KJ115's Episode Guides

This show is literally the reason I’m on this app! Thank you Voyager for awesome characters and great fandom support (looking at you @70thousandlightyearsfromhome )

This is the photo Admiral Janeway should have given Tuvok as a goodbye gift in “Endgame,” not that dopey 5th season promo pic

Family Ties

This an overview of the regular crew’s known family. Just for the record, I do not consider Jeri Taylor’s books, Pathfinder and Mosaic, to be canon. Not least because so much of what is in them is directly contradicted by the aired episodes.

Kathryn Janeway 

Her father, Vice Admiral Janeway, is dead. He “drowned under the polar icecap on Tau Ceti Prime” over fifteen years ago.

Janeway has a mother and one sister. They were named Gretchen and Phoebe in Jeri Taylor’s books, but their names were never mentioned on air.  Her sister is “the artist of the family.”

Janeway has an aunt named Martha, who told her some family stories that turned out be exaggerated. Janeway’s grandmother used to make vegetable biryani (perhaps she was of Indian descent?).

Chakotay 

He has a living sister. His father, Kolopak, joined the Maquis and was killed trying to defend his homeworld.  We don’t hear much about Chakotay’s mom. It is mentioned that he came out of his mother feet first, so she was his biological mother. It’s implied that his mother is no longer alive.

He had a grandfather who suffered from mental illness due to a defective gene. Chakotay inherited the “family curse,” but his doctor suppressed the gene before he was born.

Tuvok

Tuvok’s mother is named T’Meni. We never hear Tuvok’s father’s name. It’s implied that his father was in Starfleet, and was serving on the Yorktown 80 years ago.

Tuvok’s wife is T’Pel. They have four children, three sons and one daughter.  The ages of his children are really screwed up; sometimes they’re young children, sometimes adults. The oldest is a son is named Sek; youngest is a daughter named Asil. 

Sek is married and has a daughter T'Meni, who is named after Tuvok’s mother. The young man we see Tuvok talking to in “Repression” is never named on-screen, but the credits say it was Sek.  Even though the adolescent Vulcan we see appears to be too young to be married, and speaks as if he is still in school, not a married father.

Asil supposedly achieved kolinahr sometime before Voyager’s first mission, which is something for adult Vulcans (and something Tuvok failed to achieve, though he tried). Yet Tuvok speaks of Asil as if she is Naomi’s age.

B'Elanna Torres

Her father is a human named John Torres and her mother was a Klingon named Miral. (Though B’Elanna’s mother is often given the name “Miral Torres” by fans, there’s no evidence she ever took her husband’s name.) It’s implied that Miral is dead; John Torres speaks of her in past tense.

B’Elanna appeared to be the only child of John and Miral, but it’s possible she has half-siblings she never mentioned or doesn’t know about. She was out of contact with her father for 20 years after he left, so if he re-married or had more kids, she wouldn’t know about it. 

B’Elanna has three cousins named Elizabeth, Michael, and Dean, the children of her uncle, Carl Torres. Her unnamed paternal grandmother used to make her banana pancakes; she loved Miral, but warned her son not to marry her. B’Elanna’s maternal grandmother was named L'Naan, and her maternal great-grandmother was Krelik.

Tom Paris

We know very little about Tom’s family. He has a father named Owen, who is an admiral in Starfleet. We know he has at least two parents who are still alive by the end of the series, but he’s never mentioned his mother or any siblings. 

Harry Kim

Harry is an only child, born after his older parents had given up hope of having children. His parents’ names are never mentioned on screen, but their names are given as Mary and John Kim in the credits. 

His mother teaches eighth grade; both parents are “practically tone-deaf,” leaving Harry wondering where his love for music came from. 

Harry has a cousin named Dennis Kim.

Harry’s girlfriend was named Libby; she was his fiancée in an alternate timeline, but they were never engaged in the “real” timeline.

Neelix

Neelix came from a large family. He had a mother and a father, several brothers and sisters, and many cousins. His favorite sister was named Alixia. His great-grandfather was Mylean, not Talaxian. His mother knitted him blankets he still uses, and he knew his great-grandmother, suggesting Talaxians have lifespans similar to humans’, or longer.

His entire family died in a war fifteen years before we meet him.

When Neelix leaves Voyager, it’s for a new family: Dexa, and her son Brax.

Kes

Kes’ father was named Benaren; he died before she left Ocampa. Her mother was Martis. Kes had no siblings. It’s implied that all Ocampans are only children, though that would mean each generation is half the size of the previous one, which doesn’t make biological sense.

Kes had an uncle name Elrem.  Don’t ask me how she could have an uncle if everyone’s an only child.

Seven of Nine

Her parents, Erin and Magnus Hansen, were assimilated by the Borg and are presumably still alive, as drones in the Collective.

She has an aunt named Irene Hansen, who somehow babysat her when she was six, even though she supposedly left earth at age four and never returned. 

The Doctor

1. If you’re an author, how many WIPs do you currently have? (Be honest!)

2. What’s next on your ‘to-read’ list? (Fan fiction or otherwise)

3. Do you prefer canonverse or AUs?

4. What fandom’s/ship’s fan fiction do you read the most?

5. What’s a crackship you love?

6. What’s the last thing you read that made you laugh?

7. What’s the last thing you read that made you cry?

8. Bed sharing or roommates AU?

9. Fake dating or arranged marriage?

10. Mutual pining or enemies to friends to lovers?

11. Kid fic or childhood friends?

12. Friends with benefits or secret dating?

13. Exes or established relationship?

14. (For authors) Post a line of dialogue from one of your WIPs without context.

15. Post the last line you wrote without context.

16. Describe your WIP that currently has the highest word count.

17. Describe a fic that is still in the ‘ideas’ stage.

18. Do you have a fic reading/writing routine?

19. What’s your favorite character headcanon?

One that’s actually in progress... many that are just in my head

2. What’s next on your ‘to-read’ list? (Fan fiction or otherwise)

Another Gabriel Allon book.  And lots of fanfic to catch up on.

3. Do you prefer canonverse or AUs?

I like both... it really depends on the story.

4. What fandom’s/ship’s fan fiction do you read the most?

J/C all the way

5. What’s a crackship you love?

Honestly not a big fan of crack fic

6. What’s the last thing you read that made you laugh?

A fic that Koneia recommended to me

7. What’s the last thing you read that made you cry?

A fic that Koneia wrote for me for my birthday

8. Bed sharing or roommates AU?

Mm... if it’s done really well.

9. Fake dating or arranged marriage?

Has to be a compelling reason

10. Mutual pining or enemies to friends to lovers?

Sure

11. Kid fic or childhood friends?

Not so much.

12. Friends with benefits or secret dating?

Sure

13. Exes or established relationship?

established relationship ok... J/C have enough pain without being exes.

14. (For authors) Post a line of dialogue from one of your WIPs without context.

“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. You obviously know much more about me than I know about you.”

15. Post the last line you wrote without context.

“Almost,” he agreed, leaning down to kiss her cheek, “but not quite.”

16. Describe your WIP that currently has the highest word count.

Chakotay is called to a formerly Maquis colony to investigate a series of strange occurrences.

17. Describe a fic that is still in the ‘ideas’ stage.

I have a lot... no guarantees I’ll ever write them.  I have several ideas dealing with Admiral Janeway from the Endgame timeline. Also a few bugs in my head about J/C having affairs while C is with Seven.

18. Do you have a fic reading/writing routine?

not really

19. What’s your favorite character headcanon?

Not sure if it’s my favorite but I like to think that Chakotay was one of the best Maquis.

20. Do you have a favorite fanfic or author? If so, tag them/post a link and share the love!

So I put forth a challenge of sorts to our Voyager Book Club. I asked everyone to pick ONE Voyager fic that they consider to be their favorite. Now, you can imagine, this is pretty freaking hard! There are so many incredible fics out there. I didn’t say it had to be the best written, or the most in character. I gave examples such as: the one you read over and over or your go-to fic, however you want to phrase it. It was pointed out that a favorite fic can change every hour based on your frame of mind and what you are in the mood to read at any one moment. I get it. Even so….I challenged everyone to only pick ONE. And they did it! Or most of them! I got around 20 different favorites picked! So here is the list of our Favorite Voyager Fics, why they were chosen and by whom. Happy Reading!!

Note: Click on the name of the fic for a link to it! Also, this list is in no particular order.

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@curator-on-ao3: ‘Fragile Things’ by @mia-cooper

“Fanfic is about exploring possibilities. That’s what put this fic over the top to be my favorite. In Fragile Things, MiaCooper examines multiple versions of one relationship, pulling different threads to see how things unravel or knit together. It’s thoughtful, it’s meta, it’s realistic as hell, it’s damn good writing — it’s MiaCooper and it’s excellent.”

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@ariella884(yep, that’s me!): ‘2013′ by PCBW

“I had a hard time choosing my favorite (like most people here), mostly because as i was gathering them all from everyone else I kept seeing ones and going, ‘Oh! I love that one!’.  I also didn’t want to have any duplicates so I had to change mine a couple times, that being said, 2013 is easily one of my top three (which of themselves is almost impossible to pick just one. I’m lucky that my other two were chosen already and I didn’t have to!). I love 2013 because it is a modern AU, without being a completely modern AU. No, that doesn’t make sense. But you get our Janeway and Chakotay, Starfleet officers and all, and you get them in the modern world. It’s incredible! We see the challenges they go through of being taken from everything they know and put into a world that is pretty much unknown to them. Add to that the personal differences they have to work out together. Splash in the normal challenges that we all go through when trying to live a life in this day and age (jobs, house, money, love, family, etc). This is just an incredibly beautiful story that I have read many times and will continue to read over and over. It’s also a long fic and those are my favorite because I like to get completely involved in stories!”

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@mia-cooper: ‘Deceiving’ by QuantumSilver

“Because it starts with a canon event that is absolutely devastating and shows just how devastated Janeway and Chakotay are by it (and Tuvok and Ayala as well, though they only make a brief appearance). It shows Janeway at her absolute best - every last inch the captain, going above and beyond for her crew not just physically but emotionally in spite of the absolutely gut-wrenching cost to her - and it really kicks off with one of my absolute favourite tropes: mutual pining to the Nth Fucking Degree.

It has Chakotay being every bit the commander, backing her up even though he’s dying inside, and REFUSING to let her shut herself away even though he KNOWS she’s going to want to murder him for pushing and pushing and pushing at her.

And then OH MY GOD, he’s deliberately getting on her every last nerve just so he can wrench honesty from her because he knows if she doesn’t tell him how badly he’s hurt her, how she’s absolutely bottomed out because of him, she will never open up to him or anyone else again.

AND THEY DRINK WHISKEY OMG GIVE ME KJ AND C UTTERLY MISERABLE AND DRINKING WHISKEY LIKE IT’S WATER AND PINING LIKE FUCK AND NOT SAYING A WORD BUT BLEEDING TO DEATH FROM THE HEART AND I WILL DIE HAPPY FOREVERRRRRRR

I’m sorry for yelling but this fic makes me want to rip off my clothes and run up and down the street screeching how everybody should read it and they are just BRUTAL with each other and they STILL do not understand, refuse to, CANNOT understand, that the other would not just die for them but MURDER WHOLE FUCKING ARMIES FOR THEM and it’s tragic and devastating but then oH MY GOoOoOODDDDD

So that is my favourite fic and the one i read approximately every two months or more if i really hate my writing that day and want to torture myself with How It Should Be Done.”

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@bizships: ‘Fealty’ by MsDisdain

“My favorite story. I honestly don’t have to think about it. It’s one I always go back to.

I love the way the crew pledges their loyalty to her and the way subtle way they tell her that it’s okay that she’s happy too in that they effectively give her Chakotay for her birthday, by way of him “fighting” Tuvok(Starfleet)  for her hand.”

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@arcadia1995: ‘The Space Between’ by lauawill ( @joyful-voyager)

“The Space Between is a story I return to time and time again when I’m feeling down.  I like that it realistically portrays what might have happened between Janeway and Chakotay right after the returned home in Endgame.  I like that no one in the J/C/7 triangle ends up being a bad guy.  I like the hopeful ending and imaging what might have happened after the fade to black (lots of sex!!!)“

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@wishful-thinker-87 : ‘if you came this way’ by tree

“It’s always a go to for me, even though I don’t usually like AUs. The sex is intense and emotional. The characterization is pot on. And we get Phoebe being an awesome sister and some Chakotay/Molly bonding too. What’s not to love?!”

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BlackVelvet: ‘Bluffing the Crowd’ by Ralkana

“Even after years since i read this, just thinking about this story brings a warm fuzzy feeling to my heart and a huge silly grin to my face. I simply love it.”

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@purpledog47: ‘The Future is Ours’ by Dawn

“My favorite is most definitely Dawn’s ‘The Future is Ours. This is my one fic. It’s super long and it tells us what happened after Endgame and it has a little bit of everything in it: angst, romance, hurt/comfort, Q, babyfic, romance.” 

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@amoderngirl: ‘Time and Distance’ by northernexposure

“If I am ever loosing the thread with J/C, I can always read this and I am immediately in love again.”

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@coffeeblack: ‘Soft Light’ by northernexposure

“There are so many reasons why I love it that I can’t even, haha. I’ll start with: it was the first piece of fanfic smut I read, so I love it for that reason - my first time haha. More importantly, it is just beautifully, beautifully written - it’s plotted beautifully, it flows beautifully and the pacing is spot on. The author has complete control over all of that & over the language, which is just used masterfully. There’s so much subtley going on in this story too - the author doesn’t spell everything out for us and instead draws us to the details that reveal what is important - the beginnings of these two getting to know each other. Gosh, it’s so hard to articulate haha! But lines like this just make me shiver in delight for their beauty and what they reveal: “he was kissing her, with a lot more sweetness than was wise. Ah god, I could go on and on but perhaps I’ll finish with my favourite bit, which is when C feels that first stab of lust & realises she might too & tests his theory by blowing softly on the back of her neck. This moment, omg, the moment is just so beautiful, so quiet, so pointed and private and intimate. You really feel that moment as if you are there. Ahhhhh :)

Also….there are two sequels to it that are equally as wonderful ;)  

Oh and one more thing I adore about this story is the way that the C thinks he is lusting after KJ but it is quite obvious he loves her - even before they come together - but he hasn’t realized it yet. The way the author does this is just incredible - so deft! Everything for C is about taking care of KJ … it’s just beautiful.”

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@caladeniablue: ‘Lifeline’ by helenagray

“Why do I like that fic? An unfinished WIP at that (Started in 2013; last update in Jan 2019. No indication how many chapters to go.) The perfect serial story and that’s part of the attraction for me.

The first chapter sets the scene: raw Janeway, alone, without the backup of her ship, her crew or Chakotay. Bare of essentials and with only her courage and intelligence and sheer determination to help her survive, and even she wonders how long those will last her.

And while we learn about Chakotay and how he seeks her while the crew has to move on, I am drawn to Janeway most of all.

The fic jumps back and forth across locations and in time from that first chapter to catch up with it again some 20 chapters later, but there is no jarring. The reader knows immediately what KJ is experiencing , but the past events that led to that situation are as important, and that’s one of the many attractions of this story. No overlong flashbacks, no tedious info dump. It’s all layered, making one wait for the next chapter and the next one, while knowing all the time where KJ has ended up.

The writing is gorgeous, which is a bonus. And it is pure J/C, distilled to its purest by separation.  Perfect.”

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@keiraniels: ‘Bad Ensign’ (Series) by @curator-on-ao3

“Ok so I chose Curator’s ‘Bad Ensign’ because I come back to it often - - it’s such a freaking brilliant idea that I can 100% imagine being canon, and it inspired so many Voyager Bookclubbers to write Bad Ensign stories”

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@cnrothtrek: ‘War Torn’ by @curator-on-ao3

“Why? I had the pleasure of beta reading this story, and I am so glad that I did. It has a great plot, is well-written and perfectly paced, and is hard to put down. The way it pulls together two pieces of canon backstories for Miles O’Brien and Kathryn Janeway is genius. The characters feel so real and their voices can be clearly heard in the text. And the supporting characters of Captain Benjamin Maxwell, Will “Stompie” Kayden, and Molly Walsh are incredible. The story is intense, absorbing, and emotional. I just can’t say enough good things about it.”

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@theshortywrites: ‘The Dragonfly Oath’ by Koneia

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@emmikamikatze: ‘All the Good Things We Never Did’ by northernexposure

“This story brings me to tears, makes me smile and shiver and fear and worry. It’s given me phrases that won’t leave me, that keep repeating itself in my head even months (years) after first reading it. There’s just the right amount of show trivia to make it a fanfiction, but little enough to make it a unique and original story. ne makes me fall in love with these characters all over again as if I didn’t know them beforehand.

This story is special and precious and it speaks to me on so many levels I can hardly comprehend how genius it is. It’s a literary masterpiece of fanfic if there ever was one.”

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@missmil: ‘Here I Stand’ by lauawill

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@manalyzer13: ‘Gravitation’ by northernexposure

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@grace-among-the-stars: ‘Filling the Void’ by Spiletta42

“Filling the Void is the one fic I always return to. It has my fave ships, JC, PT and D7. Minor characters play major parts and it is just funny. It makes me laugh every time. 

JC’s relationship is really explored from all angles, this is not just your average, ‘the crew get them together fics’, it is so much more. It has sexual tension, smut, humour, sadness and is pure JC BLISS. It always cheers me up and I was so happy when Spiletta42 added it to Ao3 because this meant so many more people would find it.”

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Anonymous: ‘Bent, Not Broken’ by @killermanatee

“This is an incredible hurt/comfort Janeway/Chakotay fic. The story is painfully written from both characters’ perspectives, showing how each is suffering in a different way from the traumatic event that has occurred. In the end, their love for each other will help them come together and they will both be able to heal with time, comfort, and support from one another. This is a beautifully told, emotionally heavy story of one couple’s love overcoming tragedy. It is my favorite Janeway/Chakotay fic, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to read a heartbreaking yet fulfilling story.”

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@minakotenjou: ‘Mysterious and Curious’ by H4TO8

“It was so hard to choose - there are a lot of incredible fanfics out there. This was one of the first…shall we say spicier J/C fics I read and for some reason I still think of it often. It’s great smut for sure, but I think it stuck with me because of how it all gets tied together at the end.”

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@leisylaura: ‘The Bitter End’ by @mia-cooper

“We have post endgame books but not one about the original timeline, I remember reading “The bitter end” and thinking “this is it, this is what happened”.  I cried from beginning to end.”

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@killermanatee: ‘The Dying of the Light’ by @cnrothtrek

“This fic is such a gorgeous piece of art. I hadn’t seen the TNG episode before reading it and when I did watch it I was very disappointed because this fic is just on such a completely different level. The storytelling is so delicate and intriguing, that combined with the poignant and elegant writing style, so that it was impossible to put my phone down. I can’t recommend this fic highly enough.”

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@cheile: ‘Marooned’ by Soliquilii9 (aka Running Horse)

“I love how she makes the story unfold in slow steady measures.  Also, she filled in the gaps left by the writers in regards to his heritage by using information from her own Cherokee background and it is done naturally (not in an info dump type manner). “

__________

here’s the thing about being depressed in real life: it’s lonely and isolating and scary and numbing and there are times when you so badly want someone, anyone to notice, but you can’t bring yourself to tell them what the problem is because then they’ll know, and sometimes there’s other terrible shit you’re dealing with in tandem and sometimes it’s just the depression, but either way, it can easily reach a point where you start wishing something visibly awful would happen to you just so you’d have a reasonable excuse to be feeling as though it already had, like it would somehow be easier to wake up wanting to die if you could blame it on something other than just your brain, if there was a cause, even though you rationally know it doesn’t work like that, that it would only make things worse; and it’s messy and hard and it goes on forever and there’s no simple catharsis, you’re often surrounded by people who don’t understand or whose issues don’t play nicely with yours even though you’re both trying, and you can’t see a reasonable end in sight and you just want to believe that it’s going to get better - 

and here’s the thing about hurt/comfort in fanfiction: it takes all that fear and pain and loneliness you’re feeling IRL and channels it into characters you care about, characters who always pull through against all odds, characters whose stories you can control, characters whose lovers or friends or parents can tell them the things you wish that someone had said to you, and you know from the outset that even when they’re bloody and crying, it’s going to get better for them, that they’re going to be good to each other and fix each other and listen and understand, because that’s what those stories are for, it’s what they do, and whether you’re the one writing them or reading them, they speak to that place in you that hurts, they show you it can get better, they tell you it’s not your fault, they let you feel all the grief in your life in a way that’s safe, cathartic, hopeful, because the story brings you through the darkness and out the other side - 

Star Trek: Picard | SDCC Trailer. It’ll premiere on CBS access in Early 2020.