i love this question SO much!
1. post-canon: ruby breaks up with both beth and stan, and comes up with a plan to get annie out all by herself (or maybe ben n sara help?! they seem smart!), and then ruby and annie move somewhere really nice together with their kids!!! optionally also: diane tuts some sense into stan, and they both join the commune a bit later? also! annie and ruby grab beth’s kids and marcus + rhea and nancy + dakota too!!! beth and rio are allowed to visit but!!! only at the same time as dean bc everyone else prefers one lump of suffering rather than eking it out.
2. turner faked his own death and has been on holiday was his bf this whole time having fun.
3. immediately post canon: ruby realises that getting dean hopped up on sugar and convincing him to beat vance to (near?) death solves a lot of problems, actually.
4. au: rio & lucy are in the same birdwatching club, and lucy knows beth from work or crafting or w/e, and she cupids them together. also maybe she’s (a?) literal cupid?
5. beth runs kevin out of town and/or throws him off a bridge. (maybe annie/nancy endgame?)
6. rhea keeps teaming up with beth and then rio and then beth and then rio and so on and so on and can’t really keep up with what’s going on, and eventually beth and rio realise and get mad at her, and then she gets way madder back at both of them bc it is in fact their own fault. maybe she yells so loud they’re literally blown off the planet?
7. beth and rio have a disgruntled grumpy sex life bc they both desperately want to be bossed around & have their hair yanked and it’s super not working out. don’t/resolve however you want.
8. stan realises he and beth are literally romantic rivals.
9. high school au in which beth and rio are both staff. and also literally high.
10. adult marcus + jane ~parent trap elderly beth and rio into a relationship
11. beth goes to revenge shoot mick in the shoulder. he convinces her she’s pregnant with his kid. either true and/or plausible cos they DID hook up, or completely implausible bc they didnt, but he still manages to convince her.
12. beth and rio get married for some convoluted crime reason and are forced to co-habit to sell it and it’s AWFUL
14. rio/ruby enemies to lovers
15. rosa IS actually the boss. in fact she’s no one’s grandmother, maybe she kidnaps children and manipulates them into a life of crime??? nick’s flashback manipulation was actually rosa’s uber-manipulation. maybe beth/rosa endgame?
16. rio is in no way the boss, he’s mick’s idiot protégé and poss so drunk he hasn’t noticed that fact. aggressively canon compliant.
17. rhyming names comedy pair ups (series?)!!! mick and nick can’t tell which of them rio is mumbling at/about?! gene and dean meet fighting over a coffee order at starbucks?! ben and ken discover they’re related?! annie and danny get matching tattoos?!
18. beth and rio have weird chair sex after the ‘we can get away with anything now’ or w/e abrupt ep ending. bonus: it’s not very good, which ~explains much of their subsequent behaviour.
19. hipster hatted barman/dylan
20. literally anything from nick’s assistant’s pov
21. reader insert fic where dean’s monologuing abt his weird sex dreams abt rio at y/n while you’re trapped & forced to listen to him. bonus: ao3 skin which removes any nav away from the page.
22. annie/ruby/stan/mick (any combo, or any individual) feed an oblivious beth and rio weeded food bc they’re annoying. shenanigans ensue? bonus: beth and rio are locked in a cupboard for containment reasons & forgotten about & then they die.
23. beth/crazy cat lady enemies to lovers.
24. arranged marriage brio au where they’re both instantly repulsed by the other and aggressively try to wriggle out of this situation. eventually discover they have basically the same unpleasant personality and are VERY into the sitch, and probs get rudely angry @ whomever has kindly done something to help them wriggle out of said sitch. also they’re in their 50s.
26. after beth goes to rio’s family dinner thing, she feels compelled to invite rio to family dinner back (i guess this is an au where ppl have manners lol) with dean + the kids. it’s extremely awkward fgfgf.
27. canon compliant: actually it was beth who put out the hit on turner.
28. immediately pre-canon, rhea finally breaks up with rio & this explains ~a lot.
29. s2 canon divergence where beth explains at least some of what happened with boomer / rio has the sense to ask some fucking sensible follow up questions to ‘throwing the wrong jacket away’ rather than simply pouting. rio IMMEDIATELY asks for marry pat’s phone number. maybe beth/mp endgame though?
30. jt develops better musical taste.
31. annie + angela fall in love. kevin is never heard from again.
32. when beth fobs judith off in s3 by telling her she got a promotion + they can afford help now, judith doesnt immediately buy it and keeps sniffing round, and she runs into mick a few times who’s on babysitting beth duty. beth convinces judith that mick is the nanny, and mick somewhat grudgingly goes along with it. presumably mick/judith endgame.
33. dean/his brief young car salesman boss from s2 enemies to lovers.
34. that time dean claimed his shirt was covered in exploded hot sauce? no, that was dog blood. he’s a serial pet murderer. explains the cursed boland family pet sitch in detail.
35. literally anything from the pov of rio’s neighbour’s tiny gf. presumably mostly fascinated with architecture, but maybe she occasionally notices ppl too?
