Dear Just Married Exchange Author (2019)
May. 16th, 2019 02:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scioscribeThank you so much for writing for me! I've gone full-on tropey self-indulgence with this sign-up and it's been amazing to delve into this tag-set. I've added additional prompts where they would seem like they might be helpful, but I’d really be delighted to get anything for any of these relationship/tag combinations regardless of whether or not I could think of any extra context/prompts to add on.
I'm![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
scioscribe on AO3 and ![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
scioscribe on Tumblr. All requests this year are for fic.
And thank you again! I hope you have a great exchange.
Likes
enemies-to-lovers, enemies-to-friends, opposites attract, conflicting worldviews and priorities, emotional vulnerability, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, fix-its, sympathetic bad guys/terrible people with moments of goodness or vulnerability, redemption, pining, obvious feelings that don’t quite get admitted to, unconventional gestures of affection, partnerships, power dynamics, ambiguously intense relationships, found family, friendships, first-time stories, betrayal with reconciliation, character death, amnesia, characters forced to cooperate, forced proximity, bedsharing, huddling/cuddling for warmth, 5 + 1 fics, slow-burns, fake/pretend relationship, arranged marriage/marriage of convenience, power couples, age gaps, worldbuilding, magical realism, undercover work, loyalty, tenderness, identity porn, complicated relationships, codependency, morally gray characters, moral complexity, long relationships that go through a lot of changes, werewolves with pack dynamics, canon-divergence AUs
Historical- and canon-typical language, violence, attitudes, and darkness-levels all okay to include.
General Sex Likes/Kinks
BDSM, spanking (including breasts, thighs, and pussy), clothed sex, wall-sex, rough sex, dubcon/consent play/ambiguous consent, teasing, anal play/sex, oral sex, frottage, fingering, gags, dirty talk, hand and finger kink, hair-touching, nipple play, characters giving orders/instructions, roleplay, talking during sex, emotional sex, sleepy/lazy sex, humorous sex scenes, enthusiastic sex, tenderness, loss of virginity, bad/awkward sex (either charmingly funny or depressing), coming untouched, coming in pants, exhibitionism, collaring, people getting mussed, orgasm delay/denial, overstimulation, edging, begging, historical period- or location-specific sex, sex toys, praise kink, marking/bruising/biting
DNW
ageplay, mommy/daddy kink, explicit sex for characters under sixteen, modern AUs, mundane AUs, knotting, scat, bestiality, vore
Fandom-specific DNWs are listed in the individual fandom sections.
Dark Tower - Stephen King
Eddie Dean/Susannah Dean/Roland Deschain
Eddie Dean/Susannah Dean/Roland Deschain/Susan Delgado
Accidental Marriage Due to Misunderstanding the Norms of Another Culture | Accidental/Unexpected Soulbond is the Cultural Equivalent of Marriage | Improvised Unofficial Wedding Ceremonies | Magic Artifact Creates Marriage | Sedoretu | Current Marriage Interrupted by Spouse from Alternate Timeline
Ship/setting things I love: I really love both the time-span of the ka-tet traveling and having little side adventures on the road to the Tower--and the possibilities of that time overlapping with a sudden reappearance of Susan, for OT4 stuff, whether that's resurrected or with time travel or through other worlds than these--and the idea of the ka-tet going back in time to before Gilead's fall. Anything with them visiting strange worlds that all of them are unfamiliar with or having inter-pairing culture clashes or hang-ups about their past. Roland calling people by old-fashioned endearments. Roland feeling off-kilter being in a loving relationship again after so long. Everybody acting as Jake's family, if he's along for the ride. Susan and horses, Susannah and math, Eddie and woodcarving.
+ They visit a barony or region of Mid-World that Roland is unfamiliar with and while they're attempting to make nice with the locals and engage in courteous diplomacy, they wind up accidentally getting hitched. I especially love this if they're not all in a relationship beforehand--maybe some of them are, like Eddie/Susannah and/or Roland/Susan--but not all of them, but now the accidental marriage opens up a window for possibilities and sweet, sweet pining.
+ Khef-sharing, according to gunslinger or barony traditions, creates a marriage bond. I'm so into all the soulbond tropes here, along with the characters gradually getting more and more intimate. Are any of them uncomfortable with a poly relationship at first? What's the first sexual encounter like? Ditto all this for "magic artifact creates marriage," only there you also have the "what the hell just happened?" reactions and the characters trying to figure out what's going on.
+ I love sedoretus, but I don't often have ships with the right number/gender configurations, so I was delighted to realize that I did here--plus or minus some travel between times and/or dimensions. I tend to see the relationships involved as Eddie/Susannah, Susannah/Susan, Susan/Roland, and Roland/Eddie, but I'm totally open to switching moieties around there. I love characters getting used to a relationship structure they haven't heard of before, especially if other characters take it for granted. Bonding, relationship-building, possible taboo-breaking pairings with the sedoretu, etc.
+ Roland is married to Eddie and Susannah, and then Susan suddenly reappears in his life, with just as much marital history with him from her own dimension? Or Eddie and Susannah are married in their post-canon life and then Roland from a past Roland/Eddie/Susannah relationship suddenly crashes the party and drags them back into adventures? Or just winds up recuperating at their place on Earth, with them slowly starting to remember who he is and what he meant to them?
Roland Deschain/Man in Black
Arranged Marriage Contract Bought Out by Someone Else | Demon Bride/Groom | Eldritch Marriage Ritual | Forced to Marry Enemy | Magic Artifact Creates Marriage | Marriage to Cause Apocalypse | Marriage Arranged Because of Matching Soulmarks | Marriage is Suddenly Determined by a Higher Power
Ship/setting things I love: Incredibly creepy dubcon and noncon possibilities, both when they're in the "man in black fled across the desert" stage and in even creepier AUs where something happens between them in Gilead. Dark, mysterious soulbonds where they're inextricably bound to each other no matter how they feel about that. The man in black in particular being drawn to Roland and fascinated by him even though he ostensibly feels contempt for him. Roland being disgusted by his own attraction. "Let me remind you during this that I fucked your mom (and possibly also your dad)." Horror and dark fantasy weirdness in general.
+ Setup where arranged marriages are just the way things are in Gilead, and Roland has been formally affianced to someone since he was a child--and then Marten buys out his contract and sets up the wedding and there's nothing Roland can do about it except try to find an opportunity to kill his husband as soon as he can. Or maybe he winds up inexorably coming under Marten's sway and they become the world's creepiest power couple?
+ Or Gilead-era soulmark marriage! Does it change everything? Or does it just persist throughout the centuries even as their lives follow the same course as in canon, but they have this unshakable bond to each other that they both have to acknowledge even though they might wind up killing each other? How do they think about soulmates, and how do they experience their metaphysical connection and marriage?
+ The two of them just wind up getting suddenly married and knowing it. Maybe the Tower pairs them off because their eternal chase is part of what preserves it? Or maybe they touch something that awakens a speaking demon or some other supernatural entity that either weds them to each other and/or forces them to have sex?
+ Anything with extremely unnerving Flagg. (I'm familiar with The Stand and The Eyes of the Dragon, so if you want to use anything with his appearances in those, that's totally fine.) Flagg deliberately seeking to marry Roland because he knows that it will somehow trigger the end of the world? (Either the canonical fall of Gilead or a total collapse of the Tower and the multiverse.) Demon groom stuff where Flagg's powers warp Roland's mind during consummation, or change him supernaturally in some way. They're married according to Flagg's plans rather than Roland's culture, and Flagg's wedding ritual is predictably creepy: blood-drinking, possession, killing your spouse and then reviving them, inviting eldritch forces in to the world by consummating the marriage in a magical circle? Any and all of the above.
Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Gwendoline Mary Lacey/Darrell Rivers
Alicia Johns/Darrell Rivers
Marriage as Punishment | Marriage That Must Last One Year | Marriage is a Requirement for School Graduation | Marrying Someone You Don't Like to Save Them From a Worse Fate | Spouses Assigned by School
Request-specific DNW: Ending with a break-up/divorce or the characters hating each other. Hopeless endings.
Ship/setting things I love: The possibilities for both antagonism and genuine friendship/romance. The world-unto-itself environment of Malory Towers where the hothouse atmosphere of the school and its collective opinions decide and shape things. Weird dramatic setups for the girls to have big personal revelations and reformations. Alicia/Darrell attraction and rivalry and Darrell being slightly disconcerted by Alicia's general hardness/sharpness. Sympathy and character development for Gwen, where petty awfulness is part of who she is but it's not the entirety of her. Athletic, sporty Darrell and people appreciating her muscles. The sheer number of times people in canon get threatened with hairbrush spankings and the fic possibility of that actually occurring.
I prefer a homophobia-free AU for these particular setups.
+ So, a ton of these are variations on "the school somehow forces them to get married," so... really anything with that. I love the idea that it's somehow a requirement for students to partner up before venturing out into the world, whether that's with another student or with someone from outside the school. Does Darrell plan to marry Sally and then see that fall through when Sally falls for someone else? And then is she left with Gwen (or deferring her graduation) and decides she sees enough possibility there to make the best of it? Do Sally and Betty unexpectedly pair off, and Alicia and Darrell wind up together? Do the teachers or students have to assign marriages and they reason out that Darrell might sand off some of Alicia's rough edges or that she might help Gwen's character?
+ Mischief happens, or the school has finally had enough of Alicia's hard heart or Gwen's selfishness or Darrell's temper, and the assigned punishment is a marriage neither partner wants? Does it only have to last a year, but then at the end of it, they wind up emotionally connected and wanting it to go on longer? I love the idea of mutual pining gradually developing under these circumstances, especially with a lot of initial shame and antagonism.
+ One of the girls seems to be heading for a grim outcome--a particularly bad marriage, an awful job, a bad home situation, etc.--and one of them reluctantly decides to come to the other's rescue by offering them their hand in marriage? If Gwen is the one doing the rescuing, is she incredibly smug about the opportunity to save Darrell, and incredibly self-congratulatory about her goodness in doing so? Do Darrell and Alicia anticipate their marriage being amiable, even if they're not in love or even good friends at this point, but they hit rocky early days? Does Darrell save Gwen and think that they'll have a purely platonic marriage, only to find herself slowly falling in love with her wife?
Clarissa Carter/Wilhelmina "Bill" Robinson
Mary-Lou/Daphne Turner
Characters Consider Themselves Married Even If in the Eyes of the Law They're Not | Improvised Unofficial Wedding Ceremonies | Marriage is a Requirement for School Graduation | Marrying Your High School Sweetheart | One Spouse Crossdresses to Get Around Ban on Gay Marriage | Wedding Night
Request-specific DNW: Ending with a break-up/divorce or the characters hating each other. Hopeless endings.
Ship/setting things I love: I just find these two ships so intensely delightful, and I want to think about them living happily ever after, whether that's in a homophobia-free world (where obviously you need to get a spouse before you enter the adult world!) or where their marriage is just between the two of them and maybe their circle of friends. I love details of historical queerness and how people made lives together before queer relationships were legal. I love the slight femme/butch vibes of Bill/Clarissa and Mary-Lou overcoming her shyness and fear to be a total BAMF for Daphne's sake. Bill and Clarissa running their stable. Daphne figuring out what her career should be, if anything.
+ These are lower-key, so they'll probably take up less space to explain, but seriously, anything with these characters quietly figuring out their happy endings and settling into them would be so great. Do they just slip gradually into considering themselves married? Do they decide to have some actual private or semi-private ceremony to mark or acknowledge the transition? Who can they be open with? What's it like to have such a long-term connection with someone, where you've been in love since you were kids?
+ If they have some kind of wedding, legal or informal, what's the wedding night like? Have they already had sex, or do they have their first time then? Are they nervous? Excited? (This doesn't have to be explicit, though explicitness is totally welcome once they're sixteen+--I also just find the jitters and romantic intimacy of the first few touches fascinating and moving.) Does one of them have more experience than the other?
+ I really love the crossdressing idea for Bill, obviously, but also for either Mary-Lou or Daphne--beautiful Daphne realizing that she actually likes taking on a more butch presentation? Shy Mary-Lou being willing to take this enormous leap for Daphne's sake? Possibly finding more self-confidence when she's dressed as a man? Or, back to Bill and Clarissa, I love the idea of just really leaning into the butch/femme thing, with Clarissa being super into Bill's more masculine presentation and Bill loving Clarissa's more feminine look. Do Bill's brothers just totally take this in stride and stay a part of her life? How does this work with the people who use the riding stable?
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Loki
Heimdall/Loki
Gamora/Nebula
Gamora/Loki/Nebula
Carol Danvers/Minn-Erva
Carol Danvers/Yonn-Rogg
Marriage as Clemency at Public Execution | Accidental/Unexpected Soulbond is Cultural Equivalent of Marriage | Alien Marriage Traditions | Characters Keep "Forgetting" to Annul Accidental Marriage | Couple Finds Out They're Married in an Alternate Universe | Forced to Consummate Marriage by Third Party | Getting Married to Avoid a Diplomatic Incident | Magic Ritual Requires Marriage | Marriage Accompanied by Forced Soul Bond | Marriage for Propaganda Purposes | Marriage After Long Separation | Marriage to Prevent Apocalypse | Marrying Someone to Save Their Life | Amnesia Makes Person Forget Their Marriage
Request-specific DNW: Infinity War/Endgame events in stories with characters from the Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Permanent character death of any requested characters.
Ship/setting things I love: Post-Ragnarok settings with the Asgardians traveling across the galaxy looking for a new home. Cosmic settings with the characters having alien perspectives on things. Complicated, prickly relationships. Ambivalence. Fondness. Loyalty kink, with royalty or without. Emotional interdependency developed during super-intense situations, especially with Gamora/Nebula and Gamora/Nebula/Loki. Characters having complicated histories, characters with differing priorities. Fighting that leads to sex. Humor even in dark situations. Top!Carol. Vers-era Carol and post-CM ultra-powered Carol with complicated feelings about the Kree. Redemption arcs. Heroism, especially reluctant or unexpected. High-stakes situations, weird settings.
+ A character is set up for execution for their crimes, but they'll be pardoned if someone will take on the responsibility of marrying them and taking charge of their behavior and rehabilitation. I love all the possibilities here, especially with the relationship gradually becoming more and more genuine. Prickliness or even outright dislike and distrust gradually changing into love is one of my favorite things ever, even if we only see the beginning of that shift of feelings. Val and Loki are off on some supply-gathering mission together when one of them is abruptly arrested for their crimes--the other is the only one who can bail them out with a marriage, and they do it, but it feels incredibly awkward. Maybe they're already friends with benefits or flirting or maybe everything is new, but the connection feels more real now... Or sub in Heimdall for Val there, with Loki getting arrested, post-Ragnarok or around the era of Thor or The Avengers? Is marriage to a one-man security force considered an appropriate substitute for imprisonment? Does Gamora have to bail Nebula out and take formal responsibility for her? Nebula and Loki? Or Gamora/Nebula, already established, bailing out Loki when they come across him unexpectedly? After all, maybe they knew each other during his brief time with Thanos. The reform of the Kree Empire leads to either Minn-Erva or Yon-Rogg being led off for execution, but Carol intervenes for old times' sake? All of this can obviously overlap with marrying someone to save their life, in whatever setup you like.
+ Sort of continuing that trend of "prickly, difficult, or mistrustful relationships are prompted by circumstances to evolve into something more genuine"... I love soulbonds for suddenly increasing the intimacy between characters whether they like it or not. Does the soulbond form independently of the marriage, but it's considered the equivalent of it? Does a marriage that the characters think is going to be just a diplomatic gesture--a statement of intergalactic solidarity, a royal wedding to raise public morale, one of the aforementioned clemency weddings--turn out to establish a sudden, unwanted metaphysical connection? How do the characters feel about that? Does one of them try to get away from it? Both of them? What are the results of that?
+ Alien wedding rituals! What does an Asgardian ceremony look like? What kind of ceremony would Gamora and Nebula, with their abbreviated childhoods in their home cultures and their intergalactic experiences, think to use? Does the Supreme Intelligence matchmake people on Hala? Does blood transfusion count as marriage? Does Carol agree, even post-canon, to a Kree wedding, if she's genuinely attached to Minn-Erva or Yon-Rogg? Or do they follow Earth ceremonies, which they consider alien and baffling?
+ I love the humorous setup of characters "forgetting" to annul an accidental marriage--and the squishy feelings of that meaning an emotional connection persists despite everything they're going through. Especially the sense of a long, ongoing relationship with a lot of ups and downs, where the characters just sort of keep coming back together no matter what. Are they at all aware of the fact that they're deliberately dodging the chance to break up their marriage? Is one of them more aware than the other/s?
+ Any forced consummation of a marriage would be great. The characters get married--for whatever reason--but aren't emotionally or physically ready to consummate, but somehow other characters or circumstances compel them. Magic? Threat of death? I love the awkwardness of overcoming that first hurdle into sexual intimacy, if they've never been together before. How does that work with ships like Heimdall/Loki and Gamora/Nebula, where they've known each other for a long time, vs. ships where the relationship is comparatively new, like Carol/Minn-Erva, Val/Loki, or Gamora/Loki/Nebula?
+ These are all ships that probably have a gulf in them at some point--of trust, of ease of connection, of being on the same page, etc.--and I love the idea of playing around with the time it might take to overcome that. Have they overcome it... and then amnesia hits one of them and makes them forget their marriage and how totally their relationship with this person has changed? I especially like this if the character doesn't completely lose their memory, but instead just loses a more recent part of it--Gamora and/or Nebula last remembering being with Thanos, Loki last remembering being in a seething and vindictive mood, Yon-Rogg or Minn-Erva last remembering their duty to the Kree above all else, Val last remembering Sakaar or (maybe even stranger) Hela-era Asgard... Or then there's the bittersweet notion of it just taking a really long time for them to get to the point of being able to commit to each other, either because of their emotions or because circumstances keep getting in the way. I love characters only getting married to each other after years and years have passed. That sense of them slowly drifting towards the realization that that's what they want is so great--and so are dramatic catalysts that bring that realization home. Or maybe they've been separated for a long time and the marriage is an impulsive way of getting back into each other's lives after a lot of time has passed and whatever happened between them feels small and long ago (or they want it to feel that way).
+ And I love anything where a marriage is required for magical reasons--very important! possibly preventing the apocalypse!--and the characters can't quite treat it as meaningless. Maybe they're the ones involved directly in the magic, like Loki or Heimdall casting a spell, or maybe they just have to be the vessels the magic works through, and that makes them feel out of control? How much choice do they have in the matter? How do they resign themselves to it, especially if it means a soulbond and/or the sacrifice of any future romantic or sexual prospects, and how do they deal with the aftermath? Does one of the characters have any chance to choose their partner(s) and consider this the best available option? Do other people around them know what the cost of the magic ritual or apocalypse prevention was, and if they do, how do they react to the marriage?
Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Thor
Carol Danvers/Nick Fury
Heimdall/Thor
Nick Fury/Tony Stark
Stephen Strange/Wong
"We Could Be Dead Tomorrow So Let's Get Married Today" | Aliens Make Them Get Married | Both Spouses Are in Love but Believe the Other is in the Marriage out of Obligation | Fake Marriage Results in Surprise Real Feelings | Having to Convince the Person They're Asking that Their Proposal and Feelings are Genuine | Undercover as Married While Mutually Pining | Magic Ritual Requires Marriage | Marriage to Confer Status | Marriage to Prevent Apocalypse | Marriage to Stop Eldritch Forces from Re-Entering the World | People Stuck in Time Loop Get Married and Then Time Loop Ends Unexpectedly | Political Situation Demands a Divorce but They are in Love | Pretending to Be Married to Access Information | Renewing Vows for Impulsive Wartime/"We Could Be Dead Tomorrow" Wedding After Years of Safety | Secret Marriage | Unconventional Courtship | Wedding is Attacked | Woke Up Married
Request-specific DNW: Infinity War/Endgame events in stories with characters from the Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Permanent character death of any requested characters. Horrible breakups for Tony/Pepper or Pepper dying (amiable exes are totally fine).
Ship/setting things I love: Post-Ragnarok settings with the Asgardians traveling across the galaxy looking for a new home. Cosmic settings with the characters having alien and/or magical perspectives on things. Developing relationships. Loyalty kink, camaraderie, getting comfortable with each other. Humor even in dark situations. Top!Carol, top!Val. High-stakes situations, weird settings. Differences in age and experience. Fury's eyepatch and leather coat. Wong and Strange quibbling about deli orders and having little domestic moments. Carol as Fury's long-distance girlfriend who arrives at unpredictable intervals and has a different set of priorities. Casefic. AUs where Fury recruits Tony to SHIELD straight out of MIT. Undercover assignments. Weariness and exhaustion, especially post-battle. Little acts of caretaking.
+ All the undercover-as-married and fake-marriage tropes work so well for these ships. Fury and Carol pretending to be married to get classified information without drawing attention to themselves? Fury and Tony undercover as married on a mission--which may or may not have its own complications? Strange and Wong marrying each other so they'll be able to share access to certain magical archives?
+ There are a lot of status issues here that I like, as well. Maybe Thor wants to elevate Val to legally been a queen, or Heimdall to being a fellow king; maybe being Captain Marvel's husband is a huge status boost for Fury in the eyes of the galaxy, and getting that additional reputation may help him better protect Earth. Maybe Strange is still viewed as a relative outsider to the magical world, but Wong is his ticket in. Maybe being Tony Stark's high-profile husband can protect Fury from HYDRA?
+ And I'm always into characters having to get married Because Reasons. Another culture won't form an alliance with the remains of Asgard unless Asgard has the stability of two rulers? Eldritch forces will leak back into the world and tear it apart if Strange and Wong don't marry and combine their magic? For some reason--I'm down with any explanation or handwave here--the fate of the world or universe hinges on whether or not Nick Fury marries the right person? Heimdall can only do the magical ritual to guide Asgard's ship through the dangers of space if he's married to Asgard's king? Complex intercultural negotiations somehow demand a wedding, and a good relationship hinges on whether or not the characters can comply with alien demands? Or the characters Wake Up Married, knowing that they must have had a reason last night, but not sure they can piece it together? (Or not sure they can admit to it?)
+ Time loop: I just love the idea of these ships looping over and over again until finally they just shrug their shoulders and start doing ridiculous, risky things, like, say, marrying each other for the hell of it... and then they wake up in a brand new day with the wedding rings still on their fingers. Why did they feel like getting married? How do they react to being stuck with it? Man, especially when combined with mutual not-actually-unrequited pining, this is just so great.
+ And I also love all the tags here that go with the relationship getting to marriage naturally. I love the "we might die tomorrow" wedding, with characters seizing their moment and then possibly revisiting the occasion later to emphasize just how much they meant it. Or characters being married for love but then being hit with the idea that they may need to divorce for political reasons--they need to be free to make a marriage alliance, their ability to achieve their goals seemingly hangs on whether or not they can distance themselves from their spouse in the public eye? Or I'd love to see their courtship gradually develop it, especially since all of these people are their own unique kind of weird--I love magical romantic gestures and alien romantic gestures and surveillance and tech-related romantic gestures and superpower gestures and gestures made between people already living together in a platonic context. Does it take one of the characters a while to realize they're being courted?
+ And Wedding is Attacked is, I feel, basically wedding fluff for these people. Of course their wedding would get attacked: look at the lives they lead. So I would just love to see them striving for a perfect day--or even eventually just to get through the day and get the ceremony over with--only to have the additional complication of contending with alien invasions, high-pitched battles, magical attacks, etc. And then trying to conduct the wedding through that or in the immediate aftermath, because hey, there's no guarantee they'll get an uninterrupted shot later, either.
Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Person's Hand in Marriage Auctioned Off to Highest Bidder | Truth Serum Induces Unexpected Proposal | Aliens Think They're Married | Marriage Arranged by Professional Matchmaker | Mutual Not-Actually-Unrequited Pining for Spouse | All Agree to Marriage for Both Urgent Practical Reasons and Love - Neither Realizes/Believes This | Couple Finds Out They're Married in an Alternate Universe | Honeymoon | Marriage Assumed to be Meaningless Formality Actually Induces Soulbond | Marriage of Convenience | Marriage to Break Curse | Nobody Believes They Married for Love | Time Travel - Meeting Spouse's Younger Self | Trapped in Fake Perfect World That Includes Marriage They Don't Believe They Can Ever Really Have
Request-specific DNW: Infinity War/Endgame events in stories with characters from the Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Permanent character death of any requested characters. Horrible breakups for Tony/Pepper or Pepper dying (amiable exes are totally fine). Peter/Tony sex before Peter is eighteen; Tony being significantly, consistently attracted to Peter before he's eighteen.
Ship/setting things I love: Banter! Peter and Tony working on tech or experiments together. "Kid/Pete" and "Mr. Stark/sir," with or without a gradual significant transition to "Tony." Peter actively crushing on Tony and being sure of what he wants while Tony is kind of a disaster who is possibly also freaking out about the age difference. Heroism, mutual rescue, hurt/comfort. Peter being super-strong, Peter webbing Tony to things. Romantic development. Sweetness with the occasional electric spark of conflict or push-back. Worldbuilding where marriages are constructed very differently. Luxury porn, decadent honeymoons, Tony delighting in showering Peter with gifts. Other people reacting to Tony Stark's hot young ingenue boyfriend. Tons of pining.
+ It's not exactly normal for someone to auction off their marriage prospects, but it's not unheard-of, either, and Peter could really use the money... Do they already know each other, with the fic relatively in line with canon? Or is this the first time they've met? Does Tony already know Peter is Spider-man? Does he anticipate things turning romantic/sexual from the beginning, or does he just think the marriage will be a decent way to sponsor Peter through college and/or superhero endeavors? Is there a threat that someone else will try to outbid Tony, with him dramatically coming to the rescue?
+ Truth serum: I love the idea of one of them getting exposed to truth serum, especially if they're not already in a relationship, and rattling along and winding up at a totally unplanned proposal. Are they trying frantically to talk about literally anything else, but they keep coming back to what they're trying to avoid? Or do they feel slightly relieved by the chance to air their feelings without having much of a choice in the matter? Do they try to keep the other one from hearing? How does the other feel about hearing the proposal and/or anything else that's confessed?
+ I love any setup that brings them unexpectedly face-to-face with the idea that they even could be married, which Peter hadn't thought could actually ever happen (or thought would remain confined to his daydreams) and which Tony was trying to actively not acknowledge. So... the two of them on a cosmic adventure together, with aliens who assume they're married and treat them accordingly, and it would be a bad idea to correct them? They meet parallel versions of themselves who are happily together? They have to have some kind of marriage of convenience, whether that's for practical or supernatural reasons, but it's okay, it won't mean anything... except it clearly does. Maybe it even sparks off a soulbond they makes it even harder for them to hide their feelings and be away from each other. Maybe it's just the proximity and the fact of being married that amps up the pining that they're so wrongly sure is unrequited. If they're marrying to break a curse, what's the curse? I love the h/c possibilities of this, with one character suffering until the other character just can't take it anymore and has to intervene with a wedding. (As you do.) For "urgent practical reasons," does one character focus on resolving the other's practical reason, if he knows about it, because he thinks then being taunted by the marriage he has but doesn't really have will end? If one of them doesn't know the other's urgent reason for wedlock, how do they react to finding out? Were they just getting used to the idea that the other loved them, and now they're blindsided by finding out that there was some secret motivation all along, and immediately assuming that means they were wrong about the love thing?
+ If a matchmaker pairs them off, is it before or after they know each other? I can picture Tony trying out matchmaking and then being both extremely drawn to Peter and also very disconcerted by that. I also just love the idea of a matchmaker zeroing in on their compatibility--are they just very perceptive, or do they actually have some kind of special superpower? Or is the "matchmaker" a program Tony designed himself, which makes it even more alarming that it keeps suggesting Peter?
+ More angst: the "trapped in a fake perfect world." I just love the heartbreak of this, though ideally I think I'd love it most if it turned out, upon the character escaping/waking up, that they can have that marriage/relationship. Tony in a fake perfect world where he has an idyllic relationship with Peter, slowly realizing that the whole thing is some kind of mental manipulation; Peter overjoyed by a whirlwind romance with his long-time crush that then he has to admit isn't real. I really like the heroism of them having to bravely shatter this illusion, even when they love it, and get back to the real world, and I like them being rewarded for that with reciprocal feelings. Does the angsty fallout of all this trigger a confession of feelings, or a realization of them? Are they maybe even both stuck in a fake perfect world, and they realize afterwards that while they weren't in the same one, they were both imagining being married to each other?
+ I also just love stuff playing around with the difference in age and experience, including with outside assumptions of what they're relationship is like. Does the press conclude that Tony Stark is shallow or a cradle-robber and Peter Parker is a gold-digger or a trophy husband? Is it irritating to constantly run into the expectation they have a completely different relationship than the one they actually have? Do they ever toy with those expectations? I also love the idea of Peter being able to go back in time to meet a younger version of Tony, maybe even one his own age, which just has so many delicious complexities to it. Are he and Tony already together in his timeline, and this is a bittersweet experience? (Especially if Tony has already died--though I'd prefer a "they were together for years and then Tony died" death rather than Endgame canon there.) Is this how they first really fall in love and start a relationship, and then Peter travels back to the present and wants to continue it? Does Tony remember him? (Feel free to change the canonical rules of time travel around however you like.) Or I could also go for Peter exclusively being interested in his Tony, with his life experiences and everything they entail, and not being super into younger and more morally gray Tony. Like, I will totally take Peter Parker stuck in the past for a while and quietly being irritated by the fact that this Tony isn't as hot or interesting to him.
Solo
Lando Calrissian/Han Solo
Marriage as Clemency at Public Execution | Accepting Their Proposal to Spite Them | Character with Amnesia Forgets Divorce | Fake Marriage Results in Surprise Real Feelings | A Game of "Fuck Marry Kill" Somehow Becomes Legally Binding | Getting Married Repeatedly | Having to Convince the Person They're Asking That Their Proposal and Feelings are Genuine | Honeymoon Heist | Marriage for Protection from Criminal Organization | Marriage is a Requirement of Office
Request-specific DNW: permanent breakup of the ship or them ending up hating each other.
Ship/setting things I love: Sarcastic banter, wisecracks, snark. Lando and Han trying to con each other and other people. Lando's capes. Han occasionally achieving his desired coolness but also being a huge dork. Differences in background, with Han's upbringing--or lack thereof--on Corellia leaving a huge mark on him that Lando sometimes has to contend with. SF worldbuilding and different cultures. The sense of the Empire looming in the background while they both try to avoid any part of the conflict. Being reluctant to actually admit feelings or being in a relationship. Reluctant fondness. Repeatedly running into each other across the galaxy.
+ I like any variation on "okay, I'm going to marry you so you don't die, but I don't like you or anything, don't read too much into it." Lando shows up and rescues Han so he can't be put to death for smuggling, or Han ensures Lando getting clemency for a con gone wrong? One of them needs to be protected from Crimson Dawn or Jabba, and marriage will provide them with some social armor?
+ Snark coming back to bite them: I love the idea of spitefully accepting a proposal, especially with it working out in the long run. This is just a great ship for the two of them egging each other into increasingly more intimate situations, always telling themselves that it's only for the sake of the game or the one-upsmanship. "Fuck Mary Kill": whichever one of them wasn't playing but was now selected for "marry" is now kind of pissed that they weren't chosen for "fuck." Are they not fuckable enough? How dare you imply they're more husband material. Or I also love the idea of genuine feelings emerging before the marriage actually happens, but their history is such that one of them has to convince the other that no, seriously, they really do want to get married.
+ Anything engaging with their respective lives of crime (and eventually politics). Lando has to get married to assume control of Cloud City, and for some reason Han seems like the best or most readily available bet? They have to fake being married for part of some scheme, or they repeatedly get married for various schemes, and gradually start developing inconvenient feelings? Or they got married for a job once and were totally going to get that marriage annulled, it just keeps slipping their mind. They genuinely married for love, but they're still going to make a working honeymoon out of it and try to pull of a heist at the same time, or they married so they could use the honeymoon as cover for pulling off a heist a swanky couples-only location?
+ I love the slightly angsty, slightly funny possibilities of them actually getting divorced--it's not like they're incapable of having major fights, after all--but then amnesia makes one of them forget and they wind up falling back into a relationship. If you want to use to OT canon, maybe Han comes out of carbonite and forgets that he ever split with Lando, who also feels kind of guilty now? Or any kind of setup using just Solo's canon and diverging after that?
Enfys Nest/Qi'ra
Marriage as Clemency at Public Execution | Finding a Way to Celebrate Marriage While in Hiding/On the Run | Marriage for Protection from Criminal Organization | "We Could Be Dead Tomorrow So Let's Get Married Today" | A/B/O - Female Alpha Marries Female Omega | Bad Guys Made Them Get Married | Forced to Consummate Marriage by Third Party | Fucking One's True Love the Night Before Arranged Marriage to Someone Else
Request-specific DNW: them ending up hating each other. (They can continue being on opposite sides, though.)
Ship/setting things I love: The tensions of being on opposite sides of a conflict. Enfys being a committed idealist and Qi'ra being deeply pragmatic and focused on her own survival and rise to power. The possibility of Qi'ra breaking away from Crimson Dawn and going off to join Enfys, because of a relationship or before they're in a relationship. Physical capability that looks completely different with both of them; competence kink. Worldbuilding. Looming pressure of bad guys and retribution/death.
+ Anything that uses the threat of the Empire, Crimson Dawn, and even the Rebellion. Maybe the war is over, and Qi'ra is scheduled for execution, but Enfys is able to intervene and marry her so that she's spared. Maybe Maul or another higher-up manipulates things so that Qi'ra and Enfys have to get married--to camouflage Qi'ra's true intentions, to get additional access to the Rebellion, for unknown reasons--and then have to consummate the marriage when they're both deeply unsure of each other? (And when one might feel guilty for keeping a secret?) I really love characters struggling with first-time sex and intimacy under really unpromising, coerced conditions.
+ I also have a lot of swoony romantic feelings about the possibilities of this ship! So I like the tragic idea of one of them having to marry someone else for political reasons but sneaking away to have one last--or, even more bittersweetly, one first--torrid night together before their lives change forever. Does the other one try to convince the one arranged to be married to run off with her? I can see Enfys urging Qi'ra to give up any arrangement that has to do with Crimson Dawn and choose her and the Rebellion instead, and I can likewise see Qi'ra urging Enfys to give up some kind of important marital alliance that will help the Rebellion, just as long as they can be together. Or they do wind up getting married and staying together, but their lives aren't any simpler otherwise, so they have to do all their wedding celebration while avoiding people trying to kill them.
+ A/B/O: I love the possibilities here for this ship and could see either as an alpha or an omega. Do they view the alpha/beta/omega roles in different ways based on their different cultures and experiences, or is that one of those things that's constant across the galaxy? Does the omega one have to hide her nature to be taken seriously as a leader? Things I especially love about this trope with these two and with f/f generally: being drawn to someone's smell, social roles being marked in some way, possessiveness, need for touch, enthusiastic topping and bottoming, people sussing out each other's respective statuses.
Stranger Things
Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
"We Could Be Dead Tomorrow So Let's Get Married Today" | Accidental Travel to Future With an Unexpected Spouse | Characters Consider Themselves Married Even If in the Eyes of the Law They're Not | Blurting Out Proposal Unplanned | Character With Amnesia Forgets Divorce | Couple Finds Out They're Married in an Alternate Universe | Getting Married After Having Been Together for Many Years | Marriage Proposal | Marriage to Prevent Apocalypse | Proposal Attempts Keep Getting Thwarted by Circumstances | Teenage Marriage | Wedding is Attacked
Ship/setting things I love: People fumbling their way towards an awareness that an OT3 is even a viable possibility. Monsters, eighties references (or later pop culture references, if they're older), wacky genre-bending science fiction/fantasy/horror stuff. Hurt/comfort, especially with hurt Steve. Nancy hunting monsters. Jonathan's photography and his more working class background. Canonical setting/time but also futurefic that explores the possibilities of their adulthood. Dorky romance. The Party as a background presence, with babysitting/older-siblinghood. Canonical world or canonical world + allowable poly and same-sex marriage. Dimension-slippage.
+ They're constantly in danger, so they seize the opportunity to be together, even if the ceremony has to be quick or even if everyone else thinks they're too young. So--getting married the night before a monster fight that might end with them all getting killed, getting prompted by stressful events to unexpectedly blurt out of a proposal, surprising their unaware (except Joyce) parents by getting married the second they all turn eighteen and their social environment changing because of that. (If this isn't set in a poly/queer-friendly world, I'm okay with this working as just Nancy marrying one of the guys, so long as all three of them are living together--which of course people will also react to as something unusual.)
+ I also have a serious, bittersweet love for the idea of these three being together for a long time before marriage becomes a legal possibility for them, so maybe they're only getting married in their old age, or maybe they reach a point in their relationship where they just decide that they're together and it's the same thing as being married, dammit, so they're throwing a party or exchanging rings.
+ Or, in a starts-sad-hopefully-ends-happy way, they've been together but now they're not anymore (I'll take an informal partnership dissolving instead of a divorce, depending on the worldbuilding), but one of them forgets that and expects them to still be together, which prompts a reunion (while solving the magical amnesia).
+ And I love anything where they're trying to have a romance while Hawkins-related shenanigans are just happening all around them, so one of them has a perfect proposal planned, but they keep getting thwarted by interdimensional monsters and evil scientists and their younger siblings/friends having some kind of emergency. Or they actually managed to get to the wedding, but now Nancy is fighting monsters in her wedding dress and Steve luckily had the nail-bat stashed at the ceremony location. Or it's at the reception and Jonathan's chosen music is playing in the background while they deal with the world blowing up around them before they can even have their first dance.
I'm
And thank you again! I hope you have a great exchange.
Likes
enemies-to-lovers, enemies-to-friends, opposites attract, conflicting worldviews and priorities, emotional vulnerability, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, fix-its, sympathetic bad guys/terrible people with moments of goodness or vulnerability, redemption, pining, obvious feelings that don’t quite get admitted to, unconventional gestures of affection, partnerships, power dynamics, ambiguously intense relationships, found family, friendships, first-time stories, betrayal with reconciliation, character death, amnesia, characters forced to cooperate, forced proximity, bedsharing, huddling/cuddling for warmth, 5 + 1 fics, slow-burns, fake/pretend relationship, arranged marriage/marriage of convenience, power couples, age gaps, worldbuilding, magical realism, undercover work, loyalty, tenderness, identity porn, complicated relationships, codependency, morally gray characters, moral complexity, long relationships that go through a lot of changes, werewolves with pack dynamics, canon-divergence AUs
Historical- and canon-typical language, violence, attitudes, and darkness-levels all okay to include.
General Sex Likes/Kinks
BDSM, spanking (including breasts, thighs, and pussy), clothed sex, wall-sex, rough sex, dubcon/consent play/ambiguous consent, teasing, anal play/sex, oral sex, frottage, fingering, gags, dirty talk, hand and finger kink, hair-touching, nipple play, characters giving orders/instructions, roleplay, talking during sex, emotional sex, sleepy/lazy sex, humorous sex scenes, enthusiastic sex, tenderness, loss of virginity, bad/awkward sex (either charmingly funny or depressing), coming untouched, coming in pants, exhibitionism, collaring, people getting mussed, orgasm delay/denial, overstimulation, edging, begging, historical period- or location-specific sex, sex toys, praise kink, marking/bruising/biting
DNW
ageplay, mommy/daddy kink, explicit sex for characters under sixteen, modern AUs, mundane AUs, knotting, scat, bestiality, vore
Fandom-specific DNWs are listed in the individual fandom sections.
Dark Tower - Stephen King
Eddie Dean/Susannah Dean/Roland Deschain
Eddie Dean/Susannah Dean/Roland Deschain/Susan Delgado
Accidental Marriage Due to Misunderstanding the Norms of Another Culture | Accidental/Unexpected Soulbond is the Cultural Equivalent of Marriage | Improvised Unofficial Wedding Ceremonies | Magic Artifact Creates Marriage | Sedoretu | Current Marriage Interrupted by Spouse from Alternate Timeline
Ship/setting things I love: I really love both the time-span of the ka-tet traveling and having little side adventures on the road to the Tower--and the possibilities of that time overlapping with a sudden reappearance of Susan, for OT4 stuff, whether that's resurrected or with time travel or through other worlds than these--and the idea of the ka-tet going back in time to before Gilead's fall. Anything with them visiting strange worlds that all of them are unfamiliar with or having inter-pairing culture clashes or hang-ups about their past. Roland calling people by old-fashioned endearments. Roland feeling off-kilter being in a loving relationship again after so long. Everybody acting as Jake's family, if he's along for the ride. Susan and horses, Susannah and math, Eddie and woodcarving.
+ They visit a barony or region of Mid-World that Roland is unfamiliar with and while they're attempting to make nice with the locals and engage in courteous diplomacy, they wind up accidentally getting hitched. I especially love this if they're not all in a relationship beforehand--maybe some of them are, like Eddie/Susannah and/or Roland/Susan--but not all of them, but now the accidental marriage opens up a window for possibilities and sweet, sweet pining.
+ Khef-sharing, according to gunslinger or barony traditions, creates a marriage bond. I'm so into all the soulbond tropes here, along with the characters gradually getting more and more intimate. Are any of them uncomfortable with a poly relationship at first? What's the first sexual encounter like? Ditto all this for "magic artifact creates marriage," only there you also have the "what the hell just happened?" reactions and the characters trying to figure out what's going on.
+ I love sedoretus, but I don't often have ships with the right number/gender configurations, so I was delighted to realize that I did here--plus or minus some travel between times and/or dimensions. I tend to see the relationships involved as Eddie/Susannah, Susannah/Susan, Susan/Roland, and Roland/Eddie, but I'm totally open to switching moieties around there. I love characters getting used to a relationship structure they haven't heard of before, especially if other characters take it for granted. Bonding, relationship-building, possible taboo-breaking pairings with the sedoretu, etc.
+ Roland is married to Eddie and Susannah, and then Susan suddenly reappears in his life, with just as much marital history with him from her own dimension? Or Eddie and Susannah are married in their post-canon life and then Roland from a past Roland/Eddie/Susannah relationship suddenly crashes the party and drags them back into adventures? Or just winds up recuperating at their place on Earth, with them slowly starting to remember who he is and what he meant to them?
Roland Deschain/Man in Black
Arranged Marriage Contract Bought Out by Someone Else | Demon Bride/Groom | Eldritch Marriage Ritual | Forced to Marry Enemy | Magic Artifact Creates Marriage | Marriage to Cause Apocalypse | Marriage Arranged Because of Matching Soulmarks | Marriage is Suddenly Determined by a Higher Power
Ship/setting things I love: Incredibly creepy dubcon and noncon possibilities, both when they're in the "man in black fled across the desert" stage and in even creepier AUs where something happens between them in Gilead. Dark, mysterious soulbonds where they're inextricably bound to each other no matter how they feel about that. The man in black in particular being drawn to Roland and fascinated by him even though he ostensibly feels contempt for him. Roland being disgusted by his own attraction. "Let me remind you during this that I fucked your mom (and possibly also your dad)." Horror and dark fantasy weirdness in general.
+ Setup where arranged marriages are just the way things are in Gilead, and Roland has been formally affianced to someone since he was a child--and then Marten buys out his contract and sets up the wedding and there's nothing Roland can do about it except try to find an opportunity to kill his husband as soon as he can. Or maybe he winds up inexorably coming under Marten's sway and they become the world's creepiest power couple?
+ Or Gilead-era soulmark marriage! Does it change everything? Or does it just persist throughout the centuries even as their lives follow the same course as in canon, but they have this unshakable bond to each other that they both have to acknowledge even though they might wind up killing each other? How do they think about soulmates, and how do they experience their metaphysical connection and marriage?
+ The two of them just wind up getting suddenly married and knowing it. Maybe the Tower pairs them off because their eternal chase is part of what preserves it? Or maybe they touch something that awakens a speaking demon or some other supernatural entity that either weds them to each other and/or forces them to have sex?
+ Anything with extremely unnerving Flagg. (I'm familiar with The Stand and The Eyes of the Dragon, so if you want to use anything with his appearances in those, that's totally fine.) Flagg deliberately seeking to marry Roland because he knows that it will somehow trigger the end of the world? (Either the canonical fall of Gilead or a total collapse of the Tower and the multiverse.) Demon groom stuff where Flagg's powers warp Roland's mind during consummation, or change him supernaturally in some way. They're married according to Flagg's plans rather than Roland's culture, and Flagg's wedding ritual is predictably creepy: blood-drinking, possession, killing your spouse and then reviving them, inviting eldritch forces in to the world by consummating the marriage in a magical circle? Any and all of the above.
Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Gwendoline Mary Lacey/Darrell Rivers
Alicia Johns/Darrell Rivers
Marriage as Punishment | Marriage That Must Last One Year | Marriage is a Requirement for School Graduation | Marrying Someone You Don't Like to Save Them From a Worse Fate | Spouses Assigned by School
Request-specific DNW: Ending with a break-up/divorce or the characters hating each other. Hopeless endings.
Ship/setting things I love: The possibilities for both antagonism and genuine friendship/romance. The world-unto-itself environment of Malory Towers where the hothouse atmosphere of the school and its collective opinions decide and shape things. Weird dramatic setups for the girls to have big personal revelations and reformations. Alicia/Darrell attraction and rivalry and Darrell being slightly disconcerted by Alicia's general hardness/sharpness. Sympathy and character development for Gwen, where petty awfulness is part of who she is but it's not the entirety of her. Athletic, sporty Darrell and people appreciating her muscles. The sheer number of times people in canon get threatened with hairbrush spankings and the fic possibility of that actually occurring.
I prefer a homophobia-free AU for these particular setups.
+ So, a ton of these are variations on "the school somehow forces them to get married," so... really anything with that. I love the idea that it's somehow a requirement for students to partner up before venturing out into the world, whether that's with another student or with someone from outside the school. Does Darrell plan to marry Sally and then see that fall through when Sally falls for someone else? And then is she left with Gwen (or deferring her graduation) and decides she sees enough possibility there to make the best of it? Do Sally and Betty unexpectedly pair off, and Alicia and Darrell wind up together? Do the teachers or students have to assign marriages and they reason out that Darrell might sand off some of Alicia's rough edges or that she might help Gwen's character?
+ Mischief happens, or the school has finally had enough of Alicia's hard heart or Gwen's selfishness or Darrell's temper, and the assigned punishment is a marriage neither partner wants? Does it only have to last a year, but then at the end of it, they wind up emotionally connected and wanting it to go on longer? I love the idea of mutual pining gradually developing under these circumstances, especially with a lot of initial shame and antagonism.
+ One of the girls seems to be heading for a grim outcome--a particularly bad marriage, an awful job, a bad home situation, etc.--and one of them reluctantly decides to come to the other's rescue by offering them their hand in marriage? If Gwen is the one doing the rescuing, is she incredibly smug about the opportunity to save Darrell, and incredibly self-congratulatory about her goodness in doing so? Do Darrell and Alicia anticipate their marriage being amiable, even if they're not in love or even good friends at this point, but they hit rocky early days? Does Darrell save Gwen and think that they'll have a purely platonic marriage, only to find herself slowly falling in love with her wife?
Clarissa Carter/Wilhelmina "Bill" Robinson
Mary-Lou/Daphne Turner
Characters Consider Themselves Married Even If in the Eyes of the Law They're Not | Improvised Unofficial Wedding Ceremonies | Marriage is a Requirement for School Graduation | Marrying Your High School Sweetheart | One Spouse Crossdresses to Get Around Ban on Gay Marriage | Wedding Night
Request-specific DNW: Ending with a break-up/divorce or the characters hating each other. Hopeless endings.
Ship/setting things I love: I just find these two ships so intensely delightful, and I want to think about them living happily ever after, whether that's in a homophobia-free world (where obviously you need to get a spouse before you enter the adult world!) or where their marriage is just between the two of them and maybe their circle of friends. I love details of historical queerness and how people made lives together before queer relationships were legal. I love the slight femme/butch vibes of Bill/Clarissa and Mary-Lou overcoming her shyness and fear to be a total BAMF for Daphne's sake. Bill and Clarissa running their stable. Daphne figuring out what her career should be, if anything.
+ These are lower-key, so they'll probably take up less space to explain, but seriously, anything with these characters quietly figuring out their happy endings and settling into them would be so great. Do they just slip gradually into considering themselves married? Do they decide to have some actual private or semi-private ceremony to mark or acknowledge the transition? Who can they be open with? What's it like to have such a long-term connection with someone, where you've been in love since you were kids?
+ If they have some kind of wedding, legal or informal, what's the wedding night like? Have they already had sex, or do they have their first time then? Are they nervous? Excited? (This doesn't have to be explicit, though explicitness is totally welcome once they're sixteen+--I also just find the jitters and romantic intimacy of the first few touches fascinating and moving.) Does one of them have more experience than the other?
+ I really love the crossdressing idea for Bill, obviously, but also for either Mary-Lou or Daphne--beautiful Daphne realizing that she actually likes taking on a more butch presentation? Shy Mary-Lou being willing to take this enormous leap for Daphne's sake? Possibly finding more self-confidence when she's dressed as a man? Or, back to Bill and Clarissa, I love the idea of just really leaning into the butch/femme thing, with Clarissa being super into Bill's more masculine presentation and Bill loving Clarissa's more feminine look. Do Bill's brothers just totally take this in stride and stay a part of her life? How does this work with the people who use the riding stable?
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Loki
Heimdall/Loki
Gamora/Nebula
Gamora/Loki/Nebula
Carol Danvers/Minn-Erva
Carol Danvers/Yonn-Rogg
Marriage as Clemency at Public Execution | Accidental/Unexpected Soulbond is Cultural Equivalent of Marriage | Alien Marriage Traditions | Characters Keep "Forgetting" to Annul Accidental Marriage | Couple Finds Out They're Married in an Alternate Universe | Forced to Consummate Marriage by Third Party | Getting Married to Avoid a Diplomatic Incident | Magic Ritual Requires Marriage | Marriage Accompanied by Forced Soul Bond | Marriage for Propaganda Purposes | Marriage After Long Separation | Marriage to Prevent Apocalypse | Marrying Someone to Save Their Life | Amnesia Makes Person Forget Their Marriage
Request-specific DNW: Infinity War/Endgame events in stories with characters from the Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Permanent character death of any requested characters.
Ship/setting things I love: Post-Ragnarok settings with the Asgardians traveling across the galaxy looking for a new home. Cosmic settings with the characters having alien perspectives on things. Complicated, prickly relationships. Ambivalence. Fondness. Loyalty kink, with royalty or without. Emotional interdependency developed during super-intense situations, especially with Gamora/Nebula and Gamora/Nebula/Loki. Characters having complicated histories, characters with differing priorities. Fighting that leads to sex. Humor even in dark situations. Top!Carol. Vers-era Carol and post-CM ultra-powered Carol with complicated feelings about the Kree. Redemption arcs. Heroism, especially reluctant or unexpected. High-stakes situations, weird settings.
+ A character is set up for execution for their crimes, but they'll be pardoned if someone will take on the responsibility of marrying them and taking charge of their behavior and rehabilitation. I love all the possibilities here, especially with the relationship gradually becoming more and more genuine. Prickliness or even outright dislike and distrust gradually changing into love is one of my favorite things ever, even if we only see the beginning of that shift of feelings. Val and Loki are off on some supply-gathering mission together when one of them is abruptly arrested for their crimes--the other is the only one who can bail them out with a marriage, and they do it, but it feels incredibly awkward. Maybe they're already friends with benefits or flirting or maybe everything is new, but the connection feels more real now... Or sub in Heimdall for Val there, with Loki getting arrested, post-Ragnarok or around the era of Thor or The Avengers? Is marriage to a one-man security force considered an appropriate substitute for imprisonment? Does Gamora have to bail Nebula out and take formal responsibility for her? Nebula and Loki? Or Gamora/Nebula, already established, bailing out Loki when they come across him unexpectedly? After all, maybe they knew each other during his brief time with Thanos. The reform of the Kree Empire leads to either Minn-Erva or Yon-Rogg being led off for execution, but Carol intervenes for old times' sake? All of this can obviously overlap with marrying someone to save their life, in whatever setup you like.
+ Sort of continuing that trend of "prickly, difficult, or mistrustful relationships are prompted by circumstances to evolve into something more genuine"... I love soulbonds for suddenly increasing the intimacy between characters whether they like it or not. Does the soulbond form independently of the marriage, but it's considered the equivalent of it? Does a marriage that the characters think is going to be just a diplomatic gesture--a statement of intergalactic solidarity, a royal wedding to raise public morale, one of the aforementioned clemency weddings--turn out to establish a sudden, unwanted metaphysical connection? How do the characters feel about that? Does one of them try to get away from it? Both of them? What are the results of that?
+ Alien wedding rituals! What does an Asgardian ceremony look like? What kind of ceremony would Gamora and Nebula, with their abbreviated childhoods in their home cultures and their intergalactic experiences, think to use? Does the Supreme Intelligence matchmake people on Hala? Does blood transfusion count as marriage? Does Carol agree, even post-canon, to a Kree wedding, if she's genuinely attached to Minn-Erva or Yon-Rogg? Or do they follow Earth ceremonies, which they consider alien and baffling?
+ I love the humorous setup of characters "forgetting" to annul an accidental marriage--and the squishy feelings of that meaning an emotional connection persists despite everything they're going through. Especially the sense of a long, ongoing relationship with a lot of ups and downs, where the characters just sort of keep coming back together no matter what. Are they at all aware of the fact that they're deliberately dodging the chance to break up their marriage? Is one of them more aware than the other/s?
+ Any forced consummation of a marriage would be great. The characters get married--for whatever reason--but aren't emotionally or physically ready to consummate, but somehow other characters or circumstances compel them. Magic? Threat of death? I love the awkwardness of overcoming that first hurdle into sexual intimacy, if they've never been together before. How does that work with ships like Heimdall/Loki and Gamora/Nebula, where they've known each other for a long time, vs. ships where the relationship is comparatively new, like Carol/Minn-Erva, Val/Loki, or Gamora/Loki/Nebula?
+ These are all ships that probably have a gulf in them at some point--of trust, of ease of connection, of being on the same page, etc.--and I love the idea of playing around with the time it might take to overcome that. Have they overcome it... and then amnesia hits one of them and makes them forget their marriage and how totally their relationship with this person has changed? I especially like this if the character doesn't completely lose their memory, but instead just loses a more recent part of it--Gamora and/or Nebula last remembering being with Thanos, Loki last remembering being in a seething and vindictive mood, Yon-Rogg or Minn-Erva last remembering their duty to the Kree above all else, Val last remembering Sakaar or (maybe even stranger) Hela-era Asgard... Or then there's the bittersweet notion of it just taking a really long time for them to get to the point of being able to commit to each other, either because of their emotions or because circumstances keep getting in the way. I love characters only getting married to each other after years and years have passed. That sense of them slowly drifting towards the realization that that's what they want is so great--and so are dramatic catalysts that bring that realization home. Or maybe they've been separated for a long time and the marriage is an impulsive way of getting back into each other's lives after a lot of time has passed and whatever happened between them feels small and long ago (or they want it to feel that way).
+ And I love anything where a marriage is required for magical reasons--very important! possibly preventing the apocalypse!--and the characters can't quite treat it as meaningless. Maybe they're the ones involved directly in the magic, like Loki or Heimdall casting a spell, or maybe they just have to be the vessels the magic works through, and that makes them feel out of control? How much choice do they have in the matter? How do they resign themselves to it, especially if it means a soulbond and/or the sacrifice of any future romantic or sexual prospects, and how do they deal with the aftermath? Does one of the characters have any chance to choose their partner(s) and consider this the best available option? Do other people around them know what the cost of the magic ritual or apocalypse prevention was, and if they do, how do they react to the marriage?
Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Thor
Carol Danvers/Nick Fury
Heimdall/Thor
Nick Fury/Tony Stark
Stephen Strange/Wong
"We Could Be Dead Tomorrow So Let's Get Married Today" | Aliens Make Them Get Married | Both Spouses Are in Love but Believe the Other is in the Marriage out of Obligation | Fake Marriage Results in Surprise Real Feelings | Having to Convince the Person They're Asking that Their Proposal and Feelings are Genuine | Undercover as Married While Mutually Pining | Magic Ritual Requires Marriage | Marriage to Confer Status | Marriage to Prevent Apocalypse | Marriage to Stop Eldritch Forces from Re-Entering the World | People Stuck in Time Loop Get Married and Then Time Loop Ends Unexpectedly | Political Situation Demands a Divorce but They are in Love | Pretending to Be Married to Access Information | Renewing Vows for Impulsive Wartime/"We Could Be Dead Tomorrow" Wedding After Years of Safety | Secret Marriage | Unconventional Courtship | Wedding is Attacked | Woke Up Married
Request-specific DNW: Infinity War/Endgame events in stories with characters from the Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Permanent character death of any requested characters. Horrible breakups for Tony/Pepper or Pepper dying (amiable exes are totally fine).
Ship/setting things I love: Post-Ragnarok settings with the Asgardians traveling across the galaxy looking for a new home. Cosmic settings with the characters having alien and/or magical perspectives on things. Developing relationships. Loyalty kink, camaraderie, getting comfortable with each other. Humor even in dark situations. Top!Carol, top!Val. High-stakes situations, weird settings. Differences in age and experience. Fury's eyepatch and leather coat. Wong and Strange quibbling about deli orders and having little domestic moments. Carol as Fury's long-distance girlfriend who arrives at unpredictable intervals and has a different set of priorities. Casefic. AUs where Fury recruits Tony to SHIELD straight out of MIT. Undercover assignments. Weariness and exhaustion, especially post-battle. Little acts of caretaking.
+ All the undercover-as-married and fake-marriage tropes work so well for these ships. Fury and Carol pretending to be married to get classified information without drawing attention to themselves? Fury and Tony undercover as married on a mission--which may or may not have its own complications? Strange and Wong marrying each other so they'll be able to share access to certain magical archives?
+ There are a lot of status issues here that I like, as well. Maybe Thor wants to elevate Val to legally been a queen, or Heimdall to being a fellow king; maybe being Captain Marvel's husband is a huge status boost for Fury in the eyes of the galaxy, and getting that additional reputation may help him better protect Earth. Maybe Strange is still viewed as a relative outsider to the magical world, but Wong is his ticket in. Maybe being Tony Stark's high-profile husband can protect Fury from HYDRA?
+ And I'm always into characters having to get married Because Reasons. Another culture won't form an alliance with the remains of Asgard unless Asgard has the stability of two rulers? Eldritch forces will leak back into the world and tear it apart if Strange and Wong don't marry and combine their magic? For some reason--I'm down with any explanation or handwave here--the fate of the world or universe hinges on whether or not Nick Fury marries the right person? Heimdall can only do the magical ritual to guide Asgard's ship through the dangers of space if he's married to Asgard's king? Complex intercultural negotiations somehow demand a wedding, and a good relationship hinges on whether or not the characters can comply with alien demands? Or the characters Wake Up Married, knowing that they must have had a reason last night, but not sure they can piece it together? (Or not sure they can admit to it?)
+ Time loop: I just love the idea of these ships looping over and over again until finally they just shrug their shoulders and start doing ridiculous, risky things, like, say, marrying each other for the hell of it... and then they wake up in a brand new day with the wedding rings still on their fingers. Why did they feel like getting married? How do they react to being stuck with it? Man, especially when combined with mutual not-actually-unrequited pining, this is just so great.
+ And I also love all the tags here that go with the relationship getting to marriage naturally. I love the "we might die tomorrow" wedding, with characters seizing their moment and then possibly revisiting the occasion later to emphasize just how much they meant it. Or characters being married for love but then being hit with the idea that they may need to divorce for political reasons--they need to be free to make a marriage alliance, their ability to achieve their goals seemingly hangs on whether or not they can distance themselves from their spouse in the public eye? Or I'd love to see their courtship gradually develop it, especially since all of these people are their own unique kind of weird--I love magical romantic gestures and alien romantic gestures and surveillance and tech-related romantic gestures and superpower gestures and gestures made between people already living together in a platonic context. Does it take one of the characters a while to realize they're being courted?
+ And Wedding is Attacked is, I feel, basically wedding fluff for these people. Of course their wedding would get attacked: look at the lives they lead. So I would just love to see them striving for a perfect day--or even eventually just to get through the day and get the ceremony over with--only to have the additional complication of contending with alien invasions, high-pitched battles, magical attacks, etc. And then trying to conduct the wedding through that or in the immediate aftermath, because hey, there's no guarantee they'll get an uninterrupted shot later, either.
Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Person's Hand in Marriage Auctioned Off to Highest Bidder | Truth Serum Induces Unexpected Proposal | Aliens Think They're Married | Marriage Arranged by Professional Matchmaker | Mutual Not-Actually-Unrequited Pining for Spouse | All Agree to Marriage for Both Urgent Practical Reasons and Love - Neither Realizes/Believes This | Couple Finds Out They're Married in an Alternate Universe | Honeymoon | Marriage Assumed to be Meaningless Formality Actually Induces Soulbond | Marriage of Convenience | Marriage to Break Curse | Nobody Believes They Married for Love | Time Travel - Meeting Spouse's Younger Self | Trapped in Fake Perfect World That Includes Marriage They Don't Believe They Can Ever Really Have
Request-specific DNW: Infinity War/Endgame events in stories with characters from the Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Permanent character death of any requested characters. Horrible breakups for Tony/Pepper or Pepper dying (amiable exes are totally fine). Peter/Tony sex before Peter is eighteen; Tony being significantly, consistently attracted to Peter before he's eighteen.
Ship/setting things I love: Banter! Peter and Tony working on tech or experiments together. "Kid/Pete" and "Mr. Stark/sir," with or without a gradual significant transition to "Tony." Peter actively crushing on Tony and being sure of what he wants while Tony is kind of a disaster who is possibly also freaking out about the age difference. Heroism, mutual rescue, hurt/comfort. Peter being super-strong, Peter webbing Tony to things. Romantic development. Sweetness with the occasional electric spark of conflict or push-back. Worldbuilding where marriages are constructed very differently. Luxury porn, decadent honeymoons, Tony delighting in showering Peter with gifts. Other people reacting to Tony Stark's hot young ingenue boyfriend. Tons of pining.
+ It's not exactly normal for someone to auction off their marriage prospects, but it's not unheard-of, either, and Peter could really use the money... Do they already know each other, with the fic relatively in line with canon? Or is this the first time they've met? Does Tony already know Peter is Spider-man? Does he anticipate things turning romantic/sexual from the beginning, or does he just think the marriage will be a decent way to sponsor Peter through college and/or superhero endeavors? Is there a threat that someone else will try to outbid Tony, with him dramatically coming to the rescue?
+ Truth serum: I love the idea of one of them getting exposed to truth serum, especially if they're not already in a relationship, and rattling along and winding up at a totally unplanned proposal. Are they trying frantically to talk about literally anything else, but they keep coming back to what they're trying to avoid? Or do they feel slightly relieved by the chance to air their feelings without having much of a choice in the matter? Do they try to keep the other one from hearing? How does the other feel about hearing the proposal and/or anything else that's confessed?
+ I love any setup that brings them unexpectedly face-to-face with the idea that they even could be married, which Peter hadn't thought could actually ever happen (or thought would remain confined to his daydreams) and which Tony was trying to actively not acknowledge. So... the two of them on a cosmic adventure together, with aliens who assume they're married and treat them accordingly, and it would be a bad idea to correct them? They meet parallel versions of themselves who are happily together? They have to have some kind of marriage of convenience, whether that's for practical or supernatural reasons, but it's okay, it won't mean anything... except it clearly does. Maybe it even sparks off a soulbond they makes it even harder for them to hide their feelings and be away from each other. Maybe it's just the proximity and the fact of being married that amps up the pining that they're so wrongly sure is unrequited. If they're marrying to break a curse, what's the curse? I love the h/c possibilities of this, with one character suffering until the other character just can't take it anymore and has to intervene with a wedding. (As you do.) For "urgent practical reasons," does one character focus on resolving the other's practical reason, if he knows about it, because he thinks then being taunted by the marriage he has but doesn't really have will end? If one of them doesn't know the other's urgent reason for wedlock, how do they react to finding out? Were they just getting used to the idea that the other loved them, and now they're blindsided by finding out that there was some secret motivation all along, and immediately assuming that means they were wrong about the love thing?
+ If a matchmaker pairs them off, is it before or after they know each other? I can picture Tony trying out matchmaking and then being both extremely drawn to Peter and also very disconcerted by that. I also just love the idea of a matchmaker zeroing in on their compatibility--are they just very perceptive, or do they actually have some kind of special superpower? Or is the "matchmaker" a program Tony designed himself, which makes it even more alarming that it keeps suggesting Peter?
+ More angst: the "trapped in a fake perfect world." I just love the heartbreak of this, though ideally I think I'd love it most if it turned out, upon the character escaping/waking up, that they can have that marriage/relationship. Tony in a fake perfect world where he has an idyllic relationship with Peter, slowly realizing that the whole thing is some kind of mental manipulation; Peter overjoyed by a whirlwind romance with his long-time crush that then he has to admit isn't real. I really like the heroism of them having to bravely shatter this illusion, even when they love it, and get back to the real world, and I like them being rewarded for that with reciprocal feelings. Does the angsty fallout of all this trigger a confession of feelings, or a realization of them? Are they maybe even both stuck in a fake perfect world, and they realize afterwards that while they weren't in the same one, they were both imagining being married to each other?
+ I also just love stuff playing around with the difference in age and experience, including with outside assumptions of what they're relationship is like. Does the press conclude that Tony Stark is shallow or a cradle-robber and Peter Parker is a gold-digger or a trophy husband? Is it irritating to constantly run into the expectation they have a completely different relationship than the one they actually have? Do they ever toy with those expectations? I also love the idea of Peter being able to go back in time to meet a younger version of Tony, maybe even one his own age, which just has so many delicious complexities to it. Are he and Tony already together in his timeline, and this is a bittersweet experience? (Especially if Tony has already died--though I'd prefer a "they were together for years and then Tony died" death rather than Endgame canon there.) Is this how they first really fall in love and start a relationship, and then Peter travels back to the present and wants to continue it? Does Tony remember him? (Feel free to change the canonical rules of time travel around however you like.) Or I could also go for Peter exclusively being interested in his Tony, with his life experiences and everything they entail, and not being super into younger and more morally gray Tony. Like, I will totally take Peter Parker stuck in the past for a while and quietly being irritated by the fact that this Tony isn't as hot or interesting to him.
Solo
Lando Calrissian/Han Solo
Marriage as Clemency at Public Execution | Accepting Their Proposal to Spite Them | Character with Amnesia Forgets Divorce | Fake Marriage Results in Surprise Real Feelings | A Game of "Fuck Marry Kill" Somehow Becomes Legally Binding | Getting Married Repeatedly | Having to Convince the Person They're Asking That Their Proposal and Feelings are Genuine | Honeymoon Heist | Marriage for Protection from Criminal Organization | Marriage is a Requirement of Office
Request-specific DNW: permanent breakup of the ship or them ending up hating each other.
Ship/setting things I love: Sarcastic banter, wisecracks, snark. Lando and Han trying to con each other and other people. Lando's capes. Han occasionally achieving his desired coolness but also being a huge dork. Differences in background, with Han's upbringing--or lack thereof--on Corellia leaving a huge mark on him that Lando sometimes has to contend with. SF worldbuilding and different cultures. The sense of the Empire looming in the background while they both try to avoid any part of the conflict. Being reluctant to actually admit feelings or being in a relationship. Reluctant fondness. Repeatedly running into each other across the galaxy.
+ I like any variation on "okay, I'm going to marry you so you don't die, but I don't like you or anything, don't read too much into it." Lando shows up and rescues Han so he can't be put to death for smuggling, or Han ensures Lando getting clemency for a con gone wrong? One of them needs to be protected from Crimson Dawn or Jabba, and marriage will provide them with some social armor?
+ Snark coming back to bite them: I love the idea of spitefully accepting a proposal, especially with it working out in the long run. This is just a great ship for the two of them egging each other into increasingly more intimate situations, always telling themselves that it's only for the sake of the game or the one-upsmanship. "Fuck Mary Kill": whichever one of them wasn't playing but was now selected for "marry" is now kind of pissed that they weren't chosen for "fuck." Are they not fuckable enough? How dare you imply they're more husband material. Or I also love the idea of genuine feelings emerging before the marriage actually happens, but their history is such that one of them has to convince the other that no, seriously, they really do want to get married.
+ Anything engaging with their respective lives of crime (and eventually politics). Lando has to get married to assume control of Cloud City, and for some reason Han seems like the best or most readily available bet? They have to fake being married for part of some scheme, or they repeatedly get married for various schemes, and gradually start developing inconvenient feelings? Or they got married for a job once and were totally going to get that marriage annulled, it just keeps slipping their mind. They genuinely married for love, but they're still going to make a working honeymoon out of it and try to pull of a heist at the same time, or they married so they could use the honeymoon as cover for pulling off a heist a swanky couples-only location?
+ I love the slightly angsty, slightly funny possibilities of them actually getting divorced--it's not like they're incapable of having major fights, after all--but then amnesia makes one of them forget and they wind up falling back into a relationship. If you want to use to OT canon, maybe Han comes out of carbonite and forgets that he ever split with Lando, who also feels kind of guilty now? Or any kind of setup using just Solo's canon and diverging after that?
Enfys Nest/Qi'ra
Marriage as Clemency at Public Execution | Finding a Way to Celebrate Marriage While in Hiding/On the Run | Marriage for Protection from Criminal Organization | "We Could Be Dead Tomorrow So Let's Get Married Today" | A/B/O - Female Alpha Marries Female Omega | Bad Guys Made Them Get Married | Forced to Consummate Marriage by Third Party | Fucking One's True Love the Night Before Arranged Marriage to Someone Else
Request-specific DNW: them ending up hating each other. (They can continue being on opposite sides, though.)
Ship/setting things I love: The tensions of being on opposite sides of a conflict. Enfys being a committed idealist and Qi'ra being deeply pragmatic and focused on her own survival and rise to power. The possibility of Qi'ra breaking away from Crimson Dawn and going off to join Enfys, because of a relationship or before they're in a relationship. Physical capability that looks completely different with both of them; competence kink. Worldbuilding. Looming pressure of bad guys and retribution/death.
+ Anything that uses the threat of the Empire, Crimson Dawn, and even the Rebellion. Maybe the war is over, and Qi'ra is scheduled for execution, but Enfys is able to intervene and marry her so that she's spared. Maybe Maul or another higher-up manipulates things so that Qi'ra and Enfys have to get married--to camouflage Qi'ra's true intentions, to get additional access to the Rebellion, for unknown reasons--and then have to consummate the marriage when they're both deeply unsure of each other? (And when one might feel guilty for keeping a secret?) I really love characters struggling with first-time sex and intimacy under really unpromising, coerced conditions.
+ I also have a lot of swoony romantic feelings about the possibilities of this ship! So I like the tragic idea of one of them having to marry someone else for political reasons but sneaking away to have one last--or, even more bittersweetly, one first--torrid night together before their lives change forever. Does the other one try to convince the one arranged to be married to run off with her? I can see Enfys urging Qi'ra to give up any arrangement that has to do with Crimson Dawn and choose her and the Rebellion instead, and I can likewise see Qi'ra urging Enfys to give up some kind of important marital alliance that will help the Rebellion, just as long as they can be together. Or they do wind up getting married and staying together, but their lives aren't any simpler otherwise, so they have to do all their wedding celebration while avoiding people trying to kill them.
+ A/B/O: I love the possibilities here for this ship and could see either as an alpha or an omega. Do they view the alpha/beta/omega roles in different ways based on their different cultures and experiences, or is that one of those things that's constant across the galaxy? Does the omega one have to hide her nature to be taken seriously as a leader? Things I especially love about this trope with these two and with f/f generally: being drawn to someone's smell, social roles being marked in some way, possessiveness, need for touch, enthusiastic topping and bottoming, people sussing out each other's respective statuses.
Stranger Things
Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
"We Could Be Dead Tomorrow So Let's Get Married Today" | Accidental Travel to Future With an Unexpected Spouse | Characters Consider Themselves Married Even If in the Eyes of the Law They're Not | Blurting Out Proposal Unplanned | Character With Amnesia Forgets Divorce | Couple Finds Out They're Married in an Alternate Universe | Getting Married After Having Been Together for Many Years | Marriage Proposal | Marriage to Prevent Apocalypse | Proposal Attempts Keep Getting Thwarted by Circumstances | Teenage Marriage | Wedding is Attacked
Ship/setting things I love: People fumbling their way towards an awareness that an OT3 is even a viable possibility. Monsters, eighties references (or later pop culture references, if they're older), wacky genre-bending science fiction/fantasy/horror stuff. Hurt/comfort, especially with hurt Steve. Nancy hunting monsters. Jonathan's photography and his more working class background. Canonical setting/time but also futurefic that explores the possibilities of their adulthood. Dorky romance. The Party as a background presence, with babysitting/older-siblinghood. Canonical world or canonical world + allowable poly and same-sex marriage. Dimension-slippage.
+ They're constantly in danger, so they seize the opportunity to be together, even if the ceremony has to be quick or even if everyone else thinks they're too young. So--getting married the night before a monster fight that might end with them all getting killed, getting prompted by stressful events to unexpectedly blurt out of a proposal, surprising their unaware (except Joyce) parents by getting married the second they all turn eighteen and their social environment changing because of that. (If this isn't set in a poly/queer-friendly world, I'm okay with this working as just Nancy marrying one of the guys, so long as all three of them are living together--which of course people will also react to as something unusual.)
+ I also have a serious, bittersweet love for the idea of these three being together for a long time before marriage becomes a legal possibility for them, so maybe they're only getting married in their old age, or maybe they reach a point in their relationship where they just decide that they're together and it's the same thing as being married, dammit, so they're throwing a party or exchanging rings.
+ Or, in a starts-sad-hopefully-ends-happy way, they've been together but now they're not anymore (I'll take an informal partnership dissolving instead of a divorce, depending on the worldbuilding), but one of them forgets that and expects them to still be together, which prompts a reunion (while solving the magical amnesia).
+ And I love anything where they're trying to have a romance while Hawkins-related shenanigans are just happening all around them, so one of them has a perfect proposal planned, but they keep getting thwarted by interdimensional monsters and evil scientists and their younger siblings/friends having some kind of emergency. Or they actually managed to get to the wedding, but now Nancy is fighting monsters in her wedding dress and Steve luckily had the nail-bat stashed at the ceremony location. Or it's at the reception and Jonathan's chosen music is playing in the background while they deal with the world blowing up around them before they can even have their first dance.