Chocolate Box Letter 2021

[rosedamask]

Dear Chocolatier,

Thank you so much for writing/drawing one of these ships! I love all the ships requested here, so if you already have something in mind and want to go ahead and write or draw that, I’m really open for anywhere you’d like to go with them. But if you’d like a non-exhaustive commentary on what I love about these ships and some of the things I’d like to see in fic or art, here is my letter. I really hope there’s something here that inspires you, and that you have an amazing Chocolate Box exchange!


General
General Likes: fic and art of all ratings, all POVs/tenses, characters from everywhere on the moral spectrum, fairy tale elements, supernatural elements, introspection and character studies, distinctive settings and worldbuilding, mythology, symbolism, complicated or ambiguous relationships, characters going to hell and back for each other (literally or figuratively), hurt/comfort, hidden depths and dimensions (as both a character thing and a worldbuilding thing), love stories of all kinds, slow burns and slow builds, little details, hopeful endings (even for unconventional values of hopeful).

Smut Likes: first times, oral sex (especially cunnilingus and face-sitting), dirty talk and dialogue, bondage, non-lifestyle D/s, blindfolds, sensation play, hair-touching, holding hands during sex, wrists pinned to things, ordinarily restrained or composed characters letting go, intimacy, vulnerability, emotional intensity of all kinds, touch starvation, edging, body worship, kissing, lingerie and other beautiful clothes, slow undressing scenes.

DNWs: permanent non-canon character death (unless otherwise requested), rape/noncon as the main focus (although references to canon events are fine), animal harm, emetophilia/scat/watersports (or any other non-sexual focus on these body fluids), explicit content for characters under 16 (or under 18 for art), omegaverse, humiliation kink.


The Haunting of Bly Manor
Fic, Art

Viola Lloyd/Perdita Willoughby
These two and their family downfall had me totally hypnotized. I love Viola’s wilfulness and pride, and how entirely her bravado is matched by Perdita’s love for her. I also love Perdita as the wistful, enigmatic half of the Willoughby sisters, the only person on earth who could kill Viola even a little bit and equally haunting in her own way. I was so there for the sheer gothic romance of Perdita saying “God should know better” when Viola took her last rites, and I would love to see more of their terrible, murderous, (more than?) sisterly love for each other.

Prompts:

- Scenes from their life after their father died – nights in bed together that push them over into full-blown gothic incest, the aftermath of a ball, or anything else where an us-against-the-world Perdita and Viola are holed up together in the darkness of Bly.

- Any kind of dark, pining, aristocratic-sisters-to-lovers situation after Viola marries Arthur – does Viola’s wedding force them to acknowledge the strange, possessive side of their relationship?

- Perdita and Viola meet as ghosts, after Arthur and Isabel have left Bly. Would it have changed anything, if Viola found her sister again and Perdita wasn’t just forgotten in the attic? Is it too late for them to recognize each other by the time they meet again? Does Viola ever try to drag Perdita down into the lake with her?

- Anything that explores their ongoing physical intimacy during Viola’s illness. How does Perdita become the only person who still touches Viola after she falls ill, and do they ever talk about dying together in some kind of liebestod? Does Perdita ever take on Arthur’s husbandly duties, or sleep next to Viola in his place?

- Arthur dies prematurely instead of Viola, and Viola and Perdita are left to run Bly by themselves again – is there a difficult reconciliation, or a deepening codependency between them? Do they still become infamous as some kind of dark village legend?

- Any kind of sex with a dominant, aggressive Viola – either when she’s at the height of her powers (and in her riding habit?) or when she’s fighting through her own deathly exhaustion.

- Fic or art that runs with all the sumptuous seventeenth-century costume porn and scenery porn – the canopy beds, the lake, the candlelight, the gowns and jewels, the locked chest, the attic, the shrouds and rose petals.

The Queen's Gambit
Fic, Art

Beth Harmon/Vasily Borgov
Beth and Borgov were such a delicious slow burn, for me: the way they had so much chemistry but almost no opportunity to do more than look at each other was just scorching, and I love the idea of them having some kind of intimacy away from the chess board. I’m so fascinated by the way Borgov feels a tenderness towards Beth from as early as their Paris match, even when he can’t offer her any easy victories, and by the way Beth has this half-formed idea of him as her white whale until he offers her so much unexpected warmth and affirmation when they get up close in Moscow. I would love to see where they could go after the series – whether they strike up an affair in Russia or America, or build a life as a married couple, or make it work as distant lovers.

Prompts:

- Arranged marriage or fake dating. I loved Beth’s speech about the predictability of chess (“I can control it, I can dominate it”), and I would also love to see her in some kind of romantic situation with Borgov where she thinks there will be very clear rules of engagement – except it doesn’t turn out to be so predictable after all. Maybe Borgov divorces his wife sometime in the future, and Beth marries him for citizenship purposes, or they decide to fake a love affair so it will be easier for Borgov to defect to America? I would also be totally down for an AU where Beth has to marry Borgov before she can play against him in a tournament, in some kind of tropey take on Cold War politics – is she first American in decades who would even think about marrying a Russian just to prove herself in chess?

- Beth in Russia. I really like the way Beth is drawn to the idea of life in Paris or Moscow towards the end of the series, and would love to see anything where she settles in Russia and has much more opportunity to see more of Borgov – in the park, at the theatre, at the markets? I also love the wintry look of Moscow on the show and would really enjoy anything that plays with that – more of Beth’s winterwear coats, fur hats, ice skating in the park?

- Borgov in America. On the flipside of Beth in Russia, I would also love to see anything where Borgov succeeds in defecting to America and Beth seeks him out afterwards – is he intensely out of place, and does she help him adjust to life in the States, or defend him from detractors outside the chess world?

- Stolen moments at Soviet chess events – in hotel suites, or corridors, or at the dinner table. This could be as part of an established relationship or a slow burn – I just really love the stateliness and the severity that hangs over their tournament in Moscow, and would love to see more of them in that kind of atmosphere.

- Chess tournaments around the world become their version of romantic vacations. Sweet, decadent hotel sex and room service in Paris? Street tango in Buenos Aires? Borgov watching Beth gamble in Las Vegas?

- Beth and Borgov maintain a long-distance relationship between chess matches – are there love letters, dirty letters, phone calls, phone sex? Does Beth ever take polaroids of herself and send them to Borgov?

- Any kind of porn that explores possible differences in their approach to sex – does Beth introduce Borgov to any new sexual practices, like semi-public sex, or is Borgov the first man to go down on Beth for hours? Does Beth give Borgov a new appreciation for lingerie, or does sex with Borgov leave Beth with some fixations she’s never had before – like hand kink, or voice kink?

Beth Harmon/Cleo
I loved these two right from the moment Beth was left dumbstruck after Cleo kissed her cheek, and I was so into how their relationship played out as two sometimes self-destructive women who nevertheless strike up a warmth between them. I really liked how Cleo was introduced as someone worldly and glamorous for Beth to admire, but is also perhaps as unsteady and haunted as Beth herself (“like I say, a sad story”). I also love her outsider perspective on Beth, and how she’s drawn to Beth as the kind of genius she doesn’t often encounter in her life as a model. I’d love to see any take on their relationship – whether it’s a volatile thing full of (unintentional?) sabotage and desperation, or whether they make it work as a swinging sixties power couple.

Prompts:

- Paris and the aftermath. What was the sex like – was it casual and decadent or did they stay awake telling each other secrets in the dark before Beth ended up in the tub? What happened after Beth’s match with Borgov, and what if Beth had stayed in Paris for an even more intense bender?

- Beth visits Cleo while she’s working on a photoshoot or at a fashion show. Does she agree with Cleo that modelling is insipid, and decide to help Cleo alleviate her boredom with some dressing room sex? Or does she think Cleo is more talented than she realizes?

- Cleo dresses up with Beth, or does Beth’s makeup for her – I really liked Beth’s interest in the psychedelic scene and experimental 1960s makeup, and would love to see some fic or art that explores what Cleo would make of that and how she would style her.

- Beth and Cleo as an iconic late 1960s/1970s romance, with Beth as a World Champion, and Cleo as a supermodel. I love the idea of them having some kind of intense, possibly volatile affair as two big names at the height of their powers – does Beth become a kind of muse for Cleo, and inspire her to adopt a very intent, cerebral style of modelling, or are they known for a more unstable, sometimes mutually destructive relationship? How open are they about their relationship, and do they also become queer icons? Do they ever do a photoshoot or magazine cover together?

- Beth moves to Paris after she becomes World Champion, and Cleo looks her up one day – is it difficult for Beth to let Cleo back into her life? I’d also love any kind of little Parisienne scene – drinking and smoking together in cafés or bars, pushing one another against the wall in a side street, hanging out in Cleo’s apartment.

Twin Peaks
Fic, Art

Audrey Horne/Dale Cooper
Everything about these two is just peak romance to me: the intensity and yearning and admiration, the way they match each other as dreamy misfits, and how effortlessly old Hollywood romance melts into the romance of the everyday when they're together. I love the contrast between Cooper’s cool, slicked-back demeanor as a special agent and his not-at-all-hidden romantic side, especially when it comes to Audrey – his caution and tenderness and volcanic attraction to her is so incredibly hot. I also love how Audrey becomes so passionate and serious in her pursuit of him, and how her love for Cooper feels almost like another kind of metaphysical force in the show (especially in the scene where she prays to him from One-Eyed Jack’s). I would always love to see any kind of romance for them – getting together, first times, dreamlike encounters, reunions after their long separation.

Prompts:

- First kisses or first times set around Audrey’s undercover work at One-Eyed Jack’s. Is Cooper sent in to meet the new girl on the night they’re both undercover, and does anything happen there – or, if Cooper takes Audrey back home, does anything happen when they’re back in the relative safety of the Great Northern? For a canon divergence set later in s2, what if a hazy, drugged, relieved Audrey had the strength to try and kiss Cooper, when he came to rescue her?

- Small romantic scenes from an established relationship – kisses, slow dancing, breakfasts in Cooper’s hotel room, talking about Hollywood conspiracies and solving mysteries as they fall asleep together.

- Any kind of canon divergence where Cooper doesn’t end up trapped in the Black Lodge at the end of s2, and gets together with Audrey sometime after the Miss Twin Peaks contest – was it Audrey’s speech that made him decide to go for it, and do they have some kind of tense, joyful get-together backstage, or does it take them a while to get closer to each other again? Does it happen after some other big event in Audrey’s life – her prom, or her graduation? Has she been left feeling underwhelmed and unfulfilled by her fling with John Justice Wheeler, and does this make it feel even more intense for her to be with Cooper at last?

- Audrey finds a way to reach out to Cooper in the Lodge – maybe Cooper can leave the Red Room if she can take some kind of romantic or erotic possession of him? (There are a lot of occultism references in the Secret History of Twin Peaks, after all, and “love is the law, love under will.”) Or maybe the Giant visits her after she prays to see Cooper again, in a reversal of what happened when she was held hostage at One-Eyed Jack’s?

- Return-era reunions in the real world. What’s their first kiss like, after their separation? Do they have a wedding night full of mutual hurt/comfort, where they reassure each other they still want each other as much as ever, even as older, darker, more damaged people? Do they ever talk about Richard, or decide they still want to try and have children now? Or do they take it easy and rediscover the world together, in roadhouses and jazz clubs and hotels in different cities?

- More surreal, otherworldly reunions set between seasons or around s3 – a Return-era scene where Cooper is on the road and finds Audrey on a dark highway somewhere? Kissing or dancing between the curtains of the Black Lodge? Encounters at some version of the Roadhouse, where Cooper is known as “Billy”?

Audrey Horne/Dale Cooper/Laura Palmer
I’m endlessly fascinated by all the different connections that Audrey, Cooper and Laura have with each other across life and death, dreams and decades. I love how Audrey and Cooper are haunted by Laura, how they get closer to each other as they investigate her death and yet how they also start to understand (and fall for?) Laura in all her bright-dark complexity. I also love how Audrey and Laura are both the girl of Cooper’s dreams, one in each world. I would love to see anything that explores them as an OT3 – in dreams, in the Lodge, or in any encounter set after s3 with the universe split wide open around them.

Prompts:

- Sometime around s1/s2, Audrey and Cooper find themselves in the same dreams with Laura. Or, sometime after Cooper’s dream in s1, Audrey opens up about her complex relationship with Laura and tells him that Laura was the last person she kissed – does Cooper tell her that Laura was the last person he kissed too?

- Fanart based on this photograph by Larry Fink: https://64.media.tumblr.com/7030bd1767b1eb2c24303e2cf311106a/2395b571b6a96e23-bc/s1280x1920/771b33ac0a8dfa6af7fbb55815591e201c41abf7.jpg

- Surreal, unexpected reunions set around s3. Audrey wakes up in/finds a way into the Odessa universe? Laura and Cooper visit the Roadhouse and find Audrey there? Kisses on the shores of the purple sea, or scratchy records and threesomes at the Fireman's house, or even some kind of White Lodge encounter?

- Encounters in the Black Lodge – as erotic or esoteric as you like. Does Audrey end up passing through the Lodge during her coma, or while she’s drugged at One-Eyed Jack’s, and see Laura and Cooper there together? Does she dream of them there for years between seasons? Does Laura reach out to her somehow, and lead her out into Glastonbury Grove?

- Laura never dies, but she and Audrey still meet Cooper somehow – perhaps he gets asked to investigate their disappearance after they run away from Twin Peaks together?

Audrey Horne/Laura Palmer
Even though they were never on screen together, I love all the fraught, complicated possibilities of Audrey and Laura, not exactly friends but still caught up in some kind of haunting, formative girlhood connection. I love Audrey’s fascination with Laura, and how clear-eyed she is about (at least some of) Laura’s issues even with the distance between them. I also love this never stops her from being drawn to Laura as a person, or from looking for some kind of spiritual connection to her (she went to church for her!). I would love to see anything that explores their whole strange, unnameable attraction – pre-canon scenes from their lives, or supernatural encounters, or AUs where they make it beyond high school together.

Prompts:

- Audrey and Laura out in the mountains or the woods – do they skip school to go up there one day, or meet there at a party one night and slip away to be alone with each other? I would also really love any fanart takes on this inspired by this photo series: https://thisisnthappiness.com/post/190043960639/some-girls-madeleine-morlet

- Any kind of intimate moment from their ski trip. Does Audrey ever sneak into Laura’s bed one night, or do they need to huddle for warmth after doing something reckless?

- Slow days (or nights) at the Great Northern, where Audrey and Laura are pushed toward each other by boredom and family tension and their own attraction to one another - smoking together, listening to records, defending each other from their parents?

- Hurt/comfort or sexual experimentation after a brush with the seamier side of life in Twin Peaks. An AU where Laura takes Audrey to the Pink Room, or where Audrey follows Laura to One-Eyed Jack's one night? Audrey stumbles across Laura while she’s still high or hurt from a night at Leo’s cabin, and tries to look after her as best as she can?

- Anything for an AU where Laura never died. Does she get closer to Audrey after high school, as runaways, or college students, or just as two women still stuck in Twin Peaks?

- Supernatural encounters after Laura’s death – does Laura come to visit Audrey in her coma, or while she’s drugged at One-Eyed Jack’s, or do they ever meet in the Black Lodge?

Ben Horne/Laura Palmer
I’m so fascinated by what things were like between Ben and Laura in the last few months of her life, and by what might have happened between them if she’d never died – out of all Laura’s fucked-up relationships with the men in town, this one feels the most complicated, since Ben is so prominent in both sides of her double life. Also, sometimes I love to see a “heartbreaking: the worst character you know just had a great emotional scene” breakthrough from one of my trash faves, and Ben’s declaration of love for Laura was so exactly my thing in that regard. I would love to see an exploration of them – sharing their pre-canon double lives, or living out a whole gothic, overripe affair if Laura had lived.

Prompts:

- Anything about the photo of Laura that Ben keeps on his desk – we see the homecoming portrait of Laura so often on the show, and it really fascinates me that Ben holds onto this picture of Laura instead, one that feels more like that Laura we see in FWWM. Did he take it himself, and what was the occasion?

- Laura never dies, and a few months or years down the line, she marries a newly-divorced Ben – does she do it to get away from BOB and Leland, and how does it work out for her? Does she like the security that comes from being away from her father and the devil-you-know predictability of Ben, and how does this contrast with the overblown, soapy-gothic weirdness that comes with being Ben’s much younger wife? What was the wedding like, and did she have an awfulmazing 1980s wedding dress?

- Any take on what happened when Ben found out Laura was at One-Eyed Jack’s. Was their first time at One-Eyed Jack’s, or did Ben take her back home to Twin Peaks only for something to happen afterwards?

- Laura calls Ben and asks him to come and pick her up or help her out after something goes wrong one night while she’s across the border.

- General fucked-up snapshots of their affair – cocaine-fuelled sex, desperation, unexpected tenderness, more of Ben’s showstopping Shakespeare recitations?

Blackie O'Reilly/Laura Palmer
I love Blackie as a deadly, weary, neo-noir antagonist, and I’ve always wondered about her backstory with Laura – all the jagged things they have in common, their fatalistic streaks, how Laura fit into the weird lesbian dystopia of One-Eyed Jack’s. I love how many doubles Laura has throughout the series, and I especially love the way Blackie almost feels like a double of Laura in the Black Lodge, another mistress of hell who made it there after a long history of addiction and trauma. I’d love to see anything that sketches in their history a little more, or merges the Lodge with One-Eyed Jack’s for some between-two-worlds encounter.

Prompts:

- After hours at One-Eyed Jack’s – any kind of scene with Laura in Blackie’s office, drinking together, smoking together, being cynical and tired together, talking shit about (Horne?) men together.

• Blackie reads Laura’s tarot cards – how bleak is her outlook, and how does Blackie feel about it? Does it match up with Blackie’s own cards?

• Sex at One-Eyed Jack’s – is it drug-fuelled, or antagonistic, or kind of darkly reassuring for Laura to be with somebody who has been used and embittered in some of the same ways she has?

• A meeting between Blackie and Laura (or Laura’s doppelganger) in the Black Lodge, either as a part of Blackie’s afterlife or anything that plays with the blurry boundaries between the Lodge and One-Eyed Jacks. Being mistresses of hell together in their black evening gowns, or coming to some kind of bitter peace.

Dale Cooper/Laura Palmer
I’m always so heartbroken by the way Laura and Cooper reach out to each other, and the way their connection runs through everything – I feel like they fall somewhere between a Lynchian retelling of Laura, and a Lynchian fairy tale about fighting through the fire to find love. I love the gentleness and respect that Cooper has for Laura, even in death, and how this is matched by the heady, otherworldly eroticism they share in the Black Lodge. I also really love the mythic kind of devotion that leads Cooper to undo Laura’s death, and all the potential that has for them in a post-s3 context. I would love to see anything that looks at some of their stolen moments between worlds, or lets them work out what they can be to each other when they’re both alive at last.

Prompts:

- Instead of “I’ll see you again in twenty-five years,” Laura stays with Cooper in the Black Lodge during his captivity. Do they fall into a heady, shifting, otherworldly kind of domesticity there? Do they explore the Lodge and its mysteries?

- Laura isn’t murdered one year after Teresa Banks, and sometime in the 90s, Cooper runs into a woman who he recognizes from his visions as the next victim of BOB. What has Laura been doing with her life in the meantime, and what does she make of this man who knows things about her time in Twin Peaks that she’s never told anyone?

- Scenes from a Return-era slow burn – taking long drives or walks together, sharing beds in motels, holding hands, coming to terms with their weird intimacy and what to do about it. If Laura kissed Cooper out in the woods, or in the car, or in a motel somewhere, would Cooper be as eagerly yielding as he was before? Do they end up recreating their Lodge kisses sooner rather than later, or do they take it slowly, exploring their relationship and the liminal world around them at the same time?

- Any kind of canon divergence where Cooper doesn’t get trapped in the Lodge at the end of s2, but is still connected to Laura in some way. After he solves her murder in s2, does Cooper still dream of Laura in the Red Room, and try to set her spirit free? Do they end up with a soulbond that turns them into some kind of gender-switched Hades and Persephone situation, where Cooper spends half of each year in the Lodge with Laura and half of each year on the earth as normal?

- Sex in the Black Lodge. Chair sex? Clothed sex? Laura finally gets Cooper to go down on her right there on the chevron floor?