the Mai and Andy dynamic feels like it begs for certain kinds of stories. The canon setup is so fertile for exploring grief, memory, and what it means to rebuild a life when you've both been fundamentally changed. I lean toward fics that really sit with that weight, not just use them as a vehicle for romance. There's a 'Psychometrer' piece on AO3 called something like 'Unmarked Graves' that handled the aftermath of the tournament massacre with incredible care—Andy's survivor's guilt, Mai's fractured sense of self. It felt less like a ship and more like two people learning to breathe again in the same shattered room.
That said, I've got zero patience for the 'Andy fixes the broken bird' trope. Mai's complexity gets flattened into a manic pixie dream girl project, and Andy becomes this blandly heroic figure. The best pairings acknowledge her agency, her darkness, and his own complicated past. I remember one where they ran a small, discreet security agency together, dealing with supernatural artifacts. The pairing worked because they were partners first, equals in competence, with the emotional tension simmering in the background of the job. That felt right.
Honestly, most of the stuff tagged with them on the bigger archives is either porn without plot or overly saccharine fluff. You have to dig through the tags for 'The World of Darkness' crossovers or stories that use 'character study' as a secondary tag. Those tend to have the nuanced takes.