Dear Chocolatier

[calliatra]

Dear Chocolatier,

Hi! It’s so nice to (virtually) meet you. :) Thanks so much for taking the time to create something for me; I really hope you have fun with it!

Let’s jump right in, shall we? (In keeping with this exchange, I’ll try to keep it short and sweet. Well, short-ish. For my standards.)
 

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Quick Info

I go by Calliatra everywhere. You can find me on ao3, tumblr, and dreamwidth.

You can find my letters for previous exchanges here. And if you have questions, please feel free to contact me via mod anytime!

 

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General Notes

• I love both first person and third person POV. Same goes for past and present tense. I’ll also happily read more experimental things (future tense, non-linear progression, drabble collections, you name it)! …Just don’t go all Finnegans Wake, ‘k?


• Any and all prompts are only suggestions. If they don’t work for you, feel free to change or completely ignore them!


• For art, if you’re looking at any of the more narrative prompts, an illustration of a single scene or moment from any of them would be more than lovely!

 

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Do Not Want

• character death (Mentioning canon character death is fine, so is killing an OC I have no emotional connection to. Everything else is not.)


• unhappy endings (I don’t need perfect fairy tale endings or anything, but I do like them to be at least hopeful.)


• overwhelming angst (I know that’s vague, so: if less than fifty percent of the fic is angsty, you’re totally fine.)


• gore, graphic violence, or intense suffering


• humiliation or serious embarrassment (seriously, I have such an embarrassment squick, please spare me)


• an imbalance of power in romantic relationships (anything from D/s to teacher/student)


• cheating (on a romantic partner)


• the concepts of One True Love and Destiny


• PWP


• non-canon ships (unless you know I ship them or at least don’t mind them)


• too much introspection or ‘navel-gazing’


• pregnancy and kidfic


• bashing any characters, especially women


• body-shaming any characters

Art Specific:

• caricatures


• flashing gifs


• neon colors


• explicit porn (I’m not prudish, so no need to worry about offending me; I just have a tendency to find porn on its own kind of boring.)

 

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Likes

• interactions between characters and closer looks at the dynamics of their relationship(s).


• subtlety. I love it when I have to read a fic twice to really understand everything that was implied.


• atmosphere! Anything that transports into the feel of a different world.


• humor, especially wordplay and language-based humor.


• surprises!


• playing with tropes. (Though there are a good few that I really love seeing played straight, as well – I’ve added a list below.)


• mysteries. I love being intrigued! And I adore it when all the pieces finally come together in the end.


• psychological stories: stories about conflicts between people or within them, and how they deal with them.


• Getting Together/“First Time” fics. Possibly my favorite thing in the world. I just really love that moment when all that tension finally gets resolved, and all the various ways that can happen!


• friends-to-lovers/slow burn relationships


• explorations of queer themes. I really love seeing queerness from the POV of different characters, in different times throughout history, and/or in other universes. (Though I prefer these kinds of stories to be written by people who are queer themselves, so if you’re not, maybe go with something else.)


• a deliberate use of language. I absolutely adore it when language is used to set or match a specific tone, atmosphere, genre, POV, or anything like that! Or when it’s part of the plot somehow! I just… language. ♥

Art Specific:

• lighting. I really love interestingly and/or unusually lit scenes, plays with light and shadow, all that sort of thing.


• color schemes. Whether it’s a theme or a limited color palette or something else, I always enjoy kind of unusually colored pictures. (And I have a recently discovered love of pictures


• underwater scenes. I just absolutely adore the colors, the way the light falls, and the beautiful otherworldly atmosphere of underwater pictures!


• kissing. This one’s a simple one: I just really like seeing my OTPs kiss, and I don’t really get much of that in canon. ^^


• gazing into each other’s eyes. Another OTP thing I can’t get enough of! And I also love it as a gen thing when the situation calls for it.


• touching. Whether romantic or platonic, caring touches always make my heart melt!


• facial expressions. I love it both when they show one emotion so clearly they radiate it, and when they’re full of nuance, open to interpretation, and almost tell a whole story on their own.


• tight(ish) spaces, where characters are forced close together, and the camera can’t get too much distance either. I love the intimate atmosphere of that!

 

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Some Tropes (‘n’ Things) I Enjoy

• Mundane AUs


• Hogwarts AU


• Bodyswap


• Celebratory “Accidental” Kiss


• Handcuffed Together


• Huddling for Warmth


• Mind Reading (especially if it’s a newly developing power!)


• Outsider POV


• Power Outage


• Road Trip


• Snowed In


• Undercover as a Couple

 

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Community

Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir, Shirley Bennett & Frankie Dart

Troy/Abed: I love the sweetness of their friendship, but also the fact that they do have conflicts, and the different approaches they take to addressing them, from actually talking it out (like in 3x11 “Contemporary Impressionists”), to epic battles (like in 3x14 “Pillows and Blankets”).

Apart from those instances, we never really get to see the inner workings of their relationship (since usually it’s Troy-and-Abed, as one unit, interacting with other people or situation), so that’s something I’m really interested in.

As for the romantic aspects of their relationship, I see them as really just adding a little bit extra to the strong friendship that’s already there, rather than changing it. So whether you think they hadn’t gotten round to that step yet when Troy left, or whether you see them as having been secretly (or not-so-secretly) together for a while already, either interpretation works for me!

Shirley & Frankie: They never got to interact (apart from that small wonderful clip), which makes me wonder all the more what it might have been like. I have the feeling that Shirley might have seen Frankie as a sort of rival – someone closer to her age, who’s got her life together much better than Shirley thinks she has, and whose assumption of authority would have encroached on the influence Shirley likes to have on the group. And of course Frankie is queer, and Shirley is unapologetically homophobic.

On the other hand, Frankie feels out of place in a way I think Shirley could really empathize with, and which could lead to an odd type of early bond. There are so many possibilities to explore though, many of which I’m sure I haven’t even thought of, and I’d love to see any and all of them!

 

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MASH (TV)

“Trapper” John McIntyre/Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan & Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce

Hawkeye/Trapper: This is a bit of a complicated one… I ship them, but I don’t see them as being a “true love” (i.e. “can’t be happy with anyone except each other”) kind of pairing – at least not during the war. I see it as a friendship-growing-into-something-more/slow burn kind of thing that definitely moves into romantic/sexual territory, but doesn’t get the chance (before Trapper goes home) to firmly establish itself there. Related to that, I also don’t imagine them as monogamous (again, at least not during the war), but as having their own thing that’s more or less separate from their dates with the nurses. (Which could easily be a source of tension and possibly unspoken conflict…)

Despite all that, I do want them to live happily ever after together. So I like to imagine them finding their way back to each other after the war, and making it work. If you’re more interested in that sort of thing, rather than anything set during the war, go for it! I’d love it.

For anything set during the war, my personal headcanon is that Hawkeye is bi, and fairly open about it, while Trapper is still coming to terms with his attraction to men. That being said, I have absolutely no problem with different interpretations!

Hawkeye & Margaret: Their friendship is something I really enjoy seeing play out. I love the way they clash so much, personality-wise, but when Hawkeye shows Margaret some basic respect, and she shows him some basic tolerance, suddenly they suddenly fit together well and complement each other. And watching them slowly figure that out and work with it is just wonderful. The growth of their friendship is probably my absolute favorite development on the show!

Things I particularly love are seeing them work together in tense and dangerous situations, when their professionalism makes everything else take a backseat, and, by contrast, completely quiet situations, where they might both the lulled into being a bit open and sincere.

 

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Star Trek: Voyager

Kathryn Janeway & Tuvok, Kathryn Janeway & Chakotay

 

Janeway & Tuvok: I love their friendship so much! Tuvok, who keeps so much distance between himself and most of the crew, and who often has so little patience for human (and other non-Vulcan) feelings and intuitions, has so much respect for, faith in, and affection for Janeway! And Janeway, who cares about everyone, but holds herself to a higher standard and confides in few, will confide in and trust herself to Tuvok. I always adore those small moments, but they are just that: small. And I always end up wanting more of them.

Either just more in the sense of more time spent on them, or in the sense of going deeper, getting more heavily emotional. I’d also really love more insight into how their friendship developed in the first place, who they both were when they first met, and what drew them together.

Really anything that has Janeway and Tuvok doing something together and relating to each other would be amazing.

 

Janeway & Chakotay: Theirs is another friendship I really like. The dynamics of it, with Chakotay so willing to stand in the back, and be the supporting one while Janeway takes on the challenges, are really refreshing, and wonderful to see. And of course I love the incredible warmth and empathy between them, the way they completely trust and rely on and open up to each other.

I also really like they way romantic attraction is definitely there, and silently acknowledged by both of them, but then mutually set aside in favor of friendship. That’s just the kind of subtlety and nuance I adore!

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Starsky & Hutch

Ken Hutchinson/David Starsky

 

Starsky/Hutch: Oh man, where to start. I love the way they’re the absolute perfect team, the way they can practically read each other’s minds, and the way they always, always know they can rely on the other. I love the epic levels of trust there, and the way they can (and do!) let their guard down completely around each other.

I love the way they’re both full of feeling, and not afraid to admit it. Honestly, the degree to which they care – not just about each other, but about everyone else, too! – is just epic. They have such huge, incredible amounts of compassion, especially for the people on their beat, I don’t even know how to cope with that. Man.

But at the same time, they’re also not overwhelmed with it. They can let go and have fun, they can joke around and tease each other, or they can work together to relieve the pressure. There’s really not much of anything they don’t do together – their partnership covers pretty much all areas of their lives, and I adore it!