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I'm going to have to qualify my opinions on Endgame, aren't I?
Oh boy.
Dear Author,
Thanks so much for writing for me. I really appreciate it and look forward to reading whatever it is that you've written!
Firstly: the tag with my thoughts on Endgame if you're doing anything with that. Warning, they're mostly negative. The initial response was positive, but then I woke up as if out of a dream and went, "hang on, wait just a minute there..."
A couple of things:
I've asked for some of these pairings/characters before, maybe multiple times or repeatedly. This is not because any previous gifts I've received were lacking, but because I enjoy reading about these characters and stories, and I love the variations on them that other people come up with. MORE CAKE!
You also don't need to write all the scenarios/characters we matched on. (Maybe this is obvious, but maybe not.)
I like:
- respecting/showcasing women's capabilities/competence
- character studies through interaction
- female friendships and working relationships
- characters showing intimacy/friendship in ways appropriate to them
- stories of adventure and drama
- slices of life
- AUs: fusion or canon divergences (particularly when the character/pairing becomes the focus of the canon events instead of what actually happened in canon) rather than crossovers.
DNW:
- incest/selfcest
- omegaverse
- pairings I haven’t asked for
- rape/non-con
- cheating partners (even to get the requested pairing)
- humiliation as humour
I really like stories that develop a relationship as they go; not just a moment in time, but the dynamic between characters and how it shifts with time and events and so on.
Snapshots, or slice-of-life can be utterly amazing when the author can make me believe what’s gone before, either with little tidbits of headcanon or reframed canon. Not everything needs to be infodumped but a little framework can be very effective when carefully used.
Option 1: the solo operator
Maria Hill
Okay, so…Maria is basically my favourite character in the MCU pantheon. I have a soft spot for female characters whom both showrunners and other fans tend to overlook or pigeonhole – the Maria Hills, the Teyla Emmagans, the Guineveres, the Ziva Davids, the Kate Freelanders.
I love the wry hints of humor we see in her – from the droll comment “he turns” regarding how Fury sees with only one eye, to the quip about Thor’s forearms in early Agents of SHIELD. See also: “that thing was squeezing my brain” and “Steve, he used a bad word!”
I love the competence that she shows through the series – from the opening sequence of Avengers where she not only intuits Clint’s subversion but manages to evade his shooting (how many characters can you name as surviving after Clint’s shot at them with intent to kill?). She saved Captain America, Black Widow, and the Falcon on a day when they were one TV crew away from being executed by HYDRA. And she did it without superpowers or special skills – just a stun rod, a helmet, and nerves of pure titanium.
Her friendships among the Avengers and people are more implied than shown, but can be extrapolated from the bits and pieces of canon – from the one-sided phonecall she has with Pepper in late Season 1 Agents of SHIELD, to the way both she and Natasha watch Nick ‘die’ in the Winter Soldier, to both the way she calmly takes Steve’s clapback about people submitting to mad scientists to improve themselves, then later pokes fun at his ‘straitlaced misspeak’.
Feel free to take in the missing scenes to fill in her characterisation angles, because that’s probably where the juiciest bits of Maria-characterisation come through.
I’d love a story about her work with the Avengers and the ‘Avengers-adjacent’ people, particularly ones showcasing the friendship and/or working relationship between them.
Canon divergence: Maria gets hold of Bucky before the events of Civil War, so when Zemo tries to frame Bucky, she already knows he’s not at fault.
Option 2: Winter Falcon: this is not the Hill they plan to die on
Group: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson & Maria Hill
I am quite looking forward to the Falcon + Winter Soldier TV series, particularly given Sam now has The Shield. I have little hope that Maria will be involved in the series, but would absolutely adore it if she was – and, moreover, got to develop a friendship with either man, although preferably both.
Sam and Bucky as buddies is my jam, and for these two that translates really easily into the sexual – whether fuck-buddies or lovers (or fuck-buddies to lovers). If you want to write Sam/Bucky with Maria enabling, dealing with them, or just being friends with them, then I am down with that. I would probably prefer for Maria not to be the ‘yenta’, I don’t see her as the type to take an active hand in matchmaking (unlike, say, Natasha), but I can see one of the guys askign her opinion and her off-handedly throwing off some outlandish idea which they then say, “oh, hey, that’s a really good idea” at which point she might realise she’s created a monster…
I’d rather Sam not be Bucky’s therapist, although I don’t mind it the other way around – if they’re both struggling or dealing with trauma, then that’s okay.
Feel free to write this pairing at any point in time, including after Endgame – since Sam and Bucky were both caught up in the Snapture (and then abandoned by Steve so he could have his happy ending), they’re at the same emotional point in time – and Maria would be right there along with them.
Option 3: We May Be Quiet Women, But Ignore Us At Your Own Peril
Group: Laura Barton & Hope Van Dyne & Jane Foster & Maria Hill & Pepper Potts
Group: Laura Barton & Maria Hill
Group: Maria Hill & Okoye & Pepper Potts
Maybe I should have called this ‘sisters are doing it for themselves’?
These are the women of the MCU who tend to get short shift. They’re not Avengers or superheroes or technowizards, or Steve Rogers’ lost soulmate who iconically paved the way, they’re just women living in the now, struggling with their humanity and their daily lives and the men in their lives (romantic or non-romantic), doing the things demanded of them because someone has to get the job done.
You can write something quiet if that’s your jam: a shared moment of peace and quiet between crises. Or you can show them dealing with a crisis – precipitated by one of them, or by someone else, or which just happened. I am very much up for The Ordinary Human Women Holding The World Together, post-Endgame (or not), particularly their involvement in world security.
If you want to write a story about how these women have to go and rescue the guys from something, then that is okay by me, too.
(I have a fondness for Laura Barton, secret agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, but also find extremely delightful the idea of an 'ordinary' woman and mother simply being get-out badass.)
Pepper, Okoye, and Maria - a triumvirate of women managing the world around them? OH YES.
Or the 'nextgen Avengers' being shown taking their cues from these women would be fantastic (Lila Barton, Morgan Stark, America Chavez, Shuri,and any other young women you'd like to bring in).
Option 4: Friends Forever
Group: 2023!Maria Hill & 2023!Pepper Potts
group: Maria Hill & Pepper Potts
group: Maria Hill & Sam Wilson
group: Maria Hill & Steve Rogers
Maria and Pepper are probably my flat-out favourite female friendship, even if we’ve never actually seen them on screen together. It’s the potential of them: two competent women, basically 2IC to high-intensity guys, both of them undoubtedly accustomed to being dismissed by most people, but appreciated by ‘our heroes’.
For the ‘post-Endgame’ option, I’d like to see them work out how to connect when five years have passed for Pepper which haven’t passed for Maria.
Maria and Sam would be practical, sensible, droll together. I can see Sam flirting with her and Maria flirting back – but for all that, they’re rock solid. Give me them working together, hanging out together and snarking about something, playing wingman for each other while out, "yeah, she's giving you the eye; don't do anything that will require Steve to rescue you."
“But, Steve!”
Someone on Tumblr observed that there’s a whole friendship in those two words, backed up by the fact that when Maria turns up in the van that’s taking Steve, Sam, and Nat off to be executed, she looks at Sam and promptly asks Steve: “Who’s this?”
I’d love to read about that friendship – during SHIELD days, once they’re working together in Avengers Tower, and afterwards – at the Avengers facility before Civil War, or after Civil War.
ETA 21st May: Re-reading through my sign-up, it looks like I copypasted the section with Pepper and Maria's friendship into the field for request details and didn't generalise it for Maria & Sam, or Maria & Steve. Hopefully, you're reading this in good faith, and understand that I do want any of these four groups, not just Maria&Pepper. If you need it explicitly spelled out, then yes, I am absolutely up for your story about Maria&Sam or Maria&Steve, too, and not just Maria&Pepper. Thanks.
Option 5: Captain Hill
Group: Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
Rare as hen's teeth, and nearly impossible to find out in the wild, I am always, always interested in finding someone who can write these two together and hit me in the feels.
In this relationship, I see it as springing from the time they spend working together, touches of humor and leavening levity in the middle of the seriousness of world security that one day just kind of slip over into 'oh, this is more' for either or both.
Write a workaround for Endgame or completely ignore it: your choice. But I would like a Steve/Maria relationship as the final pairing, and I’d like it to be a sexual/emotional relationship, not just UST/flirting/innuendo.
An Endgame workaround idea: Peggy kicks Steve out when they realise that he can’t stay in the past and not change things around, and the frustration of not being able to do anything is tearing them apart. He comes back to a point just after Endgame to live out his life in the 2020s and beyond. And he goes to Maria, because who else knows about how to work behind the scenes? Obviously, focus on Maria and Steve's relationship going forward.
finally
If you want to mix-and-match any of these relationships/pairings so more than one of them appears in the fic, then I am 100% on board with that.
Ultimately, this is all ideas. If nothing in here speaks to you, then just write whatever idea works for the characters/relationships we matched on. I'm sure I will love it; you're basically writing my favourite character for me.
Oh boy.
Dear Author,
Thanks so much for writing for me. I really appreciate it and look forward to reading whatever it is that you've written!
Firstly: the tag with my thoughts on Endgame if you're doing anything with that. Warning, they're mostly negative. The initial response was positive, but then I woke up as if out of a dream and went, "hang on, wait just a minute there..."
A couple of things:
I've asked for some of these pairings/characters before, maybe multiple times or repeatedly. This is not because any previous gifts I've received were lacking, but because I enjoy reading about these characters and stories, and I love the variations on them that other people come up with. MORE CAKE!
You also don't need to write all the scenarios/characters we matched on. (Maybe this is obvious, but maybe not.)
I like:
- respecting/showcasing women's capabilities/competence
- character studies through interaction
- female friendships and working relationships
- characters showing intimacy/friendship in ways appropriate to them
- stories of adventure and drama
- slices of life
- AUs: fusion or canon divergences (particularly when the character/pairing becomes the focus of the canon events instead of what actually happened in canon) rather than crossovers.
DNW:
- incest/selfcest
- omegaverse
- pairings I haven’t asked for
- rape/non-con
- cheating partners (even to get the requested pairing)
- humiliation as humour
I really like stories that develop a relationship as they go; not just a moment in time, but the dynamic between characters and how it shifts with time and events and so on.
Snapshots, or slice-of-life can be utterly amazing when the author can make me believe what’s gone before, either with little tidbits of headcanon or reframed canon. Not everything needs to be infodumped but a little framework can be very effective when carefully used.
Option 1: the solo operator
Maria Hill
Okay, so…Maria is basically my favourite character in the MCU pantheon. I have a soft spot for female characters whom both showrunners and other fans tend to overlook or pigeonhole – the Maria Hills, the Teyla Emmagans, the Guineveres, the Ziva Davids, the Kate Freelanders.
I love the wry hints of humor we see in her – from the droll comment “he turns” regarding how Fury sees with only one eye, to the quip about Thor’s forearms in early Agents of SHIELD. See also: “that thing was squeezing my brain” and “Steve, he used a bad word!”
I love the competence that she shows through the series – from the opening sequence of Avengers where she not only intuits Clint’s subversion but manages to evade his shooting (how many characters can you name as surviving after Clint’s shot at them with intent to kill?). She saved Captain America, Black Widow, and the Falcon on a day when they were one TV crew away from being executed by HYDRA. And she did it without superpowers or special skills – just a stun rod, a helmet, and nerves of pure titanium.
Her friendships among the Avengers and people are more implied than shown, but can be extrapolated from the bits and pieces of canon – from the one-sided phonecall she has with Pepper in late Season 1 Agents of SHIELD, to the way both she and Natasha watch Nick ‘die’ in the Winter Soldier, to both the way she calmly takes Steve’s clapback about people submitting to mad scientists to improve themselves, then later pokes fun at his ‘straitlaced misspeak’.
Feel free to take in the missing scenes to fill in her characterisation angles, because that’s probably where the juiciest bits of Maria-characterisation come through.
I’d love a story about her work with the Avengers and the ‘Avengers-adjacent’ people, particularly ones showcasing the friendship and/or working relationship between them.
Canon divergence: Maria gets hold of Bucky before the events of Civil War, so when Zemo tries to frame Bucky, she already knows he’s not at fault.
Option 2: Winter Falcon: this is not the Hill they plan to die on
Group: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson & Maria Hill
I am quite looking forward to the Falcon + Winter Soldier TV series, particularly given Sam now has The Shield. I have little hope that Maria will be involved in the series, but would absolutely adore it if she was – and, moreover, got to develop a friendship with either man, although preferably both.
Sam and Bucky as buddies is my jam, and for these two that translates really easily into the sexual – whether fuck-buddies or lovers (or fuck-buddies to lovers). If you want to write Sam/Bucky with Maria enabling, dealing with them, or just being friends with them, then I am down with that. I would probably prefer for Maria not to be the ‘yenta’, I don’t see her as the type to take an active hand in matchmaking (unlike, say, Natasha), but I can see one of the guys askign her opinion and her off-handedly throwing off some outlandish idea which they then say, “oh, hey, that’s a really good idea” at which point she might realise she’s created a monster…
I’d rather Sam not be Bucky’s therapist, although I don’t mind it the other way around – if they’re both struggling or dealing with trauma, then that’s okay.
Feel free to write this pairing at any point in time, including after Endgame – since Sam and Bucky were both caught up in the Snapture (and then abandoned by Steve so he could have his happy ending), they’re at the same emotional point in time – and Maria would be right there along with them.
Option 3: We May Be Quiet Women, But Ignore Us At Your Own Peril
Group: Laura Barton & Hope Van Dyne & Jane Foster & Maria Hill & Pepper Potts
Group: Laura Barton & Maria Hill
Group: Maria Hill & Okoye & Pepper Potts
Maybe I should have called this ‘sisters are doing it for themselves’?
These are the women of the MCU who tend to get short shift. They’re not Avengers or superheroes or technowizards, or Steve Rogers’ lost soulmate who iconically paved the way, they’re just women living in the now, struggling with their humanity and their daily lives and the men in their lives (romantic or non-romantic), doing the things demanded of them because someone has to get the job done.
You can write something quiet if that’s your jam: a shared moment of peace and quiet between crises. Or you can show them dealing with a crisis – precipitated by one of them, or by someone else, or which just happened. I am very much up for The Ordinary Human Women Holding The World Together, post-Endgame (or not), particularly their involvement in world security.
If you want to write a story about how these women have to go and rescue the guys from something, then that is okay by me, too.
(I have a fondness for Laura Barton, secret agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, but also find extremely delightful the idea of an 'ordinary' woman and mother simply being get-out badass.)
Pepper, Okoye, and Maria - a triumvirate of women managing the world around them? OH YES.
Or the 'nextgen Avengers' being shown taking their cues from these women would be fantastic (Lila Barton, Morgan Stark, America Chavez, Shuri,and any other young women you'd like to bring in).
Option 4: Friends Forever
Group: 2023!Maria Hill & 2023!Pepper Potts
group: Maria Hill & Pepper Potts
group: Maria Hill & Sam Wilson
group: Maria Hill & Steve Rogers
Maria and Pepper are probably my flat-out favourite female friendship, even if we’ve never actually seen them on screen together. It’s the potential of them: two competent women, basically 2IC to high-intensity guys, both of them undoubtedly accustomed to being dismissed by most people, but appreciated by ‘our heroes’.
For the ‘post-Endgame’ option, I’d like to see them work out how to connect when five years have passed for Pepper which haven’t passed for Maria.
Maria and Sam would be practical, sensible, droll together. I can see Sam flirting with her and Maria flirting back – but for all that, they’re rock solid. Give me them working together, hanging out together and snarking about something, playing wingman for each other while out, "yeah, she's giving you the eye; don't do anything that will require Steve to rescue you."
“But, Steve!”
Someone on Tumblr observed that there’s a whole friendship in those two words, backed up by the fact that when Maria turns up in the van that’s taking Steve, Sam, and Nat off to be executed, she looks at Sam and promptly asks Steve: “Who’s this?”
I’d love to read about that friendship – during SHIELD days, once they’re working together in Avengers Tower, and afterwards – at the Avengers facility before Civil War, or after Civil War.
ETA 21st May: Re-reading through my sign-up, it looks like I copypasted the section with Pepper and Maria's friendship into the field for request details and didn't generalise it for Maria & Sam, or Maria & Steve. Hopefully, you're reading this in good faith, and understand that I do want any of these four groups, not just Maria&Pepper. If you need it explicitly spelled out, then yes, I am absolutely up for your story about Maria&Sam or Maria&Steve, too, and not just Maria&Pepper. Thanks.
Option 5: Captain Hill
Group: Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
Rare as hen's teeth, and nearly impossible to find out in the wild, I am always, always interested in finding someone who can write these two together and hit me in the feels.
In this relationship, I see it as springing from the time they spend working together, touches of humor and leavening levity in the middle of the seriousness of world security that one day just kind of slip over into 'oh, this is more' for either or both.
Write a workaround for Endgame or completely ignore it: your choice. But I would like a Steve/Maria relationship as the final pairing, and I’d like it to be a sexual/emotional relationship, not just UST/flirting/innuendo.
An Endgame workaround idea: Peggy kicks Steve out when they realise that he can’t stay in the past and not change things around, and the frustration of not being able to do anything is tearing them apart. He comes back to a point just after Endgame to live out his life in the 2020s and beyond. And he goes to Maria, because who else knows about how to work behind the scenes? Obviously, focus on Maria and Steve's relationship going forward.
finally
If you want to mix-and-match any of these relationships/pairings so more than one of them appears in the fic, then I am 100% on board with that.
Ultimately, this is all ideas. If nothing in here speaks to you, then just write whatever idea works for the characters/relationships we matched on. I'm sure I will love it; you're basically writing my favourite character for me.
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oooh yes.
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