Id Pro Quo 2024
Mar. 4th, 2024 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Id Pro Quo 2024 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. 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
Please note this letter is still under construction. In particular, the prompts probably need updating, but my id is pretty consistent.
Table of Contents
- General Preferences
- The 4400 (2004)
- Love and a .45
- Re-Animator (Movies)
- Lurking Fear (1994)
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
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 of all kinds, understated ghost stories, body horror, cosmic horror, claustophibic horror where the characters are trapped underground, potentially with monsters (think The Descent), etc.
- 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) fire-forged relationships that come about as a result of being isolated together and being able to rely on no one but each other.
- 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
- Omegaverse
- 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 (more casual power play, 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)
Back to the top
The 4400 (2004)
Requested Ships:
Kevin Burkhoff/Tess Doerner
Requested Tags:
Accidental Baby Acquisition, A and B got badly hurt and are recovering together, Bittersweet Reunions - Everything's changed but that's okay, Body Worship, Character A attempts to sacrifice themself for B; B gets very upset, Complicated relationships of love and loyalty and hurt and resentment, Consensual Mind Control, Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events, Femdom - Inexperienced female character struggles with playing the part, Gently and Lovingly Taking Partner's Virginity, Less sexually experienced character seduces more experienced character, One character shaves another's face with a straight razor, Road trip after the end of the world, Stranded at Roadside Motel, Two tired people taking quiet comfort in each other
(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.)
~~
The canon Kevin/Tess relationship still makes me a little giddy that it actually happened. It hits me in so many iddy spots: the age gap, the mutual protectiveness, unwavering devotion, and caretaking, all the potential for guilt and grief, how very uncomfortable with it Kevin is at times, and just in general all the complexities of their relationship. It was made for me, and I feel beyond spoiled that it happened at all, let along how it almost perfectly fulfilled every one of my hopes for how it might happen. :D I am very much here for younger characters pursuing older ones and for the older characters feeling weird and guilty as hell about it, 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.
Okay, I do kinda wish their chemistry came across as a little more explicitly sexual on-screen, but I can headcanon that as Kevin feeling guilty about the age gap, and they are so affectionate with each other (I’ll settle for hugs, kisses and forehead pressing *sobs*). They run away together. Twice!
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 essentially create her own army! And what do they mainly use those abilities for? SCIENCE. 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.
There’s an argument to be made that she’s the most powerful 4400 after Isabelle (and it cracks me up the way they kept having to dose her with kryptonite pack her off to visit her grandniece to get around the problem of why the characters wouldn’t just send Tess in every time there’s a problem that needs fixing. It’s not a perfect show, but it’s imperfections are part of what I find so delightful XD).
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.
I mentioned the incongruousness of Kevin and Tess's abilities, 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, so dig into that all you want.
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 maybe just slightly guilty) smut I cannot even say.
Regarding the show itself, although the wheels started to come off by the end, on the whole I loved this weird convoluted little puzzle box of a show in its entirety. 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. 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 then there's 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 developed later in the series? I think 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?
And then I have a bunch of other questions. Like 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.)
Optional Prompts
- A bad guys win!AU in which Marked!Jordan Collier is removing the abilities 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 was happening 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. And play with the age thing: on the one hand it reminds him how young she is, but at the same time he hasn’t actually been born yet, so...
- MIND CONTROL KINK. Because I can see the sex being a little bit uncertain and awkward at first, and I find the idea of them stumbling into a consensual set-up where Tess orders Kevin around in bed (or makes him tell her what he wants to do) hot as fuck.
- And also mind control, but slightly less consensual: I am so, so into all the chewy complexities of these two and the way the mind control plays into that, with Tess potentially using her ability to make Kevin ignore his qualms about the age gap? Because what’s a little gentle mind control between people who love each other? :D On the one hand it’s such a violation of trust, but on the other hand he really does love her and is happier with her, so it’s kind of understandable, but still… So explore that, or even just his underlying unease that it might be a possibility.
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Love and a .45 (1994)
Requested Ships:
Dinosaur Bob/Creepy Cody
Requested Tags:
"Platonic" porn-watching and mutual masturbation session leads to sex, A/B Seduce C into a Threesome; Then A/B Realize They Only Want Each Other, A&B mutually pining FWB until A tries to stop because "it's too hard to do this with you", A accidentally says I love you to fuckbuddy B in the middle of sex, Altered States - Drugs (Recreational), A and B got badly hurt and are recovering together, Bonding over substance misuse, bonding over violence, Cigarettes, Clearly The Fact That We Keep Having Sex Is A Series of Unrelated Bad Decisions, Gun Kink, One character shaves another's face with a straight razor, rough sex turns unexpectedly tender and/or emotional, rough sex turns unexpectedly tender and/or emotional (and then maybe rough again), Sex in the blood of your/our enemies, Stranded at Roadside Motel, Two Psychopaths In Love happily going on a trail of destruction
~~
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 in the scene where Bob and Creepy go after Billy, and having terrorised him, 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 Lurking Fear (1994)
Requested Ships:
Dr. Haggis/Cathryn Farrell
Requested Tags:
"Because I love you!" Oops I said it out loud,"Thank Fuck You're Alive!" Emotions Turn Into Frantic Fucking,"We'll just have sex one time to get it out of our systems" ... but it makes the longing worse,5+1 Things,Addiction - Character tries to distract Addict from addiction with sex,Alternate Universe - the big bad wins,Character A falls asleep on B's shoulder,Character A has been crying and tries to hide it but B still notices it,Character Survives Canon Death,Character trying to hold it together is clearly fraying at the edges,Cigarettes,exhausted sex as stress relief,Forehead Touching,Functional Alcoholic Not So Functional At The Moment,Gently touching a character's scar(s),Road trip after the end of the world,sharing a bed for comfort (after injury/nightmare/etc),Survival Horror,Time loop - Tries to prevent LI's death and keeps failing; eventual success breaks the loop,trapped together
As far as I can remember, I don’t think Dr Haggis’s first name is mentioned at any point, but by the looks of that sign outside his surgery, it starts with an I. :D
~~
God, I had so much fun watching this. It’s very short and kiiinda trashy, inexplicably mashing up Lovecraft with a London gangster subplot, but 1.) I appreciate how firmly it commits to in media res (even the prologue flashback opens with the people of Leffert’s Corners fully aware that the creatures exist), and, 2.) oh GOD do I adore Cathryn and Dr Haggis, both the individual characters and their ‘us against the world’ dynamic, whatever the hell their relationship is, or was, or might have been. <3<3<3 Oh, and the basic horror concept of monsters living in a cave trope (along the lines of The Descent, if you've seen it) is a bulletproof trope for me, and I love this particular film's take on it with the creatures burrowing up into people's houses and nowhere in town being safe.
For Cathryn, I love that whole thing of her having to take over the commando role from her sister, even though it’s not really a role that fits her naturally. She’s so tough, but vulnerable at the same time. And Dr Haggis, ohhhh baby: he’s a damaged, chain-smoking (even around sweating dynamite. DUDE. XD), bitter as fuck, alcoholic broken man, but at the same time he absolutely steps the fuck up when it comes to people needing medical attention and he’s so protective towards Beth and Cathryn... Uhm, not to mention the adoring stoic hearteyes he makes at Cathryn throughout. I love him so much and I just want him to have nice things. Or at least to survive so he can suffer some more.
They’re both so bruised by whatever’s gone on before the film starts. We never really see anything of what they were before or what their lives were really like: we’re just plunged into this semi post-apocalyptic warzone with no real explanation. He’s pretty clearly pining for her, but their conversation at the church door suggests the feeling is mutual, and I am just so here to see their relationship explored, whether it be a look at what might have happened between them pre-canon, or possibly a post-canon fix-it (or a fix-it to make it worse) where he survives. I love the way they work together, and the dynamic they’ve fallen into, and their shared grim resignation and determination to fight. They’re just together, this mismatched quietly pining little battle-couple, while their town falling to hell around them, and I ship them so hard.
I’d love to see something that explores pre-canon, because the film really does does drop us right smack in the middle of things, with virtually no explanation of what happened before. How did the townspeople finally figure out the creatures existed, and how long has it been common knowledge? Why haven’t they left? Or a canon-divergent fic where things shake out differently: maybe his injuries weren’t quite that serious which means he survives and she has to patch him up? Or the Martenses haven’t quite all been killed and come after them looking for revenge? Or give me a moment between them: have they ever hooked up while drunk or had inadvisable ‘thank god we’re alive’ sex? Oh, and pining is extremely welcome, especially mutual pining.
The film and pairing also hits a very specific trope which is like CATNIP to me: a physically unprepossessing man uncomfortably aware of how powerless he is to protect the woman he’s with from men who are stronger than he is, whether or not the woman can take care of herself (and in this case Cathryn very much can take care of herself). It gets me every damn time. *eyes*
Optional General Prompts
- Battle-couple – They just work so well together. I’d love to see some moments of them working together, because I’m so drawn to their dynamic, especially since fighting doesn’t necessarily come easily to her. Are they fighting by each other’s side, or it it a case of her fighting and him patching her up afterwards? Or him talking her through patching him up because he’s the one who got injured?
- Love in the time of horror and misery – Something else I love is the whole bleak atmosphere of the virtually deserted town. Everything’s crumbling and worn down, there are holes everywhere where the creatures have burrowed through, and everything is falling apart. It’s almost post-apocalyptic, except the world is still going on around them. Show me them them falling in love, or quiet moments of tenderness, affection and loyalty in the middle of the world going to hell around them.
- Alternate Universe - the big bad wins – They’ve lost and been captured by the creatures, and have nothing to do but try to escape, or trying to support and comfort each other through it, or have ‘fuck it we’re going to die’ despair sex.
- Bathing/Washing - After a fight, the two of them hole up together to wash off the gore.
- A 5 Times fic showing the gradual change in Leffert's Corner over time as the townsfolk gradually begin to realise something is wrong.
- Character A falls asleep on B's shoulder – Their relationship has so many opportunities for moments of quiet intimacy and emotional hurt/comfort. And pining. Lots and lots of pining.
- Character A has been crying and tries to hide it but B still notices it – I’m good with either one of them being the crying character here. Maybe he’s exhausted patching people up, or someone’s died despite all his best efforts, or she’s been coasting on adrenaline for too long and is finally starting to crumble. I adore their dynamic so much, and the idea of him being the only person she lets see her in a moment of weakness is the most delicious thing.
- Scars – Maybe a Five Times fic cataloguing their scars (or just hers), whether they’re caused by the creatures or not.
- Gently touching a character's scar(s) – As an excuse for hurt/comfort or tender emotional sex? I’m good with either. Or both.
- A canon-divergent fix-it where Dr Haggis survives his injuries, which means Cathryn has to patch him up post-canon.
- Cigarettes – You can probably count the number of minutes he’s without a cigarette on one hand. XD Give me all the descriptions of smoking, maybe a traumatised moment when his hand is shaking so hard he can’t light his cigarette so she has to do it for him.
- Functional Alcoholic Not So Functional At The Moment – Here for the hurt/comfort of this, whether the emotional hurt/comfort of them being there for each other when they’re scared or grieving, or the physical hurt/comfort of her helping him to bed, and then maybe sticking around afterwards, and the two of them bedsharing, whether entirely platonic or otherwise. Also here for drunken confessions, or maybe him just being less able to hide the way he feels about her while he’s drunk. I love how important they clearly are to each other, but also how frustrated she is with his drinking, even while she obviously gets why he does it.
- Childbirth - Because you can't have the Chekhov's Gun of a heavily pregnant woman and not have her give birth in a highly stressful set-piece, come on. So how about a canon-divergent scene where Beth, Cathryn and Haggis are beseiged down by the monsters, and at the worst possible moment, Beth goes into labour.
- That line of Cathryn's: "This is what I thought the end of the world was going to look like."? What if it really was the end of the world? Give me a post-apocalyptic AU. Maybe they're dealing with a zombie apocalypse, or creatures much like the canon ones but more widespread, or they're carriers for a disease.
- In that first scene with them, while they're outside his surgery, he makes a reference to them making some kind of bargain, presumably an agreement to stick around in town to kill the creatures. How did that bargain come about?
- There’s a lot about this film that doesn’t entirely make sense, the most notable thing being that they’re not actually trapped in the town, and can leave any time they like. I can buy them wanting to stay to finish things once and for all, but at the same time that doesn’t mean they can’t have the occasional holiday. So maybe they get out of town for a night or two when there’s no rain forecast for a while. Are they able to relax or are they constantly thinking about going back? Book separate rooms but end up sharing a room/bed anyway because it’s the only way they can get any sleep? Both get drunk and end up sleeping together?
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Re-Animator
Requested Ships:
Herbert West/Dan Cain
Requested Tags:
"Thank Fuck You're Alive!" Emotions Turn Into Frantic Fucking, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Addiction - Character tries to distract Addict from addiction with sex, Bad Guys Make Them Do It, Betray them to save them, Bittersweet Reunions - Everything's changed but that's okay, Body Swap - Characters Are Alarmingly Good At Being Each Other, Body Worship as Possessiveness, A came back wrong but B is into them anyway, Character A gets off on how possessive Character B is, Character with injured hands needs assistance (turns sexual), Complicated relationships of love and loyalty and hurt and resentment, Different First Meeting - one night stand before their first canon meeting, Ghosts - A is a ghost only B can see and interact with, Hurt/Comfort - Technically awful attempts at comfort are actually very comforting, Possessiveness - Bites and Scratches and Bruises as Claiming, Reconciliation - "I'm Tired of Hating You", Snowed In - A who's been pining for B gets hypothermia and B has to hug them nude for warmth, You Hurt Me More Than Anything; But Being Without You Hurts More, you're an unhinged disaster but you're MY unhinged disaster and no one's allowed to hurt you
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 Dan or Herbert being nonconned (onscreen or otherwise) by a third party for the purposes of whump or hurt/comfort.
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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 (from the autopsy presumably, but WHAT IF...), 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 zombie apocalypses, 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 want 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. Or alternatively, Dan and Herbert are estranged, and Dan inherits the house from a mysterious relative, only realising who his benefactor is when he stumbles across the lab.
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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
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.
Request One: Odo/Weyoun and Odo & Weyoun
Requested Tags:
Accidental Baby Acquisition,Accidental Soulbond - Both are resistant to the idea but fall in love over time,Aftermath of possession leaves characters with inconvenient mental connection,A and B got badly hurt and are recovering together,Bad Guys Make Them Do It,Body Swap - Characters Are Alarmingly Good At Being Each Other,Body Worship,Captive character surprised to learn their rescuer is motivated by genuine affection,Character A attempts to sacrifice themself for B; B gets very upset,Character falls from grace and finds out that he is far happier there,Character has to fake being evil for reasons,Character isn't used to being loved and shown tenderness/affection,Character Offers Themselves in Trade for Someone Else's Release/Safety,Complicated relationships of love and loyalty and hurt and resentment,My Moral Compass Is "What Do I Need To Do To Protect You?",Slow Burn - Soulbonding is the only way for A to save seriously injured B's life,Stranded somewhere together and have to rely on each other to survive
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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’d love to see their relationship explored in all its forms, whether gen or shippy. There’s so much to explore in their relationship, and just what each character says about the other. 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, but their gen relationship is fascinating too. There's so much to dig into: 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 the Vorta don’t have children or childhoods in the usual way, 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.
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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Request Two: Quark/Brunt
Requested Tags:
"Oh No They're Hot" moment leads to feelings realization, "We'll just have sex one time to get it out of our systems" ... but it makes the longing worse, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Accidental Soulbond - Both are resistant to the idea but fall in love over time, Aftermath of possession leaves characters with inconvenient mental connection, Bad Guys Make Them Do It, Body Swap - Characters Are Alarmingly Good At Being Each Other, Character in hatesex arrangement realizes they don't consider themself single, Character Surprised By Their Own Deep Loyalty Feels; Object Of Loyalty Even More Surprise, Characters don't realise they're in a relationship but everyone else can see it, Characters Finally Commit to Each Other After Years of Casual Non-Exclusive Sex, Clearly The Fact That We Keep Having Sex Is A Series of Unrelated Bad Decisions, Different First Meeting - one night stand before their first canon meeting, Pining - Mutual pining that both characters figure out is requited but that's terrifying, Reluctant sexual attraction to someone they (should) dislike, Slow Burn - Soulbonding is the only way for A to save seriously injured B's life, Soulbond - Accidental soulbond between enemies/rivals leads to feelings, Stranded somewhere together and have to rely on each other to survive, we're gonna regret having sex as soon as it's over
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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?
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Request Three: Mirror Ezri Dax/Brunt, & Mirror Ezri Dax/Mirror Brunt
Requested Tags:
Accidental Baby Acquisition,A/B edge C until they're a sobbing desperate mess,Character has to fake being evil for reasons,Clothing - Naked Male Clothed Female,Identity Porn,we're gonna regret having sex as soon as it's over
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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 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.
Request Four: Mirror Brunt/Weyoun 6
Requested Tags:
Accidental Baby Acquisition, Amnesia - character reverts to a dramatically different previous version of themselves, A and B got badly hurt and are recovering together, Character A asks about Character B's scars/injuries from abuse/torture, Character A attempts to sacrifice themself for B; B gets very upset, Character falls from grace and finds out that he is far happier there, Character finally finds an unconditionally good relationship; not sure how to handle, Character has to fake being evil for reasons, Character isn't used to being loved and shown tenderness/affection, Character Offers Themselves in Trade for Someone Else's Release/Safety, Characters show affection through food/cooking, Creating your moral code from scratch after the last one imploded, Slow Burn - Soulbonding is the only way for A to save seriously injured B's life, Stranded somewhere together and have to rely on each other to survive, Two tired people taking quiet comfort in each other
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Because a passing stray thought that Mirror Brunt and Weyoun 6 should hook up got into my head and then refused to go away. Which I can understand, because fucking hell, yes. I have absolutely no idea how it would work or how it would come about, but goddamn do I want it to happen.
As ships go, this is absurdly self-indulgent, but at the same time there are some potentially really interesting dynamics and parallels to be drawn between them. They're both more sympathetic versions of more or less antagonistic characters, both desperately loyal to another person with whom they have a somewhat one-sided relationship, (and they're both adorable tragically doomed cinnamon rolls. D:) Maybe Weyoun finds himself stranded in the Mirror universe – does the fact that it isn’t his universe provide a loophole that allows him to override his inbuild loyalty to the Dominion? (Keevan shows that not all Vorta are unquestionably loyal, which suggests that Weyoun is just like that, unswervingly terrifyingly loyal, whether to the Dominion or to Odo, and I love him all the more for that) Does he immediately set out to try to find a way back to his universe, or to find the wormhole in the Mirror universe? How does Mirror Odo complicate matters? Does he shift his loyalties to Mirror Brunt?
There are countless things I’d love to see here, and explore it however you want, but I do really love the idea of him gradually coming to terms with being stranded in the Mirror universe, and even though it’s a grimdark hellhole, realising he’s better off there, even though he’s conflicted about staying. And as for Mirror Brunt, mmph, these two sweethearts would be absolutely perfect for each other. Just get them together and make them kiss, however you have to do it. And maybe they’re both pining for other people at first, but gradually they catch feelings for each other. They’re both so lovely: they deserve some happiness.
Optional Prompts
- Look, if in doubt, please just make them kiss and I will be happy. :D
- Body Swap - Characters Are Alarmingly Good At Being Each Other
- Conflicting loyalties – Explore the issue of loyalty and how it manifests in each of them. Especially Weyoun, whose loyalties are at least somewhat artificial. How does the Mirror universe affect his loyalties to the Founders? Is he able to override it? Perhaps because he’s stuck there he gradually becomes used to feeling free of his obligations to the Dominion, and transfers his loyalties to Mirror Brunt instead, but then an opportunity to return to the prime universe arises and he has to deal with his conflicting loyalties.
- Weyoun has fallen in with M!Ezri and M!Brunt and has been working with them for a while without issue until they capture Mirror!Odo. And maybe he can override his instinctive loyalties because this is the Mirror!Universe version and so not a true Founder, but it doesn’t come easily.
- Character finally finds an unconditionally good relationship; not sure how to handle it - They're both just so damn sweet, and while everything else might be going to hell, the two of them still manage to carve out some moments of sweetness in the middle of the nightmarish dystopia that is the Mirror Universe.
- Character isn't used to being loved and shown tenderness/affection – Because loving relationships aren’t normally part of a Vorta’s life experience, and Weyoun isn’t quite sure how to handle it.
- Food as part of the language of love – They both have interesting relationships with food. Given Mirror Brunt’s tendency to make sure everyone’s fed (with tube grubs, but still...), and the way Weyoun works his way through everything on the replicator’s menu, it seems like this would be the perfect way for them to bond. And okay, maybe Brunt can’t get his hands on kava nuts or rippleberries but there must be something.
- Creating your moral code from scratch after the last one imploded – So let’s say Weyoun is stranded, temporarily or otherwise, in the Mirror universe. He’s finally free of his obligations to the Dominion, because there is no Dominion there, and so has to figure out a few things and relearn the sort of person he wants to be.
- Gently touching a character's scar(s) – Because again this is one of the contrasts between them, Mirror Brunt being scarred (because picking up scars in the Mirror Universe is inevitable, let’s face it) while Weyoun is almost entirely scar-free due to being a recent clone. I’m particularly here for scar kink, and all the associated fascination and sympathy and tenderness, but you could also play with the issues over cloning: Weyoun’s memories of injuries sustained by other Weyouns, which aren’t reflected on his body, but which maybe he feels as phantom scars of some kind?
- Emotional hurt/comfort – Ordinarily Vortas’ memories of their previous deaths and injuries are suppressed as part of the cloning process to ensure they remain motivated and willing to sacrifice themselves, but every now and then those suppressed memories return in full force.
- Identity Porn - A scam/heist requires that they both have to pose as their other selves.
- Smut - experimenting with and exploring interspecies biology.
- on the run together – Whether from the Alliance or from some kind of crime syndicate (potentially run by Mirror Ishka XD), and bonding in the process.
- Two tired people taking quiet comfort in each other – Exhausted sex, moments of respite in the middle of the world going to hell, the two of them finding moments of common ground, etc.
- Competence Kink - And the two of them being quietly impressed and turned on by the other’s competence: Brunt’s toughness and fighting skills and Weyoun's innate diplomacy and negotiating skills.
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Thanks for reading!