Little things from Star Trek Voyager that make me soft:
- Harry inviting Captain Janeway to Tom’s holobar for games and the way Janeway seems so touched at being included
- When Tom makes a cheesy joke at the helm and Janeway rolls with it while smirking at him knowingly (ex. “What if we set up a bicycle in the mess hall and pedal our way home?” “Now why didn’t I think of that.”)
- When the ship is traveling through the Void and Harry writes a concerto on his clarinet and Tuvok stops to listen to it because he knows Harry worked hard on it
- When Chakotay makes little jokes with Harry and chuckles to himself when Harry jokes back like a proud dad
- Tuvok and Seven bonding over how dumb they think humans are
- The way Janeway looks at Sam Wildman when Sam tells her she’s pregnant. Janeway is clearly sympathizing with her nervousness about having a baby in the Delta Quadrant but she congratulates her anyway because she knows Sam needs to feel supported in her decision.
- When Tuvok tells Neelix he isn’t completely inept during security training and Neelix treats that like the massive Vulcan compliment it is
- The achingly gentle way Janeway looks at all of her crew members when they’re going through a tough time
- How defensive Chakotay gets when any member of the crew questions the captain’s judgement
- At Janeway’s funeral in “Coda,” she manages to keep her emotions in check until Harry starts talking and then she cries
- The fact that Janeway cries like a real person. Like, her face scrunches up, her lip quivers. She’s not out here crying those fake-ass stoic tears that other fictional characters do. She’s crying for real.
- When Tom covers for Harry’s indiscretion because he knows how important Harry’s clean Starfleet record is to him
- The way Janeway hugs Kes during Elogium and sits to talk to her about puberty while gently stroking her hair and listening to her patiently
- The fact that there’s a pot of coffee ready in Janeway’s ready room all the time and you just know that Chakotay is using his own replicator rations for her
- In the wedding between duplicate Tom and B’Elanna when Chakotay walks B’Elanna down the isle and Janeway walks Tom down the aisle and they both look like the proudest parents to ever exist
- Chakotay and Neelix’s background friendship. You have to squint for it, but they have some funny little moments together that indicate an offscreen friendship that I wish we could have seen more of
- The fact that Janeway goes to visit almost everyone who gets admitted to sickbay
- Tom telling Harry that he will never forget Harry defending him in “The Chute” simply because he is Harry’s friend. Not because he had something Harry needed, or because Harry couldn’t survive without him, just because “this man is my friend.”
- When Janeway flat-out tells Harry that she thinks of him like a son and she’s proud of how he’s grown since coming on Voyager
- The way Tuvok just really, really loves his wife
- The fact that Janeway makes baby blankets for babies born on Voyager
- How absolutely into Captain Proton Harry and Tom get (and how into character Janeway gets when she plays Arachnia)
- Chakotay and Janeway exchanging looks when someone says something dumb, especially when it’s one of their officers and they just look amused/exasperated
- “Chakotay? Are you there?” “No, I left an hour ago!”
- Tom inviting Seven to play ping pong because he thought she might enjoy the math behind it
- The way that Janeway never writes Neelix off, even though he can be a pest sometimes. If he says he knows how to do something, she lets him take a whack at it. If he’s got a story to tell and there’s no immediate danger, she listens. When he’s clearly baiting her into a conversation where he can show off his knowledge of Earth history, she bites and encourages him to tell her more because she knows it’s important to him to know about the history of the cultures represented on the ship.
- The fact that Neelix tries to get to know the cultures represented on the ship, even when he gets it wrong sometimes. He has good intentions.
- The entirety of Neelix and Tuvok’s interactions during “Riddles.” I was a hot mess that entire episode.
- Janeway finding out Tuvok’s birthday, making him a cake, baiting him into thinking she was mad at him so she could do a dramatic reveal, and Tuvok blowing out the candle even though he thought the candle was dumb just because she’s his best friend and he loves her
- The way Chakotay turns into Hearteyes McGee every time Janeway puts her hands on her hips, cocks her brow, and tells off an enemy
- How excited the whole crew gets when they find a cool space anomaly that isn’t immediately threatening them
- The fact that Janeway does her best to allow her officers to pursue their interests. Like when Tom asks to build the Delta Flyer, she lets him because cool spaceships are his Thing. When they find that lost ship from the early Mars missions, she lets Chakotay lead the away mission because that’s his Thing. She lets B’Elanna and Harry make a ton of adjustments to the engines because it might help them get home faster, but also because that’s their Thing. She understands how frustrating it can be to be locked in a spaceship for years without a way to pursue your interests and hobbies outside of the holodeck so she does her best to let them do their Things when opportunities do arise.
- When Tom and Harry start a street brawl because they tried to play drunk tennis with some aliens and Janeway dresses them down for unbecoming conduct but then is like “…. so did you win?”
- The fact that both Harry and B’Elanna have fever dreams where they very clearly reveal that they see Janeway as a mother figure
- Seven of Nine and Naomi’s friendship and how pure it is and also how Seven always calls Naomi by her full name
- Also Neelix and Naomi’s friendship
- And the fact that Naomi is the Captain’s Assistant and Chakotay and Janeway send her back and forth between the two of them with messages because it makes her feel important
- I guess just Naomi Wildman in general
- Seven and The Doctor connecting over music