chocolate box letter

[tielan]

Dear Author,

This letter is entirely optional. Optional letter is Optional. I hope you have ideas that can work with mine. I hope you have ideas that fall into the general pool of positivity about these characters and pairing and are able to write them. However, if you don't, then just go with the characters as heroes and heroic (particularly the women) and that'll be fine.

Basic notes:

I'm always about the female characters, their goals, their hopes, their dreams, their wants and desires and agency. All the pairings I've listed for this exchange are het. I pair independent women with men who have the capability to respect them and adore them, and I love reading fics about how they integrate with each other, compromising as necessary.

I really like the idea of the women in a canon being connected to each other, even if they don't necessarily like each other. But they respect what they can do, and they don't tear each other down because they've been there and they've watched the guys do that, and they're not going to be like that. In short, women being awesome, and women being awesome to each other.



MCU

Maria Hill: I love her no-nonsense attitude in the movies, the way she gets shit done. I love that nobody questions her competence (except Sitwell in the extras), that she Avengers don't blink when she steps up into the conference room in Avengers 1 - not even Tony. I love that she sneaked in amidst the Strike teams when they're hunting Steve in Cap 2 and had an exit plan all ready should it be needed.

I love the idea that Steve Rogers would be okay with an independent, clever leader who makes her own luck and knows her own (professional) worth, even if she's not so sure about her personal worth.

And I'd like to see how her friendships with the many people in the MCU work. She's close to the Avengers, friends enough to bitch with Pepper and Rhodey, I'd like to see how she and Jane interact as mere humans dealing with powerful and crazy skilled people (or, if you want to do Steve/Maria and Jane/Thor, I'd love to see the discussion touch on having superpowered boyfriends), or she and Sif - both warrior women, close to male seats of power but not romantically connected with anyone.

Sanctuary

Kate and her moral code. Kate and her questionable background. Kate and her cunning. I'm all about Kate Freelander and the character she was and could have been.

Kate/Will seems like one of those quirky "it could never work but it does" relationships. If you're writing this, I'd like it set in the regular universe, not in the Pavor Nocturnus universe.

I love her droll humour, her quick thinking, her intimate knowledge of the criminal underworld and how it works. Interludes at the Sanctuary, doing business with Bigfoot, Henry, Helen. Interludes outside the Sanctuary, taking time off (because you just know Kate takes time off, that's the kind of person she is). What about her past crossing over with her present - is there trouble? Discomfort?

Generally, I love Kate because she's not very straightlaced, yet still very awesome. If you're minded to write the Kate & Ashley story - perhaps an encounter before Ashley dies and Kate comes to the Sanctuary - then I'd love to see how Ashley's the-direct-route-between-two-points conflicts with Kate's we-can-be-flexible-about-the-journey attitude.

Stargate - All Series

Teyla and her relationships - they're a little bit different. An Athosian view of the universe, of friendships and the things people bring to her, of community and belonging.

John/Teyla - two words colliding and meeting in the middle. He's a man who drinks tea with the locals even when there's no immediate benefit. She's a woman who trades between cultures. They both know the strength of soft power and diplomacy, even if they don't always use it.

Sam and Jack - they know the rules, they know they've broken them, they understand the risks. But they still care and they show it in small and unobtrusive ways. (Please don't write a 'they have to suffer the consequences' fic; I consider that hate-fic given how people treat Sam for falling in love with Jack, but not Jack for falling in love with Sam.)

Neither Sam, nor Teyla are particularly traditional women by western society standards. Jack and John would not get them flowers, chocolates, or jewellery (unless the item was significant). Please keep this in mind.

The women of Stargate are particularly interesting in their relationships with each other. Professional women, some of whom probably aren't used to having another woman in a similar command or leadership or chief position like the others. Yet - particularly in Atlantis - they would have had to deal with each other personally as well as professionally. (And the most familiar with female authority and leadership and dealing with other women in such positions would have been Teyla, which gives her a better understanding of how to approach these relationships.)

Star Wars Movies

Basically, Rey and Finn and their relationships with the members of the Resistance - Poe in particular, but also the old guard, and anyone else you'd like to introduce. (Jessika Pava - the pilot we see in the movie - would be pretty awesome, too, but the only had her listed as a pairing with Rey, and I'd like friendship, please!)

Rey and her training in the Force. (Finn and his training in the Force!) Poe and the development of his friendship with either of them. Luke and Leia dealing with what they've lost and this 'next generation' of people come to deal with them.

I like the headcanon of Finn as contact-starved; he's accustomed to being among people all the time, of rarely being alone. Rey, meanwhile, is accustomed to being alone, and not connecting with anyone. As someone put it on tumblr; "it's like a Labrador is trying to make friends with a hedgehog, and I love it!"



Finally, please don't break your brain trying to write these ideas. Short and sweet is the point of the Chocolate Box!