chocobox 2018 letter
Jan. 3rd, 2019 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dantealighierihi! first of all, thank you for writing for me; i'm already excited to see what you come up with! i'm fresh off my first fic exchange, yuletide 2018, and i enjoyed it so much i decided to immediately jump feet-first into another.
general likes: power imbalances, manipulation (where appropriate), enemies to lovers, romantic relationships built on strong friendships, thematic resonances with canon, trope playfulness, height differences, literary references, scientific conceits, unconventional governing metaphors.
general dislikes: anything too out-there in terms of kink (blood and gore is fine), aus (modern aus in particular), issuefic, dominant male characters in m/f relationships, well-worn tropes played straight. smut is welcome, except where specified otherwise.
the bone key
pairing requested: kyle murchison booth/john pelham ratcliffe
i love these stories a lot; i love booth's odd, awkward, prickly brand of kindness, and i love the spare, atmospheric, jamesian take on horrors so much more introverted and melancholy than is normal for the genre. accordingly, i'd like to see something that capitalizes on the intimately personal nature of the things booth faces— maybe a continuation or aftermath of "drowning palmer," maybe ratcliffe running up against his own supernatural dilemma and calling on booth to aid him. please no smut for this pairing in particular; casefic is certainly not a requirement, but very welcome, as all the casefic i've read for the booth stories (in this volume and elsewhere) has been superb.
discworld
pairings requested: sam vimes/havelock vetinari/sibyl ramkin, adora belle dearheart/moist von lipwig
so discworld is one of those things that i adore to a stupid, ridiculous degree; it's one of the most important stories in the world to me, and there is absolutely nothing better than pratchett's brand of cheekily defiant humanism. also the puns. accordingly, i am very fond of work that takes the spirit and tone of the original and works it into something that feels like terry could have written it— though i know that's a tall order (i certainly am not at that level yet) and so i'd be more than happy to receive something that's not necessarily pratchett-esque in style, so much as it replicates the ideas found in his work. i'd love to see fic that integrates the political and social concepts you run into in the vimes books and going postal. for the former pairing, vimes, sibyl, and vetinari all have this ingrained sense of duty to ankh-morpork in their respective ways; how does that manifest in their relationship? i also adore the canonical tension between vimes and vetinari w/r/t vetinari's benevolent tyranny and sam's republican heritage and narrative pull; how do they resolve that? does sibyl help?
for the latter, moist and adora are my hands-down favorite discworld ship, and i'd love to see something with them teaming up to take down another gilt-esque corporation, or managing the aftermath of the fall of gilt's clacks empire. no-nonsense, practical adora and ostensibly-suave-yet-entirely-hapless moist is the best. however, if you want to write me some good old-fashioned femdom for this pairing, go right ahead and throw all that nonsense about thematics right out the window and have at it.
jonathan strange & mr. norrell
pairing requested: stephen black/the gentleman with the thistle-down hair
as you may have guessed from my ao3, i have a, uh, fondness for the specific trope of "unimaginably powerful eldritch being entirely above human morality/hapless mortal they've taken a shine to," particularly when said trope involves persistent seduction and/or increasingly terrifying displays of affection. that's the aspect of this ship that appeals to the idiot lizard part of my brain that just wants to read my favorite trope for all eternity, but aside from that, i love this novel for its intense atmospherism, i love stephen for his resigned pragmatism and genuine kind-heartedness, and i love the gentleman for his gleeful incomprehensibility and total amorality. following that, i'd be delighted to see something that explores the moral difference between stephen and the gentleman— maybe set at lost-hope while stephen is a prisoner? maybe including some investigation of what the faerie court is actually like, seeing as we don't spend much time there? something from the gentleman's pov would be very interesting indeed. smut is welcome, especially of the non-euclidean and/or magical variety.
the magnus archives
pairings requested: jonathan sims/"michael," jonathan sims/elias bouchard
see above with regard to the former. i like my eldritch horrors sickly-sweet and manipulative, and the way michael and jon's interactions come off in canon is just so perfect. michael is horrible and incomprehensible, jon is terrified and...kinda into it. i also love how ideologically juxtaposed the beholding and the spiral are— not quite as neatly as the beholding and the stranger, but still; michael is a creature of lies, jon's job (and...purpose, reason for being, now) is to uncover the truth. their natures are entirely opposite. how would that play out in any sort of relationship? again, weird smut is more than welcome. with regards to the latter, i love the tack this past season took with regards to jon's developing inhumanity; elias helping him along that path, dragging him further towards becoming fully an avatar of the beholding, would be absolutely great.
thank you again for writing for me! if you've got any questions, please feel free to shoot me an anon in my tumblr inbox (just tell me you're my writer). i'm so excited!
general likes: power imbalances, manipulation (where appropriate), enemies to lovers, romantic relationships built on strong friendships, thematic resonances with canon, trope playfulness, height differences, literary references, scientific conceits, unconventional governing metaphors.
general dislikes: anything too out-there in terms of kink (blood and gore is fine), aus (modern aus in particular), issuefic, dominant male characters in m/f relationships, well-worn tropes played straight. smut is welcome, except where specified otherwise.
the bone key
pairing requested: kyle murchison booth/john pelham ratcliffe
i love these stories a lot; i love booth's odd, awkward, prickly brand of kindness, and i love the spare, atmospheric, jamesian take on horrors so much more introverted and melancholy than is normal for the genre. accordingly, i'd like to see something that capitalizes on the intimately personal nature of the things booth faces— maybe a continuation or aftermath of "drowning palmer," maybe ratcliffe running up against his own supernatural dilemma and calling on booth to aid him. please no smut for this pairing in particular; casefic is certainly not a requirement, but very welcome, as all the casefic i've read for the booth stories (in this volume and elsewhere) has been superb.
discworld
pairings requested: sam vimes/havelock vetinari/sibyl ramkin, adora belle dearheart/moist von lipwig
so discworld is one of those things that i adore to a stupid, ridiculous degree; it's one of the most important stories in the world to me, and there is absolutely nothing better than pratchett's brand of cheekily defiant humanism. also the puns. accordingly, i am very fond of work that takes the spirit and tone of the original and works it into something that feels like terry could have written it— though i know that's a tall order (i certainly am not at that level yet) and so i'd be more than happy to receive something that's not necessarily pratchett-esque in style, so much as it replicates the ideas found in his work. i'd love to see fic that integrates the political and social concepts you run into in the vimes books and going postal. for the former pairing, vimes, sibyl, and vetinari all have this ingrained sense of duty to ankh-morpork in their respective ways; how does that manifest in their relationship? i also adore the canonical tension between vimes and vetinari w/r/t vetinari's benevolent tyranny and sam's republican heritage and narrative pull; how do they resolve that? does sibyl help?
for the latter, moist and adora are my hands-down favorite discworld ship, and i'd love to see something with them teaming up to take down another gilt-esque corporation, or managing the aftermath of the fall of gilt's clacks empire. no-nonsense, practical adora and ostensibly-suave-yet-entirely-hapless moist is the best. however, if you want to write me some good old-fashioned femdom for this pairing, go right ahead and throw all that nonsense about thematics right out the window and have at it.
jonathan strange & mr. norrell
pairing requested: stephen black/the gentleman with the thistle-down hair
as you may have guessed from my ao3, i have a, uh, fondness for the specific trope of "unimaginably powerful eldritch being entirely above human morality/hapless mortal they've taken a shine to," particularly when said trope involves persistent seduction and/or increasingly terrifying displays of affection. that's the aspect of this ship that appeals to the idiot lizard part of my brain that just wants to read my favorite trope for all eternity, but aside from that, i love this novel for its intense atmospherism, i love stephen for his resigned pragmatism and genuine kind-heartedness, and i love the gentleman for his gleeful incomprehensibility and total amorality. following that, i'd be delighted to see something that explores the moral difference between stephen and the gentleman— maybe set at lost-hope while stephen is a prisoner? maybe including some investigation of what the faerie court is actually like, seeing as we don't spend much time there? something from the gentleman's pov would be very interesting indeed. smut is welcome, especially of the non-euclidean and/or magical variety.
the magnus archives
pairings requested: jonathan sims/"michael," jonathan sims/elias bouchard
see above with regard to the former. i like my eldritch horrors sickly-sweet and manipulative, and the way michael and jon's interactions come off in canon is just so perfect. michael is horrible and incomprehensible, jon is terrified and...kinda into it. i also love how ideologically juxtaposed the beholding and the spiral are— not quite as neatly as the beholding and the stranger, but still; michael is a creature of lies, jon's job (and...purpose, reason for being, now) is to uncover the truth. their natures are entirely opposite. how would that play out in any sort of relationship? again, weird smut is more than welcome. with regards to the latter, i love the tack this past season took with regards to jon's developing inhumanity; elias helping him along that path, dragging him further towards becoming fully an avatar of the beholding, would be absolutely great.
thank you again for writing for me! if you've got any questions, please feel free to shoot me an anon in my tumblr inbox (just tell me you're my writer). i'm so excited!
