starfishstar

Dear Chocolatier,

Hello! It's my first time participating in Chocolate Box and I'm looking forward to it! Some of my general notes here are things I'm copying over from past Yuletides, so hopefully this will work out all right. :-)

General notes: I’m starfishstar on AO3, DW and LJ. I’m easy to please! If you write a story about any of these characters, out of love for these characters, I’m going to be delighted with it.

DNW: major character death; graphic violence; PWP; A/B/O; unremitting angst... I think that's about it, really!

Likes: A focus on character interactions, be that friendship or romance or family. Found family dynamics. Humor and banter. UST (all the UST) as long as it resolves by the end. Happy or hopeful endings (angst and complexity are fine – I like stories that are realistic! – but I do need at least a degree of hope).

(Additional note: I signed up for Chocolate Box quite late, after nominations were closed, so I didn't get to nominate anything, just worked from what was already in the tagset. Which doesn't mean I'm ANY less excited about any of this! Just explains why I'll sometimes refer to things I found in the tagset as though they appeared there fully formed, without my having had any hand in what got nominated for these fandoms... Because I didn't.) ;)

Fandoms:

Here are some thoughts only if you want them; I'm easygoing and enjoy lots of things, so you're welcome to go in your own direction as well!

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (fic)
Jack/Phryne
Dot & Phryne
Jack & Phryne

I basically just adore these characters endlessly. :-) I love how Phryne is so true to herself, and absolutely does not compromise about living life on her terms, but also has this enormous well of compassion for everyone who crosses her path. The found family she's created around herself is a joy. I love how Jack's got that buttoned-up, proper, I-live-by-a-firm-code-of-conduct exterior, but a heart as deep as the ocean just barely concealed beneath it. I love the mentorship (and increasingly friendship) between Phryne and Dot, how Phryne encourages Dot past that place where she's too afraid to engage with the world, to becoming someone confident and living life on her own terms (even if those terms are very different from Phryne's!)

I'd be happy to see anything at all between Phryne and Jack (bantering, solving mysteries, struggling to express their complicated feelings, or just enjoying each other's company as they so clearly do?) or Phryne and Dot (either during or beyond canon – Dot with a growing family of kids, and how Phryne fits into that family? How they have such different paths in life, but maintain just as strong a friendship anyway?) You're more than welcome to include any other characters from the series you want (Mac? Bert and Cec? Hugh? Mr Butler?) – I love them all!

(Feel free to include or not include canon from the movie, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears... I didn't love it, but I'm also not deeply opposed to it. But also feel free to go in whatever direction of your own post-series 3, as you please!)

Graceling Realm Series (fic, art)
Bann/Raffin

I've been thinking about Raffin and Bann lately, so when I saw this in the tagset, I jumped on it instantly! I would so love to see more of Raffin, and Bann, and Raffin/Bann; they're great and we mostly only ever get to see them in background, while other characters are having more dramatic things happening. Raffin, though, could be an incredibly interesting main character in his own right! The reluctant future king, who doesn't actually want to rule but feels a responsibility because he'd be so much better at it than his awful father. What will Raffin's kingship look like? (Either in a fic set in the future where he's already king, or in the more present day of the series, where he'd be thinking ahead and trying to figure out what to do.) Can there eventually be a way that he and Bann can be public and official, and Raffin can still be king? Or just give me happy Raffin/Bann content. :-)

The Scholomance (fic)
Aadhya & Chloe Rasmussen & Galadriel “El” Higgins & Yi Liu
Hu Zixuan/Wang Yuyan/Yi Liu
Guo Yi Min & Guo Yi Zheng & Yi Liu

This is such a fascinating world to play in, and there are so many interesting characters that it was hard to know what to choose, and I picked a little bit at random... Which is mostly to say, I'll be interested in any of these, and you're also welcome to throw in any additional characters you want, if you want! I'm not picky.

Anything about the team of El, Aadhya, Liu, Chloe... These four very different girls, with very different skills, thrown together by necessity...but starting to actually like each other. Anything about their dynamics, how they work together, how they interact, will always be of interest.

I hadn't thought before of the possibility of Hu Zixuan/Wang Yuyan/Yi Liu, but seeing it here in the tagset, it seems like such an elegant solution to Liu's love triangle dilemma! Is it a triad? A vee? Is some part of it more for appearances, or is it all real? I'm interested in any direction you want to explore with this.

Guo Yi Min & Guo Yi Zheng & Yi Liu: The relationship between Liu and her cousins is such a lovely, quiet thread through the second book. One of the few instances we get to see, within the Scholomance, of people who care about each other just because they do, not because it's an alliance required for survival. Something from Min or Zheng's POV might be interesting, but I'm open to anything.

Welcome to Night Vale (fic)
Cecil Palmer & Khosekh
Hooded figure from the dog park & their dog

Another one that I hadn't thought of until I saw it in the tagset, but these character pairings are such great ideas that I just had to request them! Cecil being an excellent cat dad to his floating eldritch horror pet...I'd love to see more of that. Anything at all. Feel free to make it as crack-y or un-crack-y as you like. :-)

And the hooded figure from the dog park and their dog...? I have to admit, I haven't listened to Welcome to Night Vale in a while, but the whole hooded-figures-in-the-dog-park thing (as emblematic of how constantly, insistently strange Night Vale is) imprinted on my brain early... To this day, when I pass by the dog park in my town, my brain intones, DON'T GO IN THE DOG PARK! in a delightedly sinister voice. (Looking back at transcripts of early episodes, I don't think that's even a correct quote from the show... The real quotes are more along the lines of "Do not approach the dog park" – "Citizens of all species and all geologic eras are not to enter, look at, or think too long about the Dog Park" – "Citizens are not even supposed to be consciously aware of the Dog Park" "the Dog Park [...] which is to remain unknowable and unremembered..." But at least the idea is more or less right!)

Cameos from Carlos or any others also welcome.

White Collar (fic)
El/Neal/Peter
El & Mozzie & Neal & Peter
Mozzie & Neal & Peter
El & Neal

Another show I last watched quite a while ago, but I continue to have such enormous fondness for these characters! There was such a wealth of wonderful characters and pairings in the tagset that it was almost impossible to choose – which is to say, you're more than welcome to throw in any additional characters you want! (June? June interacting with Mozzie? Diana? El interacting with anyone else?)

I don't often have OT3s, but El/Neal/Peter are definitely one of the exceptions. Shipping OR platonic, I love Peter and El taking Neal in and aggressively loving him into a happier, more stable place where he's able to love and let himself be loved... Which is not to say that Neal ever has to stop being Neal, but I love when they can ground him and be a safe place for him to land as well. I love how Neal has SUCH a different dynamic with El from what he has with Peter (which of course is also utterly different from the relationship between Peter and El) and yet it can all work together.

And the dynamics between any combination of these characters are always such a joy. So, El & Mozzie & Neal & Peter, or Mozzie & Neal & Peter, circling around each other and trying to work together despite their very different aims (and genuinely caring about each other despite those different aims!), or El & Neal being two awesome people who are even more awesome in combination... Or anything else, really. I love this world where they all care about each other and look after each other, even while sometimes pulling cons.

Phew! I think that's it! I was not (and am never...) able to be succinct, so take or leave whatever you like from that. :-)

Thank you for creating something for me!
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