Candy Hearts 2022 Exchange

Candy Hearts 2022 Letter

AO3 Username: StopTalkingAtMe

Welcome to my letter, Mystery Creator. Let me start by saying I’m open to a LOT of different things, and to endings of all kinds from tooth-rottingly happy to bleak despair. I’m also open to unrequested crossovers, so as long as you have good reason to believe I’m into a fandom, then go for it. 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. 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

Table of Contents

• General Likes
• Smut Likes
• DNWs
• Dagon (2001)
• The Frighteners
• From Beyond
• House on Haunted Hill (1999)
• Motivational Growth
• The Professionals
• Re-Animator
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Star Trek: Lower Decks

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. (Please note the exception for Whisky Galore!)
• 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, us against the world, deep mutual dependence on the other party because there’s no one else around (which may not be entirely healthy)
• 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
• Unreqested Noncon (Bad Guys Made Them Do It scenarios are fine though)
• 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
• Sexualised lactation
• Any variation of the word 'come' in a sexual context spelled as 'cum' (please use 'come', 'came', 'precome' etc)

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Dagon

Requested Ships:
Paul Marsh & Dagon
Paul Marsh/Bárbara
Paul Marsh/Dagon
Paul Marsh/Uxía Cambarro
Paul Marsh/Uxía Cambarro/Bárbara
Paul Marsh/Uxía Cambarro/Dagon
Uxía Cambarro/Dagon

~~

Well, somehow, before watching Dagon I failed to osmose that it was actually an adaptation of The Shadow over Innsmouth (and was in fact quietly lamenting the fact that no one ever seemed to adapt TSoI, since it’s probably my favourite Lovecraft story). Which meant that I spent most of the early part of the film growing gradually more delighted as the penny dropped. Not only that, but it adds important female characters (Uxía!!!), and replaces the racist miscegenation elements of the original story with canonical incest and literal Dagon-fucking.

I’m open to basically any combination of Paul Marsh/Uxía Cambarro/Bárbara/Dagon. Paul is adorably hapless and clumsy, and I have no words for how much I loved Uxía. The actress is undeniably gorgeous but there was something so creepily uncanny valley about her facial expressions, especially her smile, and her joyous delight in the face of Paul’s bewildered horror is contagious. She’s so happy at the prospect of living underwater with Dagon and even happier to share it with Paul! :D I adored everything about her, including every single reveal – the tentacles and how they took the imagery of her as a mermaid and ran with it! The fact that she’s his half-sister! And the contrast with her being disabled on land and anything but in the water – and Paul doing his best to resist, but ultimately succumbing. That moment when she rescued him at the end… Well, I don’t know if it counted as a happy ending exactly, but I’d really love to see what happens beyond that and how their relationship might develop. I loved Bárbara too, and that whole situation was nightmare fuel, especially as Paul didn’t do what she asked and put her out of her suffering.

What might have happened if Bárbara had survived at the end, some of the body horror of being pregnant with a baby who may or may not be a monster. Paul’s mother survived, so it’s not necessarily a death warrant. Whether or not Paul’s accepted the whole becoming a terrible fish-monster himself or not, maybe he still wants to protect her, and I’d love to see something exploring the dynamics between Paul, Uxía Cambarro and Bárbara, whichever of the three relationships you focus on. How might Bárbara’s relationship with Uxía develop? Does she remain essentially a prisoner or does she come round to the situation, whether willingly or not? How does she react to a Paul who’s accepted Dagon? Is he still trying to help her escape?

Optional Prompts

• Corruption Arc – So the film ends with Paul apparently having come around to his fate and the joy of living underwater with Dagon, but has he really, or does he still have lingering doubts? Does he regain his senses once he’s out of the water, meaning that his coming around is a much longer slower process? And how does he feel next time there’s a sacrifice to Dagon? Particularly if it’s Bárbara?
• Dreamsharing – Paul and Uxía’s first meeting is one of my favourite moments in the movie: aside from the tentacle reveal how damn hot it is, I really love the instant connection between them, the way they react so immediately to each other, and how helpless Paul is to resist her, even though a minute ago he was fleeing for his life. It’s like they know each other immediately, and if she was aware of her appearances in his dreams, in a way they kind of do. I’d love to see that developed, whether it’s an excuse for a PWP, or something more involved and reflective, and maybe for her a sign that he will ultimately be drawn home, and so she’s been waiting for him all this time.
• A has conflicting feelings while B tenderly treats his/her injuries – I’m specifically thinking of Uxía treating Paul’s injuries here, but either of them treating Bárbara’s injuries is a strong contender too. The whole situation is so messy, and while Paul seems like he might have accepted the situation, there’s always room for doubt.
• Tentacle sex – Whether with Dagon, or how Uxía’s tentacles would factor into sex between her and Paul.
• Bárbara survives to give birth to Dagon’s baby. Paul looks after her, protecting her from Uxía. How does this pan out? Is Paul quietly planning to help her escape (and maybe escape himself?), or does he start out that way, but eventually comes around to the joys of Dagon, and wants Bárbara to share his joy?
• The pure nightmare fuel of being pregnant with a baby that might be completely normal or might be a hideous tentacled squid-monster.
• Worldbuilding exploring what it’s like underwater.
• Femdom – Uxía gently doms Paul.
• Jealous of Paul's continuing love for Bárbara, Uxía sets out to know her better, because she wants to understand why Paul can't let her go.
• Or alternatively, because she wants Paul to be happy, and she wants everyone to share in the joys of Dagon, Uxía uses seduction and aphrodisiac-esque drugs to bring Bárbara around.
• After seeing the way they look underwater, Paul gradually grows more fascinated/attracted to/aroused by Uxía's tentacles.
• Something Made Them Do It - Uxía orders Paul to go down on/have sex with Bárbara (sex pollen optional), and will hurt Bárbara if he doesn't.
• Character Study of anyone and/or everyone. Uxía's worldview and comple unquestioning acceptance of everything that's going on, Paul's life before returning to the village, never really happy and not quite sure why, and Bárbara if she survives, and how she'd cope with the horrors going on around her.
• An AU where Bárbara is the long-lost child returning to the place of her conception.

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The Frighteners

Requested Ships:
Frank Bannister/Lucy Lynskey & Milton Dammers

This request is potentially going to be a little bit shorter than the others, but please don’t take that as any sign of me wanting it any less. I love this film so much, although I do occasionally wish it was played a little straighter and was slightly less cartoonish. Its mix of comedy and horror is right up my street, though, and I really love the case at the heart of the film, and the whole creepy set-up between Johnny and Patricia. It’s a lot of fun to watch.

What I have in mind for this is a post-canon fic which explores what might happen after the end of the film. If you have another idea, though, such as a canon-divergent fic or want to set it during canon, then please do go with that.

So what happens post-canon? What does Frank do after his unfinished dream house has been demolished? Does he start all over again with something more suited to him and Lucy? How does their relationship pan out given she can see ghosts too, now, and what, if anything, do they plan to do with their new-found ability? Given how Lucy got to know him in the first place, I can see some issues arising between them over helping people to contact their loved ones, with her believing that if they can bring comfort to people they should, while for him he immediately associates it all with a time of his life that he’d much rather forget. But the whole seeing ghosts thing isn’t going to go away.

And then there’s Milton, and the way he adapts (or fails to adapt) to being a ghost, and how Frank and Lucy would react to him turning up in their lives again, given what an arsehole he was to them both when he was alive. Do they try to pretend they can’t see him, or set out to at least try to help him move on when his chance arises again?

I’d love to see anything which explores the relationship between the characters and how the dynamics might shift post-canon. The possibilities for case fic could be really interesting too with opportunities for all sorts of weirdness. Maybe Milton is still obsessed with investigating weird cases and making himself an absolute nightmare until they agree to help him investigate.

Optional Prompts

• Characters Team Up To Investigate Something Paranormal/Supernatural – A Case Fic in which Frank, Lucy and Milton investigate something weird going on, possibly at Milton’s insistence, possibly because much like in canon it quickly becomes weird that there really is something weird going on, and Milton is the one who has to be persuaded.
• Frank and Milton go undercover to investigate a cult. And if you want to make that a Lovecraftian cult, then please do.
• Milton tries to come to terms with being dead.
• TFW when the ghost of your enemy turns up uninvited to your wedding and refuses to go away until you help him, except he doesn't even know what sort of help he wants and he's driving you up the wall because death hasn't made him any less of an asshole.
• Enemies Forced to Work Together; Caustic Banter Ensues – Because even if they are working together, that doesn’t mean they have to like each other.
• OK, it was probably inevitable that Frank was going to gather more ghosts around him after losing Cyrus, Stuart and the Judge, but seriously this guy?
• Scars – Because even before I watched Re-Animator and caught a bad case of blorbo (*gestures sheepishly at the rest of my sign-up*) the ‘my body is a roadmap of pain!’ bit of this was formative (and Herbert West was a goddamn revelation, ok). What the fuck happened to him? Were those scars the result of one incident or many? Backstory, please?
• They find themselves stranded together somewhere creepy like a haunted building or an isolated motel
• "normally we're on opposite sides and i don't/shouldn't like you but hey are you okay?" – Frank is reluctantly starting to worry about Milton.

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From Beyond

Requested Ships:
Katherine McMichaels/Crawford Tillinghast

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 MRI 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 looks after them both, and the way, when the sexual tension starts to ramp up, he’s included creepy intimacy of that moment where 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

• 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.
• Smut – It sure would be a shame if those manacles went to waste.
• 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.
• More smut – 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?
• Sex pollen! During the early part of the film, Katherine, Crawford and Bubba are affected by tentacles from the other dimension that dose them with sex pollen

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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

Note: 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.

Optional Prompts

• 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.
• Identity Porn - Identity Issues due to Time Travel – 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?
• Character saves their younger self from trauma – 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?
• A 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.
• Lovecraftian horror. 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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Motivational Growth

Requested Characters:
Ian Foliver & The Mold
Ian Folivor/The Mold

~~

This film. This fucking film. It gives me such What the Fuck Did I Just Watch vibes and I love it for that, even though I'm only about 75% sure that I know what's actually going on. Before seeing this I would never have believed I'd get so invested in the relationship between a suicidal agoraphobe and the sinister talking fungus growing in his bathroom, and YET…

I just want to watch it over and over again, piecing together all the little clues in the in-universe TV shows, trying to figure out what's real and what's not, who's on the Mold's side and who isn't, how much of what Ian sees is real and how much a hallucination. It's so unapologetically *weird* and just the tiniest bit repulsive, and even though I don’t entirely know what the hell is going on I find it so extraordinarily satisfying to watch.

And then there’s the Mold. God, the fucking Mold. Absurdly charismatic, shifty as fuck, and hiding his manipulation of poor hapless Ian in plain-sight, and Ian just going along with it, because surely this sinister talking fungus can only have his best interests at heart? Admittedly, it’s probably because he can probably only understand about 50% of what the Mold is actually saying at any given moment.

There are essentially two (very broad) things I want for this request: 1.) Worldbuilding, and 2.) More interaction between Ian and the Mold.

For worldbuilding, I’d love to see some exploration of what the hell is actually going on, whether that means what the Mold actually is, where he came from, what he’s doing with Ian, what the deal is with the TV, or what’s going to happen after the end of the film and Ian finally leaves the apartment. My take on what the hell is going on (although I stress that if you have a different reading then please go with it.) involves aliens, potential invasion, and it’s, idk, a Bodysnatchers type situation with poor hapless Ian being ground zero for the new fungal world order. Alternatively, maybe the Mold is an escaped criminal with another faction hunting him? There do seem to be two opposing sides, one represented by the Mold and the other communicating through the medium of Ian's TV... and yeah, no, that's literally all I've got. Do with that what you will or ignore it completely and do your own thing.

What is the Mold? (Just a hallucination caused by Ian inhaling fumes? One of Lovecraft’s fungus-aliens?) Where did he come from? What exactly are his big plans for Ian? Is the world outside mostly normal or is it already in chaos? What happens post-canon? How much of what Ian sees through the spyhole is real? Is he the only person this is happening to, or is this happening all over, and if the former why him? The first TV repair guy (if he’s real) is clearly linked with the Mold somehow since we see the Mold mouthing his dialogue. Are they both part of a larger organism? In which case the Mold must also exist in some way outside of Ian's apartment?

I could mostly take or leave the other characters, since they often just detracted from Ian & the Mold screen time, but Leah did fascinate me. And oh, hey, turns out the Normal Guy/Gorgeous Girl pairing is a hell of a lot less obnoxious when there’s a good chance she’s a meat puppet under the control of Normal Guy’s creepy mould buddy who just wants him to bear his spore self-actualise. What's going on with Leah? Is she a hallucination caused by the Mold (because why else would she call Ian Jack? BUT THEN WHY WOULD THE MOLD KILL HER?) Or is she working for the other side? (If indeed there is another side?) Or is the other side able to somehow disrupt whatever the Mold shows Ian, so she started off as his work and then got side-tracked by the Mold? I have so many questions.

For the Ian & The Mold part of my request, I cannot emphasise enough how much I love the dynamic between this pair. The heart of this film for me was the Mold slowly taking over his life (and his apartment), and the interaction between them, and I just want more of that, in whatever form it takes. I love the way the Mold speaks, his off-kilter speech patterns and the weird slangy cant he uses. He’s so clearly unambiguously evil and manipulative from the get-go (which isn’t to say that I’m not open to a less antagonistic version of their relationship because I absolutely am).

I’d have liked to have seen more of earlier on in their relationship: because that montage of Ian chilling on the floor with the Mold and even stroking him affectionately... I just, uh... I don't know, man. It gave me feelings that I'm not entirely sure I want to feel. I have no clue how a relationship between them would work, but if you can figure it out, then PLEASE DO, but I’d love anything that expands on their relationship, whether antagonistic, gen or shippy or anything in-between.

What the hell is Ian anyway? Does that bee story Leah tells him suggest that he'll die after mating? And how exactly will he mate? The usual human kinda way, or will he... idk, spore somehow? After the end of the film, does he keep turning to the Mold for advice? Or does their relationship continue semi-antagonistically? (or both). Are there other Molds out there, and if so are they all still the same one or slightly different? Does he ever come to terms what he is (or what I think he is?), or does he keep operating under the assumption that he's still human?

Optional Prompts

• Altered States – Fever Dreams/Hallucinations – Give me more of the Mold casually fucking with Ian, more surreal and weirdly foreboding hallucinations.
• Antagonism - characters don't like each other but nobody else understands them this well – Whether set during canon or afterwards. Granted, the Mold is terrible, but he’s the only being who really understands Ian, particularly now that Ian may not exactly be human any more. Is the Mold still fucking with him, or now that he’s achieved whatever he wanted to achieve, is their relationship less antagonistic?
• Ian wakes up in an entirely mundane at first glance universe where he is living a normal life, has a different apartment and a job and maybe even a girlfriend and everything that happened with the Mold was just a dream. Then due to a twist of fate he runs into a stranger who sounds unnervingly familiar and that's the catalyst that causes reality to bleed through.
• Ian (because he's now at least partially part of the Mold?) gains the ability to see through/tap into the experience of other Molds, and starts to have visions of an alien world or space station.
• In Captivity Together – Assuming the Mold is an escaped criminal as hinted at by one of the in-universe clips, he’s recaptured and thrown back into whatever passes for a prison, and unfortunately, since Ian is now part of the Mold, he’s thrown into prison right alongside him.
• Possessiveness - No One Is Allowed to Hurt You Except Me – Despite everything, the Mold’s actually grown a bit fond of Ian.
• Time Loop – canon goes a little bit time-loopy at the end there, so expand on that a little bit.
• So x months down the line and having inadvertently brought about the apocalypse, Ian returns to his apartment to confront the Mold.

Back to the top

The Professionals

Requested Ships
William Bodie/George Cowley
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, George Cowley/William Bodie

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.

And then there’s Cowley/Bodie. This ship hit me pretty hard after a chance comment got me thinking how it would work, and then in the middle of that I watched Need to Know, and noticed that little bit where Cowley brushes back Bodie's hair after administering oxygen (all Doyle gets is a cheek pat), and huh, okay, turns out I do actually ship it, and turns out I really ship it.

I'm nearly always drawn to age-gap relationships anyway, and something about this particular age gap ship just really appeals -- it's something about the mix of loyalty, trust issues, and the low-level disapproval on Cowley's part - his little dig about how it's not like Bodie will ever have to worry about it when the subject of them needing his permission to get married comes up (also Bodie's 'Wait, what?' reaction, XD). Even aside from the age gap, there are so many fundamental differences between them -- faith, repression, romanticism, etc -- but in a way that gets me wanting to see just how they'd fit together, as well as all the different ways they could fit together.

I’m also fascinated by the way Bodie and Cowley sort of mirror each other in their early lives, and the way they both ran away from home at a young age to fight abroad… A LOT of this is headcanon, but I see Cowley as having left a happy and supportive home to fight for a cause he absolutely believed in, while Bodie is basically the polar opposite, running away from an abusive home, and fighting for one group or another, and ultimately never believing in anything, until maybe CI5, and even then it takes him a while to come round to that.

Repression and trust issues and pining (mutual or otherwise) are always golden, as well as imperfect awkward sex and scenarios where they're both out of their depth and forced to rely on each other. Not to mention having to keep any relationship secret and/or self-denial because of Cowley's 'No Fraternisation Between Agents' rule. And Bad Guys Made Them Do It scenarios, which take on an extra layer of interest if it's Cowley being made to fuck Bodie -- that delicious additional guilt during and afterwards because ultimately Cowley is the one responsible for their safety. Just... fucking yes please. That, and the delicious guilt and angst of the aftermath.

There absolutely doesn't need to be a happy ending. Oh, and I should mention that background Bodie/Doyle is welcome here too.

Optional Prompts (some of these have been written with specific ships/characters in mind, but please feel free to mix and match)

• 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 Bodie/Doyle for this, with one of them as the ghost, but Cowley as the ghost (and absolutely livid about it) would be great too, whichever ship you go with.
• 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 - (both ships) 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 - Either paring, any character. Trying to remain stoic and refusing help much to the frustration of the other/s. If Cowley’s the whumped character then maybe it could be a semi-fakeout, where he’s using his weakness as bait, and it works, but actually he’s suffering too.
• 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
• Complicated feelings of love and loyalty and hurt and resentment - For either pairing really, although I have to admit I have Cowley/Bodie in mind specifically. Just a relationship study, really, examining all the complicated trust issues and matters of loyalty
• 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.
• Fighting/sparring as foreplay – I mean, the usual, but for Cowley/Bodie this would probably also include Cowley watching (disapprovingly?) as Bodie gets the shit kicked out of him by Macklin, followed by something that could theoretically be described as comfort if you squint. For Bodie/Doyle, them enjoying sparring with each other.
• Cowley goes rogue. Is it for real, or another ruse?
• 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?
• Time Loop – the part where the looper breaks and stops giving any fucks – Again any character, but I admit I’m thinking of Cowley here, mainly because I’m delighted by the idea of him being thwarted at every turn and then just going FUCK THIS.
• Character A and Character B Mutually Pine For Each Other While They Fuck Other People Together -- I'm specifically thinking of Bodie/Doyle (Cowley would NEVER), but dear god do I love it for them. 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.
• And of course now that I've said that Cowley would NEVER, I'm immediately trying to think of situations in which he would. *sigh* I suppose the most likely scenario is a combination of the procuring an undercover Bodie claims to do in Take Away and everything that happens with Anna in The Untouchables -- another party who knows this is a CI5 operation and is working with full consent. So a 'Sex while undercover' scenario, probably?
• Bodysharing - one of them commenting/giving orders while the other jerks off -- Ahaha, <3. I love this tag so much. Either pairing, either character. Although I do have to admit, that while it would be especially weird and filthy and fun for Bodie/Doyle, the idea of this for Cowley/Bodie fills me with glee. God, it would be excruciating and I can't figure out which scenario I like more: Bodie trying to have a surreptitious wank when he thinks Cowley isn't looking, and his dawning horror at the first sour comment, or while Bodie's inside Cowley some of his general horniness rubs off on him, and even when Cowley was young he hadn't been as horny as this all the damn time, what the hell, man? It appeals so much, the two of them trying to make it work as best they can until they can get the mess fixed, and grudgingly actually getting sort of into it, weird and fucked up as it is.
• 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?
• Authority Figure Societally Expected To Have Sex With Subordinate – I obviously had Cowley/Bodie in mind for this, but if you want to use it for Bodie/Doyle instead, then please do. I can see a couple of ways that’d work – an AU where either Bodie or Doyle is the other’s subordinate, OR where Cowley being expected to have sex with his subordinates is part of the background to the Bodie/Doyle ship (a Droit du Seigneur situation which arises when two of his subordinates are in a relationship, which is part of the reason why Cowley discourages relations between his agents because he hates having to fulfil his duties and he is extremely unimpressed every time it happens?) Either way, what appeals with this is how utterly awkward and uncomfortable it would be, and Cowley’s reluctance and impatience with the whole business. I’d love to see the worldbuilding explored whichever ship the focus is on. Would Cowley put it off or grit his teeth and get it over with as soon as possible? Is it a one-off, or is he expected to keep it up on a regular basis? (and oh, bless him, but he’s not as young as he used to be and CI5 has a LOT of agents) Or maybe he does usually try to keep it a one-off, although nominally it isn’t meant to be, but for some reason he keeps fulfilling his statutory duties with Bodie more often than he does with his other agents… (or that Droit de Seigneur situation again, where Bodie keeps submitting fraternisation request forms for different people, and Cowley gets progressively more exasperated every time he has to fuck him, until he realises that Bodie hasn’t so much as gone on a date with the party named in the most recent form (but why? Is it an excuse to fuck Cowley, or a form of bratty non-violent protest, which leads to the two of them bonding over their mutual resentment at the practice).
• 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.

Back to the top

Re-Animator

Requested Ship:
Herbert West/Dan Cain

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 by a third party where Herbert is the victim.

~~

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 isn’t one of them. I am a complete sucker for relationships which are a mixture of loyalty and betrayal and horribly messy feelings, and I really like 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).
• 5 ways character's typical routine plays out slightly differently – Because I’m curious about what a day in the life looks like for both of them.
• 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 you’re sharing the loop with another person would play out with these two is perfect. (and for time loops in general, Herbert adapting his work to take full advantage of the loop (er, an endless supply of fresh corpses with no consequences, having to memorise the results because he can’t write them down…)
• Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse – Always and forever one of my favourite AUs. Was it Herbert’s fault, or was he entirely innocent for once?
• Hurt/Comfort - Drug Withdrawal; Love Interest Helps Them Getting Though It – Yeeep, I wish that deleted scene had been included in the film. I have some quiet headcanons about Herbert injecting himself with reagent, and amongst them being 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.)

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Requested Ships:
Quark/Brunt
Ishka & Brunt

I have a long history with DS9. I watched most of it when it was first airing, but never really watched it all the way through from start to finish, something which I’ve been meaning to rectify for a while. I’ve just started on season 5, so I’m still working my way through, but I know most of what happens and there’s a good chance I’ll have finished the series by reveals, so please don’t worry about spoilers. It’s also up to you whether you follow the plot of the relaunch novels or ignore them entirely.

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, which brings me to my request.

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 found their reactions to the changes on Ferenginar in The Dogs of War, with Quark outraged while Brunt is much more pragmatic, pretty damn interesting, given how very, very bound to tradition Brunt’s been throughout the series, and granted he’s 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 – I’m guessing Ferenginar isn’t exactly the most progressive place when it comes to gay relationships – and repression, denial, and internalised homophobia on one or both their parts are all welcome. One of my prompts suggests Quark/Natima/Brunt and I’d be interested in seeing that sort of this explored in terms of worldbuilding. Maybe M/M relationships are more accepted in the context of a 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 Universe! Quark, but Mirror Universe!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.
• Accidental Soulbond - distance and lack of touch and regular sex causes characters pain and illness
• All the Enemies to Lovers and Enemies to Enemies Who Fuck tropes, please, from ’Receiving vaguely threatening but confusingly sexy oo-mox from antagonist’ to ‘Enemies With Benefits Slowly Falling in Love’.
• Sex pollen, and/or the aftermath.
• Angry Sex – I am so, so here for the two of them hatefucking, and for moments of unexpected tenderness in the middle of the hatefucking.
• 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.
• Character A mistakenly thinks character B is only in it for sex – Because pining while having sex is one of my favourite things.
• 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.
• Another post-canon fic in which not only are they an established relationship but they also have a kid (preferably 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-*). Brunt’s traditional Ferengi parenting and Quark’s slightly less traditional Ferengi parenting, vs everyone else in Quark’s family undermining them at every turn. Possibly a 5+1 format?
• 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 & Brunt

I cannot emphasise enough how much I adore Ishka, scheming and plotting, and virtually singlehandedly causing a complete cultural change on Ferenginar, not only bringing the emancipation of Ferengi females everywhere but the labour rights movement. She is amazing, and I’d love to see more of what the women’s rights movement looks like on Ferenginar. Is there an underground network of women quietly operating under the noses of the FCA? Does she know Pel? Is she still conducting business (FTR, I strongly headcanon that she is. :D)?

As a Brunt/Quark shipper, I very much appreciate the role she plays in ma/9king Brunt fixate on Quark in the first place, and I’d very much like to see something of what’s going on in Ferenginar in between the episodes in which she plays a part. I’m curious too about the inconsistencies: when Quark breaks his contract with Brunt in Body Parts, Brunt says it should bring about the ruin of his family, but it doesn’t actually seem to impact much on her at all. Possibly this is explained somewhere and I just missed it, but my personal headcanon for this is that she managed to create her own safety net with the money she didn’t declare to the FCA, setting it up so that it looked like the work of a distant male relative, and driving Brunt batshit trying to bring her down.

If you want to bring Brunt/Quark into it, then please do, but I’d be just as delighted with a purely gen fic about the two of them scheming and trying to thwart the other’s plans, or alternatively, them having to work together for once.

Optional Prompts

• When he agreed to help rescue Ishka from the Dominion, Brunt hadn’t realised that since he’s the one with the ship, that also means he’s also the one stuck transporting her back to Ferenginar. Does something happen on the trip that forces them to work together, or is the entire journey the two of them irritating the hell out of each other?
• 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. *shrug*
• Five times Ishka and Brunt thwarted each other’s schemes (and the one time they actually brought about a net benefit for everyone involved)
• Any missing scene of what’s going on on Ferenginar in-between when we see it in the show, such as the institution of the Congress of Economic Advisors.
• Mirror Universe!Brunt is such a sweetheart. What’s Mirror Universe!Ishka like?
• Brunt visits Ishka after she and Zek have retired to Risa in the hopes of persuading her to put in a good word for him with Grand Nagus Rom.

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Star Trek: Lower Decks

Requested Shipss:
AGIMUS/Peanut Hamper

Man, this series. I don't normally binge shows, but I've sped through the three seasons and now I’m feeling just the tiniest bit bereft. It’s one of those shows were I genuinely love everybody in this bar, particularly the four mains, but every single one of the supporting characters as well. Aaaaaand then there’s AGIMUS, everybody’s favourite manipulative murder computer (well, mine anyway). <3 I hadn’t planned on requesting him at all: although I adored the season 2 episode he was in, I was fine with leaving it at that, and then the season 3 episode A Mathematically Perfect Redemption happened and HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

He barely even appears in it, but the twist at the end and the set-up it provides for potential plotlines had me cackling. I just want him and Peanut Hamper to team up, escape from the Daystrom Institute, and bone in whatever way it’s possible for an evil AI and an amoral exocomp to bone. Hey, look, if she can manage to have sex with a bipedal bird alien with complicated genitalia, then these two can figure something out. Almost certainly involving prehensile cables.

And then there's those awful things they could do together, which should definitely involve them trying to take over the universe, or at least a planet. Or , alternatively, by time-travelling back to the Dominion War and fucking things up for everyone. *eyes* (FTR, I am very, very excited that canon seems to be seeding this very thing.) And yeah, okay, they’d both betray each other in a heartbeat, because they’re both terrible, but frankly that’s a feature, not a bug.

Optional Prompts

• Prison break! Prison break! Prison break! How does it work? How do they pull it off? Do they each try to betray the other at the last minute and then manage to escape together anyway?
• A relationship study. I’m just really drawn to the question of how they’d fit together. They’re both the wooooorst: he’s explicitly evil, she’s amoral and selfish, and I just really, really want to know how it would work between them, whether they’re constantly trying to maniuplate and betray each other, or if they can actually sort of manage to make it work (give or take the odd betrayal).
• Everyday life in the Daystrom Institute. What do those evil AIs do all day? Are they constantly scheming against each other? How often does one of them try to take over the lab? Is there a change when Peanut Hamper arrives since she’s an exocomp, and not just a computer, which means she can’t just be locked away? What’s it like to be a researcher in that lab, constantly having to deal with scheming Ais?
• Something goes wrong which means the AIs have to work together, which is unfortunate since aside from Peanut Hamper they’re mostly useless, either scheming to outwit each other or needing to be rescued from crabs or whatever (ok, I imprinted pretty damn hard on Boimler carrying AGIMUS in a makeshift baby sling). Maybe there’s an attack on the Institute, or while being transported somewhere, the ship crashes, or there’s a holosuite malfunction which the AIs have to deal with. (Possibly involving Badgey)
• Smut. Look, he’s canonically obsessed with plugging his tentacles into every socket going, so... I’m here for PWP, an exploration of what a sexual relationship between them would look like, considering… And it strikes me that there are some interesting trust issues to be explored too.
• It seems like there are quite a few supercomputers manipulating entire planets into being at war with each other in this series. There’s one mentioned in the first episode, and aside from AGIMUS, I’m pretty sure there’s at least one other… An omnipotent being gathers them all together and pits them against each other in a battle of the evil AIs.
• Time travel to the Dominion War. I’ve already mentioned how I think canon is working towards this, and hot fucking damn do I want to see it happen. Peanut Hamper undercover as a dabo girl at Quark’s! AGIMUS interacting with Weyoun! Both of them trying to fuck things up for the Federation because that was the plan, but oh, huh, turns out there’s a lot of opportunity for manipulation and strife within the Dominion itself...
• Sentient Computer Has Hardware and/or Software Installed To Sleep With Their Partner -- Because I'm guessing sex has tended to come somewhere at the bottom of his agenda, somewhere beneath not getting carried off by crabs and obtaining the resources to build murder drones.

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Thanks for reading!