Dear Prime Time Player 2016!

[tielan]

Thank you for writing for me, dear writer! I appreciate the time and effort you're putting in to craft a story, and I hope it's not a chore!

First things first
The details in this letter are pretty much optional. If you can't manage the suggestions I've made, then please don't stress - just write the characters and their relationship and it'll be fine.

After that, the most important thing is that the female characters shine! Give them heroic arcs, give them agency, give them things to do, choices to make, significance.

This is last year's NPT letter. I've copypasta'd a lot of it because I'm very predictable; I ask for pretty much the same stuff every year, because I just want more about these characters!

likes

• action-and-romance stories, where all the things happen and a couple just happens to come together in the process
• - slice-of-life stories that tell about how characters come to an understanding of themselves (or an understanding of their relationship if the story is about a relationship)
• het or gen (gen = no romantic focus, although background relationships being mentioned are fine)
• relationships that are developed out of friendships and commonality - the process of learning each other and getting accustomed to each other
• female characters
• female characters doing their job, living their lives, struggling with their individual challenges, and developing friendships

dislikes

slash, even background: my slash likes/dislikes are very very specific, and I'd rather read stories involving the female characters.
• angsty endings: it doesn't have to be happy, fluffy bunnies, but the ending should at least be hopeful, with potential.
• sloppy depictions of Australians (see, specifically: Pacific Rim) - I am Australian, and I come from the area that Scissure devastated, where the Hansens lived, and where Angela Hansen died. Tread carefully.

Captain America (Movies)
Maria Hill, Steve Rogers, Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson (Marvel)

I'd love a story about Maria Hill interacting with any of the other three in friendship (they can fight or argue or disagree, but I want the background to be about them as friends). Particularly Wanda. Because two competent, dangerous (in their own way) women learning to respect and deal with each other? OH YES. Plus, Bechdel and women who have interests and revolving points other than the men in their lives.

I fear I am all about the Maria Hill in MCU. Which is a problem because: Cap 3 Civil War (and the fact that Maria's name and personality was first established in the comics Civil War and she's been erased from the movie). I am hoping that you at least like her a little, although if you don't I'd like to see friendship between Wanda, Sam, and Steve - particularly Wanda and Sam. Downtime, playing 'fireball the Falcon' and 'defeat the telekinetic', the two of them finding an unexpected common ground over something, or just hanging shit on Steve.

Steve is my favourite guy character in the MCU, just as Maria is my favourite female character, and, yes, I ship them. You don't have to; it's okay to write them as friends and colleagues - respectfully disagreeing friends and colleagues, perhaps, but friends nevertheless.

Pacific Rim (2013)
Mako Mori, Stacker Pentecost, Raleigh Becket, Tamsin Sevier

I would love any interaction between Mako and Tamsin - dealing with Stacker, dealing with co-pilots, parallels between Drift partners, life advice that Tamsin once gave her and which Mako has to use in the post-war world.

I am still completely crazy-happy about the creation of a non-white, female heroine who didn't have to sass or show off her body to be counted as worthy of a storyline, and take the view that Mako is the character with the hero's journey and Raleigh is her framing device and mentor.

One theme I particularly like in Pacific Rim is the "broken things remade" theme - Mako and the life that Stacker helped her make out of the ruins of Tokyo, Raleigh and the new life he finds in fighting the kaiju with Mako in partnership with him, Stacker and the pieces he scraped together to get the Jaeger program working - and his own loss of first Luna and also his former co-pilot Tamsin Sevier. If you want to run with that theme at the heart of these characters, that would be awesome.

Post-movie or pre-movie, whatever floats your boat, but I don't want 'fix it' fic about how everyone lives and nothing hurts: "A world in which heroes cannot die is a world without heroes."

Jupiter Ascending
Jupiter Jones, Caine Wise, Kiza Apini, Aleksa Jones

Thoughts: relationships between women, or Kiza and Aleksa's thoughts, opinions, and interactions regarding Jupiter's relationship with Caine.

This movie is trash. Wonderful space opera sci-fi princess fantasy trash and I AM NOT ASHAMED. My inner sixteen year old SQUEALED while watching this like she never did in RL (I was a very serious sixteen year old).

So give me all your headcanons for Jupiter, Kiza, Aleksa, and Caine. I'm a Jupiter/Caine shipper all the way, I don't mind Aleksa/Stinger (which could make for interesting dynamics in the relationships between daughter, stepdaughter, adopted son), but, really, I love friendships, relationships marked by love and caring (even if it's not always tender and gentle - Aleksa seems like a good 'tough love' mother, while still loving and wanting the best for her daughter), and ALL THE SPACE PRINCESS TAKING ON HER RESPONSIBILITIES FOREVER.

Sorry. Inner sixteen year old.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D
Maria Hill, Melinda May, Melinda May's Mother, Akela Amador

Give me all the spy women action-adventure competence porn!

Maria is my favourite character in the MCU/AoS universe, hands-down, no arguments. But I love the intimacy that's implied in her relationship with Melinda, and Melinda's mom. I would love to see more of this. How did they meet? Why is Melinda's mom so fond of Maria? (I'm not up for the femmeslash in this; just friendship/adopted family.)

Also: Akela Amador - what happened to her after Eye Spy? Where did she go when SHIELD fell? How did she survive, and what's her connection to Maria? What mayhem are she and Maria doing in the background - one of SHIELD's best in field operatives and one of SHIELD's best in operations logistics working together. Tremble, oh world, for you won't see these two coming or going.

finally

Don't worry, be happy. Relax. Write the fic. Have fun.

And THANK YOU.