Chocolate Box

Chocolate Box is a gift exchange where participants are matched based on ships. They then produce either fanfiction or fanart; Chocolate Box is a low-effort exchange modeled after Trick or Treat, so fanfiction produced as a main assignment only has to be 300 words and fanart only has to be "a nice sketch that is not on lined paper."Chocolate Box Round 1 announcement on Fandom Calendar
Gift reveals take place on Valentine's Day, February 14. Chocolate Box is the second-largest multifandom exchange (Yuletide being the largest), with more than 600 participants taking part in 2020.
==History==
The anon meme fail_fandomanon has a reoccurring thread for discussing bangs, fests, and exchanges, where many multifandom exchanges have started. The multifandom exchange Trick or Treat started up in 2014 because of a discussion in that thread, and after it was over a nonnie wished for a similar exchange in the spring, specifically suggesting "something Valentine's day-ish"Nonnie on November 8th, 2014, here and several other nonnies agreed that that sounded like a great idea. Trick or Treat's 300 word minimum was cited as desirable, specifically, and maybe a theme of love, although one nonnie noted that this hypothetical exchange should be sure to allow "threesomes and gen",Nonnie on November 8th, 2014, here noting that ideally it would "not limited to ship fics even if the overall theme is love. It could allow friendship, parental love, love between siblings, creepy obsessive stalkers with one-sided fixation on someone etc."
The idea didn't take off until after the 2015 round of Trick or Treat, when nonnies in the ToT postmortem thread on November 7, 2015 again discussed wanting an exchange like ToT but for ship matching instead of character matching.
It started with one nonny saying:
This subthread received 69 comments from other nonnies who were enthused at the prospect of being able to match on ships and eager to discuss what the Valentine's Day exchange might look like. One nonnie suggested that it be called "Valentine Box"Nonnie on November 7th, 2015, here. but another suggested Chocolate Box, "Where every little fic is a delicious candy."Nonnie on November 8th, 2015, here. Another nonnie added, "And you never know what you're gonna get!"Nonnie on November 8th, 2015, here.
On November 14, a nonnie replied to the Bangs, Fests, & Exchanges subthread Exchanges You Want To See saying:
Two other nonnies replied that they'd also like to see the exchange but couldn't run it, and then a third nonnie said:
It turns out that that was exactly what nonnies would like, especially if they could request just & or just / tags for matching. In the same thread there was also a desire for a more general crossover pairing exchange that would allow & and / matching, because "Crossovering only matches on fandoms within a group. ShipSwap and Rarepairs allow crossover ships, but it's only romance and the odds of matching on those requests are very low."Nonnie on November 14th, 2015, here. This is a desire that Chocolate Box would eventually fill, as on the 16th of November, the nonnie who would become chocoboxmod came back to the BFE thread to make a Chocolate Box subthread that started with this post:
The subthread received 80 replies, including the Fandom Growth Exchange mods chiming in to say that the Chocolate Box mod wouldn't have to worry about maxing out the servers during matching.Nonnie on November 16th, 2015, here. The mod confirmed poly relationships and gen groups of more than two characters would be allowedNonnie on November 16th, 2015, here. and expanded the nomination period to start on December 20 to allow for the more complex wrangling involved with & and / tags.Nonnie on November 16th, 2015, here. When nominations opened, there was some confusion about if Chocolate Box was a female-oriented exchange because it had come up in a thread earlier in the month about Galentine's Day not running.This thread on December 20th, 2015.
==Rounds & Statistics==
Chocolate Box has had five rounds which have used 998 distinct fandom tags and produced 3,843 works as of the beginning of June, 2019. In 2023, Chocolate Box did not hold a round, and a similarly formatted exchange, Candy Hearts, ran in its place.
Round 	Fandoms	Participants	Works
Round 1 (2016)	276 	292 	617
Round 2 (2017)	354 	402 	773
Round 3 (2018)	441 	495 	1142
Round 4 (2019)	534 	621 	1307
Round 5 (2020)	504 	618 	1280
Round 6 	512 	585 	1090
Round 7 (2022)	517 	563 	1133
===Round 1===
Round 1 ran on this schedule:
* Nominations: 20–29 December
* Signups: 1–7 January
* Assignments go out: by 10 January
* Posting deadline: 7 February
* Story reveal: 14 February
* Author reveal: 21 FebruaryChocobox Round 1 Profile
Most popular fandoms, based on fic written:
Fandom 	Works	Notes
Tolkien 	46 	Especially The Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings
Star Wars 	43 	Especially The Force Awakens
Marvel Cinematic Universe	32 	Especially Captain America Movieverse and Jessica Jones
Harry Potter 	24 	Mostly marked gen and/or m/m
Original Work 	22 	
Professional Wrestling 	19 	Especially World Wrestling Entertainment
The signup summary has a breakdown of fandoms by requests/offers.
Most popular ships, based on fic written:
Ship 	Fandom 	Works
Leia Organa/Han Solo 	Star Wars 	8
Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter 	Hannibal 	5
Lestat de Lioncourt/Louis de Pointe du Lac	Vampire Chronicles	4
Harold Finch/John Reese 	Person of Interest	4
Irene/Eugenides 	The Queen's Thief 	4
===Round 2===
Round 2 ran on this schedule:
* Nominations: 20–29 December
* Signups: 1–7 January
* Assignments go out: by 10 January
* Posting deadline: 7 February
* Story reveal: 14 February
* Author reveal: 21 FebruaryRound 2 Profile
The most popular fandoms, based on fic written:
Fandom 	Works	Notes
Star Wars 	88 	especially Rogue One
Yuri!!! on Ice 	41 	
Harry Potter 	39 	Including Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them
Original Work 	36 	
Marvel Cinematic Universe	29 	Especially Captain America Movieverse and Agent Carter
Star Trek 	14 	
The signup summary has a breakdown of fandoms by requests/offers.
Most popular ships, based on fic written:
Ship 	Fandom 	Works
Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov 	Yuri!!! on Ice 	7
Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus 	Rogue One 	5
Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter 	Harry Potter 	4
Original Male Character/Original Male Character	Original Work 	4
Leia Organa/Luke Skywalker/Han Solo 	Star Wars 	4
Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood 	The Mortal Instruments/Shadowhunters	4
Javert/Jean Valjean 	Les Mis 	4
===Round 3===
Round 3 ran on this schedule:
* Nominations: 18–29 December
* Signups: 1–7 January
* Assignments go out: by 10 January
* Posting deadline: 7 February
* Story reveal: 14 February
* Author reveal: 19 FebruaryRound 3 Profile
The most popular fandoms/ships, based on fic written:
Fandom 	Works	Notes
Star Wars 	121 	Mostly the Sequel Trilogy
Original Work 	116 	Mostly F/F
Marvel Cinematic Universe 	71 	
Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling	40 	
Star Trek 	22 	
The signup summary has a breakdown of fandoms by requests/offers.
Most popular ships, based on fic written:
Ship 	Fandom 	Works
Original Female Character/Original Female Character	Original Work 	17
Original Male Character/Original Male Character 	Original Work 	8
Leia Organa/Han Solo 	Star Wars 	6
Javert/Jean Valjean 	Les Mis 	6
Original Female Character/Original Male Character 	Original Work 	5
Loki/Thor 	Thor Movieverse	5
===Round 4===
Round 4 ran on this schedule:
* Nominations: 18–28 December
* Signups: 1–7 January
* Assignments go out: by 10 January
* Posting deadline: 7 February
* Story reveal: 14 February
* Author reveal: 19 FebruaryRound 4 Profile
The most popular fandoms/ships, based on fic written:
Fandom 	Works	Notes
Original Work 	97 	
Marvel Cinematic Universe 	78 	Especially the Captain America Movieverse
Star Wars 	68 	All Media Types and the Sequel Trilogy
Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling	25 	
Professional Wrestling 	20 	World Wrestling Entertainment
The signup summary has a breakdown of fandoms by requests/offers.
Most popular ships, based on fic written:
Ship 	Fandom 	Works
Original Male Character/Original Male Character 	Original Work 	24
Original Female Character/Original Female Character	Original Work 	9
Peter Parker/Tony Stark 	Marvel Cinematic Universe 	8
Hades/Persephone 	Hellenistic Religion & Lore	8
James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers 	Marvel Cinematic Universe 	7
===Round 5===
Round 5 ran on this schedule:
Nominations: 20–28 December
Signups: 1–7 January
Assignments go out: by 10 January
Posting deadline: 7 February
Story reveal: 14 February
Author reveal: 21 February
The most popular fandoms/ships, based on fic written:
Fandom 	Works	Notes
Original Work 	107 	
Star Wars Sequel Trilogy 	57 	
Marvel Cinematic Universe	60 	
Person of Interest (TV) 	25 	
Fire Emblem: Three Houses	24 	
The signup summary has a breakdown of fandoms by requests/offers.
Most popular ships, based on fic written:
Ship 	Fandom 	Works	Notes
Original Male Character/Original Male Character 	Original Work 	21 	33 Original Works were marked with the M/M category.
Rey/Ben Solo Kylo Ren 	Star Wars Sequel Trilogy 	18 	
Original Female Character/Original Female Character	Original Work 	15 	43 Original Works were marked with the F/F category.
Peter Parker/Tony Stark 	Marvel Cinematic Universe	13 	
Harold Finch/John Reese 	Person of Interest 	8 	
It is worth noting that not all Original Works were tagged with canonical ships. Although the most common OW category was F/F with 43 marks, only 15 of those works were also tagged Original Female Character/Original Female Character. There were also 12 F/M Original Works, although not enough fics were tagged Original Female Character/Original Male Character to appear on the table above.
=== Round 7 ===
Round 4 ran on this schedule:
* Nominations: 18 - 28 December
* Signups: 1-7 January
* Assignments go out: by 10 January
* Posting deadline: 7 February
* Story reveal: 14 February
* Author reveal: 19 February https://archiveofourown.org/collections/chocolatebox2022/profile
Most popular ships, based on fic written:
Ship 	Fandom 	Works
Original Female Character/Original Female Character 	Original Work 	15
Aleksander Morozova/Alina Starkov 	Shadow and Bone	9
Original Male Character/Original Male Character (13)	Original Work 	8
Sophie Beckett/Benedict Bridgerton 	Bridgerton 	7
John/Arthur Lester 	 	6
==Notes & References==
===Notes===
===References===
Category:Exchange Fandom
Category:2016 Gift Exchanges
Category:2017 Gift Exchanges
Category:2018 Gift Exchanges
Category:2019 Gift Exchanges
Category:2020 Gift Exchanges
Category:2021 Gift Exchanges
Category:2022 Gift Exchanges