CANDY HEARTS EXCHANGE LETTER

Hello to whoever gets me!

Thank you so much for writing something for me! This is my first time doing Candy Hearts, and I'm so excited! I can't wait to see

Likes: I love stories with

• angst
• yearning
• unrequited pining
• earned happy ending
• unhealthy relationships (with or without growing into healthy ones)
• dubious consent
• power imbalances
• selfish and determined female characters
• characters who are too selfless for their own well-being
• enemies to lovers
• character studies
• 5 + 1
• angsty smut along the lines of that one tumblr post that goes, “the plot of this smut fic is that character A believes himself abandoned by God."
• fairy tale retellings
• animal metaphors
• soulmate aus
• timeloop aus
• historical accuracy
• loss of innocence
• corruption
• loyalty
• tender face touches
• hand kisses
• arranged marriage
• marriage of convenience
• unreliable narrators
• people having to make hard choices
• disability
• and any relationship that could be categorized as "fucked up tender."
  

DNWs: Voluntary, self-inflicted amputation, miscarriages, anal sex, character bashing, and modern aus.

 

Fandom: A New Leaf (1971)

 

Characters Requested: Henrietta Lowell | Graham, Henry Graham

Fandom Promo Post: https://candyheartsex.dreamwidth.org/15846.html?thread=354022#cmt354022

Prompts: I really want something focused around Henry and Henrietta's marriage post-canon. I want to see them working at the university together! Or just domestic life! Anything with them honestly. I adore them, and I want more! I'd also love Henrietta POV of when she realizes that Henry planned to kill her, and why she does what she does. Basically anything involving them I'd be super happy with.

I'm also super obsessed with how Henry continually caretakes her appearance, cutting off tags, brushing off lint, sorting out which way a garment is gone. I think it's both sweet and also makes me go!!! I'd love to see that explored in a smut context, especially with lingerie. I may be the first person to ever want smut for this movie, but I'm valid.

Fandom: Tea and Sympathy - Anderson

 

Pairings Requested: Tom Lee/Laura Reynolds
 

Fandom Promo Post: https://candyheartsex.dreamwidth.org/15846.html?thread=354278#cmt354278

Prompts: I really want to see them interact again post-canon!! I think their relationship could develop into something deeper outside of the school environment -- maybe if they meet again after Tom is done with college? What does Laura do after her divorce? How would they connect after years apart? I really think they could make it -- they have such chemistry, and I'd love to see them more. Also the Candida references in the original play -- if you find a way to keep that going, I would love that. I'd really love to see a happy ending for them!

Alternatively, if you want to write what happened immediately after "Years from now, when you speak of this, and you will, be kind," I would most certainly not be opposed to that at all. I think them sleeping together would be so achingly tender and satisfying after so much build up.

Fandom: Oklahoma! (Rodgers/Hammerstein)

 

Pairings Requested: Jud Fry/Laurey Williams (Oklahoma! - R/H), Gertie Cummings/Ali Hakim (Oklahoma! - R/H)
 
Fandom Promo Post: https://candyheartsex.dreamwidth.org/15846.html?thread=354278#cmt354278

Prompts: Although Curly and Laurey are sweethearts and are wonderful for each other--I have fallen hopelessly for Jud/Laurey. They never quite understand the other, just keep hurting each other, and it's so delicious to explore. I so badly want an ending where it doesn't quite turn out so tragic for them. I think Laurey and Jud are fascinating both as individuals and in terms of their relationship. Laurey is both longing for intimacy yet frightened of it; Jud desperately needs intimacy but has been cut off from it his entire life. Laurey is scared of him, yet, despite herself, intrigued by him. Jud is a danger to both himself and others, but he’s also so tragic and childish in parts. Laurey uses him for her own gain, and it blows up in her face, which is fascinating to think about. Where Laurey’s dreams are sexual and intense, Jud’s are as simple as wanting to be respected and having his wife hold him. They never come to a point where they understand the other in canon, even in that brilliant confession scene (which I think is the best written scene in the show.) Though I love Curly/Laurey, Jud/Laurey is what haunts me and has me staying up late to obsess over.

In contrast to the heaviness of Jud/Laurey--I want to know more about Gertie Cummings/Ali Hakim! How does she trick him into marrying her? Can he find fulfillment running "papa's store?" Can Gertie, with her smarts, help with that? Could they make the horrific precursor to Walmart in 1900s Oklahoma? Can they find love in their odd situation? Will Gertie ever learn his real name? I first started thinking more seriously about them as a joke, and now I adore them.

 

Fandom: Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones

Pairings Requested: Seb Leroy/Polly Whittacker

I've read this book several times throughout my life, but it was only with the last read that I found my heart aching for Seb. He is the awful older boyfriend in Polly's life, and he sucks real bad--but he's also a kid trapped in a terrible situation doing what he can to survive. Even if that means hurting her. He's a mirror to Tom in a way, except Tom gets to escape and Seb does not. I've been haunted by the quote "Seeing Seb's jeering face, it came to her that Seb had always loved her the way most people bear a grudge," for some months now.

I want something exploring Seb and Polly's relationship, be that as them starting a real romantic relationship or just as ships passing through the night. There's so much horrible and complicated there--I want more. I'd be intrigued if it was an au where Seb does not get trapped the way he does, but I'd also be interested by something canon compliant.

DNWs: No Tom bashing please. It's okay if in the pov of Seb or Polly they hate or don't like him, but no authorial bashing, if that makes sense.

Fandom: The Princess Bride - William Goldman

Pairings Requested: Buttercup/Prince Humperdinck (Princess Bride - Goldman)

This year, a friend of mine convinced me to reread the book version of The Princess Bride--because she had found herself fascinated by Buttercup & Humperdinck's dynamic. I too have become just as fascinated. Goldman skims over the months they spent together, and I long to read the sections he abridged from Morgenstern! I like how they're both pragmatics, in a way, and how they contrast in that. I like how they're both horse people, but in horribly different ways (I'd love to read something where he tries to gift her a horse.) I want to read them having loveless sex that is nevertheless explosive and super hot, even as they're both intellectually elsewhere. For The Good Of The Country sex is always wonderful. I want to read a bad end where Wesley fails, and how Buttercup survives despite that. I think a lot about this line "I wonder if she hunts, though," said Humperdinck. "I don't care so much about personality, just so they're good with a knife." So knifeplay is DEFINITELY on the table as a prompt. I also think forever and always about this.

"I'll never love you."
"I wouldn't want it if I had it."
"Then by all means let us marry."

Fandom: Doctor Who (1963)

Pairings Requested: Vicki Pallister/Steven Taylor (DW 1963), Jamie McCrimmon/Victoria Waterfield (DW 1963)

I started watching All Of Doctor Who with a friend (I'm currently up to season 5!) and I'm enjoying it so much. I've especially fallen for the above pairings!

I'm so sad we didn't get more time with Vicki and Steven (I'm still upset about Vicki's exit!) I love their banter, and how they're both slightly mean with each other in a very good natured way. I would love just more of that. I also think a lot about how Vicki grew up very isolated--and here is this very good-looking boy, a little bit older than her, who she spends every day with for months probably. I think she should get to explore with him, and he should initially put her off, and then get too tempted and fall into it with her. I also think a lot about how Vicki becomes Cressida, and Steven is called Diomedes--and in the play Troilus and Cressida, Cressida is unfaithful to Troilus with Diomedes. I want a different ending to Vicki's final serial so badly! I also think it would be fascinating to have Steven, fed up with the doctor, having seen two women die in front of him, and one get left in a very turbulent time period, yell at the doctor and go no, fuck no, I'm not leaving Vicki, I'm going back for her. I love them. :(

I think Jamie and Victoria are so cute!! I just love how they bounce off of each other. I love how Victoria's first established with almost fairy tale vibes, and then how a lot of season 5 has serials that take influence from classic horror films. I think it would be fun to play with those tropes! I also love how they're almost from the same general time period and location--but not really. I think culture shocks could be fun for them! I also just love how she clings onto him whatever chance she gets.

DNWs: The last serial I finished is The Web Of Fear, so please, no explicit spoilers for anything past that point! I don't know how either Jamie or Victoria leave the show, so I'd like to be unspoiled for that.

Fandom: The Fantasticks - Schmidt/Jones

Characters Requested: El Gallo (The Fantasticks), Luisa (The Fantasticks)Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)

Pairings Requested: Xander Harris/Buffy Summers

Of all the pairings I could love most on this show, for some reason, it ended up being Xander/Buffy! I love the initial tension between how they're genuinely very good friends with a good rapport and Xander's dumb teenage boyness. I love how later that grows and steadies. I love that moment where Xander is lying in his bed huffing because he got rejected--and then he is the one to go ask Angel for help, even taking a cross with him, because he loves Buffy truly, outside of just a crush, a true love for her. I love the moments when they are dumbass4dumbass. I love how Xander is aware of her capacity for violence almost from the start. I think about how Xander is the one to bring Buffy back over and over again--I'm haunted by this parallel with 2x01 and 2x04 (https://pureanonofficial.tumblr.com/post/715887796367278080/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-2x01-2x04).  I love when Xander makes Buffy laugh with his silly jokes. I want them to dance together, genuinely, without the When She Was Bad stuff! I'm haunted by how the show doesn't ever address what happened in The Pack. I would love to see them address it, especially why it doesn't seem to effect their friendship going forward. (And if you wanted to make it worse--where hyena!Xander goes farther, and then human!Xander has to deal with the guilt of that--I would be extremely down.) I also love them post-canon, with both their partners dead, having to find their place in the world. Maybe learning to co exist in peace together. Maybe not the romance of a lifetime--but something solid, something there. Something they can rely on when the chips are down. And that's what they are to each other.

Fandom: Emily of New Moon - L. M. Montgomery

Pairings Requested: Dean Priest/Emily Byrd Starr (LMM)

Dean and Emily--I am haunted for them forever. I don't think I'll ever be normal about them. I can't get over how they talk and interact together--kindred spirits almost, but separated by their different desires. I love how they're the LMM couple with the most sexual magnetism, how they're the couple where sex is most explicitly mentioned with them (how much Dean thinks about not kissing her, how Emily is warned that the Priests have twins, the intensity between them always). I want something different for them than canon. I think a lot about how Emily could possibly live in the house they built together without being constantly reminded of him--Teddy strange and out of place in the world that Dean built for her. I think about Emily living in Montreal, hating it, longing for home--the home DEAN built. I think about how they could have wandered the world together. I think about them having children--Emily's mixed feelings on that, Dean's pride (man with a breeding kink I gotta say--and how they could possibly create a happy home together. I think of Emily's writing, of Dean keeping in contact with her solely through reading her work. I think of what could have happened if Emily hadn't healed fully, if Emily had been disabled, if Dean and Emily at last found an equal ground in that. Dean is shaped so by disability, and so I always wonder if perhaps they could have. I also think about what could have happened if Dean broke his restraint and kissed her in their engagement--would he have won her? Would he have been able to stop at a kiss? Or what if Emily, concerned by his lack of taking liberties, kissed him first? What if they married while she was still uncertain? How long would it take to find happiness? I know they would--but it might take some time.

I adore them utterly and completely.

Fandom: The Fantasticks - Schmidt/Jones

Pairings Requested: El Gallo (The Fantasticks)/Luisa (The Fantasticks)

What I find most fascinating about the show is Luisa and El Gallo's relationship. El Gallo is both the narrator and the villain -- Luisa is young and "incurably insane," in the way young people are, and is fascinated by bandits and the romance that they present. And El Gallo's job is to be the villain that hurts her, and forces her to grow up -- only, only that becomes increasingly distasteful to him as he knows her. She breaks through the mask of the villain to what he is underneath. He is not bad, merely playing a role -- but that role begins to hurt him as well as her. And he kisses her upon the eyes, and tells her he will return, and the story must be played out, and the girl must be left, and the villain must hurt her, but that does not mean it does not hurt him too.

I want anything that involves them interacting more. I think their dynamic is just so utterly compelling, and anything that involves them will interest me.

Some vague ideas I have include El Gallo remembering Luisa as he wanders through other stories. Something about her spoke past the villain facade, past the narrator role, all the way through to the human heart of him. That would leave a mark. Especially since he has her mother’s necklace. I also like the idea of El Gallo sticking around for a while, while Matt wanders, and he and Luisa striking up a romance/friendship. I’d love for the lines between the story and reality to blur a bit, as El Gallo puts the story on hold in order to be with Luisa longer. I’d also love to see them get to wander the world, have a “lovely, real romance,” as they say in Round and Round. Escape the narrative, together! Also anything exploring the vibes of Round and Round could be so fun. The show really has big Labyrinth vibes there, and I think that’s horribly intriguing.

Fandom: Grease - Jacobs & Casey & Farrar

Pairings Requested: Sandy Dumbrowski/Kenickie (Grease - J & C & F)

I know this is an oddball pairing, but I do think they have so much potential. In a way, they're both the most mature of their respective groups, and I like how they're both concerned for the other one's feelings? In the original Broadway script, which is the version I like of the show (not very fond of revisions or the movie) Kenickie says to Rizzo "Come off it, Rizzo. Whattaya tryin' to do, make us think she's like you?" And Sandy says "Do you really believe that? Didn't you see Kenickie's face when he left here?" They notice each other, in an interesting way. Kenickie also seems to be one of the few who doesn't think Sandy would be better if she was like all the other Pink Ladies. The makeover at the end of the show, unsurprisingly, bothers me, especially because Danny quit the track team. I'd love to see Sandy discover she really doesn't want to be Danny's dream girl, and come into her own--and if Kenickie is involved in that, well. He's no good but he's not as bad as Danny. I think there's hope for him yet. I also think about how Kenickie was ready to step up if Rizzo was pregnant--and I think about how Danny might not do the same for Sandy. I'd love to see a marriage of convenience situation with them. I'd love to see them carve out a life together.

DNWs: Please don't set this story in California like the movie did; Grease is a Chicago story through and through!