Chocolate Box Letter

[asymptotically]

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asymptotical
(There's nothing there, I'm sorry! I abandoned fandom for grad school back in like 2012 and now that I've rediscovered free time I wanted to avoid being tempted to look at my old fic. I tried to be fairly detailed in this to make up for it!)

So I just realized that I somehow forgot an entire section. If you matched with me on Mass Effect I'm super sorry omg. Feel free to totally ignore anything I say in that section for obvious reasons I swear I love everything I requested there, it was just a last second addition that I somehow forgot to ever add here.





Thank you so much for writing something for me and I'm so sorry for this impending book of a letter! The general stuff works for most of the fandoms, except for the obvious exception of Horizon Zero Dawn or Gen Star Wars. Otherwise this whole letter may as well be "tl;dr: I really like fluffy UST and emotional insecurity". I tried to give possible prompts that'll work with a variety of lengths so you'll have options depending on what you want to write, but if you already had an idea that fits in with my general wants/dnw then go for it! <3

General wants:

-Fluffy UST, especially if it's got a hint of angst.
-People trying to privately deal with self focused angst (imposter syndrom, ptsd, ect)
-H/C and emotional H/C
-Just people loving each other and being too dysfunctional to talk about their feelings either at all or in full depending on the characters and misunderstanding each others intentions.
-Arguments and emotional outbursts leading into relevations about feelings.
-One character making the other sit down for emotional talk time, especially if they make the decision at an awkward time.
-Smut is great but I'm totally happy with just UST and pining that ends on a high note too.
-Canon divergence, especially for-want-of-a-nail or alternate meetings.
-Player characters as companions types AU's.
-If there's something awkward or embarrassing or ooc in canon that you hate, feel free to ignore it. I'm cool with handwaving away stuff if it'll be more fun to write with that detail changed.
-Stuff that emphasizes how smart or clever the characters are, even if it's just tiny stuff in the background.
-The paired characters having friendships and relationships beyond just the pairing, especially if they came into it with canon ties.
-All of the characters have their canon faults and insecurities and I love stuff that actually has some of that in there, though I know emphasizing that doesn't fit with every fic.
-I honestly am fine with shippy fic that doesn't resolve the relationship. It's still amazing if it does! But if it doesn't don't feel pressured to force it.

General prompts:

-Sick fic, where the sick is a more temporary thing like the flu but dangerous enough that everyone is worried! Especially pre-relationship sick-fic where emotions are leaking out accidentally from at least one person. It doesn't need to end in dealing with the emotions, if it does that amazing but if the end is the sick character waking up and going "Wait what" then I am A-OK with that! I'd prefer no smut with this one unless it's after they're better, just UST and emotions and hurt/comfort.
-Two-dysfunctional-idiots go on a paired mission (or get separated from everyone else on a normal mission) and have an USTy time. Especially if one of them ends up getting injured.
-Character has to go to a fancy party and gets teased maybe too much because they look all pretty in their fancy clothes, especially if the person teasing them isn't meaning to be as flirty as they're being.
-One of the characters massively overdoes it with magic/biotics/force-abilities trying to protect other people. Sort of like the sick fic prompt but a different undertone since it was self inflicted (but still necessary for the situation to turn out as well as it did) and probably more emotional issues.

General Do Not Wants:

-Humiliation
-Public declarations of love in an announcement sort of way
-The POV character being super socially inept in a way that's likely to cause major secondhand embarrassment.
-Embarrassing cultural misunderstandings (misunderstandings are great,  just not ones that might cause a bunch of secondhand embarrassment!)
-Cheating
-Open relationships or unrequested poly
-Rape or dubcon
-Sex pollen (A/B/O is fine as long as everyone keeps their wits about them)
-Torture
-Vomit/Scat/Watersports/Detailed descriptions of spit
-Cumplay
-Ageplay
-Underaged
-Misunderstandings centered around thinking someone is in another relationship
-Unrequested noncanon background relationships
-Modern AUs
-Slavery (unless they're just killing slavers on a mission or something)
-Prostitution
-Crossovers
-Fake Relationships
-Bashing background characters. I love them all <3 . Even the ones I don't like! Even the ones that're canonically kinda jerks (Keeping their canon flaws is fine and encouraged just not turning them into punching bags)!
-Noncanon permanent maiming/incapacitation
-Permanent named character death (canon character death is okay if you prefer sticking to it but I am 100% here for everyone-lives AUs)
-Teacher/Student (or a dynamic that calls to that)
-Unequal emotional relationships (it's fine if there's light bdsm in smut, but it needs to stay in the smut)

Dragon Age:

-Any of the general prompts

-Shapeshifting goes a bit wrong, resulting in a partial shapeshift that magically happens to be aesthetically pleasing (I love wingfic or maybe Hawke tries to go dragon and ends up with neat scales or something, but if you're into something else that's fun too. If you go a smutty direction please leave the downstairs bits normal though I'm sorry I'm kinda vanilla), and then the fallout from that (Social as long as it's not a public embarrassment thing. Physical because they still gotta fight and now their body is different. Emotional because whoever they're paired with ends up helping them out the most and whatever new or old insecurities it bringing out into the open). If it's someone in the Inquisition/Origins timeline who gets shapeshifted oddly then maybe it's just a temporary thing until Morrigan gets back from wherever, manages to stop laughing, and helps them out.
-I love Hawkes/Wardens/Inquisitors who are mages, especially canon-divergence apostates.
-For DA2 I prefer friendship endings rather than rivalries, but the arguments they can get into are still pretty great.
-I tried to organize each pair with the person I prefer to be more dominant as the first name before the /, but it's mostly relevant if it gets to smut.

Pairings:

F!Hawke/Cassandra: Purple Hawke being a competent dork and Cass being her awkward self. Doesn't have to start as something serious but if Hawke is totally serious and actively flirting and Cass is just clueless I would love that. Can either be more serious and take into account what went down with Varric or just be dorky fun.

Fenris/M!Hawke: A) Shy blue Hawke that's just Hawke/Fenris, or B) Purple Hawke that can either be just Hawke/Fenris or be a poly Hawke/Fenris/Isabela (if Isabela is actually emotionally involved and adding to the dysfunction with her dynamics). I pretty much love any dynamic with these two, because even in canon they have so many emotions to deal with and things to learn about each other, and even after they seem to get it together whoops nope it's still gonna be a journey. An pining emotional journey. If you go the blue route I love the sort of plot with a healer-Hawke where Fenris has to choose between potentially dealing with emotions or dealing with Anders, otherwise any of the prompts should fit. If you go the purple route just Hawke being a massive overenthusiastic dork (and maybe covering some insecurities) in everyone's direction but especially Fenris with any of the prompts.

Josephine/Cassandra:
Leliana/Cassandra: .
Leliana/Josephine:
I ship any combination of these three (including poly if you want to do that) because they're just so adorable and they each bring such a different dynamic in. Leliana being mostly experienced with occasional bouts of really girlish enthusiasm and all the emotions she has to deal with from everything that happened to start Inquisition, Josie being an adorable enthusiastic dork, Cass being her whole mess of trying to be stoic and really being ridiculously romantic and all the emotional mess she has to deal with. Since these three obviously knew each other before, something either pre-game or entirely AU would be pretty neat too. Or some variation on the canon romances.
(I'm sorry this really isn't a lot to work off of for three separate pairings but my emotions for these three in any configuration are basically just going EEEEEEEEEEE and pointing wildly so I'm almost impossible to disappoint here.)

Dorian/M!Lavellan: I love the dynamic that these two have in canon, where they spend half the game dancing around it and then even after they've acknowledged that they're into each other there's still the question of "how much" and what acceptable boundaries are and the inability to just talk about things directly. If you decide to go the smut direction, anything with Lavellan keeping things slow and making Dorian work out the emotional stuff with him first is incredibly relevant to my interests. Otherwise I'm always about slight AUs where how they get together goes differently from canon. (I poly ship them with Bull too, if that's something you'd like to write!)

Solas/M!Lavellan: I tend to prefer this to be a relationship that has some conflict in it, especially if Lavellan is the sort who isn't very concerend with religion or the Right Way to Elf. Definitely NOT a teacher/pupil dynamic, it's fine if Solas makes steps towards that like he does in canon but I'd rather they eventually get things to a more equal dynamic where Solas can give him advice/information on an even level and where Solas is willing to at least hear and consider Lavellan's thoughts (though if there's conflict with that taking a bit for them to figure out how to work together and whether they even like each other despite being attracted to each other then that's great!).

Zevran/M!Warden: I'd prefer it if the Warden is Surana or Tabris for this (if you really prefer writing a human Warden then Amell is okay as well!). If you do sickfic then the Warden being the sick one while Zev pretends he isn't panicking would be amazing, otherwise just generally them pretending they've totally got it together while absolutely not having it together in either the general prompts or something else is great.

Mass Effect Andromeda:

-Any of the general prompts
-I love slight canon divergence AUs where Alec is still alive (and all the Ryder family dynamics and issues that go along with that), though if you can find a way to have SAM connected to Sara/Scott still that would be great because I adore SAM.
-As a variation on the above, Alec having an alternate air source enough to stay alive but still ending up in a coma while both of the twins are awake and dealing with the plot opens up a lot of sibling interactions we don't get in the game!
-There's a lot of interpretations on how that family dynamic actually works and I'm here for pretty much all of them, though I love the awkward we're-used-to-mom-doing-the-emotional-labor-and-still-grieving fluff.
-I prefer to have their names stay the defaults (Sara & Scott)
-I love slight AUs where the twins are more on the same genius scale as their parents or have different professional backgrounds than the canon ones.
-(I'm sorry this part ended up being 99% Ryder family instead of the pairings when those should probably be more a focus but the family themes in this game are one of the reasons why I love it so much! All of that can just be background as a way to end up with whatever emotional dynamic you'd like to write <3)
-Try to avoid awkward embarrassing figuring-out-each-others-culture stuff and major social misteps due to lack of information or anything like that.

Pairings:

Jaal/Sara: I just love pretty much anything with these two, whether their canon dynamic or something with a bit more conflict. Slight AUs where they've got to get to know each other without Jaal being on the ship or without that initial contact happening at Aya are pretty fun but so is the canon timeline. Feel free to shake things up or not as much as you want!

Sara/Peebee: Both of them being a bit dysfunctional and not quite sure what they're doing or how serious they are, mixed in with tech based chaos. If you'd like to write something a lot more focused on the remnant (especially if Sara is more of an engineer than she was in canon) and them trying to find time to study that between everything else or veering off into exploration mode the moment they've got a chance then I'm totally into that!

Kandros/Scott: I wish these two had to work together a lot more than they do in canon! There's so much that could be there! I'm all here for Scott being an awkward out-of-his-depth dork who's trying real hard to be professional and not mess up while also crushing hard enough to form a black hole. There's a lot of possibility for more emotional stuff when missions go wrong or people are questioning Scott and all the imposter syndrome that naturally goes with that for him.

Addison/Sloan Kelly: These two having to figure out how to work together after the events of the game and being way more attracted to each other than either is willing to acknowledge. If there's some background Ryder-is-driving-us-both-insane that would be great but don't worry if it doesn't fit.

Horizon Zero Dawn:

Aloy & Rost:
I would absolutely love a canon divergence thing where Rost lives and accompanies Aloy out to deal with everything. No romantic relationships, just a story or snippets of how that would change things. Rost maybe actually telling Aloy about his past himself.

If you'd rather not do canon divergence, kidfic snippets while Aloy is growing up and causing mayhem is great too, preferably from Rost's POV or both.

Star Wars Prequels:

Padme &/ Obi-wan:
I'd love a canon divergence set in a timeline where Padme lives and these two raise the twins on the run or in hiding or with the rebels after everything goes horribly wrong (instead of sending them off to where they ended up in canon). Either as a pairing or as a gen. If you'd like to pull in any side characters from either the prequels or the clone wars series then that would be great. Can be anything from super UST-to-smut (though the twins should still be a major element) to slice of life with two friends trying to raise kids together and helping each other through the emotions of everything that happened to something more plot focused.

If you'd prefer to stick to canon, then really USTy fic from before Padme and Anakin got together is great too! If you go this route my general wants apply (though some of them may also apply to the canon divergence route).  Please avoid any cheating with this route, even emotional cheating.

I like poly shipping those three but only if it's super fluffy with Padme being the super competent one and no major jealousy issues, so you can go that route as well if you're into that! Especially if it works with one of the general prompts.

Mass Effect Trilogy:

-Any of the general prompts
-There's a lot of incredibly stressful stuff going on in canon in this, and a lot of emotional fallout that could happen.

Pairings:

Aria T'Loak/Female Shepard: I love the sort of respectful tension that these two have in canon. They're both incredibly powerful in entirely different ways and strong willed in very different directions. I could see it going in a ton of different directions with a ton of different emotional dynamics and honestly would love any of them.

Male Shepard/Garrus: I just love both of these two dorks and wish they could smash faces in canon?

Female Shepard/Garrus/Tali: Anything with the general prompts could work! For more pairing specific prompts: Since Garrus and Tali can get together in canon it'd be really cute to see something where they seduce Shepard together, especially if the both of them are still pretty much dorks while attempting it. Something where they get together earlier than canon (especially before Shepard returning in ME2) and whoops now their crush is back would also be pretty fun. Could go the other way too, with Shepard getting with either of them in 2 and then during the events of 3 it turns into something poly.