Dear creator,
We* are very easy to please.
*Plural pronouns in this letter are because graiai is a shared account we use for exchanges: if you write for us, don’t be surprised to get two comments!

General Likes

messy relationships; unhealthy aspects of relationships not being brushed over (but the characters also not trying to fix them); relationships that by modern western standards (and maybe the standards of a large portion of the cast) would be considered unacceptable; social mores that don’t match the modern western world, and characters whose social mores don’t match each others’
“us against the world” narratives; “we were always going to end up here” narratives; “no one understands you like i do” narratives; characters making the best of their situations, not unhappy, but not living Happily Ever After, either
father/child and sibling incest (portrayed romantically), pseudo-incest between unrelated characters, mentor/protégé relationships and big-p Platonic teacher/student relationships, erastes/eromenos and dominus/deliciae relationships; age difference, size difference, experience difference, power imbalance, underage (adult/minor and minor/minor)
ideas about sex, sexuality, marriage, gender identity, etc that may differ wildly from our own ideas and between characters; historical or dated constructs of gender/sexuality; arranged marriages considered normal/not inherently abusive
medical realism and its consequences: persistent and permanent injuries, realistic and semi-realistic recovery, healing magic having limitations (and exploring what those are); not shying away from less pretty parts of sex, pregnancy, birth, or having a body in general
emphasis on character voice, characterization, motive, morals, ethics; culture clash; worldbuilding (especially specific medical and legal worldbuilding); character studies; unreliable narrators; limited POVs, outsider POVs, POVs missing context that would recontextualize events considerably

Domestic/Fluff Likes

romance: established relationships, courting, letter-writing, wedding plans, elopement, family planning; helping pregnant partner give birth, being stuck anxiously/excitedly in the waiting room while pregnant partner gives birth
domesticity: dancing together, playing instruments together/performing duets, doing arts and crafts together, playing chess together, doing tarot spreads, cooking together, helping each other dress or do makeup; tired mornings and late nights, not putting on airs for each other
slice of life: teaching partner how to dance/play an instrument/draw/paint/cook/play chess/etc; taking turns with household responsibilities (chores, childcare, etc); new/first time parents trying their best and maybe doing an okay job of it; (consensual and appropriate) public displays of affection, between lovers or friends
emotionally significant friendships and close friends/confidants; characters having people they can/do go to other than their lover (friends or supportive family); close relationships between female characters and an emphasis on the friendships of female characters; positive sibling relationships and mother/child relationships

Darker Likes

consent issues: noncon, dubcon, consensual but a bad idea, consensual but it shouldn’t be, and messy/unclear combinations of several of these; power/experience/age imbalances; somnophilia (including comatose characters), necrophilia, and possession
manipulation: gaslighting, mutual manipulation, seduction, “you’re so mature for your age” and similar ploys; unclear line between victim and aggressor, victims manipulating their abusers/assailants back; stockholm syndrome, lima syndrome, trauma bonding; chess as a mind game/power play, specifically, and chess moves portrayed as acts of violence between the players
forced intimacy: playing at domesticity, nonconsensual PDA, nonconsensual kissing, sleeping beside each other/spooning, rapist performing oral, rapist comforting victim, victim forced to comfort rapist
pain and fear kink: crying/dacryphilia, screaming, uncomfortably detailed loving descriptions of both or either, painful sex, characters in pain kinking on it, characters in pain not kinking on it (their loss!)
injuries or physical trauma: lovingly described acts of violence (consensual and otherwise), genital trauma or mutilation (perineal tearing, episiotomy, castration, fgm/c, tearing from sex, sharp object insertion), amount of blood/injury exaggerated for kink purposes, eye trauma, broken limbs, internal bleeding, childbirth related injuries and medical complications (symphysiotomy or breaking the pelvis for childbirth, broken clavicle or limbs in newborns, emergency hysterectomy, congenital birth defects, low APGAR, etc), short- and long-term medical care and aftermath of injury, trauma, or disability
dark pregnancy-related kinks/topics: (threat of) traumatic miscarriage, forced abortion, unsafe abortions (coathangers, ingesting poisons, trying to induce miscarriage through injury to self)
trouble at home: abusive, controlling, or disapproving (grand)parents, tense home environments, arguments about arranged marriages, inheritance, keeping the baby, childrearing (between parents/children or between coparents or partners)
harm to children: characters who are underage depicted in fic with appropriate neurological development for their ages and developing trauma appropriate to the events of the canon and/or the fic; child soldiers, CSA victims, etc normalizing what they’ve been through, not having the neurological development to understand the impact of events, not understanding their own feelings, enacting their trauma on other children or adults
aftermath: of rape or CSA, of abuse, of wartime or other nonsexual trauma, of injury; impact of trauma on mental and physical health; medical treatment, being forced to deal with the authorities, trying to hide trauma or ‘go back to normal’

Smut Likes

oral fixations: smoking, making out, lip biting, hickies, biting in general, finger sucking, cunnilingus, cockwarming, emetophilia (gag reflexes! morning sickness!)
hand and finger kink: manual stimulation, calluses, pinching breasts, fingering after fucking, weaponizing fingernails, fingers in mouths
intercrural, incomplete penetration/“just the tip”, eunuchs/castration, soft cock kink, small or soft cock handjobs, sex you might have the impulse to call “sex*” or “sex(?)” - where coming isn’t necessarily the goal, where the people involved may not have bodies in the traditional sense, where the people involved may not have sex drives or even understand what sex is
marking/possessiveness: bruising, comeplay, breeding kink, postpartum sex (and kinking on the physical affects of childbirth), gaping, somnophilia
blood and injury: bloody hands, bloody teeth, nosebleeds, tearing from sex or birth, menstrual blood, spotting, episiotomies, postpartum bleeding, amount of blood and injury exaggerated or (bordering) dangerous for kink purposes
romantic incest kink, dd/lg, sibcon, characters who aren’t related acting like they are for horny reasons; kinking on a character’s youth or presumed youth and physical markers typically associated with it (virginity, flat/small breasts, small cock, etc); kinking on a character’s sexual inexperience (in general, with a specific act, with another character’s gender, etc)
medfet: take everything from the general likes list about medical accuracy and apply it to pornography! partners being possessively horny at the OB-GYN, nobody but the reader being horny over lovingly detailed descriptions of medical exams, realistic birthing (but being horny about it), weirdly detailed interludes about period birth control methods? you name it, we’re probably into it

Art Likes

mediums and styles/movements: pen, pencil, charcoal, etching, woodcut, watercolor, oils, digital art, sequential art, mosaic, tapestry; art deco, art nouveau, baroque, expressionism, fauvism, precisionism/cubist realism, surrealism
color and shading: black & white, spot color, limited palettes, flat color, black-figure (greek technique); hatching, line contouring, stippling
imagery: symbolism, occult imagery (tarot, etc), historical composition techniques, pastiches of saints’ iconography for canons that play with christian imagery
subjects: (see domestic, darker, & smut likes) — technically nonsexual art that still feels kinky somehow, in your bones; hands and fingers and dynamic hand positions (playing instruments, smoking, fingers in mouths, etc); artistic and heavily stylized violence

DNWs

DNW any on-screen, referenced, or implied
- skin-related mutilation like flaying, burning, or branding
- harm to animals including meat-eating (just not mentioning what a character is eating is fine)
- shower/bath/rain sex, one character washing or grooming another non-infant character (even consensual aftercare), or onscreen bathing of any kind
- petting, brushing, or playing with hair as a form of intimacy (touching or pulling on it during sex is fine; doing someone’s hair without intimate subtext is fine)
- maternal incest or mommykink
in any capacity. If you think 'surely this isn't enough to count for the DNW', it is.
unrequested romantic relationships involving requested characters having significant screentime (mentions and past lovers appearing as bioparents are fine, but if the relationship is unrequested they should not be coparenting or considering coparenting in any capacity); rape/non-con between requested ships (IRL or in-universe legal inability to consent is fine, but characters should both consider themselves and each other consenting); unrequested trans headcanons or rule 63; cis mpreg and futanari
AUs that drastically change the setting or the core rules of the setting (modern AUs, A/B/O, soulmark AUs, etc… canon divergence AUs including pre-canon divergence points are fine)
“bad ends” (no chance at escape, mindbreak, etc); scat kink (changing a baby’s diaper is fine); onscreen, explicit sexual contact under age 10 (implied or fade to black is fine)
altered states (drugged, drunk, sex pollen, etc)
art dnws: furries and candy gore; exaggerated breast size, OTT ahegao (stuff like heart shaped pupils or gasping open-mouthed is fine), graphic depiction of unclothed erections (soft cocks ok - nonsexual nudity, castration, HRT all welcome!)

Requests

[Final Fantasy XII] Larsa Ferrinas Solidor xcons Basch fon Ronsenburg

Abuse of Authority - Do As Your Monarch Commands You
Aftermath - Aggressor believes victim enjoyed it despite evidence otherwise
Cooperation - To Avoid Hurting Aggressor
Crying - Aggressor Cries During Xcon
Intimacy - Victim Forced to Comfort Aggressor Afterward
Motive - Aggressor has normalized their own past abuse
Scenario - Victim Endures Unwanted Sex To Spare Unknowing Aggressor's Feelings

So, what we were thinking of with this one is, Basch is the new Judge Gabranth. Wonderful! Only one problem: he’s a better person than his brother was, and Larsa expects certain things from his Judge that Basch doesn’t want to give him. Not that it matters, really.

Maybe this is immediately post-game, and Larsa’s grief over Gabranth the first’s death and lack of any models for healthy boundaries and relationships get Basch in over his head. Maybe this is years on, and Larsa’s old enough now that he can understand what’s wrong here, if only Basch could admit to Larsa that he’s never been a consensual party to this.

We’re always glad to see background/past (Noah) Gabranth/Larsa, Vayne/Larsa, and/or Basch/Gabranth; if other background relationships feel useful for exploring the mental health situation here (with other canon characters or with OCs, even), go for it!

Request-specific DNW(s): Any established relationship involving Larsa portrayed as unambiguously healthy (whether or not Larsa would consider them loving and healthy).

All standard DNWs apply, but don’t worry too too much about ‘bad ends’ with this prompt—we don’t want Basch starting to believe he really is Gabranth, but it’s totally fine if he never gets out of his situation and knows as much.

[Final Fantasy XIV] Lyon rem Helsos xcons Menenius sas Lanatus

Abuse of Authority - Mentor/Trainee Relationship
Aftermath - Xcon Sexual Relationship Leads to Feelings
Attitude - Victim Unwilling to Admit They Want More
Cooperation - Society Expects Victim to Submit to Aggressor
Cooperation - Victim Tries to Make Xcon Feel Good for Aggressor
Cooperation - Victim(s) Initiate Sex to Control Encounter
Misunderstandings - Attempts at Flirting Mistaken for Threats
Motive - Victim is a Reward for Aggressor
Violence - Aggressor is less scary after Xcon

When Menenius was 15 (what appears to be Garlean age of majority) Lyon was 28. Menenius was also most likely still, eh, 4’10” on a good day, while Lyon was a close confidant of the man who pressured his father into marrying his mother and adopting him. So while today they’re clearly an old married couple, the early days of their relationship may have been a bit… messier. The tags pretty much speak for themselves here, with anything from the first months or years they were together, when Menenius might have found himself set up with a brash older mentor, with all the expectations of sexual favors therein.

Request-specific DNW(s): Lyon presented at the end as irredeemable.

[Final Fantasy XIV] Athena xcons Lahabrea

Abuse of Authority - Aggressor Takes Advantage of Subordinates
Attitude - Aggressor is totally nonchalant about xcon
Attitude - Aggressor's Morality Does Not Fit Societal Norms
Attitude - Victim Feels Honored
Cooperation - Victim's Pride Won't Let Them Say No
Dynamic - Attempting to Mutually Manipulate Each Other
Medical - Medical/Scientific Examination
Praise - Condescending
Scenario - Xcon as Part of Job Duties

We really don’t have much to say here - we love when the ancients are depicted as particularly inhuman/possibly even disembodied completely (weenwoons are cooler than tall people), so go as weird as you like; we personally like to imagine these two literally invented and then patented the concept of sex for the purpose of creating a child, so sky’s the limit. Making Athena the older of the two (Lahabrea actually taking over from his wife, the previous Lahabrea, as the first set of raids seemed to imply) would be super cool, creepy teacher/student is always beloved. These tags contain a pretty wide range of potential dynamics, so pick your favorite.

DNW any reference to/implication of either Lahabrea or Athena doing anything incestuous with Eric, please!

[Final Fantasy XIV] Unukalhai xcons Elidibus

Attitude - Victim Unsure of Own Consent
Betrayal - Aggressor realizes it's xcon in the middle of the act
Dynamic - Codependency
Inexperience - Sexually Inexperienced Aggressor
Inexperience - Victim Doesn't Know What They're Consenting To
Inexperience - Victim Doesn't Know What Sex Is
Motive - Aggressor Doesn't Know Victim is Incapable of Consent

Unukalhai as the aggressor here is such an interesting angle to explore, especially with the state Elidibus is in around 5.x. And after Pandaemonium, we feel like you could make a pretty good argument that Elidibus doesn’t know what sex is at all (no, sweetheart, Hesperos doesn’t want to be Lahabrea’s son, he wants Lahabrea to be his daddy), never mind his ‘current’ state.

Any point in the timeline here would be lovely, from the original loss of the Thirteenth up through 5.3, even a post-EW “no, he’s not dead, don’t ask how, just go with it”. Just have fun! Want to make Unukalhai a shard of Azem and so Elidibus has a weird crush he doesn’t totally understand? Go for it! Have another idea? We’d love to see it! Follow your heart.

(Canon-compliant mindbreak is totally fine here.)

[Revolutionary Girl Utena] Tenjou Utena xcons Himemiya Anthy

Archive Warnings: Underage

Aftermath - Aggressor horrified by own actions
Aftermath - Xcon Sexual Relationship Leads to Feelings
Betrayal - Aggressor doesn't realize victim feels obligated to offer sex
Betrayal - Aggressor is unaware it's xcon and victim tries to shield them from the truth
Betrayal - Aggressor realizes it's xcon in the middle of the act
Coercion - Victim Goads Partner Into Xconning Them
Dynamic - Aggressor and Victim Have Romantic Feelings For Each Other
Inexperience - Aggressor doesn't know what sex is
Magic - Spell/curse makes victim unable to say no to sex even when they want to
Motive - Aggressor Doesn't Know Victim is Incapable of Consent
Scenario - Aggressor never finds out it's xcon
Scenario - Victim Endures Unwanted Sex To Spare Unknowing Aggressor's Feelings

There’s a lot of overlap between this and the other request (Anthy xcons Utena), and we’re also more than glad to see a sort of mutual lack of respect or understanding of consent. I’d say ‘boundaries’, too, but what boundaries? This ship doesn’t have boundaries.

We love all of the messy potentials of aftermath, all of the awful things that can come from Anthy’s role as the Rose Bride (is her obedience and tractability just centuries of abuse at work, or is she actually magically bound to whatever her betrothed wishes?), all of the super weird symbolism and dreamsharing stuff RGU really lets you go ham with.

We’re always glad to see background ships! Akio ships, Utena/Wakaba, etc…

For this fandom’s purposes, Hanahaki and other soulmate AU type tropes do not constitute DNW breaking so long as they aren’t a normal, everyday thing: e.g., Anthy can get Hanahaki Disease, but it shouldn’t have an entry in the encyclopedia. We’re also fine with Altered States - Dream Sex specifically where requested.

[Revolutionary Girl Utena] Himemiya Anthy xcons Tenjou Utena

Aftermath - Xcon Sexual Relationship Leads to Feelings
Altered States - Dream Sex
Arousal - Victim's First Orgasm is During Xcon
Attitude - Victim Unsure of Own Consent
Attitude - Xcon Makes Victim Aware of Own Previously Unrealized Feelings
Dynamic - Aggressor and Victim Have Romantic Feelings For Each Other
Inexperience - Aggressor takes advantage of virginal victim's lack of knowledge about sex & consent
Inexperience - Victim Doesn't Know What Sex Is
Motive - Aggressor has normalized their own past abuse
Motive - To Prove Victim Means Nothing to Aggressor
Motive - Training Victim for Future Sex
Oral - Aggressor Performs Cunnilingus
Scenario - "You xcon them or I will"
Scenario – Xconned While Severely Injured

There’s a lot of overlap between this and the other request (Utena xcons Anthy), and we’re more than glad to see a sort of mutual lack of respect or understanding of consent. I’d say ‘boundaries’, too, but what boundaries? This ship doesn’t have boundaries.

We’re a little obsessed with the up-to-thousands-of-years age difference on this ship, especially with how terribly naive Utena is, and Anthy for her part doing absolutely nothing to help Utena become more informed or better equipped to handle the world she’s in. Might Anthy take advantage of a fiancee who seems to have no plans to use her, and for once prioritize her own pleasure and interests? Or - especially if there’s magic underpinning the Rose Bride’s obedience - using fae-style exact words to twist a curious or experimental Utena’s orders into something more to her liking? To say nothing of the finale or postcanon - what more might have happened that we didn’t see? And what state was Utena left in - does she even remember Ohtori Academy and Anthy, back in the real world? We love these two as an endgame ship, don’t get me wrong, but to quote Marie Kondo, we love mess. :)

We’re always glad to see background ships! Akio ships, Utena/Wakaba, etc…

Hopefully you found something here that caught your eye!

With love,
graiai

CIEX 2022 Letter

Requests

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