Dear Chocolate Box Author

[robberbaroness]

 

Hi!  I’m RobberBaroness on AO3, and I’m very happy you signed up for one of my fandoms!  This exchange was a lot of fun last year, and I’m looking forward to it again, especially with all the great stuff that has been nominated.

General likes:  Fairy tales, gothic literature, film noir, revenge tragedies, bodice rippers, melodrama, dark comedy, heroine/villain/hero love triangles, heroine/villain dynamics, rescue romance, mythology, maledom (non and dubcon are fine), bdsm, bondage, character studies, what-if AUs, genre swapping AUs, vampires, folklore, knight and lady dynamics, epistolary fic,  interactive fiction.

General DNWs: Pushing away female characters, fetish universes, character bashing, fully mundane AUs for fantastical settings, unrequested identity headcanons, abrupt character death (character death fully earned and explored is fine), a focus on bodily fluids or byproducts in porn.

Dracula (Movies - Hammer)

Marianne Danielle/Van Helsing (Hammer Movie)

I adore these two!  From their first meeting in the woods to the ending show of them embracing, their relationship absolutely swept me away.  I like to think they married after the events of Brides of Dracula (Van Helsing does have children in the later films!) so a glimpse into that would be really nice.  This could be sweet curtain fic, an examination of their shared trauma at the hands of Baron Meinster, or action sequences of them continuing to fight against monsters together.  Baron Meinster or Dracula himself could come back to menace them, even creeping on Marianne.  Van Helsing could teach his new bride about the various monsters and supernatural things in the world.  Or it could take place during the events of the movie, unresolved sexual tension and yearning on both their parts!

The Lost Boys (Movies)

Alan Frog & Edgar Frog

My favorite characters in the movie, and probably the kids who first got me into studying vampire mythology.  I’d love to see them having further adventures fighting monsters (what about those werewolves they said worked at City Hall?), researching their calling, pushing more vampire comics on hapless customers, or having other adventures.  They are rather humorous in the movie so you can keep that tone, or you can have a more serious look at them learning from their mistakes in the first movie or raising themselves while their parents are stoned and useless.  I haven’t seen the sequels so don’t go too hard about them, but you can pull details from them if there’s anything fun.

David/Michael Emerson/Star

I like any two of these three together, but I like their dynamic all together most of all.  The natural way to go for this grouping is dark- something angry and desperate with the three of them in the middle of the movie, a manipulative and dubiously consensual threesome during Michael’s initiation scene, or a bad end with David getting both his victims- but if you don’t want to go dark, we could have a scene where they’re challenging and bantering with each other, or even a good end where David is cured by Max’s death (not having been killed himself earlier) and is trying to relearn how to be human.  You could also have a scenario after the movie where Michael and Star are together but David is still alive- either he menaces them or they have less violent encounters.  Insight into any and all of these characters would be great fun to read!

Tarot of the Haunted House

Knight of Cups/Raven Wandsworth

I’ll be honest, I’m not super expecting someone to offer this one...but if you did, thank you so much!  And if you didn’t offer it but do like tarot decks, I encourage you to get it- it’s an affordable mass market deck with gorgeous art!  The plot, such as it is, involves the gothic heroine Raven Wandsworth surviving the monsters, cults, and deadly secrets of a forbidding manor before eventually claiming her rightful ownership of the house.  Her canon love interest, appearing with her on several cards, is the Knight of Cups, an angel of water.  He doesn’t solve all her problems for her- she rescues herself on many occasions- but I bet he helps!

I’d love to read some gothic romance stuff between them.  Raven and the Knight discover the horrible secrets of the house!  She looks into his history wondering if this mysterious man is a danger to those around him, only to find the startling truth!  They have to run away from or fight off a villain!  They have a dramatic first kiss in dark circumstances!  Something fun and spooky!  Feel free to give the Knight a name, by the way, and fill in whatever worldbuilding you want.

Fallout: New Vegas

Craig Boone/Female Courier

There’s nothing like working out trauma by wiping out an enemy base together!  I love the slowly developing relationship between the Courier and Boone as he gradually opens up, and by the end of the game, while he’ll never be over what happened, he seems willing to rejoin the world.  I also love that he has sympathy for the Courier undergoing her own harrowing violent ordeal, to the point where his opinion of her goes up when she kills Benny!  I could read about them fighting back to back, having some downtime between missions, or figuring out what to do with themselves after the events of the game.  I’d love to see them getting together, but I’d also enjoy a moment from an already established relationship.  Obviously a pro-Legion Courier isn’t going to work here, but I’m fine with pro-NCR, pro-House, or independent.  Or the particular loyalties don’t have to come up at all.

Arthurian Mythology

Dame Ragnelle/Gawain

This story is one of the things that made Gawain my favorite knight!  A married couple who love and respect each other is surprisingly rare in the Arthurian tales.  You could show me more of their marriage after her curse is broken- what’s it like when they have to get to know each other after the marriage rather than before?  How is Gawain’s life changed by his marriage, and how does Ragnelle relearn to live in civilized society?  The poem says that she either left or died eventually so you can do a sadder story, but I’d prefer not to have her outright abandoning him- and you can change their ending to make it happier if you want!  (I imagine that ending was put in just to keep it in-canon with stories where he’s married to someone else.)  They could also interact with other events in the mythology, or have adventures of their own.  There’s always room for adventure in this canon!

Darkest Dungeon

Grave Robber/Highwayman

Thieves gotta stick together.  Dismas and Audrey (you can give her a different name if you want since it’s only in the code) both have regrets about their former lives, and have both come to the manor to find redemption, wealth, and perhaps a purpose to life.  Their brief bits of dialogue give great characterization for this kind of game, with his guilt and bravery and her nostalgia and panache.  They could have something together during any point in the story, getting together or already established, and if you want to work in goofy things that happened during one of your playthroughs that would be great!  Are they both going to survive the Darkest Dungeon?  How do they react to the various monstrosities around the estate?  And will Reynauld ever stop stealing from them?

Abomination/Vestal

I was so happy when the religious heroes were finally allowed to party with the Abomination!  I first started thinking about this ship when I won a game with them as the final two survivors, and I think they have a lot to connect on, what with both of them undergoing abuse by the church.  She could slowly warm up to this unholy creature, and he could slowly learn to have real human relationships again.  As above, you can show events that happen in the game, or contemplate what might happen afterwards.  A scene of them discussing their views of the world and how they have or have not changed with all the things they’ve seen could be very interesting as well.  You can use the names Junia and Bigby, or come up with ones of your own.

Discworld - Terry Pratchett

Samuel Vimes/Sybil Ramkin (Discworld)

Sam and Sybil are great, and I regret that we don’t get to see more romantic moments with them.  You could show more of their first date at the end of Guards Guards, or a nice day in their marriage- or even their wedding night, whether sexy or just romantic.  I was very moved by how much he missed her during Night Watch and how often she bailed them both out of trouble in The Fifth Elephant, so I think there’s a nice story to be told about their bond and what it means to both of them.  And of course regular Discworld wackiness can (maybe even should!) intervene in their lives together.  Don’t make Sybil young and skinny as in the Watch show (or a vigilante!) but Sam should still find her attractive.  I just think these guys are really good together!

The Company of Wolves (Movie)

Huntsman/Rosaleen

This is a canon and pairing where you can get as weird, psychological, and dark as you want.  There’s a lot of ambiguity in their relationship regarding power and choices- is Rosaleen making a good decision or a bad one in going off with the Huntsman?  Who is really in charge between them, or will it be a constantly shifting dynamic?  How is Rosaleen going to take to being a werewolf?  You could write something darkly sexy with them, leaning in to the erotic horror angle, or show them living their very weird life, maybe even stumbling into the plots of other reinvented fairy tales (pull whatever you like from other stories in The Bloody Chamber or just the commonly known versions.)  Dubious consent would work for this pairing, but you don’t have to go that route.  Please keep Rosaleen at least 16, especially if things are going to get sexy!

Waxwork

China/Dracula

What a fascinating episode these two had, with China seeming to have both her own real-life memories and some connection to the role she’s thrown into when she enters the waxwork exhibit.  Dracula uses his looks and charm to initially interest her, then his powers of hypnotism when she tries to fight back and run away.  China was established as the bad girl in her own timeline, but becomes a gothic heroine within the waxwork scene.  You could look into her head and show what she thinks of all this, or into his, and how he sees his next potential bride.  Things could get dubcon-y and sexual, or you could focus on the seductive prelude at the castle before China knew what was happening.  It’s just such a gloriously gothic episode in the movie, I would love to see it expanded upon.

Marquis de Sade/Sarah

Another scene of gothic seduction, this one with added kink!  I love that Sarah, the good girl, is so sexually masochistic, and so intrigued by the waxwork display of the Marquis that she steps into it willingly.  You could do an extended BDSM scene of what might have happened if she hadn’t been rescued, or something set during the final battle involving him finding her and engaging in more dangerous sexual tension before she kills him.  He says in the movie that he intends to whip her to death, but I’d rather that not happen in the fic.  Their relationship adds such a perverse edge to this goofy horror-comedy, so even if you don’t want to write sex, anything with them dancing around each other could be very compelling.

China/Dracula/Marquis de Sade/Sarah

And hey, what if the bad guys and damsels in distress all got together?  This could be in an end where the bad guys win, or something during the leadup to the final battle where everyone comes out of the exhibits.  The girls could be the prisoners of the villains, or join them in their villainy.  How do the good girl and the bad girl respond to their shared relationship, and how do two powerful villains feel about sharing their power and women?  Make it as sexy as you want, or keep all the sex offscreen and just focus on the sexual tension.  The fun thing about Waxwork is the mix of horror movie characters and scenarios- in the sequel the characters rapidly jump from one horror movie scene to another- so you could also wrap these characters into another scenario outside of what they know.  Go nuts!