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beatrice_otter on AO3.
Lovely author, here is my theory about letters: how much detail people want in a letter is HIGHLY variable. Some people (such as myself) prefer if their recip gives LOTS of guidance on their wishes. Some prefer as little as possible so they can be free as a bird. Most are somewhere in between. So! Here's everything including the kitchen sink if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am just not inspired that way." I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for over a decade and am very rarely disappointed with my gifts.
The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks just don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.
I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.
Please no incest or darkfic. I define "darkfic" as stuff where there's a lot of suffering and no hope even at the end and all the characters are terrible. Angst with a happy ending is fine, I enjoy it, but there's gotta be a payoff. Even an ambiguous ending is fine! But there has to be some note of grace or redemption or hope somewhere, it can't just be "people are awful and the world sucks, the end."
General Likes and Dislikes
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
I love outsider perspectives and academic takes on things. In-universe meta (newspaper articles, academic monographs--especially with the sort of snarky feuding common in actual real-world academia, social media feeds in current day or future worlds) is awesome.
Also, I'm picky about European historical clothing details. You don't have to talk about it at all! In fact, if you don't know much about historical clothing, I would prefer if you didn't mention it at all. My pet peeve is corsets: no, they weren't a restrictive tool of the patriarchy, no, they didn't interfere with most women's daily lives, no, most women weren't wearing them so tight they couldn't breathe.
I like religion but I'm picky about it. Basically, Christianity is deeply weird compared to most other religions, and a lot of people whose only experience with religion is living in a culturally-Christian nation assume that what they know about Christianity is some sort of universal principle of What Religion Is Like, and that's just not the case. For example, in Christianity what you believe is more important than what you do. This is not to say we Christians don't teach and practice Christian ethics or have rituals we are very attached to, but rather that if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter what rituals you participate in or what ethical things you do, you are not a Christian. Every Christian group has at least a minimal core theology that members must affirm, but participation in ritual is far less rigidly a requirement. Most other religions rank what you do (both ethically and ritually) as more important than what you believe, and it is usually quite possible to be a member in good standing if you participate in the practices and rituals even if you believe none of the teachings. Anyway, point is, if you are doing worldbuilding for a fantasy or SF or otherwise non-Christian religion ... unless it is explicitly a Christian-analogue, it should be different from Christianity.
Thoughts on Marriage
I am both asexual and aromantic, and while I love a good romance story I also believe that modern Western culture's focus on romance as the foundation of marriage is deeply unhealthy. (Historically, few cultures have put as much weight on "being in love" as we do today, and I'd be happy with the non-human cultures not putting as much weight on romance as modern Americans do, whether or not the individuals are the romantic type.) There are a lot of things that you need for a long-term healthy and mutually supporting relationship, and being in love helps but it's not actually the most important. In my opinion, the most important things in a successful and healthy long-term relationship is mutual respect and caring between people who have broadly similar goals and expectations, and who are willing and able to communicate. I absolutely go nuts for "people who work through problems together and face life as a team." This is not the only recipe for a long-term stable and mutually fulfilling relationship, but it is the surest one. And romance can help! Being in love with your partner gives a great incentive to work through problems with them and care about their perspective! But it doesn't always lead to respect and care, and you can respect and care for someone without being in love with them.
Now, obviously, there is a range of how healthy some of the relationships I've requested would realistically be. Most of them would be on the healthy end of the scale ... and then there's Battlestar Galactica :D Also, while I do prefer happy endings, it's not as if they have to start out perfect, and especially with the characters that have Issues those issues are going to affect the relationship. If the characters are not in love in canon, I am fine with them not being in love in the fic, as long as that isn't portrayed as some Great Tragedy.
If there is dimension travel or time travel involved, I am fine with the requested ship not being endgame for the fic.
Poly relationships are interesting, because they take even more communication and respect and care and mutual-problem-solving to make work than monogamy does. I love, love, love the concept of Sedoretu. For a sedoretu, you can bring in other characters for the pairings that don't have enough.
The Goblin Emperor
Arranged Marriage - Expecting Hurt; Receiving Kindness
Arranged Marriage - Marriage Arranged to Legitimize Right to the Throne
Established Marriage - Adding Third To Marriage For Political Reasons And Falling In Love
Established Marriage - Falling in Love with Spouse
Established Marriage - Taking Care of Sick Spouse
Established Marriage - Taking Care of Spouse with Chronic Pain
Established Marriage - Expectant Couple Prepares for Baby
Established Marriage - Falling Deeply In Like With Spouse
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Forced Marriage - Married To Save Family/Allies
Magic - Secret Magical/Near-Human Subculture Wedding Customs
Arranged Marriage
Marriage - Living Together Makes It Impossible to Keep Trauma Secret
Newlyweds - Mismatched Expectations of Marriage
Poly Marriage - Figuring Out New Routine/Moving Into Each Others Space
Poly Marriage - Sedoretu AU
Royal Marriage
Royal Marriage - Marriage Arranged to Legitimize Their Right to the Throne
Supernatural - Married to God or Goddess
Supernatural - Accidentally Marrying The Dead
There's so much depth and richness to this story, and Maia is only barely keeping his head above water and doesn't know many details and doesn't have time or attention to spare to wonder about it. I love how hopepunk it is: yes, terrible things have happened, and yes, there are genuinely evil people, and yes, there are people who aren't evil but are nonetheless really awful. And yet, despite it all, good people win. There are people who can be trusted to be good, and kind, and loyal. I love how three-dimensional everyone is, not just the heroes but the villains, too. I love all the politics. If you wanted to bring in historical flourishes, I'd be happy with parallels to European history, but I'd be ECSTATIC if you brought in non-Western ideas, practices, structures, clothing styles, and institutions.
I loved WftD, too; the casefic aspect was fun, and I loved all the little details about the different sects and the political infighting in the Amalomeire and the opera and most of all, the continued insistence on the importance of kindness and consideration, and how hopepunk everything is. Thara and Iana are so cute together <3.
I don't think the Ethuveraz probably places great emphasis on romance as a basis for marriage, given that most Human societies with a strong tradition of arranged marriage and large sums of property being passed on through inheritance generally care more about economics and politics than romance when choosing spouses. That said, Maia is probably the most romantic of anybody in the entire Untheileneise Court, because he hasn't been anywhere he could see married life (and the general social expectations for it) in action. You know the only place he could possibly have gotten instruction on "what marriage is for and what married life is like"? The cheap novels the cook's daughter read at Edonomee!
If you are doing a Sedoretu AU, I think my top choice for who to bring in as fourth would be Vedero (so that any child born to the marriage will have Drazhadeise blood). After all, if she and Maia share a moiety (i.e. are both Morning or both Evening) they wouldn't be having sex with each other, so there would be no incest.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Wars Legends, All Media Types
Lando Calrissian/Leia Organa/Han Solo (SW Legends)
Lando Calrissian/Mara Jade (SW Legends)
Lando Calrissian/Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker (SW Legends)
Lando Calrissian/Luke Skywalker (SW Legends)
Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker (SW Legends)
Wedding - Kicks Off Massive Intrigue With Accidental Baby Acquisition
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased From The Timeline (Accidentally)
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased As Expected Result Of Fixing The Timeline
Soul Bond - Accidental/Unexpected Soulbond
Proposal - Proposing After a Near-Death Experience
Poly Marriage - Treated as Normal In-Universe
Poly Marriage - Sedoretu AU
Poly Marriage - Figuring Out New Routine/Moving Into Each Others Space
Marriage - Surprisingly Great In-Laws
Marriage - Living Together Makes It Impossible to Keep Trauma Secret
Fake Marriage - Get Married During The Mission To Not Break Their Cover But Then They Catch Feelings
Fake Marriage - As Part Of A Con
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Established Marriage - Participating in Spouse's Religious Holidays
Established Marriage - Long-Distance Relationship
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Accidental Marriage
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married to Multiple People
Soul Bond - Marriage To Stay Undercover Unexpectedly Results In Soul Bond
The original Zahn trilogy and the X-Wing books are my favorite parts of the old Legends universe, but I like everything EXCEPT the Courtship of Princess Leia and the New Jedi Order stuff. I really like it when Luke is building a new Jedi community and rebuilding old traditions. You can bring in details from the PT and Clone Wars TV show, if they don't contradict major parts of the Zahn trilogy. My favorite things in all of the old Legends EU were
*Luke and Mara and their relationship and all their combined issues with rebuilding the Jedi and Mara's past as the Emperor's Hand
*Corran Horn and Mirax Terrik and Corran rediscovering his Jedi heritage and also how his perspective on both smugglers and the Rebellion changed after he defected to the Rebellion.
In both cases, it's about how do we remember the past while working to create a new future? How do we avoid making old mistakes? How do we heal? And I love those themes and would be happy with them in any pairing requested.
I love Lando, and I think he was absolutely right to put the safety of his entire city and everyone living in it ahead of the well-being of a couple of old friends. He is smart, pragmatic, and responsible in the best possible way. Do Leia and Lando work together on political negotiations/shenanigans while Han plays house-husband and swoops in with the Falcon when they need backup? Do Han and Lando go off and make shady business deals and come home to Leia with intelligence she can use politically? Does Lando serve as the practical "let's get support and resources for this new Jedi Order you're building" while Luke swans around being compassionate and heroic and saving the day? (But make sure that Lando's contributions are valued and not taken for granted.) Is there some Force bullshit at work somewhere?
I think Lando and Mara would do very well together; both okay with shady stuff, but both with deep principles they will not compromise. My primary ship is Luke/Mara but I was livid when they retconned Lando/Mara out with "oh, no, they were never really together, it was just an undercover thing!" Even as a very sheltered middle class white teen, I could tell that was racist bullshit, and also smacked of that patriarchal extreme-monagamist trope where "if you love each other, your previous relationships can't have meant anything!" which always hits harder for women than men. No. People can decide a relationship isn't working and end it and start new ones without devaluing and denying the previous relationship. I would love Lando/Mara. I would love Luke/Mara where either she was never with Lando at all even for undercover purposes, or where Lando/Mara used to be together and broke up amicably. I would love Luke/Lando/Mara. I would be livid at "but Lando/Mara was never a real relationship!"
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, twincest, the "Lando and Mara were never really together, it was all a con/undercover thing!" retcon
Star Wars OT
Lando Calrissian/Luke Skywalker (SWOT)
Lando Calrissian/Han Solo (SWOT)
Owen Lars/Beru Whitesun (Star Wars OT)
Lando Calrissian/Leia Organa/Han Solo (Star Wars OT)
Wedding - Kicks Off Massive Intrigue With Accidental Baby Acquisition
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased From The Timeline (Accidentally)
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased As Expected Result Of Fixing The Timeline
Science Fiction - Accidental Soul Bond Due To Telepathy
Soul Bond - Accidental/Unexpected Soulbond
Proposal - Proposing After a Near-Death Experience
Poly Marriage - Sedoretu AU
Poly Marriage - Treated as Normal In-Universe
Poly Marriage - Figuring Out New Routine/Moving Into Each Others Space
Marriage - Surprisingly Great In-Laws
Marriage - Living Together Makes It Impossible to Keep Trauma Secret
Fake Marriage - Get Married During The Mission To Not Break Their Cover But Then They Catch Feelings
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Established Marriage - Participating in Spouse's Religious Holidays
Established Marriage - Long-Distance Relationship
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Accidental Marriage
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married to Multiple People
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Established Marriage - Older Couple Looking Back On Their Life Together
(Note: my "ideal perfect Star Wars Canon" includes the PT, the OT, the Zahn trilogy and the X-Wing books, the Mandalorian, the Clone Wars, Rey&Finn&Poe as the only contributions from the ST, and HAPPY ENDINGS where something new and better results after all the pain and trauma. If you are inspired by other stuff, feel free to bring them in, but those are my happy places.)
I love Lando, and I think he was absolutely right to put the safety of his entire city and everyone living in it ahead of the well-being of a couple of old friends. He is smart, pragmatic, and responsible in the best possible way. Do Leia and Lando work together on political negotiations/shenanigans while Han plays house-husband and swoops in with the Falcon when they need backup? Do Han and Lando go off and make shady business deals and come home to Leia with intelligence she can use politically? Does Lando serve as the practical "let's get support and resources for this new Jedi Order you're building" while Luke swans around being compassionate and heroic and saving the day? (But make sure that Lando's contributions are valued and not taken for granted.) I was one of the contributors to the "What if Han became Emperor by accident" thread on tumblr a while back, and my contribution was "ooh, Lando would be his Grand Vizier!" and if you want to go that direction that would also be awesome. Also, Weird Jedi Shit is always fun.
With Owen and Beru, either stuff when Luke was younger or an AU where they survived would be great. I am interested in both Owen and Beru's perspectives on the wider galaxy, and also worldbuilding for what life is like on Tatooine and what their lives were like together against the world.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, twincest, Kylo Ren
Star Trek The Original Series
Montgomery "Scotty" Scott/Nyota Uhura (TOS)
Spock/Saavik (TOS)
James T. Kirk/Nyota Uhura (TOS)
Spock/T'Pring (ToS)
Spock/Nyota Uhura (TOS)
Christine Chapel/Nyota Uhura (TOS)
Accidental Marriage - Trying To Keep Accidental Marriage Secret
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Aliens - Cultural or Biological Differences Result in Accidental Marriage
Aliens - Married to an Alien
Aliens - Xenobiology Requires Marriage To Protect Spouse From Death/Illness
Arranged Marriage
Arranged Marriage - Married as Children
Arranged Marriage - Married Since One Or Both Were Children and Haven't Seen Each Other Since
Arranged Marriage - Professional Matchmaker
Betrothal - Betrothed as Children
Dimension Travel - Accidental Travel To An Alternate Universe With An Unexpected Spouse
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Forced Marriage - Married To Save Each Other's Lives
Proposal - Agree to Marry After Finding Out About Pregnancy
Science Fiction - Accidental Soul Bond Due To Telepathy
Science Fiction - Switching Places with AU Married Counterparts
Soul Bond - Accidental Bond Formed After Sex is Considered to be Marriage
Dimension Travel - Getting Together After Meeting The AU Married Couple Version of Themselves
Soul Bond - Accidental Bond is Cultural Equivalent of Marriage
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. I love cross-cultural romance (especially when it deals realistically with having to figure out what compromises each is going to make on what they expect out of a relationship--love is not all you need, you also need a lot of hard work and communication). My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels but I also enjoy trying to fit the Enterprise Vulcans with ... everything else we know about Vulcans. One thing I will point out, though, is that while there are a lot of things about Vulcan culture that seem/are sexist, the most powerful Vulcans we see throughout the series are elderly women. I love Pon Farr, but mostly dealing with the implications of it (both before and after) and not the sex part.
But much as I love Vulcans, they are not the only things I love about Star Trek! I love the adventure, and the optimism, and the certainty that while sometimes bad things happen and people make mistakes, there's always a chance to change for the better.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. If you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Dirty Computer
Supernatural - Married to God or Goddess
Second Marriage - To Amnesiac Spouse Who Has Forgotten the First
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Proposal - "We Could Be Dead Tomorrow So Let's Get Married Today"
Poly Marriage - Figuring Out New Routine/Moving Into Each Others Space
Poly Marriage - Fuck Whatever the Laws Say. We're Married
Newlyweds - Moving in Together
Marriage - Moving In Together
Marriage - Living Together Makes It Impossible to Keep Trauma Secret
Established Marriage - Seeing Estranged Family For First Time In Years
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Elopement - Eloping While on the Run from the Law
Dirty Computer is an "emotion picture," an album with an album-long music video. It is available on Youtube. As usual with Janelle Monae's work, the worldbuilding is GORGEOUS and I would LOVE something that explored it. The underground subculture that they're part of has so much richness to it. And, like, where's the money for those amazing outfits coming from? What do they do BESIDES hang out and party and be queer and subversive? Is this a post-scarcity world where everyone has a universal basic income? If there's such uber-tight control over society, how does the Pynk rest-inn stay in business? Is the tight social control universal, or only in some places? Could Jane and Zen have stayed in Pynk, but only if they were willing to never see Che again? Is Zen some kind of religious leader, and if so, how does that fit into everything? (If you want to do something supernatural with Zen as an avatar of whatever deity she serves (if she serves one) that would be interesting.) The Cleaners were some kind of hellish concatenation of bureaucracy and religion, how does that work and how does the religious part of it affect Jane and Zen's experiences? What was it like for Jane and Zen in there OUTSIDE of the cleaning? Are there lasting repercussions of the nevermind, physically or neurologically (how does disability affect things in this world)? Or you could do future-fic where they're political activists working to subvert the system. Or you could just do happy poly threesome!
Dirty Computer focuses far more on queer themes than on racial themes than Janelle's previous work, but there are still racial themes present. It can't be an accident that the people running the cleaning (both the cleaners and the mother superior) were white, and the three victims we saw were black. It hearkens back to all the times white people have decided that people of color were dangerous and subhuman and evil and needed to be made more like the white people. The destruction of memories was a literal version of things white culture has metaphorically been trying to do for centuries. The renaming, the "it's for your own good," all of it.
I love the songs of this album. Django Jane and I Like That are my favorites, but Screwed and Pynk are also awesome and I love the lush, lyrical way they feed into one another, the visuals and the lyrics and the beat together. I also love the themes: love, and being true to yourself, and at the end refusing both to give in and to respond violently. Please, please, please, give some sort of a happy ending. Like, you don't have to magically wave a magic wand and make all the screwed up things of this society go away, but I want them to end up happy.
If you delve into the religious aspects, the cleaners and Virgin Victoria are modeled on the worst parts of Christianity, and Jane and Zen's religious/spiritual stuff should be distinct and different.
Also, if you wanted to do time travel shenanigans that involve a crossover with Monaé's Archandroid stuff, I'd be quite happy!
I have not read The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, but I will almost certainly have done so by the time the archive goes live, you are free to bring in details from that book or just go with the Emotion Picture.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Rivers of London
Accidental Marriage - Metaphoric Marriage Becomes Literal
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Arranged Marriage - For Royal Alliances
Established Marriage - Dealing With In-Law(s)
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Magic - Marriage Provides Magical Protection
Magic - Secret Magical/Near-Human Subculture Wedding Customs
Marriage - Surprisingly Great In-Laws
Newlyweds - Introducing New Spouse To Birth Family
Newlyweds - Meeting Spouse's Family/Friends
Newlyweds - Moving Into Spouse’s Gothic Castle/Manor
Political Marriage - To Avoid A Diplomatic Incident
Poly Marriage - Sedoretu AU
Supernatural - Married to God or Goddess
I love this series for many reasons (the snark! the vivid characters! the worldbuilding! the digressions! the wry-but-pointed social commentary on race and class and bureaucracy!).
Beverly Brook. I find her character hard to parse in the earlier books, and also, she's enough younger than Peter that the whole "suddenly we're pregnant and expecting kids!" and everyone's happy about it!" is ... weird to me. Like, Peter's in his mid-late 20s, and is settled in his career, but Bev is in university! I would have expected her to prefer to wait. So something exploring that dynamic from her perspective would be interesting. Her perspective on Peter, the Folly, and Thomas would also be really interesting to me. I love stories that bring up weird aspects of the demi-monde and magic which Peter then has to deal with.
Mama Thames/Father Thames: this would definitely be of the "arranged marriage for political purposes/royal stuff" and the politics of it would be fascinating. How would they work this out? Neither of them would be willing to be subordinate! Mama Thames probably has memories and stuff from when Father Thames went below the estuary, just like her daughters have memories from those of Father Thames' sons who came before them, and how that would affect things between the two of them I find fascinating.
Caroline/Grace: we only saw them briefly in Amongst Our Weapons, but I was fascinated. Magic Metalsmithing! Home for formerly abused magic victims! Caroline free and living away from her mother! (Lady Helena strikes me as one of those "of course I can't be racist, I'm a Good Liberal White Person Here To Uplift People." See, for example, the way she has more sympathy for the tiger than the local (African) children killed in that one story she tells about Growing Up In Africa.) If it's just them being happy together that's great, but I'd also be interested in the politics of what would it mean to have a member of the Society of the Rose marrying the Grand Master of the Sons of Weyland.
I love Peter because of the way he's not naïve, he knows how bad the world can get and how much evil can be done by the institutions he is serving, and yet he firmly believes that they can do better and they should do better. I love how he is always building community and bringing people together. I love how he is willing to risk himself to help people. And I think that's what Nightingale sees in him, too, if you're going the Peter/Nightingale route. I think Nightingale sees in Peter something he didn't know he was missing all that time: a way to be and do better than the sins of the past he's been carrying around all these years. (But I don't really want a focus on Nightingale's backstory, because that's much less interesting to me than what he and Peter are doing now and going forward.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Battlestar Galactica
Time Travel - Fixing the Past also Results in Unexpectedly Getting Married
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased As Expected Result Of Fixing The Timeline
Science Fiction - Married to an Android/Robot
Proposal - Unexpected Proposal due to Misbelieving It was Just a Fling
Proposal - "We Could Be Dead Tomorrow So Let's Get Married Today"
Poly Marriage - Triad or Foursome Marriages are the Norm
Poly Marriage - Treated as Normal In-Universe
Poly Marriage - Sedoretu AU
Newlyweds - First Time Living Together/Moving In Together
Marriage - Living Together Makes It Impossible to Keep Trauma Secret
Established Marriage - Slice Of Married Life During Wartime
Estranged Spouses - Reunite with Surprise Child
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Established Marriage - Discovery of Spouse’s Long Hidden Secret
Established Marriage - Discovering Pregnancy Under Terrible Circumstances
Established Marriage - Discovering Pregnancy
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married to Multiple People
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married After A Drunk Night
I love this show, but boy howdy do I want people to learn to deal with their shit. They all need so much therapy. If you want to deal with the various traumas, PTSD, anxieties, and other mental health issues most of them have, I would love it, but if that's not your thing that's fine too. Also, I like the shenanigans over Cylon/Human hybrid children, and my headcanon is that the reasons Cylons couldn't procreate biologically is because the Ones were lacing the water supply on Cylon ships with birth control.
When I watched Caprica, and saw that the Colonies had polygamy, I was even more disgusted with the adultery/angst of the Lee/Kara/Sam/Dee foursome. Not that I think these frakked up people would have a healthier relationship as a poly quad than they did as two dysfunctional couples, but at least it would have been more interesting drama than "are they going to cheat?!?!? Of course, a poly marriage requires even more communication than a mono marriage, and they all suck at communication ... if you go that route, some angst is fine but please not too much, and don't let Kara hog the spotlight. (My two favorites in that foursome are Dee and Sam.) You could do interesting stuff on New Caprica with two on the surface and two in orbit, or you could do "dealing with the revelation that half the spouses are cylons," or you could do "how did they negotiate the arrangement to begin with" or any number of other ideas.
I love Laura/Bill, how well they work together and how deeply they love one another and how, on the surface, they look like she's the emotional one and he's the stoic one, but when you get right down to it he's the one driven by emotion and she's the one who is able to set her emotions aside and think things through. I love exploring times when they are at loggerheads and both have legitimately good points. I think internal Cylon dynamics are fascinating, particularly within the Final Five and within the Rebel Cylons.
I think Felix and Dee both deserved better, and I love exploring their friendship (and legitimate disagreements with one another).
I think Athena had really interesting relationships with the people on Galactica that I would love to see explored further, and I think Karl was a much deeper person than the two dimensional "good-natured good guy" foil he was so often written as.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Deep Space Nine
Julian Bashir/Keiko O'Brien/Miles O'Brien (DS9)
Kira Nerys/Keiko O'Brien (DS9)
Kira Nerys/Odo (ST: DS9)
Kira Nerys/Keiko O'Brien/Miles O'Brien (DS9)
Wedding Planning - Clash Of Customs/Culture Around Wedding/Marriage
Time Travel - Traveling Descendent Reveals Identity of Unexpected Future Spouse
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased As Expected Result Of Fixing The Timeline
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased From The Timeline (Accidentally)
Time Travel - Current Marriage Interrupted By Spouse From Alternate Timeline
Time Travel - Accidental Travel To A Future With An Unexpected Spouse
Science Fiction - Switching Places with AU Married Counterparts
Proposal - Unexpected Proposal
Proposal - Agree to Marry After Finding Out About Pregnancy
Poly Marriage - Treated as Normal In-Universe
Newlyweds - Moving in Together
Marriage of Convenience - To Raise Their Child Together
Established Marriage - Slice Of Married Life During Wartime
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Established Marriage - Participating in Spouse's Religious Holidays
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Dimension Travel - Meets Unexpected Spouse from AU
Dimension Travel - Getting Together After Meeting The AU Married Couple Version of Themselves
Dimension Travel - Accidental Travel To An Alternate Universe With An Unexpected Spouse
Aliens - Married to an Alien
I love DS9, for how complex the characters were, for the way they dealt with consequences in a way no other Trek did, for the way they handled religious questions. There was good and evil, there was black and white, but there was also a whole spectrum of colors and shades of grey in between, and I loved that. Specifically on the question of religion, what I liked was that they didn't always default to the assumption that all religions must be like Christianity, and also that they never really came down with an answer on the question of whether the Prophets were gods or aliens or both. I love how well they handled issues of violence and oppression and violent resistance to oppression, when dealing with Bajor and Cardassia and Kira's past as a terrorist. Violence was never good, and never easy, but there were times it was necessary, and then the question was how do we move on and heal from what happened, what the characters did and what was done to them.
I thought that Kira and the O'Brien's had a lot of chemistry, but also they have such radically different backgrounds and expectations. Culture, religion, childhood trauma--all radically different. I'd like to see how they could make it work.
For Kira/Odo, I love them both so much together or apart and just want them to be happy together in the end.
With Julian, so much of his life he's been hiding and projecting An Image Of Himself, that would really affect things whether you set this before he was exposed or after.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But if you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions and science hijinks.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, cheating/adultery
Star Trek TNG
Deanna Troi/Worf (TNG)
Selar/Alyssa Ogawa (Star Trek TNG)
Guinan/Jean-Luc Picard (TNG)
Kamala/Jean-Luc Picard (TNG)
Sam Lavelle/Taurik (TNG)
Data/Geordi La Forge (TNG)
Accidental Marriage - Due to Misunderstanding the Norms of Another Culture
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Aliens - Cultural or Biological Differences Result in Accidental Marriage
Aliens - Married to an Alien
Dimension Travel - Accidental Travel To An Alternate Universe With An Unexpected Spouse
Dimension Travel - Couple Finds Out They're Married In An Alternate Universe
Dimension Travel - Meets Unexpected Spouse from AU
Dimension Travel - Getting Together After Meeting The AU Married Couple Version of Themselves
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Marrying for Love - Politically Inconvenient
Newlyweds - Mismatched Expectations of Marriage
Political Marriage - To Avoid A Diplomatic Incident
Science Fiction - Accidental Soul Bond Due To Telepathy
Science Fiction - Buying or Building an Android Child Together
Science Fiction - Married to an Android/Robot
Soul Bond - Accidental Bond is Cultural Equivalent of Marriage
Supernatural - Married to God or Goddess
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased From The Timeline (Accidentally)
Time Travel - Fixing the Past also Results in Unexpectedly Getting Married
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. I love cross-cultural romance (especially when it deals realistically with having to figure out what compromises each is going to make on what they expect out of a relationship--love is not all you need, you also need a lot of hard work and communication). I love Klingons, and PARTICULARLY when they are not written as one-dimensional fighters. Like, yes, the warrior ethos shapes their entire culture, but it's not the only thing about them.
Deanna Troi/Worf: Talk about culture clash, but I'd love to see their relationship explored and given more time and not just used as shock material. And I'd love it to be a relationship built on mutual respect. Feel free to bring in the perspective Martok and the others had on mental illness when they were trapped in that Dominion prison camp, that mental illness is an enemy to fight and it takes a lot of strength to fight an enemy in your own head. From that perspective, Deanna is a weapons trainer for the mind.
Guinan is awesome and I love her, but please tone down the Magical Negro stereotype--she's a person, not just The Wise Magic Therapist/Advisor. I would love anything that dove into Guinan's past or her culture. I haven't (yet) seen Picard Season 2, but feel free to bring in stuff from that. Picard and Guinan have INCREDIBLE chemistry in TNG. Go watch Time's Arrow and just watch the way he LOOKS AT HER when he meets her as a young woman in San Francisco.
Picard/Kamala. You know, the "empathic metamorph" who imprinted on Picard but then went on to her arranged marriage anyway?
That episode fascinates me, and while I have little interest in "what if she married Picard instead?" I have a lot of interest in "so what if her husband died or, years later, was no longer in politics and the peace between their worlds was steadier, so she could quietly divorce him and leave." And probably nobody but me even remembers her, but she has lived rent-free in my head for the last two and a half decades. Because on the one hand, you have the appeal of the whole soulmate trope, and on the other you have the ickyness of how they came to be soulmates, but on the other hand, he was the one she chose, and then you've got the political aspects, and even once she's free do either of them even want a long-term relationship, despite the fact that they are perfectly matched ...
Lower Decks has long been one of my favorite episodes, and I've long been interested in the characters who are usually in the background. And also, I love Vulcans! I would love to see any of these characters/pairings developed more.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But if you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions and science hijinks.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Voyager
Tom Paris/Tuvok (Voyager)
Soul Bond - Induced Psychic Bond is Considered to be Marriage
Time Travel - Accidental Travel To A Future With An Unexpected Spouse
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased As Expected Result Of Fixing The Timeline
Time Travel - Traveling Descendent Reveals Identity of Unexpected Future Spouse
Soul Bond - Bonding is the Cultural Equivalent of Marriage
Soul Bond - Accidental/Unexpected Soulbond
Soul Bond - Accidental Bond is Cultural Equivalent of Marriage
Soul Bond - Accidental Bond Formed After Sex is Considered to be Marriage
Science Fiction - Married to a Clone
Science Fiction - Marriage to Calm Telepathic Minds
Science Fiction - Accidental Soul Bond Due To Telepathy
Newlyweds - Mismatched Expectations of Marriage
Forced Marriage - Married To Save Each Other's Lives
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Dimension Travel - Couple Finds Out They're Married In An Alternate Universe
Dimension Travel - Accidental Travel To An Alternate Universe With An Unexpected Spouse
Aliens - Married to an Alien
Aliens - Xenobiology Requires Marriage To Protect Spouse From Death/Illness
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. I love cross-cultural romance (especially when it deals realistically with having to figure out what compromises each is going to make on what they expect out of a relationship--love is not all you need, you also need a lot of hard work and communication). My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels (especially Spock's World and the Rihannsu books by Diane Duane, but also the Vulcan Academy Murders and the IDIC Epidemic by Jean Lorrah). If you know those books, great; if not, don't worry about it.
My fave pairing for Voyager is Tuvok/Janeway. I'm interested in Tuvok/Tom but I get annoyed when Tom gets woobifyed in T/T stories. He's not a helpless damsel in distress. Would either of them pick the other as "the best possible spouse"? No. However, they're both practical people, and given the constraints of being on Voyager so far from home and family and friends, I can see them looking around at the possibilities and choosing each other and making it work. I don't see them as a Great Love Story, but I do see them happy and content together ... with a lot of work to go to get to that point.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But if you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions and science hijinks.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Lovely author, here is my theory about letters: how much detail people want in a letter is HIGHLY variable. Some people (such as myself) prefer if their recip gives LOTS of guidance on their wishes. Some prefer as little as possible so they can be free as a bird. Most are somewhere in between. So! Here's everything including the kitchen sink if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am just not inspired that way." I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for over a decade and am very rarely disappointed with my gifts.
The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks just don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.
I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.
Please no incest or darkfic. I define "darkfic" as stuff where there's a lot of suffering and no hope even at the end and all the characters are terrible. Angst with a happy ending is fine, I enjoy it, but there's gotta be a payoff. Even an ambiguous ending is fine! But there has to be some note of grace or redemption or hope somewhere, it can't just be "people are awful and the world sucks, the end."
General Likes and Dislikes
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
- I like stuff that takes side characters and puts them center-stage, especially when they are characters of color or women. I enjoy seeing them come to life.
- I don't like it when characters of color or women get relegated to the sidekick/supporting/helper role so that it can be All About The White Dude.
- I like it when female characters are more than just the Strong Female Character(tm) or The Nurturer.
- I like fluff
- I like angst with a happy ending
- I like stories that make me think about things in a new way.
- I like to know that culture matters to people, and to see how different cultures interact and where the clashes are.
- I like unreliable narrators.
- I like acknowledgment that different people can have different points of view without either of them being wrong.
- I like stories that engage with problematic aspects of the source, and which deal with privilege in one way or another instead of sweeping it under the rug.
- Worldbuilding is my jam, I am pretty much always up for explorations of why the world is the way it is. I love hearing about the economics, the politics, the religion, the clothing, the history, the folklore, all of that kind of stuff. And I want to know why it matters--how is all this cultural background stuff affecting the characters, the plot, everything. You don't have to do deep worldbuilding, but I'll enjoy it if you do.
- I don't like it when plots hinge on characters being selectively stupid, or selectively unable to communicate. Like, if they are stupid or a himbo or whatever in general, or have problems communicating in general, that's fine! But if it's just "the only way I can think of for this plot to work is if the character spontaneously and temporarily loses half their intelligence and competence," then I'm going to spend the rest of the fic wondering why the character didn't just ____?
- I like AUs, but not complete AUs (i.e. no highschool or college or coffee shop AUs, and especially not mundane AUs--nothing where you keep characters but drop most of the worldbuilding). I like fork-in-the-road type AUs, where one thing is different and the changes all result from that one thing, and you explore what might have been if such-and-such happened.
- I like historical AUs, but only when the author actually knows the history period in question and does thoughtful worldbuilding to meld actual culture of the time with the canon.
- Crackfic is really hit and miss for me, sometimes I love it and sometimes I can't stand it. Basically, if it's the characters we know and love in a ludicrous situation, that's great. If they're OOC or parodied in order to make something funny ... it's not funny to me.
I love outsider perspectives and academic takes on things. In-universe meta (newspaper articles, academic monographs--especially with the sort of snarky feuding common in actual real-world academia, social media feeds in current day or future worlds) is awesome.
Also, I'm picky about European historical clothing details. You don't have to talk about it at all! In fact, if you don't know much about historical clothing, I would prefer if you didn't mention it at all. My pet peeve is corsets: no, they weren't a restrictive tool of the patriarchy, no, they didn't interfere with most women's daily lives, no, most women weren't wearing them so tight they couldn't breathe.
I like religion but I'm picky about it. Basically, Christianity is deeply weird compared to most other religions, and a lot of people whose only experience with religion is living in a culturally-Christian nation assume that what they know about Christianity is some sort of universal principle of What Religion Is Like, and that's just not the case. For example, in Christianity what you believe is more important than what you do. This is not to say we Christians don't teach and practice Christian ethics or have rituals we are very attached to, but rather that if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter what rituals you participate in or what ethical things you do, you are not a Christian. Every Christian group has at least a minimal core theology that members must affirm, but participation in ritual is far less rigidly a requirement. Most other religions rank what you do (both ethically and ritually) as more important than what you believe, and it is usually quite possible to be a member in good standing if you participate in the practices and rituals even if you believe none of the teachings. Anyway, point is, if you are doing worldbuilding for a fantasy or SF or otherwise non-Christian religion ... unless it is explicitly a Christian-analogue, it should be different from Christianity.
Thoughts on Marriage
I am both asexual and aromantic, and while I love a good romance story I also believe that modern Western culture's focus on romance as the foundation of marriage is deeply unhealthy. (Historically, few cultures have put as much weight on "being in love" as we do today, and I'd be happy with the non-human cultures not putting as much weight on romance as modern Americans do, whether or not the individuals are the romantic type.) There are a lot of things that you need for a long-term healthy and mutually supporting relationship, and being in love helps but it's not actually the most important. In my opinion, the most important things in a successful and healthy long-term relationship is mutual respect and caring between people who have broadly similar goals and expectations, and who are willing and able to communicate. I absolutely go nuts for "people who work through problems together and face life as a team." This is not the only recipe for a long-term stable and mutually fulfilling relationship, but it is the surest one. And romance can help! Being in love with your partner gives a great incentive to work through problems with them and care about their perspective! But it doesn't always lead to respect and care, and you can respect and care for someone without being in love with them.
Now, obviously, there is a range of how healthy some of the relationships I've requested would realistically be. Most of them would be on the healthy end of the scale ... and then there's Battlestar Galactica :D Also, while I do prefer happy endings, it's not as if they have to start out perfect, and especially with the characters that have Issues those issues are going to affect the relationship. If the characters are not in love in canon, I am fine with them not being in love in the fic, as long as that isn't portrayed as some Great Tragedy.
If there is dimension travel or time travel involved, I am fine with the requested ship not being endgame for the fic.
Poly relationships are interesting, because they take even more communication and respect and care and mutual-problem-solving to make work than monogamy does. I love, love, love the concept of Sedoretu. For a sedoretu, you can bring in other characters for the pairings that don't have enough.
The Goblin Emperor
Arranged Marriage - Expecting Hurt; Receiving Kindness
Arranged Marriage - Marriage Arranged to Legitimize Right to the Throne
Established Marriage - Adding Third To Marriage For Political Reasons And Falling In Love
Established Marriage - Falling in Love with Spouse
Established Marriage - Taking Care of Sick Spouse
Established Marriage - Taking Care of Spouse with Chronic Pain
Established Marriage - Expectant Couple Prepares for Baby
Established Marriage - Falling Deeply In Like With Spouse
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Forced Marriage - Married To Save Family/Allies
Magic - Secret Magical/Near-Human Subculture Wedding Customs
Arranged Marriage
Marriage - Living Together Makes It Impossible to Keep Trauma Secret
Newlyweds - Mismatched Expectations of Marriage
Poly Marriage - Figuring Out New Routine/Moving Into Each Others Space
Poly Marriage - Sedoretu AU
Royal Marriage
Royal Marriage - Marriage Arranged to Legitimize Their Right to the Throne
Supernatural - Married to God or Goddess
Supernatural - Accidentally Marrying The Dead
There's so much depth and richness to this story, and Maia is only barely keeping his head above water and doesn't know many details and doesn't have time or attention to spare to wonder about it. I love how hopepunk it is: yes, terrible things have happened, and yes, there are genuinely evil people, and yes, there are people who aren't evil but are nonetheless really awful. And yet, despite it all, good people win. There are people who can be trusted to be good, and kind, and loyal. I love how three-dimensional everyone is, not just the heroes but the villains, too. I love all the politics. If you wanted to bring in historical flourishes, I'd be happy with parallels to European history, but I'd be ECSTATIC if you brought in non-Western ideas, practices, structures, clothing styles, and institutions.
I loved WftD, too; the casefic aspect was fun, and I loved all the little details about the different sects and the political infighting in the Amalomeire and the opera and most of all, the continued insistence on the importance of kindness and consideration, and how hopepunk everything is. Thara and Iana are so cute together <3.
I don't think the Ethuveraz probably places great emphasis on romance as a basis for marriage, given that most Human societies with a strong tradition of arranged marriage and large sums of property being passed on through inheritance generally care more about economics and politics than romance when choosing spouses. That said, Maia is probably the most romantic of anybody in the entire Untheileneise Court, because he hasn't been anywhere he could see married life (and the general social expectations for it) in action. You know the only place he could possibly have gotten instruction on "what marriage is for and what married life is like"? The cheap novels the cook's daughter read at Edonomee!
If you are doing a Sedoretu AU, I think my top choice for who to bring in as fourth would be Vedero (so that any child born to the marriage will have Drazhadeise blood). After all, if she and Maia share a moiety (i.e. are both Morning or both Evening) they wouldn't be having sex with each other, so there would be no incest.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Wars Legends, All Media Types
Lando Calrissian/Leia Organa/Han Solo (SW Legends)
Lando Calrissian/Mara Jade (SW Legends)
Lando Calrissian/Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker (SW Legends)
Lando Calrissian/Luke Skywalker (SW Legends)
Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker (SW Legends)
Wedding - Kicks Off Massive Intrigue With Accidental Baby Acquisition
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased From The Timeline (Accidentally)
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased As Expected Result Of Fixing The Timeline
Soul Bond - Accidental/Unexpected Soulbond
Proposal - Proposing After a Near-Death Experience
Poly Marriage - Treated as Normal In-Universe
Poly Marriage - Sedoretu AU
Poly Marriage - Figuring Out New Routine/Moving Into Each Others Space
Marriage - Surprisingly Great In-Laws
Marriage - Living Together Makes It Impossible to Keep Trauma Secret
Fake Marriage - Get Married During The Mission To Not Break Their Cover But Then They Catch Feelings
Fake Marriage - As Part Of A Con
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Established Marriage - Participating in Spouse's Religious Holidays
Established Marriage - Long-Distance Relationship
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Accidental Marriage
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married to Multiple People
Soul Bond - Marriage To Stay Undercover Unexpectedly Results In Soul Bond
The original Zahn trilogy and the X-Wing books are my favorite parts of the old Legends universe, but I like everything EXCEPT the Courtship of Princess Leia and the New Jedi Order stuff. I really like it when Luke is building a new Jedi community and rebuilding old traditions. You can bring in details from the PT and Clone Wars TV show, if they don't contradict major parts of the Zahn trilogy. My favorite things in all of the old Legends EU were
*Luke and Mara and their relationship and all their combined issues with rebuilding the Jedi and Mara's past as the Emperor's Hand
*Corran Horn and Mirax Terrik and Corran rediscovering his Jedi heritage and also how his perspective on both smugglers and the Rebellion changed after he defected to the Rebellion.
In both cases, it's about how do we remember the past while working to create a new future? How do we avoid making old mistakes? How do we heal? And I love those themes and would be happy with them in any pairing requested.
I love Lando, and I think he was absolutely right to put the safety of his entire city and everyone living in it ahead of the well-being of a couple of old friends. He is smart, pragmatic, and responsible in the best possible way. Do Leia and Lando work together on political negotiations/shenanigans while Han plays house-husband and swoops in with the Falcon when they need backup? Do Han and Lando go off and make shady business deals and come home to Leia with intelligence she can use politically? Does Lando serve as the practical "let's get support and resources for this new Jedi Order you're building" while Luke swans around being compassionate and heroic and saving the day? (But make sure that Lando's contributions are valued and not taken for granted.) Is there some Force bullshit at work somewhere?
I think Lando and Mara would do very well together; both okay with shady stuff, but both with deep principles they will not compromise. My primary ship is Luke/Mara but I was livid when they retconned Lando/Mara out with "oh, no, they were never really together, it was just an undercover thing!" Even as a very sheltered middle class white teen, I could tell that was racist bullshit, and also smacked of that patriarchal extreme-monagamist trope where "if you love each other, your previous relationships can't have meant anything!" which always hits harder for women than men. No. People can decide a relationship isn't working and end it and start new ones without devaluing and denying the previous relationship. I would love Lando/Mara. I would love Luke/Mara where either she was never with Lando at all even for undercover purposes, or where Lando/Mara used to be together and broke up amicably. I would love Luke/Lando/Mara. I would be livid at "but Lando/Mara was never a real relationship!"
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, twincest, the "Lando and Mara were never really together, it was all a con/undercover thing!" retcon
Star Wars OT
Lando Calrissian/Luke Skywalker (SWOT)
Lando Calrissian/Han Solo (SWOT)
Owen Lars/Beru Whitesun (Star Wars OT)
Lando Calrissian/Leia Organa/Han Solo (Star Wars OT)
Wedding - Kicks Off Massive Intrigue With Accidental Baby Acquisition
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased From The Timeline (Accidentally)
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased As Expected Result Of Fixing The Timeline
Science Fiction - Accidental Soul Bond Due To Telepathy
Soul Bond - Accidental/Unexpected Soulbond
Proposal - Proposing After a Near-Death Experience
Poly Marriage - Sedoretu AU
Poly Marriage - Treated as Normal In-Universe
Poly Marriage - Figuring Out New Routine/Moving Into Each Others Space
Marriage - Surprisingly Great In-Laws
Marriage - Living Together Makes It Impossible to Keep Trauma Secret
Fake Marriage - Get Married During The Mission To Not Break Their Cover But Then They Catch Feelings
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Established Marriage - Participating in Spouse's Religious Holidays
Established Marriage - Long-Distance Relationship
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Accidental Marriage
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married to Multiple People
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Established Marriage - Older Couple Looking Back On Their Life Together
(Note: my "ideal perfect Star Wars Canon" includes the PT, the OT, the Zahn trilogy and the X-Wing books, the Mandalorian, the Clone Wars, Rey&Finn&Poe as the only contributions from the ST, and HAPPY ENDINGS where something new and better results after all the pain and trauma. If you are inspired by other stuff, feel free to bring them in, but those are my happy places.)
I love Lando, and I think he was absolutely right to put the safety of his entire city and everyone living in it ahead of the well-being of a couple of old friends. He is smart, pragmatic, and responsible in the best possible way. Do Leia and Lando work together on political negotiations/shenanigans while Han plays house-husband and swoops in with the Falcon when they need backup? Do Han and Lando go off and make shady business deals and come home to Leia with intelligence she can use politically? Does Lando serve as the practical "let's get support and resources for this new Jedi Order you're building" while Luke swans around being compassionate and heroic and saving the day? (But make sure that Lando's contributions are valued and not taken for granted.) I was one of the contributors to the "What if Han became Emperor by accident" thread on tumblr a while back, and my contribution was "ooh, Lando would be his Grand Vizier!" and if you want to go that direction that would also be awesome. Also, Weird Jedi Shit is always fun.
With Owen and Beru, either stuff when Luke was younger or an AU where they survived would be great. I am interested in both Owen and Beru's perspectives on the wider galaxy, and also worldbuilding for what life is like on Tatooine and what their lives were like together against the world.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, twincest, Kylo Ren
Star Trek The Original Series
Montgomery "Scotty" Scott/Nyota Uhura (TOS)
Spock/Saavik (TOS)
James T. Kirk/Nyota Uhura (TOS)
Spock/T'Pring (ToS)
Spock/Nyota Uhura (TOS)
Christine Chapel/Nyota Uhura (TOS)
Accidental Marriage - Trying To Keep Accidental Marriage Secret
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Aliens - Cultural or Biological Differences Result in Accidental Marriage
Aliens - Married to an Alien
Aliens - Xenobiology Requires Marriage To Protect Spouse From Death/Illness
Arranged Marriage
Arranged Marriage - Married as Children
Arranged Marriage - Married Since One Or Both Were Children and Haven't Seen Each Other Since
Arranged Marriage - Professional Matchmaker
Betrothal - Betrothed as Children
Dimension Travel - Accidental Travel To An Alternate Universe With An Unexpected Spouse
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Forced Marriage - Married To Save Each Other's Lives
Proposal - Agree to Marry After Finding Out About Pregnancy
Science Fiction - Accidental Soul Bond Due To Telepathy
Science Fiction - Switching Places with AU Married Counterparts
Soul Bond - Accidental Bond Formed After Sex is Considered to be Marriage
Dimension Travel - Getting Together After Meeting The AU Married Couple Version of Themselves
Soul Bond - Accidental Bond is Cultural Equivalent of Marriage
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. I love cross-cultural romance (especially when it deals realistically with having to figure out what compromises each is going to make on what they expect out of a relationship--love is not all you need, you also need a lot of hard work and communication). My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels but I also enjoy trying to fit the Enterprise Vulcans with ... everything else we know about Vulcans. One thing I will point out, though, is that while there are a lot of things about Vulcan culture that seem/are sexist, the most powerful Vulcans we see throughout the series are elderly women. I love Pon Farr, but mostly dealing with the implications of it (both before and after) and not the sex part.
But much as I love Vulcans, they are not the only things I love about Star Trek! I love the adventure, and the optimism, and the certainty that while sometimes bad things happen and people make mistakes, there's always a chance to change for the better.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. If you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Dirty Computer
Supernatural - Married to God or Goddess
Second Marriage - To Amnesiac Spouse Who Has Forgotten the First
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Proposal - "We Could Be Dead Tomorrow So Let's Get Married Today"
Poly Marriage - Figuring Out New Routine/Moving Into Each Others Space
Poly Marriage - Fuck Whatever the Laws Say. We're Married
Newlyweds - Moving in Together
Marriage - Moving In Together
Marriage - Living Together Makes It Impossible to Keep Trauma Secret
Established Marriage - Seeing Estranged Family For First Time In Years
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Elopement - Eloping While on the Run from the Law
Dirty Computer is an "emotion picture," an album with an album-long music video. It is available on Youtube. As usual with Janelle Monae's work, the worldbuilding is GORGEOUS and I would LOVE something that explored it. The underground subculture that they're part of has so much richness to it. And, like, where's the money for those amazing outfits coming from? What do they do BESIDES hang out and party and be queer and subversive? Is this a post-scarcity world where everyone has a universal basic income? If there's such uber-tight control over society, how does the Pynk rest-inn stay in business? Is the tight social control universal, or only in some places? Could Jane and Zen have stayed in Pynk, but only if they were willing to never see Che again? Is Zen some kind of religious leader, and if so, how does that fit into everything? (If you want to do something supernatural with Zen as an avatar of whatever deity she serves (if she serves one) that would be interesting.) The Cleaners were some kind of hellish concatenation of bureaucracy and religion, how does that work and how does the religious part of it affect Jane and Zen's experiences? What was it like for Jane and Zen in there OUTSIDE of the cleaning? Are there lasting repercussions of the nevermind, physically or neurologically (how does disability affect things in this world)? Or you could do future-fic where they're political activists working to subvert the system. Or you could just do happy poly threesome!
Dirty Computer focuses far more on queer themes than on racial themes than Janelle's previous work, but there are still racial themes present. It can't be an accident that the people running the cleaning (both the cleaners and the mother superior) were white, and the three victims we saw were black. It hearkens back to all the times white people have decided that people of color were dangerous and subhuman and evil and needed to be made more like the white people. The destruction of memories was a literal version of things white culture has metaphorically been trying to do for centuries. The renaming, the "it's for your own good," all of it.
I love the songs of this album. Django Jane and I Like That are my favorites, but Screwed and Pynk are also awesome and I love the lush, lyrical way they feed into one another, the visuals and the lyrics and the beat together. I also love the themes: love, and being true to yourself, and at the end refusing both to give in and to respond violently. Please, please, please, give some sort of a happy ending. Like, you don't have to magically wave a magic wand and make all the screwed up things of this society go away, but I want them to end up happy.
If you delve into the religious aspects, the cleaners and Virgin Victoria are modeled on the worst parts of Christianity, and Jane and Zen's religious/spiritual stuff should be distinct and different.
Also, if you wanted to do time travel shenanigans that involve a crossover with Monaé's Archandroid stuff, I'd be quite happy!
I have not read The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, but I will almost certainly have done so by the time the archive goes live, you are free to bring in details from that book or just go with the Emotion Picture.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Rivers of London
Accidental Marriage - Metaphoric Marriage Becomes Literal
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Arranged Marriage - For Royal Alliances
Established Marriage - Dealing With In-Law(s)
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Magic - Marriage Provides Magical Protection
Magic - Secret Magical/Near-Human Subculture Wedding Customs
Marriage - Surprisingly Great In-Laws
Newlyweds - Introducing New Spouse To Birth Family
Newlyweds - Meeting Spouse's Family/Friends
Newlyweds - Moving Into Spouse’s Gothic Castle/Manor
Political Marriage - To Avoid A Diplomatic Incident
Poly Marriage - Sedoretu AU
Supernatural - Married to God or Goddess
I love this series for many reasons (the snark! the vivid characters! the worldbuilding! the digressions! the wry-but-pointed social commentary on race and class and bureaucracy!).
Beverly Brook. I find her character hard to parse in the earlier books, and also, she's enough younger than Peter that the whole "suddenly we're pregnant and expecting kids!" and everyone's happy about it!" is ... weird to me. Like, Peter's in his mid-late 20s, and is settled in his career, but Bev is in university! I would have expected her to prefer to wait. So something exploring that dynamic from her perspective would be interesting. Her perspective on Peter, the Folly, and Thomas would also be really interesting to me. I love stories that bring up weird aspects of the demi-monde and magic which Peter then has to deal with.
Mama Thames/Father Thames: this would definitely be of the "arranged marriage for political purposes/royal stuff" and the politics of it would be fascinating. How would they work this out? Neither of them would be willing to be subordinate! Mama Thames probably has memories and stuff from when Father Thames went below the estuary, just like her daughters have memories from those of Father Thames' sons who came before them, and how that would affect things between the two of them I find fascinating.
Caroline/Grace: we only saw them briefly in Amongst Our Weapons, but I was fascinated. Magic Metalsmithing! Home for formerly abused magic victims! Caroline free and living away from her mother! (Lady Helena strikes me as one of those "of course I can't be racist, I'm a Good Liberal White Person Here To Uplift People." See, for example, the way she has more sympathy for the tiger than the local (African) children killed in that one story she tells about Growing Up In Africa.) If it's just them being happy together that's great, but I'd also be interested in the politics of what would it mean to have a member of the Society of the Rose marrying the Grand Master of the Sons of Weyland.
I love Peter because of the way he's not naïve, he knows how bad the world can get and how much evil can be done by the institutions he is serving, and yet he firmly believes that they can do better and they should do better. I love how he is always building community and bringing people together. I love how he is willing to risk himself to help people. And I think that's what Nightingale sees in him, too, if you're going the Peter/Nightingale route. I think Nightingale sees in Peter something he didn't know he was missing all that time: a way to be and do better than the sins of the past he's been carrying around all these years. (But I don't really want a focus on Nightingale's backstory, because that's much less interesting to me than what he and Peter are doing now and going forward.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Battlestar Galactica
Time Travel - Fixing the Past also Results in Unexpectedly Getting Married
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased As Expected Result Of Fixing The Timeline
Science Fiction - Married to an Android/Robot
Proposal - Unexpected Proposal due to Misbelieving It was Just a Fling
Proposal - "We Could Be Dead Tomorrow So Let's Get Married Today"
Poly Marriage - Triad or Foursome Marriages are the Norm
Poly Marriage - Treated as Normal In-Universe
Poly Marriage - Sedoretu AU
Newlyweds - First Time Living Together/Moving In Together
Marriage - Living Together Makes It Impossible to Keep Trauma Secret
Established Marriage - Slice Of Married Life During Wartime
Estranged Spouses - Reunite with Surprise Child
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Established Marriage - Discovery of Spouse’s Long Hidden Secret
Established Marriage - Discovering Pregnancy Under Terrible Circumstances
Established Marriage - Discovering Pregnancy
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married to Multiple People
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married After A Drunk Night
I love this show, but boy howdy do I want people to learn to deal with their shit. They all need so much therapy. If you want to deal with the various traumas, PTSD, anxieties, and other mental health issues most of them have, I would love it, but if that's not your thing that's fine too. Also, I like the shenanigans over Cylon/Human hybrid children, and my headcanon is that the reasons Cylons couldn't procreate biologically is because the Ones were lacing the water supply on Cylon ships with birth control.
When I watched Caprica, and saw that the Colonies had polygamy, I was even more disgusted with the adultery/angst of the Lee/Kara/Sam/Dee foursome. Not that I think these frakked up people would have a healthier relationship as a poly quad than they did as two dysfunctional couples, but at least it would have been more interesting drama than "are they going to cheat?!?!? Of course, a poly marriage requires even more communication than a mono marriage, and they all suck at communication ... if you go that route, some angst is fine but please not too much, and don't let Kara hog the spotlight. (My two favorites in that foursome are Dee and Sam.) You could do interesting stuff on New Caprica with two on the surface and two in orbit, or you could do "dealing with the revelation that half the spouses are cylons," or you could do "how did they negotiate the arrangement to begin with" or any number of other ideas.
I love Laura/Bill, how well they work together and how deeply they love one another and how, on the surface, they look like she's the emotional one and he's the stoic one, but when you get right down to it he's the one driven by emotion and she's the one who is able to set her emotions aside and think things through. I love exploring times when they are at loggerheads and both have legitimately good points. I think internal Cylon dynamics are fascinating, particularly within the Final Five and within the Rebel Cylons.
I think Felix and Dee both deserved better, and I love exploring their friendship (and legitimate disagreements with one another).
I think Athena had really interesting relationships with the people on Galactica that I would love to see explored further, and I think Karl was a much deeper person than the two dimensional "good-natured good guy" foil he was so often written as.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Deep Space Nine
Julian Bashir/Keiko O'Brien/Miles O'Brien (DS9)
Kira Nerys/Keiko O'Brien (DS9)
Kira Nerys/Odo (ST: DS9)
Kira Nerys/Keiko O'Brien/Miles O'Brien (DS9)
Wedding Planning - Clash Of Customs/Culture Around Wedding/Marriage
Time Travel - Traveling Descendent Reveals Identity of Unexpected Future Spouse
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased As Expected Result Of Fixing The Timeline
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased From The Timeline (Accidentally)
Time Travel - Current Marriage Interrupted By Spouse From Alternate Timeline
Time Travel - Accidental Travel To A Future With An Unexpected Spouse
Science Fiction - Switching Places with AU Married Counterparts
Proposal - Unexpected Proposal
Proposal - Agree to Marry After Finding Out About Pregnancy
Poly Marriage - Treated as Normal In-Universe
Newlyweds - Moving in Together
Marriage of Convenience - To Raise Their Child Together
Established Marriage - Slice Of Married Life During Wartime
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Established Marriage - Participating in Spouse's Religious Holidays
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Dimension Travel - Meets Unexpected Spouse from AU
Dimension Travel - Getting Together After Meeting The AU Married Couple Version of Themselves
Dimension Travel - Accidental Travel To An Alternate Universe With An Unexpected Spouse
Aliens - Married to an Alien
I love DS9, for how complex the characters were, for the way they dealt with consequences in a way no other Trek did, for the way they handled religious questions. There was good and evil, there was black and white, but there was also a whole spectrum of colors and shades of grey in between, and I loved that. Specifically on the question of religion, what I liked was that they didn't always default to the assumption that all religions must be like Christianity, and also that they never really came down with an answer on the question of whether the Prophets were gods or aliens or both. I love how well they handled issues of violence and oppression and violent resistance to oppression, when dealing with Bajor and Cardassia and Kira's past as a terrorist. Violence was never good, and never easy, but there were times it was necessary, and then the question was how do we move on and heal from what happened, what the characters did and what was done to them.
I thought that Kira and the O'Brien's had a lot of chemistry, but also they have such radically different backgrounds and expectations. Culture, religion, childhood trauma--all radically different. I'd like to see how they could make it work.
For Kira/Odo, I love them both so much together or apart and just want them to be happy together in the end.
With Julian, so much of his life he's been hiding and projecting An Image Of Himself, that would really affect things whether you set this before he was exposed or after.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But if you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions and science hijinks.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, cheating/adultery
Star Trek TNG
Deanna Troi/Worf (TNG)
Selar/Alyssa Ogawa (Star Trek TNG)
Guinan/Jean-Luc Picard (TNG)
Kamala/Jean-Luc Picard (TNG)
Sam Lavelle/Taurik (TNG)
Data/Geordi La Forge (TNG)
Accidental Marriage - Due to Misunderstanding the Norms of Another Culture
Accidental Marriage - Woke Up Married
Aliens - Cultural or Biological Differences Result in Accidental Marriage
Aliens - Married to an Alien
Dimension Travel - Accidental Travel To An Alternate Universe With An Unexpected Spouse
Dimension Travel - Couple Finds Out They're Married In An Alternate Universe
Dimension Travel - Meets Unexpected Spouse from AU
Dimension Travel - Getting Together After Meeting The AU Married Couple Version of Themselves
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Established Marriage - Rescuing One's Spouse From Danger
Marrying for Love - Politically Inconvenient
Newlyweds - Mismatched Expectations of Marriage
Political Marriage - To Avoid A Diplomatic Incident
Science Fiction - Accidental Soul Bond Due To Telepathy
Science Fiction - Buying or Building an Android Child Together
Science Fiction - Married to an Android/Robot
Soul Bond - Accidental Bond is Cultural Equivalent of Marriage
Supernatural - Married to God or Goddess
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased From The Timeline (Accidentally)
Time Travel - Fixing the Past also Results in Unexpectedly Getting Married
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. I love cross-cultural romance (especially when it deals realistically with having to figure out what compromises each is going to make on what they expect out of a relationship--love is not all you need, you also need a lot of hard work and communication). I love Klingons, and PARTICULARLY when they are not written as one-dimensional fighters. Like, yes, the warrior ethos shapes their entire culture, but it's not the only thing about them.
Deanna Troi/Worf: Talk about culture clash, but I'd love to see their relationship explored and given more time and not just used as shock material. And I'd love it to be a relationship built on mutual respect. Feel free to bring in the perspective Martok and the others had on mental illness when they were trapped in that Dominion prison camp, that mental illness is an enemy to fight and it takes a lot of strength to fight an enemy in your own head. From that perspective, Deanna is a weapons trainer for the mind.
Guinan is awesome and I love her, but please tone down the Magical Negro stereotype--she's a person, not just The Wise Magic Therapist/Advisor. I would love anything that dove into Guinan's past or her culture. I haven't (yet) seen Picard Season 2, but feel free to bring in stuff from that. Picard and Guinan have INCREDIBLE chemistry in TNG. Go watch Time's Arrow and just watch the way he LOOKS AT HER when he meets her as a young woman in San Francisco.
Picard/Kamala. You know, the "empathic metamorph" who imprinted on Picard but then went on to her arranged marriage anyway?
That episode fascinates me, and while I have little interest in "what if she married Picard instead?" I have a lot of interest in "so what if her husband died or, years later, was no longer in politics and the peace between their worlds was steadier, so she could quietly divorce him and leave." And probably nobody but me even remembers her, but she has lived rent-free in my head for the last two and a half decades. Because on the one hand, you have the appeal of the whole soulmate trope, and on the other you have the ickyness of how they came to be soulmates, but on the other hand, he was the one she chose, and then you've got the political aspects, and even once she's free do either of them even want a long-term relationship, despite the fact that they are perfectly matched ...
Lower Decks has long been one of my favorite episodes, and I've long been interested in the characters who are usually in the background. And also, I love Vulcans! I would love to see any of these characters/pairings developed more.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But if you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions and science hijinks.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Voyager
Tom Paris/Tuvok (Voyager)
Soul Bond - Induced Psychic Bond is Considered to be Marriage
Time Travel - Accidental Travel To A Future With An Unexpected Spouse
Time Travel - Marriage Gets Erased As Expected Result Of Fixing The Timeline
Time Travel - Traveling Descendent Reveals Identity of Unexpected Future Spouse
Soul Bond - Bonding is the Cultural Equivalent of Marriage
Soul Bond - Accidental/Unexpected Soulbond
Soul Bond - Accidental Bond is Cultural Equivalent of Marriage
Soul Bond - Accidental Bond Formed After Sex is Considered to be Marriage
Science Fiction - Married to a Clone
Science Fiction - Marriage to Calm Telepathic Minds
Science Fiction - Accidental Soul Bond Due To Telepathy
Newlyweds - Mismatched Expectations of Marriage
Forced Marriage - Married To Save Each Other's Lives
Established Marriage - Amnesia Results in Forgotten Marriage
Dimension Travel - Couple Finds Out They're Married In An Alternate Universe
Dimension Travel - Accidental Travel To An Alternate Universe With An Unexpected Spouse
Aliens - Married to an Alien
Aliens - Xenobiology Requires Marriage To Protect Spouse From Death/Illness
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. I love cross-cultural romance (especially when it deals realistically with having to figure out what compromises each is going to make on what they expect out of a relationship--love is not all you need, you also need a lot of hard work and communication). My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels (especially Spock's World and the Rihannsu books by Diane Duane, but also the Vulcan Academy Murders and the IDIC Epidemic by Jean Lorrah). If you know those books, great; if not, don't worry about it.
My fave pairing for Voyager is Tuvok/Janeway. I'm interested in Tuvok/Tom but I get annoyed when Tom gets woobifyed in T/T stories. He's not a helpless damsel in distress. Would either of them pick the other as "the best possible spouse"? No. However, they're both practical people, and given the constraints of being on Voyager so far from home and family and friends, I can see them looking around at the possibilities and choosing each other and making it work. I don't see them as a Great Love Story, but I do see them happy and content together ... with a lot of work to go to get to that point.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But if you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions and science hijinks.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
