Rare Pairs Exchange 2023

Rare Pairs Exchange 2023 Letter

AO3 Username: StopTalkingAtMe

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

Table of Contents

• General Likes
• Smut Likes
• DNWs
• The 4400 (2004)
• Escape Plan (Movies)
• From Beyond (1986)
• Hap and Leonard (TV)
• Love and a .45 (1994)
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

General Likes and DNWs

General Likes

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

Smut Likes

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

DNWs

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

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The 4400 (2004)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jordan Collier/Shawn Farrell

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

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

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

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

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

Explore any point of their relationship, from the manipulative early days when Shawn was starting to find his feet, to the later seasons where Shawn has taken over the centre and has grown more used to power and leadership.

Optional Prompts

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

Kevin Burkhoff/Tess Doerner

The relationship between these two hits me so hard in the id, it makes me a little bit giddy. The age gap, the protectiveness, the complete unwavering mutual devotion, the (also mutual) caretaking, the potential for guilt and grief, and just in general all the complexities of their relationship. It was made for me, and I feel so spoiled that it happened. :D

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

Given the weird not-quite-superheroes vibe of this show, it absolutely cracks me up how ridiculously incongruously badass they both are. He can heal himself from any wound! She has insanely powerful mind control and can turn herself into a one-woman-army! And what do they mainly use those powers for? SCIENCE. And also (unfortunate schizophrenia-related incidents aside) protecting each other. Tess in particular is fucking terrifying. The scene where she rescues Kevin from Promisetown? Just gathering up a bunch of 4400s and using their powers for herself? They never quite explored the full ramifications of her powers or how far they spread, but yeeeeah. There’s an argument to be made that she’s the most powerful 4400 after Isabelle (and it cracks me up the way they kept having to dose her with kryptonite pack her off to visit her grandniece to get her out of the way. It’s not a perfect show, but it’s imperfections are part of what I find so delightful XD).

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

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

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

Optional Prompts

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

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Escape Plan (Movies)

Requested Ships:
Ray Breslin/Emil Rottmayer

This request is mainly for the first film. I have seen the others, and you want to incorporate the other elements and characters introduced, then please do, but Emil only appears in EP1, so it’s fine to focus on that one and disregard the others if you wish. Having said that though, I do really love the overarching bad guy plotline EP2 introduces, and the hi-tech prison setting in general, so it might be worth watching that if you want to focus on either of those elements. The third film, however, drops the elaborate hi-tech prison theme and doesn’t really follow up on the mastermind behind the prisons either, so disregard it if you want to.

I loved the first Escape Plan so much. So, so much, and I came out of it shipping Ray and Emil hard. The prison break plotline (which I will forever be a sucker for), the way these two guys meet and almost immediately develop this rock-solid bond, and the way not even the twist ending is going to change that… And, honestly, just the sheer fucking joy of watching the fight scene between them, and the sense that they’re both having more fun than they should be given the circumstances.

One of my favourite things about this film is how, while they can both fight, first and foremost the film’s focus is on them both being extremely intelligent men. It’s how they get out of the prison, and it’s how they both make their livings. Them being absolute fucking badasses is almost secondary. And Arnie? Well, hmm, how do I put this... That bit towards the end when he picked up the machine gun? Something about the mixture of the greying hair and how his character isn’t really the typical action movie hero in this and the slight softness that comes with age and just, daaaaamn, when did he get so hot? *eyes*

I love so many elements of this. The setting for a start, all the opportunities for hurt/comfort, the question of what might happen if they met again after the events of the first film, or just missing scenes and quiet bonding moments set during the film itself. Or something set immediately post-canon, where Ray does accept that lift from Emil at the end? Something where they find themselves needing to escape from another futuristic prison, whether it’s the one from EP2 or somewhere else, or in some other kind of captivity and have to work together to escape again? Bad Guys Made Them Do It? Trauma-bonding? More torture, brutality and whump is also welcome too: the warden’s quiet sadistic brutality was one of my favourite things. More from Abigail and Hush would be very much appreciated too. Ray and Emil just had such a fun dynamic, and I’d really love to see it explored a lot more.

And, if you’re at all up for writing a crossover/fusion, back in 1992 there was a Stuart Gordon film called Fortress which apparently was supposed to have Arnold Schwarzenegger attached. For one reason or another that fell through, meaning a potential budget of $50 million and Arnold Schwarzenegger became $15 million and Christopher Lambert. XD I absolutely fucking love it anyway, and they did a fantastic job with the shoestring budget, but daaaamn, WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. It would have fit in really well with Total Recall and The Running Man, and the first Escape Plan film feels like it’s referencing Fortress a lot in some of the details, and I think plot and setting wise they’d mesh really well. If you do go with this, then go with whatever you want, but frankly if you just give me the Intestinator-removal scene, maybe with a bit of tough-love hurt/comfort woven in, then I will be delighted.

Optional Prompts

• I liked Abigail and Ray’s casual friends-with-benefits relationship a lot (at least I’m assuming that’s what it was), and I am very much here for them occasionally sleeping together when they’re between relationships without either of them getting too serious about it. So how would Ray developing feelings for Emil fit into that? Maybe he turns down sex one night and she gets wind of it, or they do sleep together and she figures out he’s pining. Or a threesome! (Ideally with Abigail/Ray remaining very casual and not at all serious)
• Hurt/comfort – Suffering from PTSD after everything he went through, Ray runs into Emil again post-canon, whether the meeting is accidental, or one of them brings it about, or maybe they arrange to meet up for whatever reason. (New Orleans might be a nice choice given it was where Ray was abducted from.)
• Rescue - I Know You Must Hate Me But I'm Here To Save You – Turn the tables. This time Ray is the one who’s been imprisoned or made captive somehow and Emil has to save him.
• An AU where the revelation that Emil is Manheim comes much earlier than it does in canon. I Ray’s reaction at the end of the film is interesting: I can see why they went with what they did, and hey, they’re free, so fuck it, but it does kinda feel like he should be much angrier about it. It is essentially a betrayal. SO what if it came in the final act, jeopardising their partnership, and maybe the growing feelings they’re starting to have for each other. Emil’s guilt would be interesting to explore too.
• Hurt/comfort – The Warden setting out to break Ray has much more severe consequences than in canon, resulting in Ray being nonconned by Drake. Possibly while Emil is made to watch?
• I’m really fascinated by the implications of the Warden’s butterfly collecting given the nature of the glass cells the prisoners are kept in, so if you want to explore that theme then please do.
• And those glass cells in general: the almost total lack of privacy, and just the day-to-day experience of trying to get by in a place like that, trying to find moments of privacy, and how a tentative relationship might start to develop between them even if nothing really happens until they escape.
• I really loved the story progression between EP1 and EP2, and the whole concept of the super hi-tech prisons getting more and more refined, and the uncomfortable realisation that these ultra-illegal human-rights abuses are being developed and refined through Ray’s work. Which, y’know, he’s going to be pretty damn pissed about, right? Follow through on the ending of EP2. Maybe Ray teams up with Emil in order to disrupt the financial affairs of the people responsible for building the black-site prisons.
• Bad Guys Made Them Do It. Always and forever. <3
• Fake relationship. Part of the plan to convince the Warden Emil trusts him enough to give up the location of Manheim involves convincing him they’re in a relationship.
• Forced Addiction and Withdrawal To Break Prisoner's Will – More hurt/comfort basically. :D
• If in doubt, I am completely here for smut for these two, whether stolen moments in the prison, or something more relaxed (or not) set post-canon.

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From Beyond

Requested Ships:
Katherine McMichaels/Crawford Tillinghast

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

~~

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

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

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

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 a Crawford/Katherine/Bubba threesome, or even poly of a kind where it somehow reflects the dynamics of canon, because Crawford/Katherine is so intensely charged in the film. 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?

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.
• 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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Love and a .45 (1994)

Requested Ships:
Dinosaur Bob/Creepy Cody

Terrible people doing terrible things! :D

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

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

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

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

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

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

Optional Prompts

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

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Hap and Leonard (TV)

Requested Ships:
Hap Collins/Leonard Pine
Raoul/Leonard Pine

I discovered this recently and have absolutely fallen for it hard. I burned through the series, and am now planning on reading the books because I need more. It just gets better and better, and I am so, so gutted it didn’t get a fourth season.

The relationship between the two mains is just the most extraordinary thing to watch, this tangle of utter devotion and conflict and loyalty, and I could just watch the two of them interact for hours. The way their relationship stretches back to when they were boys, and the little complexities that come from Leonard being gay and Hap being straight, and the never quite clarified question of whether there’s any attraction there… The level of devotion between them is off the fucking scale, to the point where it almost hurts. The way they look out for each other! Every time one of them tells the other he loves him! All the opportunities for hurt/comfort and protectiveness, but also, also, all the times one of them gets the other one into trouble and it doesn’t matter because they’re both ride-or-die for each other anyway.

I would love something that explores their relationship, whether entirely one-sided pining on Leonard’s part or where something happens between them, whether a (drunken?) one-off encounter or a more sustained relationship. Maybe Hap experiments sexually – in which case, does he decide reluctantly that as much as he loves Leonard he’s never going to feel sexually attracted towards him, or maybe he realises he’s bisexual late in life? Or maybe they experimented once when they were younger, and while Hap’s put it behind him, Leonard hasn’t? Or something absurdly tropey – there was only one bed! Or they have to investigate a crime in the gay community necessitating Undercover as a Couple! Or Bad Guys Made Them Do It, and/or its angsty aftermath.

And then there’s Raoul. I liked him and his relationship with Leonard a lot anyway, and then I got to the last episode of S2, and the scene where he walks out on Leonard and that line where he’s looking back and they’re both kind of teary, and the ship hit me right in the heart. Their relationship in canon is so painful and messy, and I really wish we’d seen a bit more of Raoul as a character. The way they get back together in S1 seems linked to Hap getting together with Trudy, but at the same time Raoul and Leonard do genuinely seem to love each other. It’s just Leonard’s relationship with Hap is so all-consuming. No matter whether it’s entirely platonic or not, Hap will always be the most important person in Leonard’s life, and the question is whether there’s ever really going to be room for anyone else.

Hap and Leonard have been devoted to each other since they were boys, and I’d love to see something exploring how Raoul might be able to find a way to fit into that, or not as the case may be. Anything is welcome, it revolves around they’re break-up and how they’re never going to make it work, OR (because I do genuinely ship them) the two of them figuring out how to make it work despite the massive Hap-sized elephant in the room. I’d also really love to see him getting more involved in a case and working together with them.

Optional Prompts

• Oh No They're Hot – Always a sucker for Oh No They’re Hot moments, whichever one of them it happens to. Maybe Leonard’s been coasting along complacently because he knows he isn’t really attracted to Hap so it’s fine, and then something happens and how hot Hap is is all he can think about. Or maybe Hap starts to suspect he might not be as straight as he’s always assumed, but he doesn’t want to risk letting it slip to Leonard because he doesn’t want to screw up their friendship.

  "We'll just have sex one time to get it out of our systems" ... but it makes the longing worse – Whether for Hap/Leonard or Leonard/Raoul, either way I just love this dynamic so much. The bad idea sex, the pining, the inability to control themselves. Maybe the tension is getting too intense so Hap and Leonard decide to get it out of the way, but turns out it’s much much better than they expected, or conversely terrible and they can’t have that be their only sexual encounter. For Leonard/Raoul, maybe they meet up again after season 2, and there’s still something there between them.

• Captured and tortured together & doing their best to help each other through it – All the angst and whump and mutual support, please. Also the two of them having to figure out a way to escape.
• Character Confesses Unrequited Feelings; Other Character Begins to See Them in a New Light – If it’s Leonard, presumably he’s slightly delirious because otherwise it’d have to be dragged out of him by wild horses. But maybe it’s the other way around, and in a drunken moment Hap admits that he did go through a brief stage of thinking he might have had feelings for Leonard. Maybe sometime after Trudy turned up and dumped him again, and Leonard was just there?
• Character is in love with best friend (and the friend will never know) – I have to admit I head-canon Leonard as having feelings of some kind for Hap. Watching it, it just feels like there’s something there. Either he’s in love with him, or he used to be in love with him and as time went on those feelings got blunted without ever really going away. (I lean towards the latter, but let me stress that if you have a different head canon you want to write then you should do it. Something where it’s Hap is the one pining would be extremely welcome too). Just all the pining and self-denial and refusal to say anything for fear of screwing up their friendship. Delicious.
• Pining. I want allll the pining for this, from: Pining - Character A incorrectly assumes that Character B knows that A is pining for them, to Pining - Mutual pining that both characters figure out is requited but that's terrifying, to basically everything in between.
• Accidental Baby Acquisition – For either pairing. Canon already went with Accidental Child Acquisition with Ivan, but a baby would be fun too. How does it happen? Some ex-girlfriend of Hap’s, perhaps, or maybe they’re being chased by bad guys and end up stranded with a baby they need to return to its family.
• Ghosts – Season 2 in particular had some hints of the supernatural going on, although it never quite clarified if they were really ghosts or not. But what if they were?
• Whichever is the endgame ship, give me Raoul's point of view on whatever Hap and Leonard's relationship is. If Raoul/Leonard, then all the quiet resentment at not being the most important person in your boyfriend’s life, even if you’re trying to be understanding. If Hap/Leonard is the end-ship, then that last scene when Raoul walks out seems pretty central. Maybe he comes back into Leonard’s life the next time one of them is hospitalised and he realises at some point they’ve got together and he knew it was inevitable. (or maybe there is no endgame ship, and it's all a mess of pining and hurt).
• Relationship Study – Either relationship. I’d love something exploring whatever the hell is going on with them and how they fit together. How Raoul and Leonard met, for example, or what happened the last time they broke up. What it’s like being gay in 80s Texas and whether they ever thought about moving somewhere else. And for Hap and Leonard, is this a pining situation (one-sided or otherwise?), or if they did get together, how would it happen, how would it work?
• First time – First time having sex with each other. For Hap/Leonard, maybe Hap’s first time having sex with another man. Or first time having sex sober. I’m here for anything from pure unadulterated PWP smut to something which focuses on the emotion or which takes a look at the aftermath.
• Raoul and Leonard are reunited shortly after the events of season 3. Leonard still hasn’t got over the trauma he went through, but given what happened, he doesn’t want go to Hap. Not that he particularly wants to go to Raoul either, mind you, but Raoul is used to Leonard’s bullshit by now.
• Case fic! For either pairing. After their break-up in season 2, Raoul comes to Leonard because he needs help with something. Something which potentially means Hap and Leonard going undercover as a couple to investigate a crime in the gay community. Hap/Leonard seems like the obvious pairing for this (and YES PLEASE), but also Raoul/Leonard could be interesting as well. Pretending to be in a relationship with Hap could be the catalyst to finally get Leonard over whatever the fuck his deal is with Hap and leave the way clear for him to properly get together with Raoul. Not to mention all the opportunities for jealousy and pining. (And also some interaction between Hap and Raoul would be very welcome too – they both love Leonard so they already have something in common.)
• Speaking of Hap and Raoul, while I don’t ship them, and I’m not particularly interested in poly combining these two pairings, I would really love to see them have a one-off threesome.
• Hurt/Comfort - A Blames Themself for Love Interest Getting Hurt to Protect A - Leads to Feelings – Either pairing, although I’m particularly drawn to Raoul/Leonard for this, with Raoul being the one getting injured. Mainly because Hap and Leonard are both getting injured on the reg: they’re used to it. But Raoul isn’t anywhere near as tough as they are, and maybe that’s the catalyst to get them together properly.
• Hurt/Comfort - Character with injured hands requires assistance (which turns sexual) – As ever, one of my favourite pairings. :D

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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

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

Quark/Brunt

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

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

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

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

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

Optional Prompts

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

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

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

And then there’s Brunt. XD

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

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

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

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

Optional Prompts

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

Odo/Weyoun

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

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

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

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

Optional Prompts

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

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