Fandom 5K 2023 Letter

AO3 Username: StopTalkingAtMe

Welcome to my letter, Mystery Creator. Let me start by saying I’m open to a LOT of different things, including unrequested crossovers with other fandoms that I’m into. If I’ve ever written it or requested it or otherwise given you reason to think I’m a fan then go ahead.. And while my general likes might lean towards the bleak and angsty, believe it or not, I do also really love more light-hearted styles of fic as well as pure unadulterated smut. Do whatever you want with my prompts. I tend to use freeforms to trigger ideas and suggestions, but they are purely to give you ideas of the sort of thing I like. Use them, subvert them, or ignore them completely and go off my general likes if you’d prefer. Some of the sections here may be longer than others but please don’t read anything into that – I’d be delighted with a gift for any one of them. I’m excited to see what you come up with! :D

General Likes
Smut Likes
DNWs
The 4400 (2004)
Death Goes to School
From Beyond (1986)
House on Haunted Hill (1999)
Last Days of Pompeii
Love and a .45 (1994)
The Professionals
Re-Animator
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Would You Rather? (2012)

General Likes and DNWs

General Likes

Character studies and introspection
Loneliness and isolation
Angst
Atmospheric description, scenery porn, sensory description
World-building, backstory, and character development.
Horror.
Closed Circle - Stranded with a murderer in your midst, whether in horror or murder mystery. Think And Then There Were None.
Case-fic, whether fully realised or just touching on elements from a case.
Whump, hurt/comfort and hurt/no comfort.
Endings of all kinds, happy, bleak or bittersweet.
Canon-divergent AUs, especially post-canon ones where the bad guys win.
Pining, whether mutual or one-sided
Repression and stoicism
Descriptions of scars
Main Character Death and grief; characters getting together while still grieving for previous partners, taking solace in each other, the dead character still seeming like a presence in the relationship, etc.
Crossovers, especially oddball crossovers that come completely out of left field, although I do tend to prefer crack played straight rather than outright crack. If you have reason to believe I know and like the other fandom, then I encourage you to go for it.
Post-Apocalypse scenarios, including zombies (probably my favourite AU scenario of all time), with focus on angst and the struggle for survival.
Stranded Together With No Way Home, intense (and probably pretty damn unhealthy) relationships that come about as a result of being isolated together and trauma bonding.
Time Loops
Older characters finding love.
Age gap relationships
I really love historical detail and extensive research notes, so if that’s what you’re into then feel free to go wild. (If that’s not your thing, then please don’t worry: I am in no way an expert, and I love tropey indulgent stuff and cheerfully anachronistic fics just as much).
Hair kink. Hands pushed into hair, coiling it around fingers, routinely cutting another character's hair if appropriate in context (e.g. in post-apocalyptic scenarios), hairwashing as part of hurt/comfort, yanking head back by the hair, etc
Textiles, especially knitwear and embroidery; men in jumpers; historical and cultural details and craft in general
Unusual structures and ways of telling a story, such as Rashomon plots, non-linear narratives, outsider POVs, epistolary works, etc.
Cigarette kink: descriptions of smoking, sharing cigarettes, lighting cigarettes for each other, etc.
Finally, and I cannot emphasise this enough, men in sleepwear, particularly pyjamas and dressing gowns.

Smut Likes

Sex Pollen and aftermath, and any other kind of something made them do it scenario
Angry Sex, rough sex, hate sex, rough sex that turns tender
Clothed Sex, or clothed/naked
Comfort Sex
Dubcon when requested (mutual dubcon of the something-made-us-do-it kind is ALWAYS okay even when not explicitly requested)
Mild bondage and other forms of gentle restraint
Oral Sex, especially cunnilingus in all its forms, and ESPECIALLY cunnilingus with fingering
Rough Sex - Lots of Scratching and Biting and Hair-Grabbing/Pulling and Holding Partner(s) Down
Sex in grimy, grim, uncomfortable places
Threesomes
Situations where one character is too tired, injured etc to orgasm themselves, but takes great pleasure in making the other person come, so long as it's part of a wider give-take relationship when it comes to sex.

DNWs

A/B/O
Noncon between requested ships (Something Made Them Do It scenarios are always okay though, including Bad Guys Made Them Do It)
Dubcon involving unaroused characters
Unrequested Incest
Bestiality (monsters don't count here)
Scat and waterplay
Formalised D/s dynamics (bondage and other forms of restraint are OK)
Underage
Het anal sex
Breathplay (antagonistic choking is fine)
Fisting
Lactation kink
Any variation of the word 'come' in a sexual context spelled as 'cum' (please use 'come', 'came', 'precome' etc)

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The 4400 (2004)

Requested Ships:
Jordan Collier/Shawn Farrell
Kevin Burkhoff/Tess Doerner
Requested Freeforms:

(I understand there are post-canon novels available, but I haven’t read them yet. It’s fine to disregard them and purely go off the series.)

As I write this, I literally finished binge-watching the fourth series last night, so I’m mired in the middle of it and still trying to get my thoughts together. The wheels started to come off by the end, but on the whole I loved this weird convoluted little puzzle box of a show in its entirety, and I wish we’d got more closure about the future and the catastrophe and everything that was going to happen. Right up to the end I genuinely couldn’t predict where it was going to go and how things were going to shake out, and I just had so much fun watching it and trying to figure out what was going to happen and what the implications were.

This is one of those I love everyone in this bar kind of shows. I love all the different characters and their various relationships, Maia and Diana, Tom and Diana, Marco, and Lily and Richard, and Shawn, god, Shawn. Shawn and Maia are probably the two characters I came away loving the most: they’re both so young and complicated, and I’d be really fascinated to see how they both deal with everything post-canon. I had my doubts about Isabelle (the whole super-fast-aging eldritch baby turns out hot thing), but actually I really loved her too by the end, especially after she lost her powers.

And then there’s all the time stuff. It’s kind of superheroes-by-stealth, and I really love how it’s an upside down version of the X-Men while not being anything of the kind, and the way it focuses on the day-to-day realities of a situation like this by mostly following NTAC (and god, I ADORE Tom and Diana’s rock-solid, loving, affectionate, I-would-die-for-this-person friendship <3<3<3)

And all the fucked up time weirdness and the way it’s cosmic horror adjacent. The show even gives a nod to Lovecraft at one point and specifically to A Shadow out of Time, in which people swap minds with impossibly alien creatures from the far future, which is so fascinating giving everything revealed in the later episodes. Plus, even the supposed good guys of the future are capable of being incredibly spectacularly cruel: witness their kidnapping and erasure of Maia from the timeline, plus virtually everything about Kevin and Tess. We never really learn that much about the people from the future – on the one hand, I’d like answers, but on the other, I’m actually really glad the show ultimately left that sort of ambiguous. What I keep coming back to is that all we know about the future is what the future tells us, which has the potential to be spectacularly creepy. If you want to play with even the good guys of the future turning out to be neither as good or as human as they claim, then please do.

And time stuff: how does the butterfly affect change the original plan of the people from the future? If Isabelle was meant to destroy the 4400s and she is actively working against the plan, then what does that mean for the promicin that originated from her? Kevin even says at one point that it’s different from his. So how might things have played out if Isabelle had never been sent back and the original plan had played out with Kevin’s promicin becoming more slowly available, perhaps with fewer deaths because he’s able to figure out the compatibility test earlier?

What the hell was going on with Cassie? What parts of the plot were down to the good future people and which the bad future people? How will things play out post-series? Does Jordan actually manage to clear the interloper and what happens if he doesn’t? Play with the butterfly effect: give me a Sliding Doors style thing which explores different timelines, or a canon-divergent fic, or character studies of any of the characters. Or a future-fic which looks at what happens a significant length of time post-canon.

(And yet another goofy crossover possibility, but the nod to Re-Animator in this series delights me. If you want to do a crossover where Herbert is one of the 4400 and maybe possibly meets up with Kevin, then PLEASE DO.)

Jordan Collier/Shawn Farrell

As much as I love all the other relationships that appear in the show, the one between Jordan and Shawn is ultimately the central relationship of the show: these two as diametrically-opposed messiahs, each of them wanting to do what’s best for everyone, but ultimately ending up on opposite sides.

And they’re still like that at the end – the issue with promicin still hasn’t gone away. Jordan still wants everyone in the world to take the shot, Shawn wants to save as many lives as possible, and still has Kevin potentially developing a test to determine whether anyone taking it will be able to survive, so that conflict between them is still there. At one point it felt like the show was setting up Jordan vs Isabelle, and it kiiiinda was, but more than that what it was actually setting up was this weird, complicated push-pull relationship between Shawn and Jordan, and goddamn, am I here for seeing that explored.

And Shawn, god I love him so much. Everything he’s been through, everything he’s lost: his fucked-up relationship with Isabelle, and his brother, and the pressure on his shoulders. I forget, sometimes, watching it, just how painfully young he is, given he was still in high school at the start of the series, and the series only really unfolds over a couple of years. He’s really just a kid, but he’s had to shoulder this massive burden and responsibility while getting his heart ripped out and stamped on at every turn. Taking over the 4400 centre after Jordan’s death (and his GRIEF when that happens), and trying to steer a middle path and shift the centre away from Jordan’s extremely cult-like trappings to something more genuine, and then Jordan comes back as a kind of smug Jesus (not a complaint: what other kind of Jesus would Jordan Collier be?) and starts a whole new cult, and just… oof.

Can that middle path be steered? Which of them is right? To what extent does Jordan believe his new world heaven on earth bullshit, or is it just more of him being a businessman and creating the image he knows what everyone wants to see? I do believe he is, at least to some extent, sincere, but at the same time some part of his nature remains, and he was always manipulative and stubborn.

What exactly is this vision of the face of god he’s talking about or heaven on earth? Right up until the end I didn’t know if Jordan was going to prove to be a force for good or bad, and I still can’t tell, but then I think about his for the world being 100% promicin positive, and I think about how many deaths that means, and yeeeeeah, that probably ain’t great.

Explore any point of their relationship, from the manipulative early days when Shawn was starting to find his feet, to the later seasons where Shawn has taken over the centre and has grown more used to power and leadership. I do ship them, but also I’d be open to seeing their gen relationship explored if that’s what you’d rather too. Everything about their relationship fascinates me.

Optional Prompts

I seem to remember Matthew suggesting he knew Jordan was back before Jordan made his appearance at the wedding. What if the Marked got hold of him earlier and turned him into one of them then, so that he’s marked right from the moment he turns up. How would that change things? How does Shawn figure out that there might be a way to save him.
A fic revolving around Shawn removing the Mark from Jordan after they escape in the final episode. Does he get tempted at any point simply to let Jordan die?
I do love a nightmare post-apocalyptic hellscape so explore that all you want. Perhaps Shawn and Jordan find themselves trapped together in one of Jordan’s nightmarish visions of the future and have to work together to survive. Maybe they really are trapped, or maybe they’re shared dreams. If the latter, is Jordan behind them?
Jordan and Shawn are the subject of one of Curtis Peck’s terrible, terrible films, which predicts Jordan’s death and the identity of his murderer before Jordan is killed. Oh, and also, Jordan and Shawn are an item in the film.
A 5+1 fic exploring the way their relationship changes over the course of the show.
A Sliding Doors fic that looks at different ways the timeline could have gone. What if Jordan hadn’t been killed, or if Shawn had been able to save him?
Maia makes a prediction that not only are Shawn and Jordan going to end up on the same side, they’re also going to end up lovers.
So what if things happen differently with Danny and the promicin virus spreads beyond Seattle, so Shawn isn’t able to take him out of the picture until it’s too late? Maybe he gets kidnapped by a splinter-group who don’t agree with Jordan’s insistence that everyone has to choose to get the shot, who want to deliberately use him to infect the world. And Shawn and Jordan have to team up to rescue him (although exactly how sincere is Jordan about that? Ultimately there are always going to be some people who refuse to get the shot).
Shawn is injured and Jordan has to tend to his wounds.
What the hell was going on with Cassie and all the White Light cult stuff? Was it the result of inconvenient 4400s being sent back in the time line and still retaining some memory of what was going on?

Kevin Burkhoff/Tess Doerner

The potential for hurt/comfort is off-the-scale with these two. So much about this relationship hits me right in the id: the age gap, the protectiveness, the complete unwavering mutual devotion, the (also mutual) caretaking, the potential for guilt and grief, and just in general all the complexities of their relationship. It was made for me, and I feel so spoiled that it happened. :D

They are so, so affectionate with each other. I do kinda wish their relationship came across as a little more explicitly sexual on-screen, but I can headcanon that as Kevin feeling guilty about the age gap, which actually is canon given the moment in the penultimate episode where he tries to break up with her (I’ll settle for hugs, kisses and forehead pressing *sobs*). I am very much here for younger characters pursuing older ones and for the older characters feeling weird and guilty as hell, but they just adore each other so much, and again SPOILED. I also love the weirdness of her being so much younger than him despite having been born in the thirties.

Given the weird not-quite-superheroes vibe of this show, it absolutely cracks me up how ridiculously incongruously badass they both are. He can heal himself from any wound! She has insanely powerful mind control and can turn herself into a one-woman-army! And what do they mainly use those powers for? SCIENCE. And also (unfortunate schizophrenia-related incidents aside) protecting each other. Tess in particular is fucking terrifying. The scene where she rescues Kevin from Promisetown? Just gathering up a bunch of 4400s and using their powers for herself? They never quite explored the full ramifications of her powers or how far they spread, but yeeeeah.

And that leads me to another thing about their relationship: the sheer casual indifferent cruelty of how they came together in the first place, with Tess being sent back purely to cure his paranoid personality disorder (but only just enough so that he’s able to develop promicin; not to the point where he necessarily has good judgement or is fully capable of making ethical judgements or anything). Just, oof, how guilty would Kevin feel learning the circumstances of how he came to be healed? While the show never really touches on it, it colours so much of their relationship going forwards, and I would love to see that explored.

They also sort of act as a mirror to Lily and Richard, another couple who have been destined to be together. I mentioned the incongruousness of their powers, and there’s a weird fucked-up sort of synergy about how they seem designed to protect each other. Like, yes, okay, maybe Kevin’s invulnerability is to protect his promicin-research, but it also means that when Tess has a schizophrenic break he’s able to survive anything she does to him and he’s devoted enough to hang on in there. The more you start to tease out the implications, the more the cruelty starts to show itself.

Go with something plotty if you want, but for these two I would just love to wallow in something indulgent smut or hurt/comfort. Or just explore missing scenes – so much of their relationship development happens off-screen. And I am so, so here for tender, gentle (and maaaaaybe just slightly guilty) smut I cannot even say.

Optional Prompts

A bad guys win!AU in which Marked!Jordan Collier is removing the powers of the p-positives, while the original 4400s are being hunted down one by one. Tess and Kevin go on the run.
Their reunion after Tess gets out of hospital happens off-screen. I would love to see how that went, and how they came to be working together. There’s so much potential for everything I love here: his guilt over how he came to be cured, and the hurt/comfort as the promicin side effects get worse.
Yet another thing that happens off-screen: how they got together as a couple in the first place. Given that they kiss just after he’s sloughed off his skin, clearly something happened while he was still scarred, and oh god that DELIGHTS me. Him being so ashamed of it and not wanting her to see her like that, her being so into him anyway? Mmph.
The first time they sleep together.
Oof, that scene where he says goodbye in the hospital (the book, the kiss on the cheek, the hairtouching). It isn’t clear how much Kevin has realised at that point and whether he understands that it was Tess who cured him, but he’s a smart man: he’ll figure it out quickly. I’d love something exploring his grief and survivor’s guilt over the way things panned out (and I adore early Kevin where he’s still adjusting to being cured, spitting sunflower seeds in the general direction of the bin and not quite having shaken off his mental illness yet).
Thanks to a 4400’s ability akin to the one in No Exit, Kevin and Tess and a bunch of other people find themselves trapped in an alternate universe. Except that this one is a superhero AU, and they specifically have to use their abilities as superheroes. Mainly because I find it so amusing that the least badass people get the most badass abilities. (and it also cracks me up how the various abilities were basically magic by the end.)
They reunite after the end of the series.
Something fluffy and sweet and indulgent where another handwavey 4400 ability allows Kevin and Tess the opportunity to go back in time and give her the Sweet 16 birthday party she never got to experience. Maybe something that works along similar lines to Alana’s, so they don’t lose any time in the real world, and this is set during the penultimate episode, right before he sends her away, and it’s a little respite for them, and perhaps the other people at the party can’t see them? And it’s sweet and romantic and a little bit hot, but also sort of uncomfortable for Kevin given everything that happened in the diner.

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Death Goes to School (1953)

Requested Ships:
Detective Inspector Campbell/Miss Shepherd
Requested Freeforms:

Note: I don’t think either of them actually gets a first name at any point in canon. It’s based on a novel but I haven’t been able to get hold of a copy or find out much about it. I do semi-headcanon hers as Anne, probably because I read Cat Among the Pigeons at about the same tame and associated her with Ann Shapland (and his as Alec because of Survivors), but go with whatever you want.

This. Is. Delightful. I’m a sucker for murder mysteries with schools as the setting, so this appeals so damn hard with its closed circle-esque setting and everyone into each other’s business, and the two leads are so, so shippy and charming together, even with Campbell’s occasional sexist dickishness – he’s otherwise so sweet (the scarf he gives her at the end, and the way that whole business pans out – I’m sure he knows exactly where those pills came from.), that I can’t take his comments seriously, and they just make his dynamic with Miss Shepherd more appealing. YMMV, of course, but I can’t help thinking his pronouncements are mostly bullshit and he doesn’t mean half of it, and it’s at least partly to tease her, but then I’m wearing shipper goggles, so who the fuck knows. I love what a period piece it is too, with the way the plot depends on rationing and his precious hoarded bars of chocolate, and the way his manner towards her shifts from disinterest to respect/admiration, winding up on him asking for her help in the case. And especially the way the help she gives him is part cooperation, part competition, with her staying one step ahead of him until the end.

I’d love to see a post-canon fic, where their paths cross again, possibly involving another murder, although I should stress that I am absolutely fine with the case not being fully realised, with maybe just snippets from a case as background to the ship. I’d love to see more of their semi-competitive dynamic, with her trying to prove his chauvinistic nonsense wrong. Or skip ahead to a future where they’re in an established relationship of any kind – married, engaged, or right at the point of becoming engaged. I’d particularly love something tropey and romantic and smuttily indulgent for these two, and despite what I said about case fic a minute ago, PWPs are absolutely welcome.

Optional Prompts

cigarette kink – Ah, the 50s. When everyone and their mother was lighting up, and that includes the schoolkids. When it comes to cigarette kink, canon alone is pretty damn good to me. I love all the sexual tension descriptions and focus on smoking can provide, and the intimacy that comes from offering each other cigarettes, lighting up for each other, sharing their last cigarette, etc…
A first time, whether it be their first time together, first time as a married couple, first time as an engaged couple, first time for full sex…
Competence Kink - Rivals Are Incredibly Turned On By Each Other's Talent – I LOVE this for these two. I’d just love more of them competing with each other to solve a case, and that whole thing bringing them closer together.
"Thank God You're/We're Alive" Sex – A slightly more hazardous case leads to frantic sex, with optional get together and feelings confession.
trapped together – yep, I will never get sick of this trope as a catalyst for shipfic. Interpret this however you want, whether a very small cramped space like a wardrobe or the two of them being stranded in an isolated building. Either way, I love the awkwardness of forced proximity, especially when the sexual tension is laid on with a trowel.
In a weirdly meta-twist, the film is based on the novel Death in Seven Hours, which Miss Shepherd is pictured reading at one point (and which to my great frustration I haven’t been able to get hold of so I know nothing whatsoever about it, meaning you should feel entirely at your liberty to make shit up). Is the novel the same plot as the film? Eerily similar? Does this keep happening, with life and murder repeatedly echoing the books she reads? Maybe a romance starts developing between the characters in the books. Does this act as a catalyst or does she try to resist the inevitable?

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From Beyond

Requested Ships:
Katherine McMichaels/Crawford Tillinghast
Requested Freeforms:

Note on my DNWs: My BDSM DNW is waived when it comes to Dr Pretorius.

Well, I wasn’t expecting this to turn out to be one of the single-most hottest things I've ever seen in my life, but the whole thing is laser-targeted to my id from start to finish. It's so sexually charged, from Crawford and Katherine eye-fucking each other when they turn the machine back on for the first time, to him watching her sleep while bleakly confessing to Bubba about how he used to lie awake listening to the sounds coming from (*checks notes*) Dr Pretorius's kinky sex dungeon, to the deeply creepy and uncomfortable implications about what was going on between Crawford and Dr Pretorius pre-canon and what will be going on post-canon. Canon never quite clarifies, but it’s implied that their relationship was abusive, domineering, and dubiously consensual in *all the fucking ways.*

Crawford is exactly the kind of woobie I like, meek, damaged, and deeply traumatised, and I can’t decide if I want him to continue to suffer horribly or to actually get the chance to be happy for once. Both, ideally. I love Katherine too: she’s so single-minded and determined, and after all the shit Meg goes through in Re-Animator I very much appreciate seeing Katherine get the chance to be the scientist with dubious ethics who inadvertently fucks everyone over for once.

My OTP of OTPs for this film is Crawford/Katherine, but I also ship Crawford/Katherine/Bubba, and all the permutations of fucked-up Crawford/Pretorius/Katherine. There are so many character notes that I really, really love: like Crawford taking the bed in Dr Pretorius's room, having presumably given Katherine his own bedroom because it's the gentlemanly thing to do even though it's possible to infer that some very, very unpleasant things have happened to him in Pretorius’s room. Or that moment early on where she strokes his hair tenderly and then sends him off to get an CAT scan while he desperately begs her not to. Their relationship is such a mix of genuinely sweet and deeply uncomfortable, and it leaves me wondering if perhaps she reminds Crawford subconsciously of Pretorius, and that's part of why he's attracted to her (and oh god that's the creepiest fucking thing). Also, hot fucking damn, that *kiss*.

My headcanon is that Pretorius was blindfolding the women he brought back, and forcing Crawford to become complicit in rape-by-deception (whether the women were secretly in it or not). It explains how Crawford would know about Pretorius being impotent, leads to some uncomfortable conclusions about what Pretorius was doing with those recordings (blackmail being yet another hold over Crawford), and is horribly uncomfortable and messy in a way that very much appeals to me, especially if Pretorius isn't above dubconning the fuck out of Crawford and punishing him for knowing about his impotence. And I’m assuming he isn’t.

I love that whole early stretch of the film when it's just Crawford, Katherine and Bubba in the house, investigating the murder of Dr Pretorius while also poking about the machine. It's so claustrophobic and intimate and sexually charged, and I'd love to see that section of canon stretched out a little bit. This isn’t a haunted house story in the traditional sense, but it gives me the same vibes as something like the Haunting of Hill House (book or film) or Hell House, another can't-fail trope with me. Perhaps Crawford takes longer repairing the machine and in the meantime they're all settling in and getting to know one another while Crawford is trying to repress his trauma about the house, and all the while the atmosphere is getting more intense. I love watching the three of them get to know each other, the dynamic between the three of them, and the way it shifts after they’ve turned the machine on for the first time and ratcheted up that febrile atmosphere of horniness. Maybe Dr Pretorius doesn’t make his presence known so obviously at first, so they turn the machine on more times before the shit really hits the fan, while Crawford gradually starts to suspect something is wrong.

And oh man, *Bubba.* I grew up watching Dawn of the Dead a lot, and it remains one of my favourite films of all time, so yep, I am extremely fond of Bubba. I’m delighted by the way he towers over the pair of them, the way he watches over and the caretaking role he takes on, and the way, when the sexual tension starts to ramp up, he admits to getting an erection. Which is to say I am very much here for Crawford/Katherine/Bubba, and I’m fascinated by how the dynamic would shake out given how intense the Crawford/Katherine relationship is. Maybe because he's older and not as damaged as Crawford (or as horny as Katherine) he sort of acts like an anchor for the two of them? I’d also love to see just about every permutation of Crawford/Pretorius/Katherine explored too, including monster-fucking.

Optional Prompts

Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events – The more I think about that ending the more it sticks with me, how it’s a circular narrative, with Crawford beginning the film under Pretorius’s control and ending it that way too. And I’m guessing Pretorius isn’t impotent any more. It’s so bleak, the idea of him being tormented, tortured and eaten (ideally with the focus on body horror rather than vore), only to be reborn over and over again, and I would be very much here for some extremely dubiously consensual, abusive, domineering tentacle sex, and body horror.
Bondage – It sure would be a shame if those manacles went to waste.
Exploring Ancient Ruins in a Lovecraftian Alternate Dimension (Monsters Optional) – Post-canon fic where Crawford and Katherine explore the world beyond, like the mysterious temple mentioned in the original story, and all the creatures who inhabit it. Maybe they’re more or less normal, maybe they’re changing into something monstrous (but that doesn’t necessarily need to be a bad thing). Anything is welcome for this prompt, from horror, worldbuilding, smut, or something much gentler and fluffier.
Femdom – I just want Katherine to gently dom Crawford. Maybe they stumble across an overly friendly tentacle monster and after escaping from its clutches it occurs to her it could have its uses.
A fix-it where Katherine sets out to rescue Crawford.
Or a canon divergent fic where Crawford appears to have escaped the effects of the Resonator at the end, but it gradually becomes clear that although he looked normal at first, he came back wrong.
I cannot emphasise enough how here I am for Crawford having his boundaries trampled on and getting bad-touched, either by Katherine while she’s being affected by the resonator or by Dr Pretorius. I would very much like to see the relationship between Crawford and Pretorius explored, and I think there's a lot to dig into. Like the bit where he yells that Pretorius doesn't know how to give pleasure, only pain, and the question of how he'd know Pretorius was impotent because there's really no good answer to that question. Give me something where Pretorius feels up Crawford instead of (or as well as) Katherine, or where Pretorius encourages her to join in. Bad Guys Made Them Do It scenarios are especially welcome here.
So how did Dr Pretorius manage to turn the Resonator back on? Does he (and Crawford after the end of the film) retain an awareness of the normal plane of existence, and some ability to manipulate it?
Obvious third wheel in spontaneous threesome still highly enjoys themselves – During the early part of the film, a spontaneous threesome develops between Katherine, Crawford and Bubba, possibly induced by sex pollen or just the lingering effects of the Resonator. (With Bubba, naturally, being the third wheel, but he’s fine with that tbh.

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House on Haunted Hill

Requested Ships:
Dr Richard B Vannacutt & The House
Watson Pritchett & Dr Richard B Vannacutt
Watson Pritchett & The House
Watson Pritchett/Dr Richard B Vannacutt
Requested Freeforms:

Note on my DNWs: For Pritchett, please have him be 16 or older for direct sexual contact, but sexually arousing dreams/visions/hallucinations are fine from 13+).

Canon-specific DNW: This request is specifically for the first film, and it’s fine for Return to House on Haunted Hill to be ignored. If you do include it, please avoid having the evil in the house being purely due to the Baphomet Idol.

I have a very particular fondness for 90s cheese, architectural horror, and the disparate bunch of people trapped somewhere for *reasons* trope, which is one of my favourite tropes of all time. Add in ghosts, and ohhhh baby, I am there. (As an aside, I'm also a big fan of the original trilogy of Thief games, and the ghost visuals in this were the direct inspiration for the Shalebridge Cradle mission in Thief 3 (possibly one of the best, creepiest missions in anything EVER), so I'm inclined to be kindly predisposed towards this film purely because of that.)

It’s a curious one, because the things that mean it doesn’t work that well as a horror film for me (the CGI smoke-monster climax! The criminal underuse of Dr Vannacutt!) are the exact same things that make the question of what the hell is going on significantly more interesting. The more you dig into the first film, the more it becomes clear that there’s something more going on that just a haunting as a result of what happened at the asylum.

I also find it fascinating that despite Dr Vannacutt being the most prominent ghost (and male), Pritchett refers to the house as female, and specifically as ‘a stupid vengeful whore’ iirc. The Shadow primarily speaks with female voices (and according to one of the extras they used imagery of naked women to create the Rorschach effect). Then there’s the women Price sees while he’s in the Saturation Chamber.

I'd love to see the mythology of the house dug into, because I have a lot of unanswered questions. Like the walled off room we finally see towards the end where Vannacutt used to dump his corpses, and in the middle of the room there’s a chair, just sitting right in front of the rubble, which is the creepiest fucking thing. Why is that chair there? Did Vannacutt sit on it, staring into the rubble, listening to the Shadow talk to him? (And while I’m not hugely keen on the canon introduced by the second film, and I especially dislike the suggestion that the evil in the house is all down to the Baphomet idol, I do quite like the way it expands on the way the house seduces people, the idea of good if flawed people being corrupted, and the suggestion that Vannacutt wasn’t always evil).

And then there’s one of my favourite things about this film: Pritchett, a fucked-up traumatised asshole woobie packed with neuroses, who clearly has a boat-load of issues with the house. It’s not immediately clear whether he actually used to live in the house or not, but he’s clearly spent a lot of time there and he’s familiar with it enough to know the history of the house, his way around the basement, and quite a lot about how it’s haunted, including the existence of the Darkness/Shadow and Dr Vannacutt. I’d love to see something about his previous experiences with it, what happened with his grandfather and father, and what it was like growing up in the vicinity of that house, whether he lived there or not. And I am completely here for the house’s attempts to seduce him.

Other random things I love about this canon: the Saturation Chamber! I’m really drawn to the concept of machines that can drive you insane through sensory experiences, and it’s just the icing on the cake that it takes the form of this extraordinary period-appropriate zoetrope. The relationship between Price and Evelyn! This complicated tangle of love and hatred and contempt, spitting daggers at each other, and him clearly being so desperately in love with her still, while she's so completely batshit. I love her. And the whole thing of there being multiple conflicting agendas, with the three competing guest lists, and even then the house doesn’t get what it wants because of Sara being an imposter.

Watson Pritchett/Dr Richard B Vannacutt

Not a pairing that I’d originally considered, but then a seed took root and now I can’t stop thinking about these two and what sort of dynamic they’d have.

We see so little of Vannacutt, but Pritchett absolutely freaks the fuck out when he realises he’s around, so they clearly have a history, but exactly what that history is, and what Vannacutt’s role is as a ghost in the house, is left decidedly unclear. It’s gradually become one of my favourite things about this film: the way the focus shifts from the villain being Vannacutt to the house itself, and the way that upends the way his character could potentially be seen – is he a villain, or potentially another victim of the house, or both?

There are just so many unanswered questions about what it means to be a ghost in that house, how much of it is reenacting the terrible things that happened there, and how much free will they have, and to what extent they’re being controlled by the house, and just… damn, I don’t know, but dig into it as much as you want.

The sequel flattens out most of the unexpected wrinkles in the worldbuilding, and is mostly forgettable, so I don’t really recommend watching it (although I will admit to being delighted by Steven Pacey and Andrew Lee Potts’ inclusion in the cast), but what it does do is develop the idea of people being corrupted and seduced by the house, with one line being: ‘Vannacutt was known for being a brilliant physician and great humanitarian. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in the '20s. But somehow, this great man went from saving people to butchering them’ and oof.

The whole trope of otherwise good-but-flawed people getting corrupted to evil and doing terrible things (and there’s no doubt that he’s done terrible things) gets me right in the id. Corruption and redemption arcs are welcome in all their forms for either character, as is the all-encompassing guilt that comes from realising what you’ve done. I’m also just generally interested in the idea of them finding common ground as fellow victims of the house, even if Vannacutt remains wholly evil, and that would affect how they might relate to each other, before and after Pritchett’s death. And pre-canon too – why does Pritchett react like that to finding out Vannacutt’s around?

Explore the ship in whatever way you choose. The gen dynamics fascinate me just as much, but shipwise, anything is welcome, from fucked up extremely dubious consent, where the sex is part of the house’s way of torturing Pritchett (potentially with some medical kink mixed in, but anything where Pritchett gets strapped down?), to anything on the enemy-fucking scale, to something a little more sympathetic where we do actually get a glimpse of a glimmer of goodness in Vannacutt. Or maybe the house is fucking with them both by making them fuck each other?

Optional Prompts

This House has a Personality and that Personality is Fucked Up – And adolescence is tough enough as it is, without having to go through it while you're living in a haunted house that can't seem to decide whether it wants to fuck you or kill you.
Explore the deaths of Pritchett's father and grandfather, because it feels like there are a lot of unanswered questions there. Did the house exert any influence over them? Could Pritchett’s father have murdered his grandfather? How did his father really die?
A both hates and loves how good the sex with B is – Vannacutt/Pritchett (because the more I think about shipping them, the harder I ship them.)
Character is forced to work with someone who scares them – I’m intrigued by what it means to be a ghost and how much free will they have. Pritchett has to work with Vannacutt for reasons (especially delighted by the idea of this considering how Pritchett crapped himself when he recognised Vannacutt’s description).
So how does Pritchett manage to resist the Shadow at the end in order to free Sara and Eddie, when seemingly no one else was able to resist?
Something revolving around the stained glass ceiling, because creepy though it is is just suggest a marginally less evil side to Vannacutt and the idea of good people being corrupted by evil will always fascinate me.
Character with trauma is freaked out and turned on by getting tied up – Specifically thinking of Pritchett here, the poor little bastard. XD
Conversations In Liminal Spaces On The Border Of One World And Another – Ghost!Pritchett and ghost!Vannacutt have a conversation.
Evil!Pritchett – A canon-divergent fic where Pritchett isn’t so resistant to the house. How would that affect canon?
Entering someone's dreams/nightmares – Vannacutt and/or the Shadow enter Pritchett’s dreams, where pre-, during, or post-canon.
Time Travel Fix-It – Pritchett travels back in time to the 20s-30s, and finds himself caught up in events at the asylum. Could he potentially change the way events pan out? (The actual fix-it is optional here)
Time Travel - Character meets their child self – Ghost!Pritchett realises it’s possible to travel through time and interact with his younger self.
Vannacutt manages to escape the house. There’s a deleted scene (after the credits roll in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdo8voI87LI) in which Vannacutt brings the real Jennifer Jenzen to the house, and another scene where his spot being tortured is taken by Price. Which leads me to wonder if it’s possible for him to buy his freedom, or if he’s figured out a way to outwit the house.
Explore what the hell was going on with that chair. Was Vannacutt listening to the Darkness, or was it potentially a seduction/sex thing?
Corruption Arc – Either for Vannacutt or for Pritchett. Or, conversely, a redemption arc for Vannacutt, or Vannacutt getting a redemption arc while Pritchett goes the other way. I really love the idea of the house seducing people into evil (the second film goes harder on that, and iirc explicitly states that Vannacutt wasn’t always a monster), and the question of whether someone who’s done terrible things can really be redeemed.
Eldritch Architecture – I’d love to see something that goes hard on the Lovecraftian elements in the plot, the idea of this ancient nameless evil existing even before the house was built, and of what the Darkness at the heart of the house really is.
Tentacles made them do it – Probably no surprises that I have Pritchett/Vannacutt in mind here.

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The Last Days of Pompeii – 1984 Miniseries

Requested Ships:
Lydon/Nydia/Sporus
Requested Freeforms:

Basically my distilled pure id from start to finish. Hallucinatory dubcon threesome sex, rival gladiators, doomed lovers, and so many satisfying death scenes I’m shivering in delight at the thought of them. I enjoyed the book too, but found myself preferring a lot of the changes the miniseries made – many of the characters are significantly more likeable, and I was low-key invested in a *lot* of the canon ships and friendships. I also thoroughly appreciated that they decided to give the gladiators more of a role in the story, that they eased back on the ‘Ancient Greece is massively superior to Ancient Rome’ theme in the book, and added a couple of the characters who came to be favourites of mine (especially Chloe <3).

Go with a fix-it or take full advantage of my being fine with Major Character Death and wallow in the tragedy and grief. I’d particularly love to see the gladiatorial life explored a little, especially the various relationships between them all, and canon-divergent AUs are welcome, as are fix-its, whether they’re genuinely fixing things or otherwise. One of the things that appeals about canon is the web of interconnecting friendships (Lydon and Glaucus comparing wrestling styles XD) so I’d love to see that reflected too if you have a chance.

Sporus is a fantastic character, a tightly knit bundle of resentment, envy, jealousy, and bitterness (I love how pissy he is at not being appreciated when Marcus snipes at him for killing his opponent in the arena). And the early scene after the first gladiator fight when he helps Lydon with his armour and tells him, utterly sincerely, to be careful. <3<3<3 And then later the scene where Lydon is training with Gar, and Sporus doesn’t know whether to be jealous of Gar or Nydia or of Lydon being champion. And his lines in his final scene, which led to a massive record scratch on my part: Lydon, I did love you. Not ‘Lydon, I loved you’ but ‘I DID love you.’ Implying… what? That the question of his feelings for Lydon had come up at some point in the past? Did they have a fling? Was Lydon in love with Sporus before Nydia? Did Sporus deny him? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? And Lydon holding his hand while he dies… goddamnit, my heart.

I would love backstory for this, or something set during canon. Canon-divergent AUs are always welcome, and I’d also be happy for any level of ship: from fully realised, to pining, whether mutual or one-sided. I particularly like Nydia/Sporus/Lydon as as a triad although a v-shaped set-up where everyone is fine with the situation is okay (or a v-shaped set-up which gradually turns into a triad). If they all manage to make it out of Pompeii it would be a pretty fascinating dynamic, especially if Sporus feels himself dependent on Lydon due to his injuries. I'd be especially interested in seeing Sporus's relationship with Nydia developed.

Optional Prompts

We know how and why Lydon came to be a gladiator and why he continues in that life despite having earned his freedom, but what about Sporus? Was he already there when Lydon turned up as a slave whom no one expected to last more than a couple of matches?
Always here for descriptions of gladiator matches or sparring, the blood, the sweat, the sexual tension… Also helping each other with their armour, and tending to wounds afterwards. And, uh, bathhouses.
And hey, if you just want to write PWP, sex in the wake of a match or sparring session wouldn’t go amiss.
What happened when they all left Pompeii for Campania?
A post-canon fix-it. Lydon escapes Pompeii with an injured Sporus. What does the aftermath look like? Bitter angst and hurt/comfort welcome here. Given what a massive jealous shit Sporus is in canon, I’d love to see that explored.
Nydia understands something about being in love with someone you feel dependent on and the heartbreak of watching them love another. An understanding develops between her and Sporus.

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Love and a .45 (1994)

Requested Shipss:
Dinosaur Bob/Creepy Cody
Requested Freeforms:

Terrible people doing terrible things! :D

I don’t know what it says about me that I find the tattoo-parlour scene in particular distractingly hot (probably nothing good XD), but the reason why I ship these two can almost certainly be traced to that scene.

The bit where having terrorised Billy, Bob dances around him and then just straight up throws himself into his lap? And then, THEN, still sitting in said lap, he goes on to nestle his head against Billy’s chest while still menacing him and waving a gun around? Mmmph. The gun kink, the dancing, the casual touching and violation of personal space, the apparent total confidence in whatever the fucking hell his sexuality is, the gun kink... Oh GOD did I mention the gun kink? MORE OF THAT SORT OF THING PLEASE.

I am here for anything that explores their relationship, with Dinosaur Bob as the semi-smart, marginally more pulled-together one, and Creepy as the subservient tagalong one who looks to Bob and defers to him in just about everything. They’re simultaneously menacing but ultimately so tragically pathetic, and I just want to see more of their dynamic. I ship them so hard too: Creepy has a bad case of hero-worship when it comes to Bob, and Bob is, uh, clearly pretty comfortable getting up close and personal with other men.

Tropewise, for these two, I especially like anything where they’re in some way in denial about their sexuality, whether it’s a case of situational homosexuality, ‘no homo’ bro-sex, gay chicken, pining while having sex that definitely isn’t gay, or sex under the influence (look, they’re basically off their tits on meth for the entirety of the film, so if they’re having sex that’s probably inevitable), but there is almost no fic for this fandom, and nothing for these two, so anything goes. Is there a degree of internalised homophobia or have they just never really thought that hard about it? Or alternatively, maybe they’re both just fine with their sexualities actually, even if they’re keeping it on the downlow because their boss would very definitely not approve. (For the record their boss only appears in cut-scenes and the only cut scene I’ve been able to watch is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd-tTmLLxIU&t=1s)

Maybe a canon-divergent fic where Bob gets shot but not killed outright, so Creepy has to look after him. I have no idea what hurt/comfort would look like for these two, but damn do I want to see it. :D Or maybe a pre-canon scene that investigates whatever the fuck they were up to before they showed up at Watty’s place. Also gun kink. Aaaaall the gun kink. I like how vaguely submissive Creepy is towards Bob, and the more you can capture Dinosaur Bob’s physicality the better as far as I’m concerned.

Finally I get such Sketchy and Skeezy from Z Nation vibes from them, (the one smartish one, one goofy one dynamic, the criminal behaviour, the homoerotic undertones, the meth) to the point where I’m semi-wondering if they were the inspiration for Sketchy and Skeezy. so if you want to do a Z Nation crossover, then PLEASE DO, whether they run into anyone in the main cast, or Sketchy and Skeezy, or a fusion where they take over the Sketchy and Skeezy roles. Or just a zombie apocalypse wholly unaffiliated with Z Nation.

Optional Prompts

Gun Kink – Yeeeep. This is a pretty good canon for gun kink. I’m here for anything from caressing the other party with a gun, whether tenderly or with an air of menace, to actual insertion or fellating of a gun.
'Platonic' porn-watching and mutual masturbation session leads to sex – Because they’re horny and bored and there’s definitely nothing gay about this.
"We'll just have sex one time to get it out of our systems" ... but it makes the longing worse – All the ‘sex while pining and in denial’ energy please.
A/B Seduce C into a Threesome; Then A/B Realize They Only Want Each Other – I’m specifically thinking of Billy for C here, because his entire dynamic with them, and it way it flips their roles delights me, but alternatively go with an OC, possibly a woman because I like the opportunities for ‘pining while in denial’.
Altered States – Drugs (Recreational) – Bonding over substance misuse and/or sex under the influence.
First Meeting – Explore their backstory. How did they meet? In prison or elsewhere? How did they get on the first time they met
Alternate Universe - John Wick (Movies) Setting – In which they are (terrible) international assassins. Either that or they’re just tagging along with an old acquaintance who is an assassin, and maybe they’re just knocking about the Continental while plot happens all around them.
The awkward situation that results when you’re inadvertently on the periphery of a Bad Guys Made Them Do It situation between two men and it leads to the awakening of feelings.
Forced proximity – they have to hole up for a while for reasons, and have to share a hotel room, which potentially leads to sharing a bed, watching pay per view porn, and whatever other forced proximity tropes you can come up with.
Handcuffed together – Whether for the purposes of plot, or purely as an excuse for filthy PWP porn.
Bob injures his hands, which leads to him getting a caretaking handjob or oral sex from Creepy.
They meet up with Watty and Star under different circumstances a couple of years down the line.
AU where they are the wanted fugitives on a road trip as they try to escape to Mexico.
A From Dusk Till Dawn (the film version) fusion. Bob and Creepy follow Watty and Star to Mexico, but their stand-off is interrupted by vampires and they need to work together to survive.
Platonic bed sharing and the accompanying unfortunately timed boners.
Morning after (amazing sex the night before) – All the awkward aftermath please, possibly with optional ‘did that really happen?’ binge-related amnesia.

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The Professionals

Requested Ships
William Bodie/Ray Doyle
George Cowley/Elizabeth Walsh
George Cowley/Annie Irvine

God, I love this show so much. I could spend forever watching the dynamic between Cowley, Bodie, and Doyle, the banter, the jokes, the friendly rivalry, the way their different backgrounds give them different insights and skills, and the vibe I get that Cowley, who I adore beyond all reason (*gestures sheepishly to most of the rest of my sign-up*) is actually harder than Bodie and Doyle put together. Cowley chewing them out because they've disobeyed his orders and then immediately doing a U-turn and supporting them to the hilt, the way their characters shift and adapt over time, the uncomfortable questions it raises about their methods… Oh, and the whump. Getting shot and beaten up and captured and generally getting the shit kicked out of them. So damn here for all of that. XD I love the way it subverts expectations too, with all the literary references and the acknowledgement of CI5’s often deeply questionable tactics.

I’d also like to make it clear that I am extremely here for Bad Guys Made Them Do It for all the ships I’ve requested. Handle that however you want with Bodie/Doyle, but for Cowley/Bodie I’d prefer Cowley topping if it comes to penetrative sex. Beyond that I have no topping preferences. I’m also open to noncon scenarios involving noncon by a third party, whether on or off-screen, for the purposes of hurt/comfort or whumpy hurt/no comfort scenarios because they’re too damn stoic to talk about it and must suffer in silence like the emotionally constipated blokes they are (and my Dubcon with Unaroused Victims DNW doesn’t apply here).

I also really, really love Apocalypse AUs (including zombies), and this is one of those series that I would absolutely LOVE that trope for, whatever style of apocalypse it is. Oh, and while I know my chances of getting it are extremely slim, I’ll mention it on the off-chance: I particularly adore the 70s version of Survivors, and I cannot emphasise enough how much I would love a crossover set in that world, even if just in the very beginnings of the series. I’ve requested it before, including some suggestions for crossovers, so take a look at my other letters if you’re interested, but even if you just give me one of them nursing the other through the illness and the tiniest glimpse of society falling apart, OH MY GOD I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER OH MY GOD. (Fair warning that Survivors is grim though. Really, really grim. XD)

William Bodie/Ray Doyle

For Bodie/Doyle, explore the mutual codependence that comes as a result of working in close confines in a way that may not be entirely healthy, the tedium of surveillance, working and training together, working late and falling asleep at your desk, actively threatening to murder a suspect if anything happens to your partner… Anything goes here from explicit smut to pining (mutual or otherwise), and including canon-style relationships with women is fine too. Maybe they come to the realisation that while women come and go, their relationship remains immutable. They also sure do seem to get shot/beaten up on the reg, and look very pretty doing it, *especially* Doyle, so if you wanted to go hard on the whump… I absolutely love all the moments of character interaction, the bonding moments in Mixed Doubles and that bit where Bodie interrupts Doyle’s brooding session by just sitting there and looking at him? Yeah…

I am so, so here for the contrast between them. And Bodie, Bodie. <3<3<3 The way his character shifts and changes over the course of the series, and those bleak little glimpses of darkness, and that sense that he hasn’t really believed in anything until he came to CI5… The way the show alludes to his time in Northern Ireland, and how intensely private he is and prickly when Doyle asks, and just… *sigh*, I’m struggling to put into words why I love them so much.

Give me canon style casefic or something that takes them out of their comfort zones, backstory for either one of them, or post-canon fic. Also here for character studies, and anything that digs into any moral qualms they might have about CI5 and its methods, especially Doyle.

Optional Prompts

Casefic, or elements from a partially realised casefic, whether canon-typical or something which takes them out of their comfort zones.
5 + 1 ways of livening up surveillance detail.
Bonding in captivity – whether as a result of trauma and torture, or being imprisoned together somewhere dark and claustrophobic.
Ever seen Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)? Well, that AU, where one half of the pairing is a ghost the other can’t see, whether the ghost is potentially a sign that the other one is cracking up, or an actual literal ghost, and the first case they have to solve together is who murdered him. I was thinking either Bodie or Doyle as the ghost, but Cowley as the ghost haunting the two of them (and absolutely livid about it) would be great too.
If they do get together, how does it happen? How do they come to realise they have feelings for the other? When it starts is it just about sex, or is the sexual attraction develop out of a result of their bond?
The bit in Stake Out where Bodie flung himself across a bowling alley to manhandle Doyle to the floor to stop him from kicking off at an aggressive member of the public, including hooking his leg over Doyle's in the process, did things to me. More undercover stuff please, with them both trying to keep a low profile, and having to rely on the other one to rein them in. Additional manhandling is optional, but very much appreciated.
”Casual” sex turning tender -Neither character thinks the other has any genuine feelings, or maybe the sex is just something that keeps happening without either of them ever intending it to. What happens when tenderness starts creeping in? Is it mutual? Is the other party unnerved by it? Into it? Or both?
Aftermath of Torture – Character trying to hold it together is clearly low-key fraying at the edges - All the whump, stoicism and hurt/comfort here please.
Agonisingly slow build-up of sexual tension - Along with copious amounts of mutual self-denial and pining, while trying to hide the mutual attraction from each other/other people/themselves.
A zombie apocalypse AU, or some other apocalyptic scenario. Always and forever one of my favourite tropes. Or alternatively, if you’re familiar with it, a crossover with Survivors, even if it only uses the other series as a backdrop for desperate ‘us against the crumbling world’ sex.
Character A confesses feelings because they think Character B is unconscious - Man, the awkwardness and painful aftermath, the self-doubt and the questioning – did they mishear? Should they say anything, or would it be better to pretend they didn’t hear?
While working undercover, one half of the couple is forced to torture the other to maintain their cover
Estranged Characters – Injured A shows up on B’s doorstep saying ‘I didn’t know where else to go’. – future fic or canon-divergent where the injured character has gone AWOL or otherwise rogue.
Country House Party – Weird time-slip where they find themselves in an interwar house party that ended in murder. Ghosts? Inexplicable events that are never explained beyond handwavy nonsense? A Sapphire & Steel crossover? Or is this just an excuse to get them into period dress?
Character A and Character B Mutually Pine For Each Other While They Fuck Other People Together -- The drunken aftermath of a double date turns orgiastic, or else one of the lads has been stood up or had an argument with his girlfriend, and the other's girlfriend insists he join them to cheer him up.
sex under the stars – Ohhh, I love this tag: the romanticism of sex outdoors, the setting and potential for scenery porn, the low-level risk of semi-public sex, and the suggestion that they’re so turned on they can’t keep their hands off each other. How does it come about? Are they camping for plot reasons, on a stake-out, stranded in nature for some reason?
A Doomsday fusion (the 2008 Neil Marshall film). I'm assuming Cowley's in the Bob Hoskins role, as much as I'd secretly love to see him facing off against a bunch of Mad Max style Scottish cannibals. (And it's not like he's explicitly sending them north of the wall to get him some Scotch, but have you seen what the price of single malt is on the black market these days?)

George Cowley/Elizabeth Walsh and George Cowley/Annie Irvine

Cowley has very fast become one of my favourite characters in anything ever: it’s that combination of implied loneliness and stoicism, dedication to the life he’s chosen even if he might have been happier on another path, repression and self-sacrifice and sarcasm, the clash of his staunch code of ethics combined with some very questionable tactics, and the conflict of him wanting to look after the woman he’s fallen in love with, but of course it’s his fate to only ever fall in love with tough-as-nails women who wouldn’t want to be looked after in a million fucking years. <3<3<3 Look, there are very few characters I love quite as much as Cowley, and I just want him to be happy, dammit. I’m open to any kind of relationship here, from stoic one-sided pining, to indulgent smut, to a happy ending.

The episode in which Annie appears was an absolute delight. From Bodie and Doyle’s reaction to the idea of Cowley in a relationship with a woman (that conversation in the car! Doyle slightly dubiously describing him as attractive :D) to the way Cowley actually behaves when he meets her and then quietly having his heart broken all over again (and oh god, my heart).

And the backstory we get for him, picking his education back up after the war, as a student going to political meetings, and falling in love with a woman who he keeps loving even after she breaks his heart. Just that line about him watching her. And that line about how she never knew him at all? Damn. It’s so up my street I can’t even say: quiet loneliness and a lingering feeling of regret even while you’re getting on with all the shit that needs to get done will get me every time. Him wanting to look after her when she’s not the sort of woman who wants to be looked after, and if she had been, then he probably wouldn’t have fallen in love with her as hard as he did.

And then there’s Elizabeth Walsh. I, uh, ship Cowley with quite a few people, but out of everyone that I ship him with this the relationship I can actually see working long-term. Spy Probe worked out as the last episode I watched, so there’s nothing to contradict my head-canon that the two of them get together post-canon, or that one of his primary motivations for getting her involved in the case (other than keeping her safe and the possibility of her being behind the killings) is to buy him a little time while he dithers about asking her out for dinner, and after the case has been solved he’s got the perfect excuse – how else is he going to thank her for all her help?

He spends a significant part of the episode making impressed hearteyes at her, and they clearly have a history, and since he’s not pining for Annie any more… Well, let’s just say that the idea of them finally getting together in middle age really appeals.

And she’s perfect for him: she’s a retired spy so she knows and understands the demands of the work, she’s intelligent and trustworthy enough that he can pick her brains, and she’s independent enough not to mind doing her own thing while he turns up every now and then like an outdoor cat looking for food and affection, and in fact she’d probably hate having him under her feet all the time so the situation works perfectly for both of them.

Optional Prompts

Okay, so what the hell did happen with Annie Irvine? Explore their backstory. When they meet Annie says it’s been about ten years since they last met, so depending on how you figure the timeline that must have been significantly after their university days. Was he at her wedding? I have so many questions.
What did Annie actually say to Bodie and Doyle which made them so reluctant to share with Cowley?
Give me something that follows on from the ending of Look After Annie. Do their paths cross again? Where do they go from there?
Give me an AU of that episode where events go differently.
Bad Guys Made Them Do It. Always. <3<3<3 (and oh god, the guilt! The terrible all-consuming guilt!).
A zombie apocalypse AU, or some other apocalyptic scenario. Always and forever one of my favourite tropes. Or alternatively, if you’re familiar with it, a crossover with Survivors, even if it only uses the other series as a backdrop for desperate ‘us against the crumbling world’ sex.
Hurt/Comfort - Cowley is injured during a case, and the other character reluctantly starts looking in on him despite his protests.
Experience – Experienced/Inexperienced – Look, he’s been pining after Annie for, what, twenty years or so, so chances are he hasn’t had that much experience with women.
They’re stranded at some isolated out-of the way place, which is potentially derelict, where the forced proximity puts them in a position where they have to work together and get over any potential awkwardness.
The aftermath of Spy Probe. Cowley takes Elizabeth out to dinner as a way of saying thank you (well, he claims that’s his primary motivation), and walks her back to her hotel room afterwards. (and while I haven’t requested it for this particular exchange I do love the freeform: Late-Night Discussions Outside in the Gently Falling Rain.) Luckily she’s not quite as reticent as he is, and since someone did just try to have her murdered, the least he could do is double-check her hotel room to make sure it’s safe.
Or Cowley/Elizabeth but a slower courtship, where he starts picking her brains on a regular basis and they start to see more and more of each other, until they’ve get as familiar with each other as an old married couple, only without the sex. And then they have sex.
Back in their MI5 days Cowley and Elizabeth narrowly avoided having to have sex to maintain their cover. They both pretended to be relieved about it at the time, but secretly they’ve both regretted it since then.
The AU where my completely off-base assumption that Elizabeth was behind the killings wasn’t quite so off-base, and her arranging her own attempted murder was a set-up to get her inside CI5 because she knew Cowley wouldn’t be able to resist. Except he suspects, and the whole thing is the two of them trying to out-think each other, combined with genuine professional mutual admiration and sexual attraction.
An epistolary fic where they kept in touch by exchanging letters over the years.
Get Together – Character recovering from torture gets taken care of by the person they’re pining for – When Cowley and the other character's paths meet again after a case has gone wrong, she reluctantly starts looking in on him despite his protests.
Smut – guiding an inexperienced partner in how to perform cunnilingus – Look, he’s been pining after Annie for, what, twenty years or so, so chances are he hasn’t had that much experience with women.
Undercover as a couple leads to mutual feelings – When their paths cross again, Cowley poses as Annie’s lover to protect her.
5 Times Cowley had his heart broken.

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Re-Animator

Requested Ship:
Herbert West/Dan Cain
Requested Freeforms:

Canon-specific DNW: Please pretend that the scenes of sexual violence against women in Beyond Re-Animator never happened. References to the Meg/Hill scene in the first film are fine though, and I’m also fine with noncon (onscreen or otherwise) by a third party for the purposes of whump or hurt/comfort.

I fell absolutely head over heels in love with the first Re-Animator film from the first moment I saw it – it’s so much damn fun to watch, funny, gory, obscene, and I think Herbert West might actually be one of my favourite characters in anything ever (and while I have some reservations about the sequels I do really like them both). As for Dan/Herbert, I shipped it right from the scene where they bring the cat back, and specifically from the moment where they’re side by side with weapons in hand, although with Herbert hanging back a little bit and clinging onto Dan’s shirt, because obviously.

The way from that moment they’re just… together, and there’s no way Dan is going to do anything other than help Herbert. I love that, and I love the way Dan sticks with Herbert through thick or thin (right up until the moment that he doesn’t, but more of that in a minute). So many things about this ship are tailor-made to my id: the combination of earnest/obsessive and likeable/abrasive, the constant touching with Herbert grabbing Dan at every single opportunity (this in particular just freaking delights me XD), the potential for hurt/comfort and protectiveness, and a complicated mixture of loyalty, manipulation, and betrayal that will get me every damn time.

I’d love anything that goes hard on the hurt/comfort and mutual protectiveness between Herbert and Dan, or anything that captures the tone and bonkers exuberance, gore, humour and horror of the films. Maybe something that explores what happens in between the films, especially between the first and second films, because damn, are there some unanswered questions there – like how did Meg’s heart come to be outside of her body, and how the hell did Herbert manage to persuade Dan to go to Peru with him? And any of the reunions where an apparently dead Herbert pops up again. I also cannot emphasise enough how here I am for Herbert getting menaced and/or whumped.

I know it’s a deleted scene, but I find it really interesting that it doesn’t seem to be the prospect of having to give Dr Hill the credit for his work that gets Herbert to break the hypnosis, but Hill threatening Dan’s life. And the way he immediately abandons their current work to switch focus onto making the Bride to stop Dan from moving out. On the one hand, it’s a terrible manipulative thing to do, but on the other hand… *eyes* And also, what the hell was Herbert’s ultimate plan with the Bride anyway? How did he see that whole thing panning out long-term, beyond a short-term fix to keep Dan from leaving?

And then there’s the third film. While I have reservations about it, Dan turning state’s evidence on Herbert actually isn’t one of them. I am a complete sucker for complicated relationships, and I actually really love the way it shifts the balance of their relationship, especially considering the unfortunate consequences and the hellhole of a prison Herbert ends up getting thrown into. The way it hints at the way he’s suffered without ever quite going into details (the years in solitary), along with that moment when the warden hits him… and Herbert’s very deliberate act of revenge on the warden, which I firmly believe is something the Herbert of thirteen years previously would not have contemplated in a million fucking years, just shows how much the experience has changed him. That, and the way he reacts when Howard calls him doctor when they first meet. Mmph. It’s all very painful in a way that hits me right in the id.

I’m also delighted by how differently Herbert acts towards Howard, particularly at the end of the third film, where he comes across Howard cradling Laura’s head, looks at him for a moment, and then just effectively shrugs and yoinks his ID card. It’s a detail that brings home just how important Dan is to him. As far as I’m concerned, at the end of the 3rd film he is 100% going off to find Dan, and I would love something that explores them meeting again post-canon, and how the dynamics between them might shift with a Herbert who’s hurt at the betrayal and bruised by everything he’s been through and a Dan who’s not quite so naive and trusting.

Optional Prompts

5 Times Dan Assumed Herbert was Dead – Because in various places, namely the screenplay and the novelisation, he is explicitly stated to have died at the end of the first film and I like the idea of him repeatedly appearing to die and popping up again mostly unscathed (and I’m amused that the one film where he doesn’t appear to die at the end is the one in which Dan does not appear. XD).
Accidental Baby Acquisition – I mean, they’re doctors. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they might find themselves in a situation where they have to deliver a baby in a crisis (possibly involving zombies), and end up separated from the mother and stuck having to look after the baby.
Addiction - Character tries to distract Addict from addiction with sex – Dan tries to break Herbert’s reliance on the serum.
Alternate Universe - Russian Doll Fusion – I love time loops in all their forms anyway, but this one in particular, with its focus on constant, unrelenting death, and the way the discovery that the loop is being shared with another person would play out with these two is perfect. (and for time loops in general, I’m amused by the way Herbert would probably adapt his work to take full advantage of the loop (er, an endless supply of fresh corpses with no consequences – hey, how is it murder if they don’t stay dead? – having to memorise the results because he can’t write them down, etc.)
Hurt/Comfort – Hurt/Comfort is always welcome, but one thing I’d love to see is Dan helping Herbert through withdrawal from the serum. Mainly because I really wish that deleted scene had been included in the film. I have some quiet headcanons about Herbert’s addiction to reagent, and amongst them is the fact that avoiding sleep is really, really not a good idea, and that maybe the times when he’s at his most batshit are the times when he’s suffering from chronic sleep-deprivation. All of which convinces Dan to help him to break the habit.
Bad Guys Made Them Do It – and every other iteration of Something Made Them Do It.
Betray them to save them – Dan’s presence looms so large in Beyond Reanimator even though he doesn’t appear. I can definitely see a situation where Dan got to a point where he couldn’t see any other choice, and he genuinely believed if things carried on the way they were that Herbert was going to get himself killed. I’d love to see that decision explored and the fallout when/if they’re reunited and he realises what Herbert’s been through.
Hurt/Comfort - Character with injured hands requires assistance (which turns sexual) – Here for the hurt/comfort and smut potential of this (and also very fond of one character shaving another.)
Inspired by the novelisation, Dan is completely taken by surprise when Herbert unexpectedly turns out to be massively into ice hockey. Maybe it’s a hobby he only occasionally spares the time for, but either way Dan is extremely weirded out by the prospect of Herbert going to bars and talking to fans.
You Hurt Me More Than Anything; But Being Without You Hurts More – Herbert goes in search of Dan after the end of Beyond Reanimator. Is he planning on revenge (even if he ultimately can’t face going through with it?) Does something else happen as a catalyst that forces them to work together again? I’d love to see all the messy hurt/comfort and emotional fallout of everything that happened.
Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence – How might things have played out if Meg hadn’t been so hostile to Herbert from the get-go? Maybe if she hadn’t been there when he came about the room, allowing Dan to prime her for his oddball roommate beforehand? And if she hadn’t walked in on them bringing Rufus back, which meant that Dan wouldn’t have fallen out with Dean Halsey, who then wouldn’t have died, etc etc. It’s interesting how differently Herbert treats Francesca. While he’s not exactly polite to her (XD) he tolerates her presence in a way he doesn’t really tolerate Meg’s, and I can’t help but read that as at least partially being the result of Meg’s attitude towards him.
Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence – A canon-divergent AU where Francesca isn’t on the scene and the creation of the Bride is much more successful, and she isn’t quite so much of a monster. Mainly because I’m really curious what the hell Herbert actually had in mind beyond keeping Dan with him at all costs. (And for the record, I’m completely open to Herbert/Dan/The Bride in whatever form that takes.)
Hurt/Comfort - Technically awful attempts at comfort are actually very comforting – Okay, so Herbert is pretty terrible at doing the whole comfort thing, but the fact that he even tries is pretty damn significant.
Road trip after the end of the world – Any post-apocalypse scenario will do, but I am particularly fond of a zombie apocalypse, which seems particularly apt for this canon. Was it Herbert’s fault, or was he entirely innocent for once? Where are they going? What’s the plan? And how does reagent factor into things?
Estranged Characters - Injured A shows Up on B's doorstep Saying "I didn't know where else to go" – My first thought with this was Herbert turning up out of the blue, but what if it’s the other way around? What if, potentially after Herbert’s prison break, he considered hunting Dan down, but reluctantly decided not to follow through, only for Dan to suddenly turn up unexpectedly, and turns out he’s been keeping track of Herbert all these years and somehow or other the shit’s about to hit the fan?
Herbert and Dan take the places of the narrator and the version of Herbert in the original story by Lovecraft. – I read the story after watching the films, and I was really not expecting to find that so much of what happens in the first two films came more or less directly from the story (with a fair few changes along the way). I’m fascinated by the way the films work as adaptations, but especially by the similarities and differences between the two Herberts (running away screaming the first time they reanimate a corpse? Film!Herbert would never. On the other hand the stuff with the revolver? Yeeeeah, he totally would). So perhaps a historical AU where Herbert and Dan are from that period, or where they’re still their 80s selves but have switched places with the versions of themselves from the story. Or maybe it’s just Dan who’s switched places, and he has to content with a different version of Herbert, who is BLOND (and, y'know, also slightly more actively murderous than Dan's Herbert, and has a disconcerting habit of eyeing his healthy physique with a covetous eye). (If you haven’t already read it, be warned it has some racist elements. I’d prefer for those to be avoided if you go with this prompt, please)
A Re-Animator/Ghosts (UK) crossover. Why, yes, this is goofy as hell but I waaaant it. :D In the eighties or nineties Dan and Herbert rent out Button House. Unfortunately something goes wrong and Herbert ends up dying on the property and coming back as a ghost.

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Requested Ships:
Quark/Brunt, Odo/Weyoun, Mirror Ezri Dax/Brunt, Mirror Ezri Dax/Mirror Brunt/Brunt
Requested Freeforms:

DS9 is easily my favourite Star Trek series. I love all the shades of grey, the complicated questions of morality it raises, everything to do with the Dominion War and the Cardassians and the damn Ferengi. One of my favourite things about it is how it deals with the overturn of the status quo on a planetary scale, whether on Bajor, Cardassia, in the Dominion, and even on Ferenginar. I love what this series did with the Ferengi so, so much. They could just have been comic relief, but instead they’re so much more complicated than that. Partly it’s because the whole Ferenginar plotline ties in with the themes of the rest of the series, but it’s also because Quark is actually one of the most complicated characters in the whole show. I particularly love the way he’s used to comment on the Federation, and on humans in particular. His speech to Nog about how humans are only wonderful and friendly so long as their bellies are full in the Siege of AR-558 gives me the shivers.

Quark/Brunt

These two had my enemy-shipping heart right from the moment Brunt got his Nausicaan goons to beat Quark half to death. *hearteyes* They are so, so shippy I can’t even: from how ridiculously unsubtle the show was about the subtext at the end of Ferengi Love Songs, to the air-kiss Quark blows him in Profit and Lace, to basically everything that happens between them in Body Parts. Brunt spending a small fortune purely to fuck Quark over, turning up in his quarters and reclining on Quark’s couch as he talks gleefully about his plans planning on defiling Quark’s remains (and that moment of ‘what do I do with my hands?!’ panic when Quark suddenly moves closer to him?)… yeah, um, that… that right there is a Ferengi who might just be up for some contract renegotiation.

It’s fascinating how much their relationship shifts throughout the series, going from entirely antagonistic to some degree of them being willing to work together even though Brunt’s ultimately always out for himself. There’s actually a lot of common ground between them – compared to just about everyone else in his family Quark’s a traditional Ferengi (or at least he wishes he was a traditional Ferengi), and it’s probably only because of his very non-traditional mother (Ishka, you glorious creature, you <3<3<3) that they end up at odds. I’m fascinated by the question of what makes a good Ferengi, and by Quark, who despite his first appearances as an amoral little schemer actually has a pretty strong moral code, and I found their reactions to the changes on Ferenginar in The Dogs of War, with Quark being outraged and Brunt much more pragmatic, pretty damn interesting, given how very, very bound to tradition Brunt’s been throughout the series. Granted he’s seen the changes first hand, and is trying to suck up to and manipulate Quark, but still… (and as an aside, that bit when he drops to his knees and kisses Quark’s hand? *eyes*)

I’d love to see anything from any moment of their relationship, from the early days when Brunt is so obsessed by (and horny for) Quark that he’s willing to do virtually anything to destroy him, to later when Brunt is more focused on his own gain and becoming Grand Nagus himself, to a post-canon fic which focuses on how their relationship might develop after the end of the series and the massive sweeping changes on Ferenginar. Similarly, tone-wise I’d be delighted with anything from UST and pining (one-sided or mutual), to hate-fucking, to something more genuine, and anything on the enemies-to-lovers to enemies-to-enemies-who-fuck scale.

Explore the worldbuilding – how progressive is Ferenginar when it comes to gay relationships? (and repression, denial, and internalised homophobia on one or both their parts is always welcome.) Alternatively, maybe Ferengi are actually pretty relaxed about it when it comes to casual relationships, or in the context of an M/M/F poly relationship because at least that solves the question of who pre-chews the tube grubs? In theory at least...

It’s also fine to write about their mirror universe counterparts instead, whether the story is focused on the actual mirror universe versions (and canon-divergent AUs are always welcome, btw), or something that involves pining while fucking the mirror-universe counterpart of the object of your affections, or a selfcest threesome (We barely saw Mirror!Quark, but Mirror!Brunt is such a sweetheart and I just want him to have nice things. D:). I also really, really love the look of (male) Ferengi clothing, so if you want to go all-out on clothing porn, then please do, as well as exploring any avenues of clothed or clothed/unclothed sex you might want to go down.

Optional Prompts

'Dirty little secret' relationship leads to Too Many Feelings leads to unexpected marriage proposal – Because I am so here for the two of them having a secret relationship on the downlow, and maybe they keep telling themselves it’s just about sex and it doesn’t mean anything, but actually...
Accidental Marriage – When they’re on an alien planet negotiating a contract, they accidentally wind up married (maybe because in that planet’s laws rivalry is considered a sign of great regard), and this cannot stand. Turns out getting it annulled is a little trickier than first envisioned, and in the meantime pining, forced proximity, and sex-of-convenience ensues.
Hate Sex – I am so, so here for the two of them hatefucking, and for moments of unexpected tenderness in the middle of the hatefucking, and for hate sex where they gradually start to develop feelings.
Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events – A relationship study that looks at how things might develop between the two of them after the end of the series, with neither of them entirely happy about the changes on Ferenginar.
Characters don't realise they're in a relationship but everyone else can see it – Maybe Brunt keeps finding reasons to return to Deep Space Nice to make Quark’s life a misery, and Quark does everything he can to irritate Brunt, and neither of the two of them wants to admit that actually they’re sort of starting to enjoy each other’s company, while as far as everyone else is concerned they’re already basically together.
A post-canon fic with an established relationship between Quark and Brunt. They’re… sort of settled. Almost happy. And then, like a hand grenade tossed into the middle of their relationship, Quark’s old lover Natima Lang comes back. Somehow Brunt finds out what happened between them and is torn between horrified disgust at Quark being willing to abandon everything to run off with her and seething jealousy because he thinks, rightly or wrongly, that Quark wouldn't do that for HIM in a million years. Maybe Quark and Natima have both moved on with no lingering feelings other than a faint poignant ‘what might have been’, or maybe they’re still as in love with each other as ever and the only way to resolve this is with Quark/Natima/Brunt.
5+1 Things – A post-canon 5+1 fic exploring the ways every single member of Quark’s family undermines their attempts at (semi-)tradition Ferengi parenting (preferably of a boy, please, unless the focus is on them both overcoming their terrible ingrained sexism to the point where it’s probably going to be a bit ooc, let’s face it).
Having met by chance with an oddly familiar stranger in a bar who shares his animosity for Quark, Brunt obtains a copy of a unique holosuite program involving Major Kira with Quark’s head in return for a discounted price and the promise to use it to destroy Quark. Which would be easier to do if he could just stop thinking about how it would be better with Quark’s head on Quark’s body. To facilitate Getting Revenge, obviously. (And just as soon as he figures out why the hell Quark would make the program so damn good at oo-mox if it was written for a non-Ferengi).
So, um, those scenes in The Dogs of War when Brunt is sucking up to Quark because they both think Zek is going to appoint him the next Grand Nagus? He’d be remiss if he forgot Rule 113 of the Rules of Acquisition: Always have sex with the boss.
Ishka figures out why Brunt is so fixated on bringing Quark down. And, well, okay, yes, Brunt is terrible, but also he’s a good Ferengi, and frankly, Quark could probably do worse.
Time Travel Fix-It – Brunt and Quark travel back to a point where they’re in a position to alter the course of Ferengi history and prevent the sweeping changes brought about by Quark’s mother, but potentially ruining their fortunes in their present, since with the franchisement of Quark’s they’re actually doing pretty damn well for themselves. Do they go through with it, or disagree about whether they should go through with it?

Mirror Ezri Dax/Brunt & Mirror Ezri Dax/Mirror Brunt/Brunt

Mirror!Brunt is such a sweetheart. Pottering around the ship preparing tube grubs for everyone! Honourable and decent and loyal! Quietly and respectfully pining for Mirror!Ezri, knowing that his feelings will probably never be reciprocated, and being a little bit sad about that, but it doesn’t matter because he values her friendship and their partnership above everything else!

And then there’s Brunt. XD

Brunt is genuinely terrible in so many ways. He’s the worst, and I have loved him right from the first moment he was twitchy about Ishka wearing clothes. <3<3<3 I’m so charmed by the difference between him and his mirror counterpart, and I just want him and Mirror!Ezri to hook up however it comes about, and whether it’s just a one-off or something more long-lasting. Maybe she needs him to pretend to be Mirror!Brunt to pull something off. Or maybe she finds herself in the non-mirror universe and runs into him in Quark’s, and is, uh... taken aback? Fascinated? Weirdly charmed?... by this absolute dick with the face of the dead partner she really was very fond of. He’s sexist and greedy and treacherous, and she can’t trust him as far as she can throw him, but maybe she finds herself drawn to him. And while Mirror!Brunt was far too self-effacing to proposition her, the same is very definitely not true of regular Brunt. Maybe it’s just because she really misses her Brunt, or maybe it’s because regular Brunt reminds her more of herself, or maybe it’s just because she’s horny and he’s there, idk.

As for the OT3, I cannot say how delighted I am by the idea of the two Brunts meeting. I can’t tell which of them would be the more horrified at meeting the other one. I’m not quite sure how the threesome would come about, but man, do I want to see it. Is it a one-off, or is the OT3 threesome the catalyst that actually gets Mirror Brunt/Mirror Ezri together?

And while this should go without saying, canon divergent fics are very welcome here. The poor Ferengi never seem to get much of a chance in the Mirror universe. (I’m also curious what Ferenginar is actually like there).

I headcanon Mirror Ezri as bisexual and read Mirror Brunt's comment about her being picky when it comes to men as relating to Quark and Brunt being Ferengi. References to her relationships with Mirror Leeta and the Intendant are welcome, and the requested ships absolutely do NOT have to be end-game (although I would prefer the fic to focus on them.) Look, I just find the idea of these two treacherous bastards hooking up hot as fuck, even if it's just temporary, and I'm both amused and heartbroken at how Mirror Brunt's might react to finding out that actually she will make an exception for at least one Ferengi male and it's the terrible evil mirror universe version of himself who is the literal worst.

Optional Prompts

Femdom – Because if there’s ever been a character who very definitely needs to get dommed by a female, it is Brunt.
Clothing - Naked Male Clothed Female – Niiice. I just love this freeform so, so much when it comes to Brunt (especially if combined with femdom). He would just hate it so fucking much. It’s disgusting. It’s depraved. So why the hell does he find it so fucking hot? *hearteyes*
Identity Porn – Brunt has to pose as his Mirror counterpart and work with Mirror!Ezri, leading to a sex scene in which for kink reasons he ends up having sex with her while still in the Mirror!Brunt persona.
A threesome in which Ezri and Brunt edge Mirror!Brunt until he’s a sobbing desperate mess. Look, I just want him to have nice things okay?
Accidental Baby Acquisition – I am a sucker for certain tropes and one of those tropes that will forever get me is when people who under normal circumstances have no business looking after babies get stuck looking after a baby. If Mirror!Brunt is around, maybe the plan was that he’d be the one looking after the kid, but due to something going wrong, he and Brunt have to trade places and pretend to be each other.
Competence Kink - Whether they’re rivals or allies, I just love the idea of Brunt and Mirror!Ezri being secretly impressed and turned on by how good the other one is at lying, cheating and stealing. Lets just say Brunt probably has more in common with Mirror!Ezri than his counterpart does.
Since his death, Ezri has been seeing Mirror!Brunt's ghost. Maybe it’s some kind of hallucination from a space anomaly, or maybe she’s just imagining him, or maybe he really is a ghost, or maybe he’s the result of a malfunctioning portable holoprojector (which she hasn’t fixed because she kind of misses him and it’s nice having him around). but either way she’s gradually beginning to accept she might have had feelings for him after all. Then she meets Brunt.
proxy-fucking – Mirror!Ezri fucking Brunt as a way of processing the grief she feels about Mirror!Brunt’s death.

Odo/Weyoun

Go with any Weyoun you want, whether past, present, or future. In the relaunch novels, Odo creates a ninth clone to act as his aide, and while I’m not otherwise tied to the canon of the relaunch novels, as far as I’m concerned, Odo bringing Weyoun back absolutely happened, and that is a hill I will die on. :D

I've shipped Odo/Weyoun pretty damn hard right from Weyoun's first episode, and Weyoun 6 sacrificing himself and then dying in Odo’s arms certainly didn’t make me ship them any less. There's a lot to dig into with this relationship: the complexities of the Vorta and their inbuilt loyalty to Changelings, the potential for changes to the way the Vorta are created and how that might affect the Dominion, Odo's blind spot for his people, and the fact that they're both capable of leading very long lives. Even when almost every other solid Odo’s known in his life has passed on, Weyoun could potentially still be around, and there are a lot of possibilities there.

There’s also a moment in A Time to Stand when Weyoun 5, gloriously insincere arsehole that he is, talks about the habitat ring echoing with the sound of happy children, but this is a man who’d knowing preside over wiping out the population of entire planets, and of course presumably the Vorta don’t have children in the usual way or childhoods, and that’s probably something else the Dominion have taken away from them. It’s pure nightmare fuel.

I have a lot of feelings about everything that happens between them both in Faith, Treachery and the Great River, and what it says about both their characters. That story Weyoun 6 tells Odo about the origins of his people, and the way Odo seems to take it as kindness when actually what the Founders did was at the very least mass enslavement, and possibly even something akin to genocide? The suggestion that the Vorta are powerful is laughable, given that their entire purpose, over and above their own wellbeing, is to serve the Founders, and Odo of all people should know that. Would he have thought of himself as powerful when he was facilitating the Cardassians on Terok Nor? (Yeah, I wasn’t kidding about having a lot of feelings about that episode. XD) There are a lot of interesting parallels to be drawn, and I do very much appreciate Odo’s blind spot when it comes to his people.

I really really dig the platonic relationship between them too, so it’s fine for the ship to take a back seat and just going all out on the complicated mixture of emotions and faith that’s packed into even the gen relationship between them.

Optional Prompts

DS9: Post-canon attempt to return the Vorta to sexual reproduction; first non-clone baby born - With Weyoun and Odo being at the heart of the attempt.
A canon-divergent fic where Weyoun 6 survives to defect to the Federation, exploring how their relationship goes after the war is over.
A canon-divergent AU where the canonical baby Changeling turns up while the station is in the hands of the Dominion and Weyoun is involved with Odo's attempts to look after it.
Complicated emotions at being pregnant with a baby character believes is a god - somehow Weyoun ends up knocked up, whether it's some kind of handwavy transporter accident type accident, or the result of a sex pollen incident necessary to save Odo's life and neither of them realised Weyoun could get pregnant that way. Is there some kind of side effect from the pregnancy which leaves Weyoun with some degree of shapeshifting powers, or the ability to link with the baby, which is amazing but also very uncomfortable because he's just a Vorta.
Cloning Accident result in creating a baby - The real reason Weyoun 6 tried to defect. :D Is it a wholly new person or just a baby version of Weyoun, and what are the implications of it not being going through the full cloning process?
character that thought they had zero parenting instincts goes into hardcore protective mode - I love Weyoun as a villain at least partly because of how very... unintimidating he is in a lot of ways. He's small and slight and vulnerable and he keeps dying, and I'm really drawn to this prompt both for him embracing his violent side in the interests of protecting a baby and for the potential to explore his character because I’ll always love a character study.
a 5+1 fic exploring the way Odo's relationship with the various different Weyouns changes over the years.
Sex Pollen – Whether it’s Odo affected and Weyoun willingly sacrifices himself to save the Founder, or Weyoun is affected and is horrified/pathetically grateful at Odo being willing to help. Or the aftermath of the sex pollen situation with all the fallout.
A canon-divergent AU where Odo remains human for longer, and he’s still a solid when he meets Weyoun 5 for the first time. What effect would Odo's becoming a solid have on their dynamic? How would the Vorta conceptualise the concept of a god becoming a solid, and what does that mean for the way Weyoun’s worldview? I’d be delighted with anything from a character/relationship study that follows their time on the station together, or perhaps something plottier where they're stranded on a planet together and have to work together to survive, but now Odo's just as vulnerable as Weyoun is. (Sex pollen always welcome)
Hurt/Comfort - Character Treats Other Character's Injuries – Weyoun is injured and Odo has to treat his injuries, whether it’s Weyoun 6 or one of the other ones. I’m just fascinated by all the messy feelings of faith and awe, and Odo’s discomfort at being thought of as a god.
Slow and painful process of recovering from lifetime of cultural brainwashing – Whether it happens over the course of one Weyoun or several. I really love all the tangled complexities of the way the Vorta see the world. Maybe this is a canon-divergent fic where Weyoun 6 survives and Odo tries to deprogram him? Or maybe a future Weyoun where the process has begun but isn't quite there yet.
Whump - A sacrifices themself to protect B; B is forced to watch A being tortured – The obvious candidate for self-sacrifice is Weyoun, but Odo sacrificing himself and Weyoun's struggles watching him being tortured (perhaps that Romulan device that stops him from changing shape) would be delicious too.

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Would You Rather (2012)

Requested Shipss:
Shepard Lambrick & Julian Lambrick, Shepard Lambrick & Iris, Shepard Lambrick/Iris
Requested Freeforms:

Shepard Lambrick & Julian Lambrick

Fucked-up Lambrick family dynamics please! :D While the film itself doesn’t do too much digging into the Lambrick family, it sets up a lot of hints that seem like they’d be very fun to dig into. Like, what the deal is with the Lambrick Foundation, and everything to do with the games, past, present and future. And especially the relationship between Julian and his father, which I find deeply uncomfortable to watch but in an extremely satisfying way (much like the film itself XD). Julian is a terrible excuse for a human being, but it’s pretty clear at least part of the reason he’s so sadistic and screwed up and ultimately a cringing little worm (that bit where he’s cowering under the table much to Shepard’s contempt? Oof) is because of having Shepard as a father. And god, Shepard: from his first appearance where he’s putting on the thinnest veneer of philanthropy possible to the way he manipulates the proceedings of the game, terrorising basically everyone except Bevans? Even when things are going wrong, he’s never less than in control. He’s a genuinely terrifying villain and an absolute blast to watch.

Every moment Shepard and Julian interact is gold, and I would very much like to know more about their relationship. There are some interesting wrinkles there: the whole thing about Shepard being glad that Julian’s finally taking an interest in the Foundation, the question of what happened with Julian’s mother, the way Shepard reacts when he finds out about Julian’s attempt to sexually assault Iris, and whatever happens between them off-screen when Shepard excuses himself to talk to Julian… It shouldn’t be that hard for Julian to live up to his father, right, and yet he keeps failing and disappointing his father again and again, and yeeeeah, I’m not sure Shepard Lambrick is a man you really want to disappoint.

I’d love to see exploration of other games, whether in the past or the future, alternative ways the game in the film could have gone, what Julian’s childhood was like, what happened to his mother, how the whole thing came about in the first place. Even just a fic exploring the day-to-day running of the Foundation, which might seem entirely normal on the surface, but with occasional glimpses behind the curtain to suggest that something is very, very badly wrong, like glimpses of ex-players who are now working for the Lambricks. How many of them are morally compromised in the way that Dr Barden was, and how many have willingly, even eagerly, embraced everything Shepard had to offer?

I’m fascinated by the way Shepard manipulates everyone around him (including his family?), and the way he seems to be building up this network of people who are complicit in murder, and what his motivations for doing that might be. Or the consequences of the game we see in canon: what will Iris do next given her reason for playing is now gone? Will she make use of Shepard’s patronage any way or turn against him?

And then there’s Lucas. Watching the film for the first time, I was convinced he was going to turn out to be the other Lambrick brother, and to have been a ringer in on it all along. It would probably have been too obvious a twist, but story-wise and character-wise the possibilities are delicious, and I am so so here for Lucas and Julian as siblings with a fucked-up codependent relationship: Lucas as the golden child, the one who has the guts to actually take part in the games himself, risk physical pain and potential harm because that’s what his father’s ‘rules’ call for, with Julian as the weaker son who can never live up to his father’s legacy. (The film ultimately doesn’t really bear this out, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the eye injury and maybe his death could have been faked.)

It throws an interesting spin on Julian’s bitterness, and on some of Lucas’s behaviour in the game, and the possibility that he too is pushing back against his father. Or maybe the reason he gives the others a chance to run is to give Julian the chance to go after her, because because he’s doing it for his brother or because he knows how his father will react. I particularly love the idea of Shepard taking a hands-off approach to discipline, but manipulating them into punishing each other instead.

If you do go this route, I am absolutely here for Lucas and Julian having an incestuous relationship. Perhaps one which they think their father doesn’t know about, although actually not only does he know about it, he’s quietly done everything in his power to encourage it. (Or for extra fucked-up vibes, Lucas knows their father knows, but Julian doesn’t.)

Optional Prompts

Something Lovecraftian – Because apparently I’m almost incapable of requesting an entirely non-Lovecraftian film with Jeffrey Combs in it without going ‘Yeah, but what if Lovecraft though?’ On the one hand, you could just take this film at face value, but on the other there does seem to be an odd sense of duty about the way Shepard treats the games, with his attention to the rules and tradition, so what if the Foundation and the games have some kind of supernatural reason for existing?
Antagonism - characters don't like each other but nobody else understands them this well Characters who can't stand each other would also die for each other
Daddy Issues – Because if there was ever a character with hang-ups over his father, it’s Julian Lambrick.
Fantasies about murdering your father – Whether a 5+1 fic about the times Julian has thought about killing his father throughout his life, or something a bit more involved, where he’s actually seriously thinking about going through with it. Or dreaming about doing it. Will he ever have the guts? Does Shepard know? (And if Lucas is involved, maybe the two of them plotting together as part of some fucked-up sexual fantasy, but actually Lucas is telling Shepard about it)
Shepard is beginning to have doubts about whether Julian really has the necessary qualities to follow in his footsteps. Maybe he decides to give Julian one last chance.
A fucked-up slice of life fic following the everyday operations of the Lambrick Foundation.
Something investigating Shepard’s relationship with his son in contrast to Shepard’s relationship with his own father.
What was the first game like? Did it happen under Shepard, or was it something that he inherited? If the latter, then what was his experience of his first game like?

Shepard Lambrick & Iris, Shepard Lambrick/Iris

And then there’s my Iris &/ Shepard requests. Whether entirely platonic or shippy (in whatever form that takes) or something in between, these have so much potential to be utterly fucked up and uncomfortable in a way that very much appeals to me. Given Shepard’s ongoing relationship with Dr Barden at the start of the film, it can be assumed that he makes a habit of taking a continuing interest in the winners of his games, and his ‘Call me Shep’ at the end of the film (*shiver*) suggests that it’s going to be the same sort of situation with Iris, and that he’s going to follow her career through college with an eye to manipulating into a position where she can be of some use to him. And oh dear fucking god, that’s creepy.

The situation at the end of the film throws that completely out of joint though, and I go back and forth on which way she might go. Her primary reason for taking part in the game has gone, but it’s also one of the few things that Shepard isn’t responsible for, and I could go either way on whether she chooses to take advantage of Shepard’s patronage or not.

And Shepard himself is such a bundle of conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he’s a fucked-up, sadistic, manipulative arsehole who gets a kick out of psychological and physical torture (he’s just enjoying himself so much), but on the other hand he really does seem to run the games by a certain set of rules and maybe a sick sort of honour, which almost makes him more terrifying in a way. I’m thinking of the moment when he apologises to Iris for Julian’s behaviour – in a way that touch on her shoulder makes my skin crawl more than the attempted rape. It’s all very messy and uncomfortable, and one of the reasons why I love this fucked up little film so much, aside from how tense and claustrophobic it is.

What if the situation leads him to take even more of an interest in her than he usually would? Or perhaps his additional interest is in reaction to something she does? Maybe every now and then one of the players of the game does something to genuinely surprise him, and something about her draws him to her, to the point, perhaps, where he starts to shape her into a potential protoge. (Which Julian isn’t exactly happy about naturally).

As for the shippy version a lot of the appeal of this is how deeply fucked up it would be, and the deal with the devil vibes it would have, and Iris telling herself that she’s going into it with her eyes open because she knows what a monster he is, and finding herself in way over her head anyway. What does it take for this to come about?

Optional Prompts

Enemies to Lovers - Enemy tenderly treats character's injuries that the enemy inflicted – Whether this follows on directly from the end of the film, or relates to a whole new injury that Iris has sustained, I am so completely here for this. Or alternatively, what if Shepard is the one who’s been injured at Iris’s hands. It’s a couple of years down the line and, trying to get her revenge on him, she’s taken him to an isolated cabin while his people hunt for them. Only she isn’t sure whether she can really bring herself to kill someone again. Manipulation ensues.
Antagonist Surprises With Honourable Behavior – ‘honourable’ according to Shepard’s judgement, anyway. Because he really does seem to have a fucked-up code of his own when it comes to the games, even if that is just one of his manipulation techniques. But he honours his promises, and Iris finds herself conflicted.
Breathplay - top/dom likes getting choked – Consider this an exception to my Breathplay DNW. Shepard has a thing about being choked. Iris obliges because she just hates him so much. They’re both drawn to the element of risk: him because he knows she might well kill him if she was capable of it, she’s not sure if she is capable of it, but knows that if she takes it too far it could end very badly for her.
Captivity – For one reason or another, Shepard decides it’s necessary to have Iris quietly disposed of, but he’s unwilling to have her killed so imprisons her instead.
Character has their face shaved with a straight razor (by someone they have reason to distrust) – Having established a sexual relationship, although still aware that there’s good chance she’d like to kill him, Shepard lets Iris shave him. What appeals to me here is the sexual tension and Iris’s ever-present temptation to just cut his throat and have done with it.
Character Trains a Protege – Ohhh baby. Explore this however you want to, whether the focus is on the beginning of the process or if you start with her taking her place as a witness to a game. Is Iris all in (for whatever reason), or does she still have her doubts, or is she working against him somehow? And what exactly is Julian doing in all of this?
Slow Seduction/Corruption Arc – So uncomfortably hot, whatever form the seduction takes, whether it’s about sex or a moral corruption. I am absolutely here for a sexual relationship developing between them, but also her originally resisting him trying to use her for his own ends once she’s gone through college, and his attempts to bring her around, finding her a job, etc.
Outsider POV of a 'date' between Shepard and Iris. Especially if its clearly deeply uncomfortable, but to the outsider it just looks like a normal date between a solicitous older man and a younger woman (aside from maybe a couple of out-of-place moments).
Possessiveness - No One Is Allowed to Hurt You Except Me – Times when Shepard went out of his way to protect Iris.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – After the game, Iris is struggling to recover from the experience.
Scar Worship – Specifically that stab-wound. But also, maybe Shepard has one or two scars of his own.

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