the_wavesinger | Canon Ball

Dear Canon Ball Creator,

So hi, dearest creator. I’m so sorry about the delay in posting this, I will totally understand if you go ODAO given how late this letter is.

I’ve requested both art and fic, for all my requests, and there are no prompts for specific relationships, but a loooong list of likes instead.

If you want to know more about me , I’m The_Wavesinger, the-wavesinger and The Wavesinger (Silmarillion Writers’ Guild) on my fannish haunts. You can also find me here on DW, and as the_wavesinger on LJ, but I don’t frequent those places often. I If you want more on my fic preferences (however unlikely that is, after this very long letter!), my fic rec tag on Tumblr and my AO3 bookmarks may be of some use, and for art, my art and fan art tags on Tumblr may be of some use You may also want to poke through my previous exchange letters.

DNWs:

Unrequested genderswap (i.e. please don’t genderswap non-requested characters unless I’ve specified in optional details)
Gore/guro/vore, necrophilia.
Torture of animals. (Humans/humanoids/other sapients being tortured is more than fine!)
Graphic descriptions of nausea/vomiting.
Reader inserts.
Mundane AUs, unrequested depowered/non-powered AUs, unrequested modern AUs.
Non-femslash A/B/O; femslash for this trope is fine!
Crossovers/fusions between fandoms I haven't asked for. (Crossover within any fandom in my letter or previous exchange letters, along with mythology and folklore, are more than fine!)
Please no age regression, de-ageing, or AUs in which one character is suddenly older than a previously older-than-them character (ageswap?).
Girl!penis. (Trans characters are fine, just please no inexplicable g!p.)
For smut, I'd prefer not to see bloodplay, scat, watersports, age play (including daddy/mommy kink), and any sort of permanent marking/scarring/body modification (scarring and permanent markings outside smut is perfectly fine) unless I've prompted these things for the specific pairing.
H/C fics centering on characters with depression and/or anxiety, and/or characters who self-harm or have eating disorders are not my favourite thing. (All of these things are more than fine in non-H/C fic, but not as things which can be hugged/cuddled better, please.)
Unrequested relationships. (Canon relationships and background relationships are fine unless otherwise indicated.)
Unrequested parent/child incest.
Extreme underage (pre-pubertal children), unrequested smut for underage relationships
Anachronistic discussions of sexuality and/or characters lecturing other characters on SJ issues.

General Likes:

Tropes, Genres, and (for fic) Story Elements

Angst. Drama. Politics. Tragedy.
Philosophical ponderings!
I love canon divergence AUs, and For Want Of A Nail and other what-if scenarios. I'd love both longer fic (for fic) and art/ficlets as snapshots of what could have been, all the things that could've happened, but didn't.
Soulmates! Not necessarily soulmate AUs (although that'd be more than fine), but soulmates as in 'I knew you the moment I saw you', or 'I felt you in my soul' or any other version of that—the electric connection is something I adore. Soulmate things I love include in every version of every reality, in another life, fated to be separated again and again.
Regency AUs.
Fake dating within the canon setting.
Arranged marriage within the canon setting.
Time travel and time loops, especially timefuckery where everything is fucked up!
(For femslash only) A/B/O
In-world mythology.
Cultural differences and clashes that occur due to cultural differences.
Worldbuilding in general.
Battle couples!
Lovers to enemies.
Enemies to lovers.
Trope subversions.
I have A Thing for sister/sister, and focusing on the sister aspects of the relationship—how they're alike and how they're different, and just how they're sisters.
Competence porn!
I also adore people being messes and general failboats, because, uh, contradictions?
I have zero problems with fics dealing with misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism etc. I like realism, but not overly-depressing fics or fics centered on issues at the expense of characterization. (I define 'overly-depressing' as continuous angst focusing on Issues and Only Issues.)

Tone, Setting, and Miscellaneous Things

Characters dancing and spending time outdoors.
Characters in situations that shouldn't be funny, but are.
Characters who're comfortable around each other, and who tease and laugh with each other.
Slice-of-life fics and, for relationships, a look at all the quirks/annoyances of cohabitation.
Banter! I feel like I've repeated this a million times in this letter, but I adore banter!
Casual situations and everyday annoyances
Drama interspersed with humor.
Characters sleeping on each other, making out for hours, drinking from the same cup, and generally being cohabit-y.
Characters solving mysteries and going on journeys together!
Bittersweetness.
All the hard questions with no answers, characters trapped in unsolvable dilemmas, loss and grief and moving on.
Gallows humour, and humour in otherwise dark situations generally.
And just humour in general.
And if you want to go in the crack-y direction, I wouldn't mind that as well!
I adore OFCs and textual ghosts, for many, many reasons.
I'm more than fine with most side relationships, unless stated otherwise.
Transgender characters would be amazing, as would non-binary characters and just fucking with and/or ignoring traditional gender roles in general.

Character and Relationships Dynamics.

Characters who and relationships which fall just short of the mark, the almost-most-not-quite. I think the closest word to this would be hamartia in its original sense?
Hurt, and not necessarily comfort.
Fucked-up families and messy friendships which really, really aren't good for the characters, but they love each other very much anyway. I don't mind either characters finding ways to move past the fucked-upness and the relationships end up flourishing, or moving past fucked-up-ness and leaving what they don't want behind, but I also don't mind a constant cycle of messing up.
Found families!
Intense friendships which play a central role in the characters' lives.
For longer works, plotty fics are always welcome!
Stoic and/or emotionally incompetent characters
Characters finding ways to come to terms with themselves, with their pasts, and with their loved ones and/or finding their place in the world (think Circle of Life).
Characters who're broken, characters who're tired, characters who're lost, characters who refuse to be found, characters who're hurt over and over again, characters who never ever win, characters who've given up. And characters who love, characters who give, characters who're selfless and kind even after everything they've been through, characters who give their all and then some more to people they love, characters who never give up, characters who keep on hoping and keep on fighting even beyond the bitter end. And characters who're a mixture of both types.
I love characters with flaws and unpleasant qualities! Awesome ladies can be awesome and flawed :).
I like relationships that are fated to end in tragedy, but I also really don't mind a pinch of humor with my angst, if that's your thing.

Stylistic Things for Fic

I like all kinds of fic, so go wild—linear narrative, flashbacks, epistolary…whatever you think of is lovely, the more daring the better. I especially adore faux-historical documents and faux academia.
Relatedly, interactive fiction!
Characters teasing and bantering with each other.
I don’t mind any type of POV (including second person!). In fact, POV switches and outside POVs on relationships would be lovely.

Smut Likes

I will always want F/F or M/M smut, even if I haven't explicitly requested it! Femsub is preferred for F/M D/s smut, though I'm down for femdom if that's your thing, too.
I prefer a balance between sensuality, emotions, and physical sensations. Anything from playful to creepy is more than fine (although there are a few things I'd prefer not to see, as outlined in the kink DNWs).
Helplessness and humiliation. These are the two main things I love in kinky smut, and everything else derives from there.
Bantering and laughing during sex is lovely, as is gentleness.
And banter between the dom and the sub in D/s scenes (which can edge towards slightly cruel on the dom's part!).
Angry sex/hatesex, smut that gives off vibes of slightly creepy but in a way that can't be pinpointed
Dubcon and emotional manipulation!
Explorations of power dynamics. I especially like service submission, and power dynamics based on the characters' titles/positions! (I do confess to having a kink for honorifics and titles!)
Doms having control over the sub's everyday minutiae (although for short periods of time—24/7/365 high-protocol D/s is a turn-off)
Punishment play, especially unusual forms of discipline! (I don't like erotic spanking in and of itself, but spanking as punishment is great! And whatever interesting punishments you can come up with.)
Corner time, especially kneeling on rice/somehow having to display themselves/after a spanking.
In general, being put on display/having to put themselves on display.
Tickling! Both playful tickling and tickle torture (bondage + tickling = yessss).
Gags and other ways to prevent speech. And weirdly specific, but fingers of one character in the other's mouth.
Groping, especially pulling breasts out of tops (and sometimes letting them just hang there, if you're into humiliation).
Orgasm denial, especially chastity devices.
Fuck-or-die scenarios.
Creative bondage (including predicament bondage. No, strike that, especially predicament bondage, and especially if the predicament is partly psychological).
Similarly, ordering a partner to stay still/hold a certain pose.
Incest kink.
Hairpulling.
Directed masturbation (one character instructing the other how to masturbate).
Dirty talk (including long distance dirty talk).
Navels, inner things, ribs, and kinks for these body parts.
(Not really a like, but I'm afraid my AO3 bookmarks won't say much about my smut likes, because I have a separate account for smutty bookmarks. Sorry.)

Darker Likes

Dark places and enchantments which entrap people without their knowledge
Getting lost in creepy surroundings
Corruption and decay
Explorations of the darker side of magic (or its equivalent), especially magic that's considered 'good'.
Exploration of the supernatural aspects of the canons.
Nature being eerily alive and dangerous.
Child soldiers, trauma, and really ugly, messy wars.
Characters trapped in vicious cycles.
Characters who think they're 'not good enough' for their partner(s).
Situations where characters are blackmailed/coerced into doing things they don't want to do.
Fucked-up families and friendships and relationships; people codependent to the point of almost-insanity, and far beyond anything healthy.
Looking into messed-up characters' thought processes.
Terrible things being done in the name of good by characters who see themselves as good.
Perversion of the 'good' side of magic to do evil things.
Mindfucks and powerplay.
Torture for the sake of torture, and characters being stoic through torture.
Noncon. I like both works focused on sexy (for fic and art purposes) noncon as well as more seriously-dealt with noncon and noncon aftermath.
Pregnancy due to F/F or M/M noncon.
Badtouch that doesn't lead to noncon, it's just there and creepy. (Especially when coupled with emotional fuckery and mindgames.)
Relationships where one characters is in love, but the other isn't.
Partners doing terrible things to each other.
Characters who hate themselves and lash out at the world and do fucked-up things as a result.
Really, really dark stories which end in the 'everyone dying' sort of tragedy.
AUs where everything goes wrong.
For darkfic especially, I love outsider PoVs—it makes everything 100% more terrible for me.

Art-Specific Likes and Prompts

I adore all kinds of jewellery—the more elaborate the better!
And elaborate hairdos! And elaborate clothes! And elaborate makeup!
I do, however, also enjoy seeing characters in their workaday attire, doing everyday things.
Characters with visible height differences from each other!
Elaborate weapons
In-universe art. (Famous portraits, posters for events, propaganda/health-and-safety leaflets, handwritten notes, maps etc.)
In-universe statues and tapestries and architecture
Court settings with pomp and circumstance or everyday life are both things I enjoy seeing.
I also enjoy seeing outdoor settings. Lakes, mountains, spooky forests, bustling cities, rivers, tiny hamlets, cottages, forests...
Specific canon locations (like the Withywindle for Tolkien, the Spirit World for A:tLA etc.)
Studies in opposites
Limited palettes
Non-traditional art mediums would be welcome.
Characters doing things they love together (I know this sounds very pairing-specific, but I'd lovelovelove this for friends and/or parents and children and/or siblings, too).
Ceremonies and events (coronations, balls, feasts, weddings etc.)
Picnics, garden parties, outdoor events, riding, hunting etc.
Characters arguing or debating with each other.
Starlight and warm colors and pastels.
Colour palettes that fit the character (golds and greens for Goldberry in Tolkien, for example, or shades of red for Natasha Romanov in MCU)
Characters passionate with and about each other and about things they love
Seasonal settings (falling leaves or snowed-over land or flower-filled meadows or golden fields etc.)
Characters fighting and having each other's backs, and, for A:TLA, bending!
Bloodied and bruised characters leaning on each other on on the nearest available upright surface after a hard battle
Characters facing each other across the battlefield (especially friends-turned-enemies)
Gift-giving, both literal and metaphorical
Characters reading or writing
Characters in libraries/otherwise surrounded by books
Characters who've fallen asleep (in bed, on a pile of books, sprawled across the sofa, on the floor, on another character—anywhere, any place, any time)
Characters in meetings/teams seated around tables or in lounges
For modern-era canons, airports!
Characters who look messy and/or rumpled and tired and way too fucking busy why is this my life
Possessive touches (one character having their arm around another, hand at the small of back, cupping another character’s face etc)
Characters in a private moment.
Casually intimate gestures, like handholding or hands on shoulders or arms around waists/on shoulders, or just reaching out to adjust the other's clothing
Kneeling and hand-kissing for pairings where I specify loyalty kink, or for gen or shippy combinations which involve a superior and subordinate in a setting where kneeling would work
Forehead kissing!
Kissing and making out, especially making out in bed/in unusual places and/or a significant height difference between characters
Tickling and playful tussling
Day-to-day activities (eating, bathing, morning rituals etc.)
Characters being cheesy or tender or dorky or awkward with each other (or all or some of these!).
All the smutty things I've indicated in the smut section! For art especially, a visual focus on power difference (standing/kneeling, clothed/unclothed etc.), looking well-fucked and/or humiliated, straining against bondage, decorative bondage.

Other Stuff I like (i.e. a very skippable section)

Action/Adventure:fight scenes between individuals ◈ big battle scenes ◈ going on quests/missions ◈ fighting bad guys together ◈ period-typical/canon-typical weapons ◈ characters being very very good at fighting/tactics/strategy ◈ strategy and tactics in general ◈ movements of large armies ◈ end-of-the world scenarios ◈ high-stakes battles or missions ◈ covert operations ◈ supernatural elements being involved in the mix in canons with supernatural/magical elements ◈ fighting techniques ◈ plotty missionfic
Angst: musings on futility □ hopeless situations and things falling apart □ characters' flaws getting the better of them □ battles being lost □ stuck in situations without support □ forced to deceive loved ones □ unhappy endings □ everything that could go wrong going wrong □ (internalized or otherwise) homophobia □ struggles with religion/faith/belief □ ethical/moral dilemmas □ misunderstandings □ feeling unloved □ being forced to hurt loved ones and do other bad things □ having to compromise on their ideals □ Hobson's choice situations □ betrayals of trust □ star-crossed lovers or the platonic version of this □ the world changing and leaving the characters behind □ things being lost to the ravages of time
in spaaaace ◎ different canon format (eg: musicals –> TV scripts) ◎ tone changes (eg: drama to comedy, tragedy to romance) ◎ crackification ◎ adding magic/supernatural elements to canons ◎ focusing on a different aspect of a story than the canon does
Established Relationship: arguments and fights ○ vicious cycles ○ drama ○ compromising and learning to live together ○ date nights ○ banter and flirting ○ falling into bed together after a long day ○ characters organizing their lives around each other ○ unhealthy, obsessive relationships ○ smut ○ meeting the family ○ acquiring pets and/or kids and/or property
Getting Together: meet-cutes (including canon divergence AUs) ◌ angst about each others' feelings ◌ obstacles that have to be overcome ◌ A is convinced B doesn't like them ◌ characters who haven't met in canon meeting for the first time ◌ fake dating leads to real dating ◌ fucking for the greater good ◌ something makes them do it ◌ enemies to lovers ◌ friends to lovers ◌ soulmate AUs ◌ reincarnation AUs ◌ slow burn ◌ hey I just met you this is crazy ◌ one night stands to lovers ◌ angst over not being allowed to be together ◌ A has been hurt by other people in the past and has to slowly fall for B ◌ unrequited love turning requited ◌ A falls for B, who's been nursing a crush on A since forever
Hurt/Comfort: noncon aftermath ◘ torture aftermath ◘ recovering from an abusive relationship ◘ other kinds of post-abuse trauma ◘ injury aftermath ◘ characters stitching themselves together ◘ partner/other person hurting character and then comforting them ◘ PTSD (in a canon-appropriate way) ◘ contrast between current gentleness and past violence ◘ the comfort not helping with certain instinctual reactions (touch aversion, flinching, hyperawareness, hypersensitivity etc.) ◘ comforter feeling helpless in the face of comfortee's issues ◘ two hurt/fucked-up characters trying to comfort each other ◘ attempts to comfort/make things better backfiring ◘ comfortee refusing to accept comfort
miscommunication ◍ wanting different things in life ◍ wanting different things from each other ◍ betrayal ◍ lying to friends/partners ◍ arguments ◍ blow-ups that have been a long time coming ◍ deliberate miscontsructions ◍ deliberately hurting each other ◍ unintentionally hurting each other
Slice of Life: I love seeing glimpses into character's everyday lives in canon-appropriate ways. I love slice-of-life fics as insight into characters' backstories and histories, as well as as looks into their heads and as ways to figure out what's making them tick, or to make it clear that the characters' everyday lives are immensely atypical/fucked up. I also love these kinds of fic as worldbuilding vehicles.