koraki | Chocolate Box 2022

Dear Chocolatier —

Thank you for checking out my letter!! My exchange letters are really just meant to provide extra bonus inspiration/an excuse for me to waffle on about my faves, so please don't worry about reading my prompts if you already have an idea. If you're writing for any relationship I've requested, I will be totally thrilled by whatever you produce. (Also, if there’s some concept or story you’ve been wanting to write for one of these character combos but don't know if there would be an audience and haven’t found the excuse to write it? Let me be your excuse! Yes, even for that!)

For / ship requests I enjoy subtle pre-shippy content as much as explicit PWP, so I won't be disappointed if there's not a kiss/an "I love you"/obvious sexual attraction/whatever. And as it shakes out, every & relationship I've requested this round is something I… also kinda ship… so this year my nonpickiness about / ships goes the other way for & ships as well. Feel free to smarm it up. :D

I haven't requested art this time around but am very open to art treats!

Although I am a simple creature that loooves happy/cute fic and crack and fluff for every fandom all the time, if we matched on a canon that doesn't pull punches with its dark and disturbing content, I would ALSO LOVE painful/scary/fucked up fic equally as much. Basically if it shows up in canon I'm OK with it in gift fic, just please don't write me the "Cupcakes" of The Lorax.

I am Koraki on AO3 and kkoraki on tumblr.

Likes

hurt/comfort
significant physical contact, especially if it's brief; characters breaking the touch barrier
holding hands, hugging, cuddling, sharing a bed… anything that lets me wallow in Fluff :)
pain, fear, sorrow, grief, death, violence and conflict… anything that lets me wallow in Tragedy :D
people getting to be happy and loved and at peace after a lot of hard struggles
platonic or romantic hand kisses, forehead kisses, foot/ankle kisses, kisses on the nose, kisses on the eyelids, kisses on the hair…
touching hair, brushing hair, washing hair, admiring hair, wanting to touch somebody's hair, traumatic haircuts, empowering haircuts, descriptions of how soft and good-smelling somebody's long hair is, descriptions of hands running over a short-haired person's fuzzy head right after they've gotten a haircut… uwu
wild animals, animal companions, animal psychology, the way humans relate to animals, the way animals relate to each other
people having to navigate new or very different situations; fish-out-of-water stories
interesting OCs, whether as one-off quirky background characters or major players in the plot
casual intimacy (platonic or romantic or ???)
offbeat domestic fic
cooking and eating food
reconciliation of different worldviews
religious imagery and symbolism
repression (of emotions, beliefs, feelings, sexuality, etc.)
touch starvation
UST (resolved or not)
crying
injuries, blood, body horror, facial trauma/scarring, mouth/teeth trauma
uneven/complex power differentials; problematic and concerning power dynamics
fealty, loyalty, devotion (to a person, a cause, a god, an ideal... especially if the devotion is unquestioning enough to be unhealthy, especially if it's coming from someone who's typically more practical/cynical about things)
kneeling
self-sacrifice; literally or figuratively taking the bullet
mortals encountering the divine (literal or figurative or otherwise)
Has Science Gone Too Far?? — the beauty and the horror of scientific discovery, scientific ethics, medical ethics, eugenics, nukes and nuke metaphors, evolutionary biology, alien biology
two people physically isolated from everyone else they know, ideally in a dangerous or at least questionable situation, with only each other to rely on
an “us against the world”/“you’re the only one who can understand/help/save me” dynamic; I equally enjoy this interpreted in a fluffy, sincere way or a dark, codependent, scary/troubling way depending on the relationship
AUs of all kinds (canon divergence, groundhog day loops, daemons, HP fusions, A:TLA fusions, rule 63 (of the always-a-different-gender variety), modern AUs (low-stakes fluff!!!), soulmarks (platonic or romantic; I’m especially weak for first-words tattoos and first-time-they-touch-each-other marks), everyone-is-a-bird, etc.); you can write any of those AUs for me and I will be SO happy
all the typical tropey stuff like sharing a bed, hypothermia/huddling for warmth, emotional first kisses/first times, will they/won't they, accidental love confession, character gets turned into a cat, accidental baby or pet acquisition, pretending to be a couple, mistaken for a couple... all of it

DNW

non-canonical character death
any type of real-life societal prejudice (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.) being written into a fantasy/sci-fi setting where it doesn’t exist in canon
infidelity as a major focus
genderswapping a m/m or f/f couple to m/f
unrequested gender headcanons that conflict with a character's canon gender (trans or cis headcanons of the canon gender are fine)
any requested character being pregnant
unrequested asexual headcanons
unrequested ships appearing in the story as more than a brief mention
in smut: sexual content involving characters under the age of 18 (aging up, not specifying age, and mention of offscreen sexual activity are okay), PIV sex, daddy kink, race kink, infantilization kink, A/B/O, bestiality with a non-sentient creature, scat, watersports
fandom-specific DNW for FMA: please do not give Scar a name

Fullmetal Alchemist

Lan Fan/Mei Chang
Mei and Lan Fan are two of my favorite characters in FMA. I love Mei’s skill, devotion, passionate enthusiasm, and pink aesthetic, and Lan Fan’s cleverness, loyalty, and impulsivity (I feel like I don't usually see "stupidly impulsive" as a character trait in combination with a lot of the other character traits she has, so that's eternally interesting to me). I think it’s interesting how similar they are in their fighting skill, courage, and loyalty to their families and clans. I'm mostly interested in post-canon fic here since it's only at the end that they become able to actually interact without trying to kill each other… but what feelings might develop after that?

Post-canon Mei doesn't know how to deal with her new crush on Lan Fan and obsessively consults her romance novels and manhua to try to figure out how to deal.
Lan Fan finds Mei's high quality imported yuri collection… up to you whether the joke is that it's also VERY EXPLICIT or it being the most OTT moeblob schoolgirls sparkling at each other whenever they touch hands and then blushing for 15 pages with no plot at all
Mei travels for most of her teenage years then comes back to Xing as an adult and is going to participate in court life so Ling assigns Lan Fan to be her guard and Lan Fan is like "oh no the annoying twelve-year-old is hot now"
For [Reasons???], Lan Fan and Mei have to go undercover in a different country or the court of a different clan and for [Reasons???] Lan Fan has to be disguised as a lady and Mei as her bodyguard and Then Situational Romance
I love the idea of Mei and Lan Fan becoming Secret Mission Buddies post-canon and working to support Ling as he ascends the throne, and feelings start to develop. Maybe at some point a mission goes wrong and they have to fight their way out of a sticky situation with a powerful rival clan, and they're both injured or trapped or something equally dramatic and think they're dying and so one of them tearfully confesses but then Ling's army or other guards Deus Ex Machina in and then they have to live with it.
Fending off trouble during the journey back to Xing
Role swap AU, Mei is Ling's precocious, boisterous second guard and Lan Fan is the solemn and dedicated Chang heir
Flowers
Bath

Roy Mustang & Maria Ross
I love the potential of these two together post-canon. I keep coming back to Maria rocking up in the ice cream truck to help with the uprising, and how from that point on she just constantly seems to be hanging out in the background with members of original Team Mustang… that's awesome! But also there's the whole reason she had to come back to Amestris in the first place, being spirited away in one of Roy & co.'s convoluted schemes — even though she was saved from being framed for murder, I can't imagine her feelings about that situation would be entirely positive at least to start out. IDK, I just feel like Roy and Maria have a lot of potential together and would like to read about them interacting!

Roy slowly and unintentionally falling into a sort of mentor role for Maria, either in her military career or in a burgeoning political career (I love the idea of Maria becoming an ambassador to Xing later on, because of her previous experiences there!).
Alternately: Roy and Maria becoming friends as Maria spends more time around Team Mustang post-canon. Maybe both of them are surprised by it, maybe they don't question it.
Maria and all of Team Mustang hanging out, with Maria & Roy just interacting incidentally.
Some crack with Maria (who doesn't yet fully know which parts of Roy are his persona and which are real) bringing up some kind of Dating Girls Problems to Roy for advice at a happy hour or something, and Roy consulting all his knowledge from his sisters to assist her.
Partial Rule 63 AU where Roy is female.
Roy and Maria on a dangerous and thrilling mission together, having to trust and rely on each other!
Dogs
Riza Hawkeye

Scar & Original Ishvalan Characters
Scar is probably my favorite FMA character (it's hard to choose just one but if I had to it would be him!) and I'm so fascinated by his past, his future, and his relationship to his community, and how his community relates to him. I would absolutely adore any fic dealing with those themes and that's why I've requested this relationship. It's OK to include Scarbro, Scar's master, Miles, and/or Marcoh as bonus side characters here as long as the focus remains on Scar and other Ishvalan characters. (Background ship content with Miles and/or Marcoh and/or both at the same time is also OK!)

Pre-canon Scar in Kanda: growing up, studying to become a priest, his relationship with his mother and father, bonding with cats
Scar's travels during canon
Scar still being sad and traumatized post-canon and trying to find better ways to deal with those feelings. Scar and the grieving process.
Something that takes a hard thoughtful look at the difficulties Scar is going to have post-canon re: his rejected name and priesthood, his use of (what basically amounts to) alchemy, his vigilante murder quest that appears to go against Ishvalan teachings and probably made a lot of other Ishvalan refugees' lives worse at least from their point of view, etc. How does his community feel about who he was, who he is, and who he's trying to be now?
Post-canon Scar becomes a teacher
Post-canon Scar inadvertently falls into a mentor role for some young Ishvalan kid (maybe one who wants to study alchemy and feels like their religious community won’t fully accept them for it? maybe one who's a hardline anti-alchemy, anti-Amestris fundamentalist type?) and he’s totally discombobulated about it but tries his best
Post-canon Scar adopts a cat (THAT COUNTS AS AN ORIGINAL CHARACTER RIGHT??)
Reconciliation
Sacred place

The Locked Tomb

I got into this fandom because I was promised lesbians and loyalty kink in space and obviously I was not disappointed. While I am really into the worldbuilding and general aesthetic of this series and want to understand it further/see other people's takes on it (the more horrifying the better), I would also be interested in the weirdest setting change AUs you're physically able to generate, because the characters are the best part of this series for me and I believe these character dynamics will carry through to anything! If you don't write an AU what I liked the most about canon was the post-apocalyptic feel taken Up To Eleven, the body horror, the viscerality and scariness of the visuals, the unshakable feeling that there's definitely some kind of epic BoE-and-Cohort-centric space opera happening offscreen, the HtN canon AUs, the intense dysfunctionality inherent to pretty much every important interpersonal relationship that didn't die off in the first half of GtN, the… knight/lady energy…??, the ensemble cast, and the horrible tragedy and doom that awaits everyone in that happy little ensemble cast. :')

This fandom is very special to me because I am obsessed with the necro/cav dynamic to an unhealthy degree and therefore a lot of the prompt ideas I have apply equally to both the relationships I am requesting… so in order to avoid having half my relationship-specific prompts be direct copy-pastes of each other, here THOSE are:

The "one flesh, one end" vow/ceremony… it's probably handled very differently on different Houses and I want to see how.
AU where necromancers aren't extremely irradiated sorta mutant humans/humanoids (which I think is meant to be the canon implication?) but are, rather, extremely irradiated sentient cats. Or… catlike eldritch beings, like Mogget in the Abhorsen series. That sort of thing. Where did they come from? I don't know. How do you explain them? You don't need to explain them. They're problematic cats who can talk and have magic powers. Give me this crack.
Very dutifully huddling for warmth on some random planet
That battlefield intimacy thing? Where each perfectly anticipates the other’s next movement and acts in accordance and you get a beautiful, terrifyingly efficient war machine. That thing.
Soulmark AU, they have each other's soulmark.
Genderswap AU where both characters were Always [Different Gender].
Groundhog day loop, specifically with the necromancer going back again and again to try to change things or maybe experiencing weird AUs a la HtN
And in general I love the whole GtN ensemble of characters, so ensemble fic that just happens to focus on one of my requested relationships would make me super happy too. My favorite houses besides the ones I've requested are the Fourth and the Ninth.

Colum Asht & Silas Octakiseron
I am FULLY obsessed with how spectacularly fucked up this relationship is and would happily read 300 words of them just sitting in a room together. Relationships that through their very existence display/explore oppressive social systems and complicated interpersonal power dynamics have always been catnip to me and this one is no exception. There's so much interesting stuff going on with the Eighth in general, from their necromantic specialty to the (intensely legalistic and repressed) religious aspect to the extremely questionable scientific ethics and the way those aspects interweave, and these guys are a perfect study of all that in one awful little package. I love how fucked up over each other they are. Also Silas is somehow the most hilarious and most tragic character in the book to me because objectively/situationally everything about who he is is so sad and messed up but everything he says or does to anyone who he doesn't respect (...everyone) is so funny. Oh no.

More weird domesticity along the lines of the room-cleaning and tea-taking and hair-braiding we get canonically
If you feel like worldbuilding, can you please… explain the uncle/nephew thing to me? I mean broadly: how family works on the Eighth (fucked uppedly I presume, but can I have details), where babies come from (the smattering of information we have like the holy-knights imagery and the disdain for the Sixth practice of resurrection purity and the eugenics and the "ten years" comment all seem to imply something unnatural going on there), obviously although they all call each other "Brother" there's at least an awareness of biological familial relationship but… is it some kind of The Giver or Houston Houston Do You Read thing or...? And how does it all tie into their doctrine/theology? I just think about this too much it gets me right in the Scientific Ethics
More about how the relationship between and purpose of one's body and one's soul is seen on the Eighth, and how their concept of the ideal necro/cav dynamic follows from that.
Baby teeth
Covenant
Daemon AU (Eighth necromancy is so Soul Energy based, and I'm suuuper interested to know how that messes with a daemon… plus if you want to go full crossover, they have so much Magisterium energy!)
Like everyone who's interested in this relationship, I think, I am very fascinated/scared by the question of what Silas's childhood was like… but at the same time I'm also extremely interested in Colum as a child/teenager and how he became the adult we see on-page, as well as how the way he was taught and brought up later shaped his influence on Silas.

Judith Deuteros/Marta Dyas
Someone needs to explain to me how such minor supporting characters can exude such massive "if I saw this character in person I know she would be the hottest duty-bound lesbian in uniform I've ever seen" energy. Because that is the energy that pours off both of them every time they're so much as mentioned… it's like... GtN: "Marta was sitting in the corner polishing her rapier" me: *eyes emoji* "WAS she?" Anyway I'm so into their whole visual aesthetic, Marta's expertise and practicality and absolute loyalty to Judith, Judith's tragic unshaken commitment to following the process and regulations until it's way too late, the repression, the whole commanding officer/subordinate thing (look I was really into Age of Sail back in the day), the age difference (!!!), the meta aspect of them being these high ranking soldiers in what's basically The Empire, they are the BEST and I want MORE. Also everything about As Yet Unsent was such a gift to me.

I'm obsessed with the necromantic specialization of the Second as it was described because that is terrifying, so I want to see it in action.
Choice of Broadsides setting AU — basically it's Age of Sail only the gender roles are switched for no given reason so the women run around fighting the Napoleonic Wars and having tropey relationships with each other. Or, for similar reasons, a Temeraire setting AU. Judith as captain of a ship (or dragon) and Marta her loyal lieutenant! Yes PLEASE! ...or a Treasure Planet setting AU… you get the idea…
Aftermath of Marta vs. Cam. Hurt/comfort with weird vibes because of the circumstances.
Some pre-canon space-opera-feeling episode taking place on a Cohort mission or tour of duty.
Cohort parties >:)
More of Judith having a MASSIVE HUGE pre-teen crush on Marta ideally before they're matched to each other
If you're interested in worldbuilding I'd love to see more exploration of how the Second House in general relates, politically, to the Third, Fourth, and/or Fifth, particularly because of Judith's childhood friendship (? perhaps too strong a word) with the Third scions.
AU where Marta also lives and is extracted by BoE along with the rest of the motley crew that ended up with them in canon

The Lorax

The Lorax & The Once-ler

*arrives to the definitive tumblr funnyman fandom 10 years late with pizza*

This was on TV a week ago when I had nothing to do so I watched it. The less said about the framing story the better, but I thought the movie!Lorax and movie!Once-ler were SUPER CUTE ACTUALLY. Especially Lorax coming back to old Once-ler after his little redemption arc giving the kid the seed! omg my heart! I would love to read a story about them. If you want to incorporate some of the weirdness and creepiness of the original book — which is the version of the story I grew up with — that would be great, but not at all necessary.

I thought Sad Old Man Once-ler was so cute (and sad) and would love anything crack-y or sincere about him and the Lorax spending time together or helping to reform society post-canon, but also the origin story was so funny and random that I'd be happy with anything taking place during that time. I feel like the movie didn't spend enough time developing an actual "friendship" between the Once-ler and the Lorax but I still loved the feelings that were there, so some more silly escapades with the Lorax trying to kick the Once-ler out or the Once-ler attempting to justify himself in his self-absorbed capitalist kind of way to the Lorax would be amazing.

Love Death + Robots

Liang/Yan
What caught my attention in "Good Hunting" was the growth of the relationship between Liang and Yan from scared children meeting by chance to adults struggling against the weight of the world together, bound together by guilt, obligation, and a sense of mutual understanding. Yan’s arc, and her ultimate fate, is this terrifying mixture of violation and empowerment. No matter how Liang’s work may have helped her reclaim some semblance of her old power, I feel like the horror of her new body and the denial of her agency is going to outweigh that reclamation for a long time, maybe forever, and though it's not explicitly discussed Yan seems painfully conscious of this. There's also their whole shared history as the daughter of a huli jing and the son of the hunter who killed that huli jing, that just serves to symbolize the whole framework of the system that traps and hurts both Liang and Yan…

I haven't read the Liu story this short is based on and would prefer that characterization, worldbuilding, backstory, etc. be based on the animated short!

Liang patches Yan up after a rough night post-canon; loving description of Liang's gentleness and competence + the intricate mechanisms of Yan's new body welcome.
Liang falling into a domestic/caretaking/"home" role for Yan, becoming the person she can return to throughout everything.
I love the steampunk world so anything that plays around with that, and with Liang's interest in machines and invention, would be stellar. Going on the dark side the way canon did is completely fine but not necessary.
I love Liang but I would really love a Yan-centric story, especially one dealing with her feelings after her nonconsensual modification and rape. Bring on the darkness, the terror, the rage (especially if some of it is directed at Liang, justifiably or not), the body horror/dysmorphia, what this does to her as a huli jing and not just as a human woman… she goes through so many horrific things and deserves to feel about them. I don't feel that we were supposed to see the story's conclusion as a happy ending for her really and a story that grapples with this and the wider societal implications of what happened to her would be amazing if you're up for writing darkness.
Something that explores their (very different) relationships with their parents, the heritage passed down to each one of them, and how they embrace or reject different aspects of that heritage. Also, Yan getting to grieve her mother and her feelings about Liang immediately thereafter — that was something I missed in the short.
The brief moments we see of Liang and Yan growing up before they're separated and go to the city are so atmospheric and beautiful and I would like to read a story set during that time, maybe with some shenanigans in the village?
I'd be very interested in a story about transmasculine Liang and/or transfemine Yan (I was sort of envisioning it as one or the other, but both together could be interesting too), and how that aspect of identity would blend with the themes and plot points already present in their story arcs.
Guilt and reconciliation
Tentative first kiss
A moment of intimacy: Yan touching Liang's hands, Liang feeding Yan, Liang helping Yan dress/undress, one of them casually pinning back the other's hair, a kiss on the leg/foot...

Any & Zima
Zima Blue is a beautiful story and ticked all my boxes for the sort of tropes I’m drawn to in created-being type characters. I’m fascinated by Zima and his growth, psyche, self-conceptualization, and artistic vision. How did he develop? Who influenced him? What was his relationship to his creator like? I don't know that I have any more specific prompts here. I'd love to dwell longer in the world of this story. :)