Dear Merry Maker,

Thanks so much for creating for me! I hope you'll find me an easy recipient: this letter includes a bunch of prompts and likes for inspiration, but basically food is my favourite thing in the world and I'm going to be 🤤🤤🤤 over anything you do.

I'm requesting both fic and art for everything. Some sections of my letter are longer than others, but I’m equally excited for every character and ship I’ve included, and for gifts of any size. If a prompt seems to suggest a longer story, I’d also be thrilled with a short scene or excerpt based on that concept.

Other notes: I have no strong feelings about the line between gen and shipfic, so please don’t worry about your work being too shippy for a & request or too gennish for a / request. I’m just happy my requested characters are interacting. Past ships, background ships, love triangles and poly are all fine. If I haven't explicitly DNW'd a thing then I'm open to receiving it in good faith, even if it's something you might consider niche or opt-in. Some food-specific opt-ins: weight gain/loss, diet talk, eating disorders, starvation and food as a tool of abuse are all fine, especially if you work them in with anything from my 'dark likes' section below.

I'm

lucymonster on ao3.

Thanks again, and happy creating!

General info

⛔ Do Not Want

underage: explicit <18 sex, any <16 sex or any <13 romance
parent-child incest
kinks based on extreme changes to human physiology (futa, womb fucking, mpreg, eggpreg, etc)
scat, vore, emetophilia, bestiality
'no-no-yes' type noncon
extreme gore, graphic organ damage, genital bleeding/cutting/tearing
graphic depictions of needles, injections, transfusions or blood-drinking
AUs other than canon divergence (including trope AUs: please no a/b/o, soulmates etc)
poetry
unrequested identity headcanons (gay/straight/bi sexuality is fine for any character; fleshing out a non-Earth character's fictional ethnicity or religion is great, but please don't base it 1:1 on a real Earth identity)
unwarned major character death (tag or author’s note appreciated!).

🍲 Food likes

For guaranteed Michelin-star results, use any of the following as a prompt for any fandom:

Art-specific: show the characters eating together, playfully handfeeding each other, wearing flourstained aprons or laying out a picnic blanket. I go soft for bulging cheeks, starry eyes, greedily wide open mouths and detailed drawings of the food itself. If it fits your style, I also adore that trend of tiny chibi characters with food items larger than they are.

Local cuisines. I'd love to hear in depth about a (real-world or fictional) cuisine: national dishes, cooking styles, flavour profiles, food-related etiquette, comfort food, special or ceremonial food, or divisive and confronting delicacies. I'm also totally ready to geek out about food production and agriculture if it comes up.

Coffee. Also, cafe culture - not in the barista AU sense, but in the 'my faves sit around discussing their lives over fancy french toast' sense.

Beer. Any beer. Craft beer, cheap beer, malt-rich dark ales, intimidating and experimental IPAs - anything. Except for sours. Sours are gross #sorrynotsorry.

Chocolate. Or sweets and dessert in general.

Spicy food, characters who can handle it and characters who really, really can't.

Angsty starvation, especially if it's paid off at the end with tender refeeding and recovery.

Food as intimacy, as nurture, as something truly universal - even the haughtiest noble or most sinister villain still needs to eat. I love people sharing meals, cooking for each other, and generally using food as a way to express feelings they maybe struggle to put into words.

Chubby kink: Vanilla flavours preferred. I love a focus on plump bodies as soft, sexy and endearing, a physical proof of food-related joy in life. I don't get much out of massive size gain or fatness as a goal in itself as opposed to a side-effect of really loving food. Characters spoiling their love interests with sweets and hearty meals (and then adoring the new curves that result from it) is where I live.

In a gen context, I also love fattening someone up as a way of nurturing them and expressing how much you care about them. Think, like, archetypal storybook grandma discovers multifandom exchanges. That's the vibe I'm going for here.

⭐ Story likes

In general, my favourite stories are the ones where the characters feel like real, live, messy and imperfect people. I love fics that are thought-provoking or uncomfortable to read. I love to relax into well-earned (or not-so-well-earned) moments of happiness for my otherwise beleaguered faves. I love to laugh. Favourite themes include:

anything with a strong character focus
characters who are flawed and abrasive and challenging to love; difficult or dysfunctional relationships
dark/gritty/moody aesthetics
imperfect happiness, bittersweet undertones, unfulfilled yearning
ensemble casts, background characters, outsider POV
mundane details, little moments of human vulnerability
politics, bureaucracy, propaganda
banter, snark, gallows humour, quippiness
guilty pleasures: denying them, suppressing them, and finally giving into temptation
tropes: hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, huddling for warmth, fake relationships, bodyswap
military kink: uniforms, weapons, ‘sir’
harsh environments, brutal weather, survival/adventure stories
redemption (or failed redemption)
crack treated seriously
non-standard formats: drabbles, non-linear, epistolary, social media, in-universe meta.

💀 Dark likes

Honestly, go as brutal and fucked-up as you like. There's no such thing as too dark. I love my horror both overt and covert - if you're not feeling the in-your-face disasterfest, by all means creep me out with subtle insinuations or dark twists to sweet-seeming premises. Some favourite themes:

noncon/dubcon (see my nonconathon letter for a laundry list of kinks I love)
bad guys win, good guys go bad
grey morality, antiheroes, villain-centred morality
extremist politics, callous bureaucracies, the mundane horrors of life under the jackboot
'ugly' mental illness: violence, paranoia, self-destructiveness, warped thinking
psychological horror
coercion, blackmail, abuse of power
victim blaming
physical torture: flogging, beating, burrning, bone-breaking, electrocuting
psychological/'enhanced interrogation' style torture: sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, stress positions, extreme noise and temperature, deliberate humiliation.

🍑 Smut likes

Character-driven smut is my jam. I love sex that says something about the people involved, offbeat sex scenes, sex that's awkward and imperfect and humanising, unusual erogenous zones and intimate details about the characters' bodies. Favourite kinks include:

orgasm delay/denial, sexual frustration, begging
coming too quickly, loss of control, getting overwhelmed
crying after sex
rough sex, hate sex, power imbalances
humiliation, verbal insults, gendered slurs
frottage, dry humping, clothed sex
sex pollen, fuck-or-die
different erogenous zones, being sensitive in non-genital places
anal sex (het or slash), double or multiple penetration
sounding, watersports, forced wetting
public use, gangbangs
loss of virginity, inexperience, clumsy sex
praise kink
scar worship
uncomfortable, consensual-but-unpleasant type sex
under-negotiated kinks
any level of complex, problematic or questionable consent.

🎨 Art likes

Any of my fic likes that can translate visually are just as relevant to my taste in art. For any of my ficcier prompts or favourite tropes, I'd be over the moon to receive an illustration from the hypothetical fic that fills them. I love dark, shadowy colour palettes and goth/metal/industrial styles and an overall moody gloom. I love symbolism and meaningful visual motifs (canon examples: Kylo Ren's cracked helmet, Byakuya's cherry blossoms) and I'm open to oblique, metaphorical depictions of ships just as much as pictures of people kissing. (But I am also, to be clear, still very keen on pictures of people kissing.)

On a diffferent note, fluffy art is also amazing. I love chibis, cuddle piles and all manner of sugary cuteness. Polka dots or rainbows in the background just because? You son of a bitch, I'm in. My ship holds hands in the background while their new pet hamster frolics across most of the canvas? Just make sure that little guy's cheeks are as chubby as they come! Throw my grumpy black-clad faves into a scene of lollipops and sparkles? I'll squeal so much that even my ship's new pet hamster will think I'm shrill.

Requested fandoms

General note: for this exchange even more than usual, my fandom prompts are the most optional of optional details! I've tried to come up with some specific scenarios in case it's helpful, but please don't even think twice about discarding everything below if you have another idea in mind.

BLEACH

Requested flavours: sweet, sour, spicy

General notes: In fic, I prefer to either resolve any power imbalance in Byakuya's favour or have him meet his partner/s on even footing. (I'm talking relationship dynamics, not top/bottom preferences. I don't mind who sticks what where.) I'm satisfied with how canon dismantled his pride in the Soul Society arc, and have no real appetite for seeing him humbled further. I do love self-driven character growth, where he calls out his own shortcomings or learns a new respect for someone he used to look down on. But I also love competence porn, respect, arm's length intimacy, complex hierarchies, and maybe just a cheeky pinch of spoilt-by-rich-lover fantasy for seasoning.

In art, I love his post-timeskip look with the collared haori, shorter hair and subtler hairpiece. I also never get tired of his cherry blossom motif.

As an extra-optional detail, I really like both Renji/Rukia and Ichigo/Rukia as background ships.

Abarai Renji/Kuchiki Byakuya
Obliged to attend some kind of fancy formal banquet, Renji realises his Inuzuri table manners won't be up to snuff. Who better to turn to for some emergency coaching than his captain?

Misunderstandings: when Byakuya starts plying Renji with food - dinner invites, shared work lunches, surprise gifts of his favourite taiyaki - Renji interprets it as some new kind of patronising class-based flex. Meanwhile, Byakuya is increasingly despondent that his attempts to deepen their relationship don't seem to be working.

After a difficult battle or assignment, the two of them share a bottle of sake.

Kuchiki Byakuya/Kuchiki Rukia

The incest is a feature, not a bug! I'm here for shame and guilt and violated duty of care. I love how she looks up to him and how desperate she is for the tiniest scrap of his approval. I love the hidden depths of his affection for her, his cloying overprotectiveness and his tendency to use money and gifts as a substitute for intimacy. I love how easily it could all go wrong for both of them.

Is Rukia too stricken by guilt and gratitude to say no to anything her brother asks? Or is she hungry for his attention and willing to milk her resemblance to Hisana for all it's worth? How long does Byakuya resist the temptation of having his wife's sweet, subservient body double sleeping in the room right next to him? Do they compartmentalise the different aspects of their relationship, or are they siblings and lovers and military colleagues all at once?

Some food prompts: a hanami picnic spent together, or a food festival out in the nicer regions of Inuzuri. Rukia coming back from the real world with gifts of modern food like nothing they have in Soul Society. Awkward dinners in the Kuchiki mansion. Convalescence, and one trying to make sure the other eats enough when they're sick.

DESCENDANTS

Requested flavours: sweet, sour, spicy

Evie/Mal
The Descendants movies are my ultimate (not-so-)guilty pleasure. Every song, every costume change, every self-indulgent moment speaks directly to my id. I'm obsessed with the broken worldbuilding and the dystopian implications of a monarchy that just casually banishes all its difficult subjects to Magic Shithole Island where they and their kids and their great-great-grandkids shall rot in eternal penance. I dearly want to know how it goes when the kids take charge and let all the villains back into Auradon with no apparent plans for how to manage the reintegration - something tells me the answer is 'not well'. I want to see the kids grow up, find themselves outside of high school and experience the topsy-turvy world.

Some prompts:

Food on the isle: short supplies, deprivation and making the best out of not a lot.
Happy forays into all the culinary delights their wealthy new homeland has to offer.
The newly reintegrated islanders bring their booze culture to teetotalling Auradon.
Send them to university! Auradon must have a college campus, right? Worldbuilding around fairytale-style academic disciplines, student culture and future career prospects all warmly encouraged. And, of course, the joys of cafeteria food.

HARRY POTTER

Requested flavours: sweet

Dudley Dursley & Harry Potter
I love the idea of these two using food to help heal from their godawful shared childhood. Dudley was a terrible cousin, but he was also a damaged kid in his own right, with parents who not only allowed but encouraged him to be his absolute worst self. Without brushing aside the harm Harry suffered at his hands, I'd love to see them find some common ground in adulthood. Sharing a meal? Exchanging Christmas hampers? Maybe Harry can bridge the magic/muggle gap by introducing Dudley to some magical wizarding food? Or maybe they can get together at a muggle pub, and attempt some awkward, stilted early-days reconciliation over a nice cold beer?

Although I've only requested the 'sweet' tag for this fandom, I'm very okay with bittersweetness, or with bleak childhood angst that gets imperfectly resolved post-canon.

MARRIAGE STORY

Requested flavours: sweet, sour, spicy

Charlie/Nicole (& Henry)
There is no wrong party in this movie! That’s a hill I will die on! Well, okay, I probably have a thing or two to say about the lawyers. But the point is that Charlie and Nicole both had good intentions, valid grievances, sympathetic human flaws and ample redeeming features. Their marriage and divorce was a slow-unfolding tragedy of miscommunication and I hurt for both of them the whole way through. The peaceful ending scene healed my heart a little bit, but not completely. I’d love a fic that gives them both a happier ending – or that rubs my face even more in the mundane, avoidable misery of their fractured relationship.

Some prompts:

With their divorce and custody battle finalised, Charlie and Nicole go back to an old favourite restaurant together for one last closure date.
Pre-divorce, the two of them attend a shmoozy industry dinner together.
Post-divorce, the two of them attend a shmoozy industry dinner separately, and it's very awkward.
New parenthood and the agonies of convincing your kid to eat.
Cooking a romantic dinner for each other - or trying to cook a romantic dinner, having it go badly wrong, and winding up eating takeaway pizza on the couch.
A post-divorce birthday party for Henry brings them face to face over a paper plate of sausage rolls and cake.

ORIGINAL WORK

Requested flavours: sweet

Woman Working In Android Repairs & Female Android Curious About Food
Robot-learns-how-to-human is one of my favourite things. Food is another. I grinned from ear to ear when I came across this in the tagset, and I can't wait to see where you might take it! What sparked the android's interest in food? Does it look like fun, or is she weirded out by this strange human obsession with their basic fuel source? Maybe the android learns her favourite human's coffee order. Maybe the repairwoman finds innovative ways to help her favourite android experience food-related pleasure even without technically being able to eat. I'm here for any kind of sweet, mundane human-android intimacy and mutual learning.

STAR WARS SEQUEL TRILOGY

Requested flavours: sweet, sour, spicy

Leia Organa & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Alderaanian cuisine: I'd love to see Leia pass on her heritage to her son, whether that means teaching him proper table manners or showing him how to cook national dishes or taking him to food-based cultural events. Did Princess Leia ever cook much for herself growing up, or did she learn later in life as a way of honouring her homeworld? What's Ben's relationship to the memory of Alderaan - proud, alienated, maybe a bit of both?

Bring Kylo home and let them reconnect over the intimate magic of a piping hot meal. Or don't let them reconnect - let Kylo dream of the taste of home, let Leia pine for the days when loving her son was as simple as keeping him nourished, let them both ache with homesickness and hunger.

Prison food: canon divergent AU where Ben gets punished for his crimes as Kylo Ren. I'd love something sweet where Leia brings him a home-cooked meal or some commissary money, or something sour and angsty - does the justice system have enough resources post-war to feed all their inmates? Does Leia show up for a rare visit to find her son wasting away?

Finn/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Did Kylo, as a commander, eat better than the rank and file, or was he living off the same nutritionally complete blandness as any old stormtrooper? I'd love to see them bond by griping over how shit the First Order rations are - or were, if Ben's with the Resistance now? For that matter, are Resistance rations any better?

Let them work out their differences the good old-fashioned way - by getting sloppy drunk together.

Due to reasons, the two of them end up stranded on some hostile planet and forced to work together. Maybe one of them just happens to have supplies at hand that they grudgingly agree to share with the other. Maybe they have to hunt and forage. Or maybe they can't find food at all, and there's nothing to do but sit around dreaming up fantasy meals to while away the hours until they're rescued.

Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
I never get sick of Rey and Kylo dropping in on each other at odd little human moments: over dinner, or while they're brewing their morning caf, or after one of them's had a bit too much to drink. Post-TROS, I'd also love to see his ghost lurk around the table to vicariously enjoy the food he no longer needs.

After the war, Ben takes a step back from galactic politics and turns his energy to the home front. Is he a good cook already? Does he learn for her sake? Do they ever throw awkward dinner parties, where Rey's old Resistance friends come around to see her at the expense of having to let themselves be catered to by an awkward, prickly ex-Supreme Leader?

Rey/food OTP: Because the girl grew up on the brink of starvation, and now suddenly there's all this food! I'd love to see their relationship turn gently softer around the edges as Ben - or pre-redemption Kylo - admires how she's filling out and spoils her with sweet treats for the joy of seeing her comfortably well fed.

Finn/Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Ben and Rey have offered to help Finn learn the ways of the Force. That makes sense - the post-war galaxy needs all the trained Force users it can get. What he doesn't understand is why they keep insisting he join them for dinner afterwards.

Snobby, Core World raised, technically-Alderaanian-royalty Ben introduces Finn and Rey to some fancy cuisine they've never come across before.

Poe Dameron/Finn & Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Ben Solo lives: I just want to see him join the Trio and get caught right up in their day-to-day lives. The frustrations of sharing a small spaceship kitchen? An awkward double date? Finn and Poe vent their disapproval of Rey's relationship via a very snarky bake-off? Anything with banter, friction and maximum pettiness is wonderful.

Everyone's Force-sensitive except for Poe. Luckily, he has one skill those suckers don't: he's an excellent cook.

Ben and Poe suck each other into a drinking contest. Ben has the advantage of size; Poe has the advantage of practice. Finn and Rey are left to run damage control when they both end up blotto.

THE UNTAMED
Requested flavours: sweet, sour

Xue Yang
Xue Yang is my favourite remorseless trashfire: his tragic food-driven backstory speaks straight to my lizard brain, and I love his selfish obsession with compensating for the deprivations of his childhood at any cost. I love his cheeky grin, his boyish glee, and his profound spiritual talent that he draws on erratically with no apparent long-term goal in mind. I love how emotionally stunted he is, how he's incapable of empathising with others or even recognising his own more complex feelings. He's an utterly broken person and I want to glory in his brokenness.

Feed him, please. That's all I've got. I just want to see him eat.

Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian & Xue Yang, Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian/Xue Yang
I'd love to see established couple Lan Zhan and Wei Ying reaching out to Xue Yang with food - to try and bring him around, or just to distract him from causing havoc at a critical moment? Alternatively, they capture him and use food as a control mechanism - by all means, go dark with this.

Wei Wuxian & Wen remnants
I just want more of those bittersweet days of arguing over turnip crops and doing their best to grow lotus plants on hopelessly infertile terrain. The petty humanness of it against the larger-than-life backdrop of the events that drove them into the Burial Mounds make for some of my absolute favourite scenes in the show. I'd love to see anything from their daily struggle to scrounge up enough food for the clan - farming, cooking, trading in town. Finding ways to make their meagre food supplies palatable. Secretly going hungry some nights so that someone else they love can have more. Sharing moments of joy and camaraderie and hope and defiance.

Eat, Drink, and Make Merry Exchange 2020

General info

Requested fandoms

Post a comment in response: