Id Pro Quo 2023

Id Pro Quo 2023 Letter

AO3 Username: StopTalkingAtMe

Welcome to my letter, Mystery Creator. Let me start by saying I’m open to a LOT of different things, 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 Evil Clergyman (2012)
• The Frighteners
• From Beyond
• House on Haunted Hill (1999)
• Motivational Growth
• The Pale Blue Eye – Louis Bayard
• 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
Requested Freeforms:
Character Study, Character Survives Canon Death, Corruption Arc, Enemies to Lovers - Enemy to Caretaker, Entering someone's dreams/nightmares, Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events, Femdom, Ritual Sex - Consensual Joyful and Possibly Public, Worldbuilding, Tentacles - Consentacles, The Existential Dread of Being Pregnant With a Baby that May or May not be a Monster, Character increasingly attracted to and aroused by the tentacles that used to repulse them

DNW Note: Non-con tentacle sex is fine for Bárbara/Dagon, but no unaroused victims please.

~~

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?
• Entering someone's dreams/nightmares – 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.
• Enemies to Lovers - Enemy to Caretaker – I’m specifically thinking of Uxía taking care of Paul and treating his injuries here, but her taking care of Bárbara is a possibility too.
• Tentacles – Consentacles – Involving Dagon? Or how Uxía’s tentacles would factor into sex between her and Paul.
• Character Survives Canon Death -- 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 Existential Terror of Being Pregnant With a Baby that May or May not be a Monster – The pure nightmare fuel of being pregnant with a baby that might be completely normal or might be a hideous tentacled squid-monster.
• Worldbuilding – What’s everyday life like in the village? What’s it’s like underwater? How does the village continue to survive?
• 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.
• Character increasingly attracted to and aroused by the tentacles that used to repulse them – After seeing the way they look underwater, Paul gradually grows more fascinated/attracted to/aroused by Uxía's tentacles. Maybe it’s part of his corruption arc, or perhaps he’s starting to change himself.
• 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 Evil Clergyman (2012)

Requested Ships:
Jonathan/Mrs Brady
Requested Freeforms:
Alternate Universe - Regency era, Bodysharing - Fucking other people together, Bodysharing - A comments/gives orders while B masturbates, Bodysharing - A starts to remember B's life as if it were their own, Body Worship as Possessiveness, Bondage, Conversations In Liminal Spaces On The Border Of One World And Another, Corruption Arc, Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events, Mutual psychosexual obsession, good old fashioned manipulation and betrayal, Sex Ritual to Resurrect the Dead, Altered States - Hallucinations

Fandom-specific DNW: Mrs Brady being entirely dead post-canon. Her coming back as a ghost or still inhabiting her body are both fine – I just don’t want her to be gone completely.

Note: Apparently her name is meant to be ‘Said Brady’. I’m not sure where that comes from as details are scanty. Stick with that if you want, or leave her unnamed, or change it if you prefer.

~~

What a weird fucked-up little film this is. :D The image quality is not great, unfortunately – the footage was lost for 25 years and had to be reconstructed, and while it does get somewhat overwrought (every time I watch it I can’t help cracking up at David Warner’s first appearance), it’s only about 30 minutes long and the sex scene is hot as fuck. It can be found on DVD and on Amazon Prime, but I stumbled across it as an extra on my Castle Freak blu-ray.

It is an absurd piece of Gothic melodrama, with some very creepy bits, and some even filthier bits, and it left me wondering what the fuck I just watched, but most of all I very much appreciate the way it runs on the Rule of HORNY. Everyone in this is horny for Jonathan, and that’s something I can wholly get behind. :D Yes, even his voyeuristic housekeeper (she didn’t have to listen at the door, but she did anyway.). Yes, even his Brown Jenkin-esque familiar, the oversized rat with a human face played by David Gale (They actually kiss!). The bishop miiiight be an exception, but I’d argue otherwise (and I’m not entirely convinced that’s really the ghost of the bishop anyway). It’s just so unabashedly filthy from start to finish, and mmph, that ending. *eyes*

The ending is a bit ambiguous. My preferred reading (mainly because I’ve been very into bodysharing lately and because it’s what personally appeals) is that she’s still in that body alongside him, with or without a soul, but I could also get into him entirely inhabiting her body and her having become the ghost, because now she’s the one who won’t let him go. His betrayal of his familiar fascinates me too – was that something he’d been planning for a while or something that happened on impulse? Has he escaped completely, or are there still demons tracking him down? Could it have be something they planned together, with her behaviour in the film a way to trick his familiar?

I’d really love something that captures the atmosphere of canon – Gothic melodrama, corruption, ghosts, and filthy, filthy sex. I’d also open to it being set in a historical time period – Regency or Victorian, say – the coyness of the language over the blow-job (given while he’s literally hanging from a noose!) and some of the dialogue generally gives it an otherworldly feeling, so setting it earlier feels like it would fit very well.

Optional Prompts

• Bodysharing – All the body sharing for this one please, whether it’s the two of them fucking someone together (I presume she’s married, and oh damn, Mr Brady doesn’t know what’s about to hit him), or him giving her orders while she masturbates (or vice versa actually). I’d also love to see some exploration of how the bodysharing works: whether there’s any conflict over who is in control, and if they retain individual personalities, or if they start to merge.
• Altered States – Hallucinations – I do think the short run-time hurts it a little, with everything happening so fast, and I’d love to see an alternate take where everything is slowed down and he starts to appear more slowly, with glancing touches that she imagined at first (although that first appearance where his arms grab her from behind? So hot.). Maybe she has more access to the castle, so slow it down a bit, (or a lot), maybe with hallucinations that start a little bit more ambiguous at first, and then build, more of him fucking with her...
• Body Worship as Possessiveness – Well, with a line like ‘Your body is my religion’ what do you expect? Maybe a pre-canon thing set before his suicide, something dark and creepy and hot. Character and relationship studies are always welcome, but then again so are PWPs.
• Conversations In Liminal Spaces On The Border Of One World And Another – Ghooooosts. Whether a deleted scene from an imagined extended version of canon, or something post-canon where she is the ghost haunting him.
• Corruption Arc – Backstory, whether it’s looking at how he got corrupted, or how he corrupted her, or a post-canon thing, where she’s still trapped in her body which he’s controlling, and he’s still seducing her, corrupting her bit by bit.
• Entering someone's dreams/nightmares – That part about her wanting him to let her go intrigues me because it doesn’t quite seem to entirely fit with what happens on screen, and that makes me wonder if his ghost has been visiting her in her dreams in an attempt to get her to come to the castle.
• Mutual psychosexual obsession – Something exploring their relationship, before, during and after canon.
• Sex Ritual to Resurrect the Dead – A post-canon fic where they’re sharing the same body and he’s still studying black magic (more cautiously, since there’s a danger he’ll be tracked down and punished). Then he tracks down a ritual which might be able to restore his body. Is she working with him or are they in conflict, but this might be her way to be free of him?
• Alternate Universe - Regency era – Aside from the clothing, I think this would actually fit really well with the dialogue and the styling and just the overall plot. Everything it suggests about seduction and the way he moved from parish to parish… It just feels like a story that belongs in an older time.
• Bondage – so, uh, that white scarf she’s wearing just before Jonathan makes his first appearance, and the way they cling onto the brass bedframe a couple of times? Um, yeah, about that...

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The Frighteners

Requested Ships:
Frank Bannister/Lucy Lynskey & Milton Dammers
Requested Freeforms:
Scars, TFW your enemy's ghost turns up wanting help but death hasn't made him any less of an asshole, Investigating a Lovecraftian Cult, Case Fic - Investigating Something Paranormal/Supernatural, Character's difficult canon backstory explored in delicious whumpy detail, Enemies Forced To Work Together, Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events, Stranded Together & Have To Rely On Each Other To Survive, This House has a Personality and that Personality is Fucked Up

~~

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

• Case Fic - Investigating 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.
• Investigating a Lovecraftian Cult – Frank and Milton go undercover to investigate a cult. This may or may not be a terrible, terrible idea.
• 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 – 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?
• Stranded Together & Have To Rely On Each Other To Survive – They find themselves stranded together somewhere creepy like a haunted building or an isolated motel
• Frank is reluctantly starting to worry about Milton.

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From Beyond

Requested Ships:
Katherine McMichaels/Crawford Tillinghast
Requested Freeforms:
Aftermath of Torture - Character trying to hold it together is clearly low-key fraying at the edges, Body Horror - detailed description of transformation or its aftermath, Bondage, Character with trauma is freaked out and turned on by getting tied up, Character's difficult canon backstory explored in delicious whumpy detail, Codependency - It may be unhealthy but neither of them care, Conversations In Liminal Spaces On The Border Of One World And Another, Eldritch Architecture, Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events, Exploring Ancient Ruins in a Lovecraftian Alternate Dimension (Monsters Optional), Femdom, kneeling for cunnilingus and then needing to support her legs as they buckle, Recovering from Shared Trauma that Bonded Characters Codependently and Permanently Changed Them, Obvious third wheel in spontaneous threesome still highly enjoys themself

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

~~

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

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

My OTP of OTPs for this film is Crawford/Katherine, but I also ship Crawford/Katherine/Bubba, and all the permutations of fucked-up Crawford/Pretorius/Katherine. There are so many character notes that I really, really love: like Crawford taking the bed in Dr Pretorius's room, having presumably given Katherine his own bedroom because it's the gentlemanly thing to do even though it's possible to infer that some very, very unpleasant things have happened to him in Pretorius’s room. Or that moment early on where she strokes his hair tenderly and then sends him off to get an 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 the caretaking role he takes on, and the way, when the sexual tension starts to ramp up, he admits to getting an erection. Which is to say I am very much here for Crawford/Katherine/Bubba, and I’m fascinated by how the dynamic would shake out given how intense the Crawford/Katherine relationship is. Maybe because he's older and not as damaged as Crawford (or as horny as Katherine) he sort of acts like an anchor for the two of them? I’d also love to see just about every permutation of Crawford/Pretorius/Katherine explored too, including monster-fucking.

Optional Prompts

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

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House on Haunted Hill

Requested Ships:
Dr Richard B Vannacutt & The House
Watson Pritchett & Dr Richard B Vannacutt
Watson Pritchett & The House
Watson Pritchett/Dr Richard B Vannacutt
Requested Freeforms:
Character is forced to work with someone who scares them, Tentacles made them do it, Character with trauma is freaked out and turned on by getting tied up, Conversations In Liminal Spaces On The Border Of One World And Another, Corruption Arc, Eldritch Architecture, Entering someone's dreams/nightmares, Ghosts, Redemption - Trying to make amends for past mistakes, This House has a Personality and that Personality is Fucked Up, Time Travel - Character meets their child self, Time Travel Fix-It, Time Travel - Seducing the Villain To Keep Them From Turning To Evil

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

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

~~

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watson Pritchett/Dr Richard B Vannacutt

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

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

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

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

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

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

Optional Prompts

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

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Motivational Growth

Requested Characters:
Ian Folivor/The Mold
Ian Folivor & The Mold
Requested Freeforms:
Body Horror - detailed description of transformation or its aftermath, Complicated relationships of love and loyalty and hurt and resentment, Conversations In Liminal Spaces On The Border Of One World And Another, Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events, fixing the world after breaking it, good old fashioned manipulation and betrayal, I am everything you hate but have you considered no one will ever understand you like I do, No One Is Allowed to Hurt You Except Me, Worldbuilding, Enemies forced to work together to survive a more powerful mutual enemy, Altered States - Hallucinations

~~

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 – Hallucinations – Give me more of the Mold casually fucking with Ian, more surreal and weirdly foreboding hallucinations.
• I am everything you hate but have you considered no one will ever understand you like I do – 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.
• Captivity – 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.
• 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.
• Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events – So x months down the line and having inadvertently brought about the apocalypse, Ian returns to his apartment to confront the Mold.

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The Pale Blue Eye - Louis Bayard

Requested Ships:
Augustus Landor/Edgar Allan Poe
Requested Freeforms:
Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bedside Vigils, Bittersweet Reunions - Everything's changed but that's okay, Character saved from suicide attempt; reluctantly starts the healing process, Character Study, Complicated relationships of love and loyalty and hurt and resentment, Conversations In Liminal Spaces On The Border Of One World And Another, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events, Functional Alcoholic Not So Functional At The Moment, Gently and Lovingly Taking Partner's Virginity, Ghosts, Mutual Pining, Ridiculously Gothic Atmosphere, You Hurt Me More Than Anything; But Being Without You Hurts More, 'Oh No They’re Hot' moment leads to feelings realization

Notes on my DNWs: Regarding my Incest DNW, Lea/Artemus is fine. For my Landor/Poe/Mattie bodysharing prompt, I would prefer no direct sexual contact between Landor and Mattie, but for example descriptions of him being aware of what she’s experiencing are okay. If at any point you have any doubts, please err on the side of assuming it’s absolutely fine. :D)

For this canon, my Underage DNW is adjusted to anything below 16 for Virginia Poe.

~~

NOTE: This section is going to be very spoilery I'm afraid.

Probably one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in ages. It’s been a while since I had a book I really couldn’t put down, and I devoured this over the course of a couple of days (stopping halfway through to spoil myself by watching the film XD), and I’m semi-counting off the days before I can justify reading it again (given the current state of my tbr pile), just to experience it at a slower pace and pick up all the details I’m pretty sure I missed along the way.

I love the way the narrative unfolds, the contrast between Landor’s more straightforward entries (ha!), and Poe’s gloriously overwrought entries, ridiculously over the top and gothic and full of all earnest little asides. Landor and Poe are both sensitive, damaged men, and it delights me that right from the start they’re drawn to each other right, and not only that but helplessly charmed by each other. It’s just a pure unadulterated joy to read. And shippy. Hot fucking damn, is it shippy.

Poe’s feelings towards Landor are a little more ambiguous. I’m inclined towards thinking they’re mostly platonic, and he’s just developed an intense attachment because Landor is one of the first few people to show him any regard, BUT that if he realised the truth he’d come around pretty damn quickly. Anything on the scale of Poe’s feelings being completely platonic to him already being desperately in love and pining is welcome, though.

As for Landor… Yeah, nope. His crush on Poe is so big it could probably be seen from SPACE! Look, if your reaction to your on-off lover telling you in the middle of sexual activity that you’re 'not so old' is to immediately recall that time when Poe said the exact same thing, I’m afraid the yep-definitely-only-paternal-feelings-here plausible deniability ship has sailed. :D

Ship-wise, I have so many favourite moments: Poe’s excitement at having solved the puzzle of the scrap of paper and how deflated he is when he realises Landor already knew what he was going to say; his delight at seeing Landor’s books; all the moments when Landor thinks about Poe (and he’s constantly thinking about Poe); Landor virtually having an ‘Oh no he’s hot!’ moment in reaction to Poe in disguise; the whole tear-my-heart-out-and-stamp-on-it (ha!) of the ending; Landor deliberately breaking Poe’s heart; and the intimacy of the times they spent talking together in the darkness. If I had to pick one favourite moment, though, it’d be the bit where Landor tells the story about the time he saw Poe’s mother perform while Poe’s sitting on the floor completely spellbound. It’s such a heartbreakingly intimate little moment.

I kept seeing patterns in it, like the repeating hints of threesome pairings: like Poe’s half-joking suggestion that he, Landor and Lea should run off together, (at which my mind just went: !), and Poe/Lea/Artemus (also: !), but also, less overtly: Landor/Poe/Mattie. That moment towards the end when Landor wishes Mattie had met Poe, and that they might have become a family, hit me so damn hard. All the messy potential and the need for each other: the blurred lines between wanting Poe as his son-in-law vs wanting him as his lover, and the fact that under certain circumstances it could have been very possible indeed – if Mattie hadn’t died, and some other event led to them meeting Poe (perhaps another murder), it’s a pretty good bet that Poe would fallen for her as hard as he did Lea – the two of them bonding over Byron, while Landor is completely perplexed by his daughter’s oddball of a beau, and yet drawn to him as well… Which is to say that I’m very open to the way Poe/Mattie could cast light on Landor/Poe (whether she’s alive or not.).

And then there’s everything involving ghosts, with that reveal at the end strongly hinting that they exist, which raises so many questions about why Mattie was drawn to Poe in the first place, and whether the ritual to save Lea’s life might actually have worked? My read on that ritual, btw, is that Poe’s life was never in danger (Although I’m 50-50 on whether Lea and Artemus would actually have taken him with them when they ran away), but either way it makes the consequences of Landor’s actions so much more painful. (And maybe Poe has to tell himself Landor absolutely did save his life that second time, because it’s too painful otherwise, but every now and then he has his doubts…)

I’d love to see anything for this fandom, whether it’s explicitly shippy or on a similar subtextual level as canon. Pining is extremely welcome, whether one-sided or mutual. Hurt/comfort and hurt/no comfort, a post-canon fic, whether immediately, or a number of years down the line. Landor’s ghost visiting an older Poe, perhaps now dying himself? A canon-divergent fic where Mattie never died? Or something exploring the nature of ghosts and the implications their presence raises? Pure, unadulterated smut, or something quieter and more subtle and smarmy with one of those late-night moments where Poe and Landor are staying up into the night bonding?

Optional Prompts

• Bedside Vigils – Post-canon or otherwise. Maybe Poe is more seriously injured during Ballinger’s attack on him than he is in canon, and the closest place to take him is Landor’s room in the hotel. Or post-canon, with Poe sitting by Landor’s bedside, with all the grief and guilt and resentment and loyalty that entails.
• Bittersweet Reunions - Everything's changed but that's okay – The way the relationship between them stands at the end of canon is like catnip to me: all that devotion and loyalty and resentment and grief. Landor and Poe reunite several years down the line. How has the dynamic between them changed?
• Conversations In Liminal Spaces On The Border Of One World And Another – Perhaps a 5+1 fic of Conversations Poe has had with Ghosts. Or just Landor’s ghost visiting Poe throughout the years.
• 'Oh No They're Hot' moment leads to feelings realization – I don’t know if it was the result of shipping goggles, but the moment where Landor sees Poe in disguise completely reads as an Oh No He’s Hot moment to me, given how Landor cannot help but note how well the borrowed uniform fits and how the moustache makes Poe look older and more handsome. XD Take that moment and turn it up a couple of notches, and maybe add a little more UST into the moment where Landor points out that the moustache has come detached.
• Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events – A fic set immediately post-canon where Poe interrupts Landor considering suicide. (And I know that ‘I can’t fly into his arms’ line is supposed to refer to god, but I cannot help but read it as Poe, especially given everything with Mattie).
• Gently and Lovingly Taking Partner's Virginity – I am, for the record, 100% here for smut.
• A canon-divergent fic where Mattie is still alive and both she and Landor come into contact with Poe, perhaps as a result of Landor being called in to investigate a different murder-mutilation. Because it seems like there’s a lot of potential to dig into with that dynamic of Landor’s confusion over whether his feelings for Poe are romantic or paternal. How would canon pan out differently if it was Mattie Poe fell passionately in love with? A less damaged Landor completely baffled yet drawn to his daughter’s new beau, and feeling excluded by their passionate conversations about Byron, and Poe still just as devoted to Landor, but this story will have a very different ending.
• Letting your body be used as a conduit so that man you’re pining for can lose his virginity to his ghostly beloved who also happens to be your daughter – (NOT a nominated freeform, unfortunately, although frankly I wish I had nominated it, but I have requested the more general freeform ‘ghosts’). Yeaaaah, okay, this is just hot and messy and deeply deeply uncomfortable and awkward. Is Poe also pining for Landor, or is this genuinely entirely about Mattie for him (either is fine by me)? For Poe, is there some ghostly influence where the body feels female, or is it a case of feeling Landor’s male body but having to pretend otherwise? A one-off or otherwise? How blurry do those lines get over time if this is more than just a one-time deal? Maybe this is about Mattie deliberately trying to bring them together, and one day she just fades out and leaves them fucking each other? Or maybe one day Poe accidentally says Landor’s name?
• Mutual Pining – Explore all the time they spent together, all those intimate late nights sitting in the darkness in Landor’s room, drinking, and talking, and maybe they get onto the subject of whether Landor thinks he might be right about whether Fry could have gone to meet a man.
• I’m curious what induced Poe to approach Landor in the first place, and whether at this point it might potentially have had something to do with Mattie.

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Re-Animator

Requested Ship:
Herbert West/Dan Cain
Requested Freeforms:
Addiction - Character tries to distract Addict from addiction with sex, Alternate Universe - Russian Doll Fusion, Betray them to save them, "Thank Fuck You're Alive!" Emotions Turn Into Frantic Fucking, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Guys Make Them Do It, Bittersweet Reunions - Everything's changed but that's okay, Complicated relationships of love and loyalty and hurt and resentment, Estranged Characters - Injured A shows Up on B's doorstep Saying "I didn't know where else to go", Hurt/Comfort, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mutual Pining, Road trip after the end of the world, Sex Pollen, 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, Hurt/Comfort - Technically awful attempts at comfort are actually very comforting, Hurt/Comfort - Rape Recovery with Love Interest's Help and Support Leads to Get Together, Hurt/Comfort - Character with injured hands requires assistance (which turns sexual)

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

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

Optional Prompts

• 5 Times Dan Assumed Herbert was Dead – Because in various places, namely the screenplay and the novelisation, he is explicitly stated to have died at the end of the first film and I like the idea of him repeatedly appearing to die and popping up again mostly unscathed (and I’m amused that the one film where he doesn’t appear to die at the end is the one in which Dan does not appear. XD).
• Accidental Baby Acquisition – I mean, they’re doctors. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they might find themselves in a situation where they have to deliver a baby in a crisis (possibly involving zombies), and end up separated from the mother and stuck having to look after the baby.
• Addiction - Character tries to distract Addict from addiction with sex – Dan tries to break Herbert’s reliance on the serum.
• Alternate Universe - Russian Doll Fusion – I love time loops in all their forms anyway, but this one in particular, with its focus on constant, unrelenting death, and the way the discovery that the loop is being shared with another person would play out with these two is perfect. (and for time loops in general, I’m amused by the way Herbert would probably adapt his work to take full advantage of the loop (er, an endless supply of fresh corpses with no consequences – hey, how is it murder if they don’t stay dead? – having to memorise the results because he can’t write them down, etc.)
• Hurt/Comfort – Hurt/Comfort is always welcome, but one thing I’d love to see is Dan helping Herbert through withdrawal from the serum. Mainly because I really wish that deleted scene had been included in the film. I have some quiet headcanons about Herbert’s addiction to reagent, and amongst them is the fact that avoiding sleep is really, really not a good idea, and that maybe the times when he’s at his most batshit are the times when he’s suffering from chronic sleep-deprivation. All of which convinces Dan to help him to break the habit.
• Bad Guys Made Them Do It – and every other iteration of Something Made Them Do It.
• Betray them to save them – Dan’s presence looms so large in Beyond Reanimator even though he doesn’t appear. I can definitely see a situation where Dan got to a point where he couldn’t see any other choice, and he genuinely believed if things carried on the way they were that Herbert was going to get himself killed. I’d love to see that decision explored and the fallout when/if they’re reunited and he realises what Herbert’s been through.
• Hurt/Comfort - Character with injured hands requires assistance (which turns sexual) – Here for the hurt/comfort and smut potential of this (and also very fond of one character shaving another.)
• Inspired by the novelisation, Dan is completely taken by surprise when Herbert unexpectedly turns out to be massively into ice hockey. Maybe it’s a hobby he only occasionally spares the time for, but either way Dan is extremely weirded out by the prospect of Herbert going to bars and talking to fans.
• You Hurt Me More Than Anything; But Being Without You Hurts More – Herbert goes in search of Dan after the end of Beyond Reanimator. Is he planning on revenge (even if he ultimately can’t face going through with it?) Does something else happen as a catalyst that forces them to work together again? I’d love to see all the messy hurt/comfort and emotional fallout of everything that happened.
• Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence – How might things have played out if Meg hadn’t been so hostile to Herbert from the get-go? Maybe if she hadn’t been there when he came about the room, allowing Dan to prime her for his oddball roommate beforehand? And if she hadn’t walked in on them bringing Rufus back, which meant that Dan wouldn’t have fallen out with Dean Halsey, who then wouldn’t have died, etc etc. It’s interesting how differently Herbert treats Francesca. While he’s not exactly polite to her (XD) he tolerates her presence in a way he doesn’t really tolerate Meg’s, and I can’t help but read that as at least partially being the result of Meg’s attitude towards him.
• Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence – A canon-divergent AU where Francesca isn’t on the scene and the creation of the Bride is much more successful, and she isn’t quite so much of a monster. Mainly because I’m really curious what the hell Herbert actually had in mind beyond keeping Dan with him at all costs. (And for the record, I’m completely open to Herbert/Dan/The Bride in whatever form that takes.)
• Hurt/Comfort - Technically awful attempts at comfort are actually very comforting – Okay, so Herbert is pretty terrible at doing the whole comfort thing, but the fact that he even tries is pretty damn significant.
• Road trip after the end of the world – Any post-apocalypse scenario will do, but I am particularly fond of a zombie apocalypse, which seems particularly apt for this canon. Was it Herbert’s fault, or was he entirely innocent for once? Where are they going? What’s the plan? And how does reagent factor into things?
• Estranged Characters - Injured A shows Up on B's doorstep Saying "I didn't know where else to go" – My first thought with this was Herbert turning up out of the blue, but what if it’s the other way around? What if, potentially after Herbert’s prison break, he considered hunting Dan down, but reluctantly decided not to follow through, only for Dan to suddenly turn up unexpectedly, and turns out he’s been keeping track of Herbert all these years and somehow or other the shit’s about to hit the fan?

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Requested Ships:
Quark/Brunt
Requested Freeforms:
Characters don't realise they're in a relationship but everyone else can see it, Forced to pose as your other self from an alternate universe, 'Dirty little secret' relationship leads to Too Many Feelings leads to unexpected marriage proposal, Accidental Marriage, Soulbond - Accidental soulbond between enemies/rivals leads to feelings, "We'll just have sex one time to get it out of our systems" ... but it makes the longing worse, Bad Guys Make Them Do It, Both Captured - Forced to Work Together to Escape, Dimension Travel - counterparts are in a relationship, Enemies Forced To Work Together, Exploration of Aftermath of Canon Events, Hate Sex, Mutual Pining, Stranded Together & Have To Rely On Each Other To Survive, Time Travel Fix-It, Time travel - character travels back to own past with enemy and now they have to work together, Truth Serum, 5+1 Things

~~

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’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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Star Trek: Lower Decks

Requested Shipss:
AGIMUS/Peanut Hamper
Requested Freeforms:
Sentient Computer/Robot Has Hardware and/or Software Installed To Sleep With Their Partner, Prison break!, Forced to pose as your other self from an alternate universe, Stranded Together & Have To Rely On Each Other To Survive, good old fashioned manipulation and betrayal, Outsider POV - Time Travel From the POV of a Non-Time-Traveling Character

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.

Canon isn't entirely consistent about whether it's AGIMUS or Agimus, and uses both 'he' and 'it'. For either, go with whatever works best for you.

Optional Prompts

• 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?
• 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).
• 5+1 Things – A fic exploring 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?
• Stranded Together & Have To Rely On Each Other To Survive – 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 Make-It-Worse – 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/Robot 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!