really -- wow, it got me. What a lovely showcasing of the she show's anchor, its heart, my heart -- how goddamn much Wynonna and Waverly mean to each other, and all the things they've gone through to get where they are. Also, some really lovely moments shown in parallel in a way that twisted that particular knife. My heart is full, my cheeks are wet, must be a day.

iii. fic: the pleasure principle / the good place, eleanor/tahani

I haven't read another TGP fic that's nailed the voices this well, and I am such a sucker for a good character voice. I found myself smiling the entire time I was reading it for how delightfully the characters read, and for how much fun the ride. To see such fun characters rendered so perfectly? Though it certainly did not follow the format of the show, it somehow managed to fit the tone of the show impressively well. A true Yuletide gift.

iv. vid: you & i / daredevil, elektra/matt

I know this one's older than everything else on this list, but I find myself coming back to watch this video again and again -- the editing is superb, including how well the video matches the pacing of the song, and it explores everything I love about Elektra/Matt. Honestly, no matter how far I've strayed from my Elektra/Matt emotions, it takes 2 minutes and 29 seconds for them all to come rushing back. THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE LEAVE YOU BREATHLESS.

UGH I LOVED INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE SO VERY, VERY MUCH.