Rarewomen 2014!
Thank you so much for signing up for Rarewomen, anonymous author! SO EXCITE. I'm really glad we have at least one of these ladies in common, and I can't wait to read your story. :D (And if you end up defaulting, whether it's because my requests are terrible or because of your RL or just for any reason at all: please don't feel bad! It happens!)
Don't feel at all obligated to read this letter if you don't want to - I'm writing it because I hope it will be helpful and also because talking about women I love is a lot of fun for me! But if it's not going to help you, or you feel the crushing weight of my yammering slowly destroying your creativity, then CLOSE OUT right now and go write a story you enjoy, and I promise you I will be THRILLED.
Also don't feel obligated to look around my DW; but if you want to while you're here, go ahead! I haven't been posting at all consistently this year, but my fic is all at the AO3, and my movies tag, books tag, and tv shows tag hold most of the contents of my brain from the last five years or so. (I'm also Damkianna on tumblr; I haven't posted there in ages, but I was very consistent for a while.)
In General | Major Crimes (TV) | Push (2009) | Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace | Stargate: Atlantis
In General
Unpleasant things first! I have no triggers relating to but would generally like to avoid: deathfic, torture, or rape. In a gift fic about characters I love, I'd like for the general tone to be happy, is what this really boils down to.
Quite separately from that: solely in terms of personal taste, I'm typically not very moved by BDSM or generous helpings of kink. (If you are really great with those things and love to write them, don't let this stop you from writing the fic of your dreams! But if you were considering it and wanted to know how I feel about it, there it is.)
On the flip side, I love:
:: ladyslash, dudeslash, het, gen! For this challenge, I'm not so much interested in dudeslash except maybe in the background (and presumably you aren't either, at least for this exchange); but I ship just about anything in a lot of fandoms, and am easy to please.
:: fic where people are nice to each other! This is not a hard-and-fast rule and doesn't make sense for all fandoms and characters, but generally speaking I really enjoy stories where people are friends or families-of-choice; stories where people extend unlooked-for or unexpected kindness or forgiveness or trust or generosity to one another; stories where people are a ~team~ and ~have each other's backs~ (I ADORE THIS) and sacrifice things for one another or save one another a bunch (I ADORE THIS). Even - sometimes especially - when they may not outwardly seem to even like each other all that much, or like to pretend they don't even though they totally do. UGH MY HEART.
:: fic where people are good! Also not a hard-and-fast rule and also doesn't make sense for all fandoms and characters, but I love it when people are fundamentally trying to do the right thing - even when they fail, or they are wrong about what the right thing is, or none of them even know what the right thing might be (there isn't a right thing! there's more than one right thing!) but they're trying anyway. LOVE IT. My favorite thing in an antagonist is genuine belief in a cause or a purpose or the rightness of their actions, as opposed to cackling your-screams-are-music puppy-kicking evil.
:: AUs! All kinds of AUs: the kind that are fork-in-the-road from any part of canon, and the kind where everyone is a barista or IN SPACE or attending the same high school. LOVE THEM BOTH. (Obviously don't make yourself write an AU if that doesn't do it for you! But, again, if you were considering it and wanted to know how I feel about it, there it is.)
:: tropes and clichés! I love clichés in shipfic, I love clichés in gen plots; I love inverted, averted, deconstructed, and straight-on tropes. If you want to write amnesia fic or undercover-lesbians fic or hurt/comfort fic, consider this your hand-embossed invitation. GO FOR IT.
I like day-in-the-life stories and action stories and introspective character studies. I like casefic and long plotty stories and 1002-word snippets where two characters sit down and chat for a minute over lunch. Mostly what I want is for you to write a story that you enjoy writing, and that you like when it's finished! If you have questions about anything, feel free to leave an anon comment, or ask my sister
idriya (she is practically me except she's actually good at keeping secrets).
And! If we matched on more than one character, don't feel like you have to stuff them all into a single fic. I'm going to talk about each of the characters I requested in probably way way too much detail; but I asked for each of these characters because I just really like them a lot, whether alone, all together, or in any sub-combination. So! NO SWEAT.
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Major Crimes
Sharon Raydor, Emma Rios, Amy Sykes
I've adored Sharon Raydor since basically her very first appearance on The Closer (which I also watched intently), and Major Crimes is one of my absolute favorite things on television. I love Sharon's faith in and adherence to The Rules; I love Amy's competence and cleverness; I love Emma's Sharon-like path from almost-adversary to ally. Basically anything about any one of these women would be super amazing - a snippet of Sharon on a case, Amy chasing down a suspect, Emma late at night doing paperwork, ANYTHING.
If you offered more than one of them, I'd also love to see them interact a little more than they get to do on the show: Sharon and Amy interacting on a case, Sharon and Emma during an interrogation, or even Amy and Emma in the office getting coffee at the same time. All three of them staying late on a Friday and running into each other on the way out! ANYTHING AT ALL. (I like Rusty a lot, too, and don't mind in the least if he is present or a point of connection - obviously the focus should be on the women, but I would love to read about Amy teaching him to drive, or Sharon asking her to; one of Emma's prep sessions with him before he testified, with Sharon present; Amy asking Emma how his testimony went, as the opening to a longer conversation. Major Crimes is at least one-third televised kidfic by weight, and I am 100% okay with that, so don't feel like you have to ignore Rusty, although of course you can if you want to.)
Ugh I enjoy this show SO MUCH. I haven't posted about it really extensively, but that's because I'm just so happy with it. I adore everything it chooses to be, and the only complaints I have about it are a) these three women don't talk to each other enough and b) not enough lesbians. A fic that solves one (or both!) of these problems would be MY DREAM COME TRUE. (I adore the rest of the Major Crimes team, too, so if you want to write a snippet of casefic, obviously feel free to include them! As long as the focus stays on the ladies, I will absolutely love it.) And I do totally ship Sharon/Brenda - obviously Brenda's not nominated in this fandom, but if you're a Closer fan and would like to slip that ship into the background, that would be a-okay. :D In this show alone rather than the larger Closer universe, I am also easy for Sharon/Amy; and if you'd like to try on Sharon/Emma or Emma/Amy, go for it! (As noted above, I have a soft spot for clichés and love the kidfic aspects of Major Crimes, so if you've always wanted to write the story where Amy comes by on the weekends to teach Rusty to drive and it becomes a ~thing and there's some pining and Rusty thinks they're both failboats ... I'd read that in a second.)
Sharon Raydor
I don't even know where to start! I always enjoyed The Closer a lot, and then Mary McDonnell started guest-starring and my adoration went THROUGH THE ROOF; she was amazing and every conversation she had with Brenda was amazing and I loved her, and then I heard they were making a spinoff about her and I DIED OF JOY. SHARON. I lovelovelove her adherence to and respect for the rules (even as she sometimes bends them) - most of the procedurals I've watched have treated the rules for being a cop like they're just there to be in the way, and also Internal Affairs is bullshit, and also how dare anyone accuse cops of bad judgment/bad decision-making/corruption! Sharon is the opposite of all of that and I couldn't love her more if I tried. I love her calmness and how hard she works at it, contradictory as that might sound - how hard she works at her objectivity, the times when she succeeds and is a perfect stone-faced justice-wielding queen and the times when she fails and it's too much and she's too angry or tired or frustrated. I love the slow, careful, methodical way she pries people apart and I love it when she shouts and I love every time she slips and calls herself Rusty's mother. I don't even know how to prompt you for her, because basically just anything at all with Sharon in it anywhere will be the best thing ever.
Emma Rios
DDA Rios! The second Emma showed up, I knew I was going to end up liking her eventually - The Closer did such a fantastic job making Sharon and Brenda amazing competent women who were coming from completely different places, and I hoped for and got the same thing from Major Crimes. I love it when people look like antagonists, but what they're actually doing is being people who have a job that happens to get in the protagonists' way; and I love it even more when a show actually acknowledges that that's what's going on (EVERY OTHER COP SHOW WITH AN IA EPISODE, I'm looking at you). So I was fascinated by Emma even back when everybody on the team was really annoyed by her, and I enjoyed every step on the journey to the change in perspective that's made her a part of Major Crimes. ♥ I love her sharpness and her unwillingness to back down, how well she does her job and how much she cares about doing it well, and the way she's handled working with people who started out pretty much hating her. UGH RIOS.
Amy Sykes
I knew I was going to like Major Crimes because of Sharon, but I did a little seal-clapping sofa dance because of Amy. AMY. She doesn't get nearly as much screentime as she should, but I love every second she does get, her snarky little asides and her suits and her perfect serious face when shit is going down. I adored her introduction as the new kid/suckup, and the way she's integrated herself into the team since then, and every single moment of her working with Rusty on the undercover operation - from taking him driving to the test with the threat against his mother, and everything in between. If there's anything I don't get from this show, it's enough Amy Sykes, so I would love basically anything where she plays a bit more of a central role, and if you have headcanon to share about her family, her relationships, or her military service, PLEASE DO.
Seriously, any of these women or any combination, I'm so there; and if you'd like to go AU in any direction at all, feel free. Still-military Amy meets law student Emma in a bar while she's on leave! Sharon is a newly-appointed sheriff in the Old West/SPACE! Major Crimes faces the zombie apocalypse! YES PLEASE.
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Push (2009)
Emily Hu, Kira Hudson
This movie is like catnip for me: conspiracies! Superpowers! People who aren't sure who to trust, but who have to work together! YES GIVE ME MORE. For Emily, the door is pretty wide open - she's only in a couple of scenes, but all that means is that there's a lot to explore about her. How did she end up where she is? She knows about Division - did she have to escape them, too, once upon a time? Who else has she helped with her power? As for Kira, I'd take just about anything: pre-movie, wrestling with her power and what it means, her thoughts at basically any point during the movie (especially that incredibly unnerving final scene), post-movie adventures (what happens when that plane lands?) ... Or a post-movie fic with both of them where Emily ends up tracking Kira down again and chooses to help her out some more. Anything! My one caveat is that I really do like Kira; I'm down with moral ambiguity, but I'd very much rather she weren't depicted as out-and-out villainous.
Right off the bat, I want to say it is nothing but SHEER GREED that has me asking for Kira again this year, because last year the absolutely fabulous
jedibuttercup wrote me If Not For The Life That Was, which was FANTASTIC and everything I wanted, and if you are at all interested in Kira you should totally go read it right now.
I've seen this movie a whole bunch of times and loved it every time - it is in no way a masterpiece, but it's fun and funny and exciting and I'm very fond of it. The complexity and twistedness of Kira's story is one of the things I find the most interesting about it, and her power is so weird and awful and amazing (as I said in last year's letter: omfg final scene). I would in no way mind a fic about her interacting with Cassie (or an AU where Nick was taken by Division and Kira's the one who teamed up with Cassie), but I didn't include Cassie in my requests because fic about Kira is so so much rarer.
Emily Hu
I love characters who appear really briefly and yet clearly have their own lives and interests outside the story, and so when I saw Emily had been nominated this year I knew I was going to end up asking for her. She's in the movie for a really short time, but Ming-Na does such a great job with her - her prickliness, her suspicion, her grudging agreement to get involved - and basically I just want to know more about her! I'm pretty sure there's a novelization, and/or some comics, and I have no idea whether there's more information about Emily in those; if there is and you know it, feel free to use it, and if there isn't or you don't know any more about it than I do, feel free to make things up! The worldbuilding in the movie is pretty vague about a lot of things, so if you'd like to take the opportunity to fill in some blanks, you absolutely should - I love worldbuilding and I love filling out minor characters with backstories, and if you'd like to do either of those things with Emily, I would LOVE THAT.
Kira Hudson
Like I said above, I find Kira's half of the movie absolutely fascinating - she has so many different layers, and her power is so compelling and terrible at the same time, which just FILLS ME WITH QUESTIONS. How did she learn to use it? She's clearly made some rules for herself about it or else she'd already be the most terrifying supervillain on the planet - what are they and how does she keep herself from breaking them? She's smart (see: bathroom scene) and her ability is obviously immense (see: final scene); I can't imagine how much she must struggle to trust herself when she can't help but be aware of the possibilities. I also mentioned above that I'm most interested in a good Kira. Not necessarily a paragon Kira, because I love it when characters are unsure of themselves and I'm a sucker for placing the good of the many above your own personal moral code. But a Kira who is trying; and in my personal reading Kira is always trying, Kira can never stop trying, because if she does, she could do something terrible and she knows it. (UGH MY HEART. An internal struggle like that is my EMOTIONAL KRYPTONITE, which is probably something I can thank Xena for.)
Basically I'm super interested in anything you could write me about either of these women - or both, if you can figure out a way to put them in the same fic! For this fandom, I'd rather no ordinary-people AUs; anything from fork-in-the-road to Firefly AU would absolutely float my boat, as long as there are still superpowers. :D
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Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Eirtaé, Rabé, Sabé, Saché, Yané
In all the prequel Star Wars movies combined, my favorite thing is these girls (+ Amidala, of course) and the movie leaves SO MUCH ROOM for headcanon/worldbuilding. The Expanded Universe fills in some of the details, but not that many, and I'm not a stickler for EU canon anyway; basically, whatever story you may have wanted to write about the handmaidens, I'd like for you to write it. :D Seriously, anything - backstory for any of these girls, what part of Naboo they're from or how they were selected to be Amidala's bodyguards, what their training was like, what their relationships with each other and with Amidala are like ... Is their duty toward Amidala religious, or patriotic, or personal? A combination? What was it like for Sabé being trained to pretend to be Amidala (well enough to fool Jedi)? What was it like for Yané and Saché while Naboo was under occupation? It's EU canon that Rabé is responsible for Amidala's hair - when and how did she learn to do that? It's EU canon that Eirtaé also ran in the elections for queen but lost to Amidala - what was it like being asked to guard Amidala afterward? Tell me anything at all about these girls and I will love it.
Let me be frank: I really really hate the way a lot of Star Wars media is executed. HOWEVER, I adore the Star Wars universe, the galaxy and the technology and the characters and the ridiculous sprawling vastness of the canon; and for all its flaws it will never not be part of me. So there are a lot of things I love about it and a lot of things I like to pretend didn't happen, and when I say I'm not a stickler for EU canon, what I mean is that in my own head I like to pick and choose what parts I'm going to consider real and what parts I'm going to ignore, and I will in no way get on your case for doing the same thing. (If you're a purist ... sorry? /o\ The parts I love, I really do love, if that helps you not hate me.)
I'm totally ridiculous about the handmaidens; I don't post to my tumblr much these days, but when I did it was about one-third Amidala/handmaidens by weight, because I'm just so incredibly enamored of their entire existence. They are ladylike, calm, demure fourteen-year-old stone-cold badasses, and if George Lucas had made three movies about them, I would have thrown all my money at him and not regretted it.
Eirtaé
Aka "the blond one" - I actually am really fond of the EU quasi-canon that she ran alongside Amidala and lost, and I am fascinated by what that was like for her, and how that must have affected her relationship with Amidala and with the other handmaidens, at first. On the one hand, she must have resented it to some degree, especially because she was running against Amidala - what matters of policy did they disagree on, that led them to run against each other? On the other hand, Eirtaé must have volunteered to serve Amidala afterward, or was invited to do so and agreed - what made her agree? (Does she still argue with Padmé, and/or with the other handmaidens, about politics?) She risks her life every single day for someone she disagrees with and maybe didn't even like to start out with, and that's absolutely fascinating to me.
Rabé
Rabé is one of the handmaidens there isn't much information about, except, as noted, the detail that she is responsible for Amidala's hair - and, by inference, has extremely steady hands and a great deal of patience. Honestly, if you wanted to write a Rabé fic just crammed with Nabooian worldbuilding, I would be all over that. Does Rabé pick the hairstyles, too? Amidala's whole appearance seems so culturally dense and carefully orchestrated - are there historical archives Rabé has had to study in order to come up with appropriate hairstyles for the queen? Does she practice on the other handmaidens before she tries hairstyles on Padmé? If you don't want to see the word "hairstyle" one more time, then, more generally: how did Rabé get selected to serve as one of Amidala's primary handmaidens? What tests did she have to undertake? What examinations did she have to pass?
Sabé
Hi, tiny Keira Knightley, hi! The major prompt for Sabé is obviously the excruciating amount of effort and practice it must have taken to learn to mimic Padmé - or perhaps for both of them to learn to adopt the persona of Amidala, as it were - and I would LOVE a fic that just rolls around in that. I'm also really fond of the interpretation that Sabé ordering Padmé to reward R2-D2 for his service by cleaning him was actually a sort of prank (if you watch that scene with generous goggles, the other handmaidens seem like maybe they're smirking a little), because underneath the ladylike, calm, demure stone-cold badassery, they are still fourteen-year-old girls. (Or Amidala's fourteen, anyway, and the rest of them are probably close to that.) And, again, I'm interested in who Sabé was and where she came from before she was chosen as Amidala's decoy; how she came to be selected; and how she relates to the other handmaidens and to Amidala. (I ship Sabé/Padmé SO BAD - I don't think Padmé is rare, but if you wanted to work this in somewhere I would LOVE IT, as long as nothing happens 'til they're more like sixteen than fourteen.)
Saché
Saché is another handmaiden there isn't much information about. She's one of the two handmaidens left behind on Naboo when Amidala flees; and she's present at Qui-Gon's funeral but not at the big parade, so by implication it's possible she was injured during the occupation. I'm fascinated by the martial side of the handmaidens' roles as much as the ceremonial or political side; if you'd like to explore her and Yané on Naboo after Amidala leaves, running around the palace sniping droids until they're captured - or escaping the palace and organizing a resistance in Theed while Amidala is gone - I would FAINT. I'd also be ecstatic about anything going into what that experience did for her friendship with Yané; as above, I'm not really comfortable with shipfic unless they're older, but incredibly strong platonic bonds forged under fire are CANDY to me. CANDY.
Yané
Yané is the last of the Fab Five and there's almost nothing about her at all except the factoid that she's the youngest handmaiden in the bunch, which you should absolutely run with if you'd like to. Is she nervous about not measuring up to the others, since she's the youngest? Do they do nice things for her to help her out? (Does she hate that, because it just makes her feel even younger?) She must have some pretty exceptional skills, if she's younger than Amidala (which she probably is) but still got chosen to help, you know, protect the queen's life. Where did she acquire those skills? And see above re: Saché and occupied Naboo - what was that like for the two of them? What did they do during the time the planet was occupied and Amidala was gone?
Basically I've got a lot of handmaiden feelings, and anything that delves into the incredibly rich possibilities that the movie just kind of blipped over in favor of MOAR SPACE RACECARS would be a glorious gift to receive! I went through them one at a time in case we only matched on some of them, but I love them all, and any fic about their relationships with each other and/or the circle of companionship/shieldwall they form around Amidala would just, my heart. MY HEART.
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Stargate: Atlantis
Amelia Banks, Kate Heightmeyer, Larrin, Dusty Mehra, Alison Porter, Shen Xiaoyi, Anne Teldy, Alicia Vega
You wouldn't know it by looking at my AO3 account, but I've been lurking around the edges of Stargate fandom for YEARS, and when I saw the nominations for Stargate: Atlantis this year, I just couldn't resist. Starting chronologically, I'll lead off with Heightmeyer - she wasn't in half as many episodes as I wanted her to be in, and I cannot even imagine what being the lead psychologist on an expedition like Atlantis must be like: sublime, ridiculous, painful, all three by turns. Tell me about it! Larrin was one of my favorite one-episode characters, smart and sharp and deceptive (and the entire concept of the Travelers is a riveting one for me, so anything you wanted to write about them would be wonderful). Banks is the best kind of Stargate character for me, someone who appears in the background multiple times and then ascends to the foreground; I love her calm, her practicality, and of course her kickboxing. One of the brightest spots in Season 5 for me was Whispers, solely because of Teldy's team: Teldy is so in charge of everything, Porter is so sweet and smart, Mehra just wants to kill bad guys, and Vega and her marksmanship are not even a little bit dead as far as I'm concerned. And Shen Xiaoyi - I would be happy with anything that retains her ambition and drive and pokes at the edges of the IOA and the complexity of its relationship with Stargate Command, but if you felt like writing a piece of the AU where she's the one who's assigned to Atlantis after Sam Carter, I would die of awesome.
I have no idea how many of these women we may or may not have matched on, but I'm up for any of them in just about any combination, too. AU where Heightmeyer lives and ends up interviewing Mehra and Porter and Vega when they join the expedition? YES. Snippet where Mehra and Banks spar, or Teldy's the one who got Banks started with kickboxing? YES. A universe where Shen is in charge of Atlantis and attempts to formalize an alliance with the Travelers through Larrin? YES. My only hard-and-fast request would be to please have them all be alive at the end of the story; canon killed or disappeared enough of them without any help.
This section is going to be SO LONG, but the SG:A nominations this year were an embarrassment of riches and I just kept adding women to my signup. /o\ SORRY NOT SORRY.
Stargate: Atlantis is a lot like Star Wars for me, in the sense where I love the universe canon presents and it's just exploding with possibilities - but the canon didn't typically capitalize on those possibilities in a way that I enjoyed, which has made me very flexible in terms of embracing some parts of canon and rejecting others. But! The things I love about SG:A are things I REALLY REALLY LOVE, and these women are eight of those things. (EIGHT. THIS IS GOING TO BE SO LONG.)
Amelia Banks
Characters like Banks are one of my favorite things about the Stargate franchise: repeating background characters who gradually ascend to "visibility", as it were (Grodin in S1, too, and in a slightly different way, Chuck and Walter). Calm and competent gate technician + kickboxing badass = character I'd like to know more about! Banks has a US patch on her shoulder, but I don't think we learn much about exactly where she's from - backstory fic for Banks's entry into the Stargate Program and eventual journey to Atlantis, or fic about her early days in Pegasus and what it's like joining the program in the later seasons would be fantastic. Her interacting with any of the other women would also be gold: sparring with Mehra or Teldy, teaching Porter about the technical side of gate operation, asking for shooting lessons from Vega (because you never know what's going to come through the gate), or even just having lunch at the same table as Shen Xiaoyi when Shen comes to evaluate Woolsey. GOLD.
Kate Heightmeyer
Oh, Heightmeyer. WE HARDLY KNEW YOU. As far as I'm concerned, Kate Heightmeyer was a glorious idea and very necessary character (EXPEDITION PSYCHOLOGIST - Elizabeth must have come up with that, and you know they needed one!) and then the writers couldn't figure out what to do with her except kill her off. :P I would absolutely love anything where Heightmeyer gets even a little spotlight - lives to help Teldy put together her team, or actually has a hand in saving the day. (Not necessarily with psychology, although I'd love to see her talk to Sora or another Genii or even later-season Michael; but by being sensible and listening and not giving anything away, because that's how she rolls.) If the only thing you wanted to do was write me your own version of the AU where she survives Doppelganger and lends her skills to taking out Evil!Dream!Sheppard ... DO IT. DO THE THING.
Larrin
I don't think they're nominated, but I'm guessing they'd have qualified if they had been, so if you want to add Katana Labrea and/or Mila to any fic you write about Larrin, BE MY GUEST. Larrin! I love the whole concept of the Travelers so much and will be angry forever that Atlantis didn't reach out to them more often; and Larrin is QUEEN OF THE SPACE PIRATES and therefore also MY HEART. She is hot and smart and devious and so beautifully, impenetrably charming - I love characters whose faces say one thing while their mouths say another and they're thinking a third. Larrin is just fantastic, and anything you want to tell me about her - how did she end up in charge of the Travelers? How did she and Katana become friends? What would happen if she'd met Kate, or Team Teldy, or had to negotiate with Xiaoyi? - is a thing I want to hear. (And if you wanted to write a little Katana/Larrin, I SUPPORT THAT 1000%.)
SGA-♀ (Dusty Mehra, Alison Porter, Anne Teldy, Alicia Vega)
I'm treating SGA-♀ as a unit because otherwise this letter will be TEN THOUSAND WORDS LONG. I didn't find the plot of Whispers terribly enthralling, but maybe that's because I was ignoring it so I could absorb every second Team Teldy was onscreen through every pore of my being. The simplest possible 1001-word fic about these women out on a bog-standard ordinary mission together would make me happier than all of Season 5 of Atlantis put together, as would any fic on the theme of their existence: the process Teldy went through to select them in the first place, Mehra pulling a Sheppard and commandoing around killing bad guys singlehandedly, Porter doing science, Vega shooting things from extremely far away and hitting them. Anything at all about the development of the four of them as a team, Teldy being all gruff and mentory while Porter does science and Mehra makes bored faces until Vega ropes her into doing a little target practice with the nearest innocent tree - I WOULD DIE HAPPY. Basically, it gave me great comfort throughout Season 5 to imagine SGA-♀ retrieving a badly-injured Vega from Whispers-world, annoying the crap out of her throughout her recovery, and then going out on awesome missions where they annoy the crap out of each other and save each other and play card games in the back of their jumper. If you would like to bring any part of that to life, I would be grateful beyond all words.
Shen Xiaoyi
As noted in the signup, my secret dream is a world where the IOA replaced Sam Carter with Shen Xiaoyi right off the bat - in contravention of everything Stargate ever seemed to expect from me, I absolutely love the idea of international civilian oversight of the Stargate program in general and the Atlantis expedition in particular, and the more commanding ambitious excellence-demanding women involved, the better. If you'd like to go AU and write me her talking Woolsey out of his post, or her being Sam's replacement from the start, I AM SO THERE. I would also love pretty much any snippet from her time on Atlantis, short as it was; where did she go when she wasn't talking to Woolsey? What set of quarters was she given? How much of Atlantis did she get to see? I would cause minor property damage to see her talking to Teyla, or to Teldy or Mehra or Porter - if any or all of them were assigned to show her around the rest of Atlantis after Woolsey was done showing her the control tower, or if she simply ran into them in the hallway. I love Xiaoyi for her ability to tell people what they want to hear while she keeps her own counsel, to pull their strings without them knowing it's her doing the pulling - or turn around and confront them with their failures and inadequacies, if she thinks that's what will serve her ultimate purpose. ("Manipulativeness" sounds so negative that I don't want to use it, but I love a lot of women in fiction who are playing a sort of chess game with everyone around them, and Shen Xiaoyi is one of them.)
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You deserve so many points if you actually read this whole letter! Obviously nothing I've said here is in any way binding, and if none of it was helpful to you, then IGNORE THE WHOLE THING and write whatever glorious masterpiece is waiting to burst free from your fingertips. And if there's a fandom here that we didn't match on, but you know it or can locate it and you think you'd prefer to write it, go ahead! Push and Star Wars should not be difficult to obtain via Netflix or torrent; there are two seasons of Major Crimes and five seasons of Stargate: Atlantis, but I would be as happy with a Season 1 story as a Season 2/Season 5 story, if you've been waiting for an excuse to watch either one. :D
Again, thank you so much for signing up for Rarewomen, and I'm sorry this letter got so unbelievably long. I hope you have fun writing a story, and I can't wait to read it!
[crossposted; original at Dreamwidth]
Don't feel at all obligated to read this letter if you don't want to - I'm writing it because I hope it will be helpful and also because talking about women I love is a lot of fun for me! But if it's not going to help you, or you feel the crushing weight of my yammering slowly destroying your creativity, then CLOSE OUT right now and go write a story you enjoy, and I promise you I will be THRILLED.
Also don't feel obligated to look around my DW; but if you want to while you're here, go ahead! I haven't been posting at all consistently this year, but my fic is all at the AO3, and my movies tag, books tag, and tv shows tag hold most of the contents of my brain from the last five years or so. (I'm also Damkianna on tumblr; I haven't posted there in ages, but I was very consistent for a while.)
In General | Major Crimes (TV) | Push (2009) | Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace | Stargate: Atlantis
In General
Unpleasant things first! I have no triggers relating to but would generally like to avoid: deathfic, torture, or rape. In a gift fic about characters I love, I'd like for the general tone to be happy, is what this really boils down to.
Quite separately from that: solely in terms of personal taste, I'm typically not very moved by BDSM or generous helpings of kink. (If you are really great with those things and love to write them, don't let this stop you from writing the fic of your dreams! But if you were considering it and wanted to know how I feel about it, there it is.)
On the flip side, I love:
:: ladyslash, dudeslash, het, gen! For this challenge, I'm not so much interested in dudeslash except maybe in the background (and presumably you aren't either, at least for this exchange); but I ship just about anything in a lot of fandoms, and am easy to please.
:: fic where people are nice to each other! This is not a hard-and-fast rule and doesn't make sense for all fandoms and characters, but generally speaking I really enjoy stories where people are friends or families-of-choice; stories where people extend unlooked-for or unexpected kindness or forgiveness or trust or generosity to one another; stories where people are a ~team~ and ~have each other's backs~ (I ADORE THIS) and sacrifice things for one another or save one another a bunch (I ADORE THIS). Even - sometimes especially - when they may not outwardly seem to even like each other all that much, or like to pretend they don't even though they totally do. UGH MY HEART.
:: fic where people are good! Also not a hard-and-fast rule and also doesn't make sense for all fandoms and characters, but I love it when people are fundamentally trying to do the right thing - even when they fail, or they are wrong about what the right thing is, or none of them even know what the right thing might be (there isn't a right thing! there's more than one right thing!) but they're trying anyway. LOVE IT. My favorite thing in an antagonist is genuine belief in a cause or a purpose or the rightness of their actions, as opposed to cackling your-screams-are-music puppy-kicking evil.
:: AUs! All kinds of AUs: the kind that are fork-in-the-road from any part of canon, and the kind where everyone is a barista or IN SPACE or attending the same high school. LOVE THEM BOTH. (Obviously don't make yourself write an AU if that doesn't do it for you! But, again, if you were considering it and wanted to know how I feel about it, there it is.)
:: tropes and clichés! I love clichés in shipfic, I love clichés in gen plots; I love inverted, averted, deconstructed, and straight-on tropes. If you want to write amnesia fic or undercover-lesbians fic or hurt/comfort fic, consider this your hand-embossed invitation. GO FOR IT.
I like day-in-the-life stories and action stories and introspective character studies. I like casefic and long plotty stories and 1002-word snippets where two characters sit down and chat for a minute over lunch. Mostly what I want is for you to write a story that you enjoy writing, and that you like when it's finished! If you have questions about anything, feel free to leave an anon comment, or ask my sister
idriya (she is practically me except she's actually good at keeping secrets).
And! If we matched on more than one character, don't feel like you have to stuff them all into a single fic. I'm going to talk about each of the characters I requested in probably way way too much detail; but I asked for each of these characters because I just really like them a lot, whether alone, all together, or in any sub-combination. So! NO SWEAT.
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Major Crimes
Sharon Raydor, Emma Rios, Amy Sykes
I've adored Sharon Raydor since basically her very first appearance on The Closer (which I also watched intently), and Major Crimes is one of my absolute favorite things on television. I love Sharon's faith in and adherence to The Rules; I love Amy's competence and cleverness; I love Emma's Sharon-like path from almost-adversary to ally. Basically anything about any one of these women would be super amazing - a snippet of Sharon on a case, Amy chasing down a suspect, Emma late at night doing paperwork, ANYTHING.
If you offered more than one of them, I'd also love to see them interact a little more than they get to do on the show: Sharon and Amy interacting on a case, Sharon and Emma during an interrogation, or even Amy and Emma in the office getting coffee at the same time. All three of them staying late on a Friday and running into each other on the way out! ANYTHING AT ALL. (I like Rusty a lot, too, and don't mind in the least if he is present or a point of connection - obviously the focus should be on the women, but I would love to read about Amy teaching him to drive, or Sharon asking her to; one of Emma's prep sessions with him before he testified, with Sharon present; Amy asking Emma how his testimony went, as the opening to a longer conversation. Major Crimes is at least one-third televised kidfic by weight, and I am 100% okay with that, so don't feel like you have to ignore Rusty, although of course you can if you want to.)
Ugh I enjoy this show SO MUCH. I haven't posted about it really extensively, but that's because I'm just so happy with it. I adore everything it chooses to be, and the only complaints I have about it are a) these three women don't talk to each other enough and b) not enough lesbians. A fic that solves one (or both!) of these problems would be MY DREAM COME TRUE. (I adore the rest of the Major Crimes team, too, so if you want to write a snippet of casefic, obviously feel free to include them! As long as the focus stays on the ladies, I will absolutely love it.) And I do totally ship Sharon/Brenda - obviously Brenda's not nominated in this fandom, but if you're a Closer fan and would like to slip that ship into the background, that would be a-okay. :D In this show alone rather than the larger Closer universe, I am also easy for Sharon/Amy; and if you'd like to try on Sharon/Emma or Emma/Amy, go for it! (As noted above, I have a soft spot for clichés and love the kidfic aspects of Major Crimes, so if you've always wanted to write the story where Amy comes by on the weekends to teach Rusty to drive and it becomes a ~thing and there's some pining and Rusty thinks they're both failboats ... I'd read that in a second.)
Sharon Raydor
I don't even know where to start! I always enjoyed The Closer a lot, and then Mary McDonnell started guest-starring and my adoration went THROUGH THE ROOF; she was amazing and every conversation she had with Brenda was amazing and I loved her, and then I heard they were making a spinoff about her and I DIED OF JOY. SHARON. I lovelovelove her adherence to and respect for the rules (even as she sometimes bends them) - most of the procedurals I've watched have treated the rules for being a cop like they're just there to be in the way, and also Internal Affairs is bullshit, and also how dare anyone accuse cops of bad judgment/bad decision-making/corruption! Sharon is the opposite of all of that and I couldn't love her more if I tried. I love her calmness and how hard she works at it, contradictory as that might sound - how hard she works at her objectivity, the times when she succeeds and is a perfect stone-faced justice-wielding queen and the times when she fails and it's too much and she's too angry or tired or frustrated. I love the slow, careful, methodical way she pries people apart and I love it when she shouts and I love every time she slips and calls herself Rusty's mother. I don't even know how to prompt you for her, because basically just anything at all with Sharon in it anywhere will be the best thing ever.
Emma Rios
DDA Rios! The second Emma showed up, I knew I was going to end up liking her eventually - The Closer did such a fantastic job making Sharon and Brenda amazing competent women who were coming from completely different places, and I hoped for and got the same thing from Major Crimes. I love it when people look like antagonists, but what they're actually doing is being people who have a job that happens to get in the protagonists' way; and I love it even more when a show actually acknowledges that that's what's going on (EVERY OTHER COP SHOW WITH AN IA EPISODE, I'm looking at you). So I was fascinated by Emma even back when everybody on the team was really annoyed by her, and I enjoyed every step on the journey to the change in perspective that's made her a part of Major Crimes. ♥ I love her sharpness and her unwillingness to back down, how well she does her job and how much she cares about doing it well, and the way she's handled working with people who started out pretty much hating her. UGH RIOS.
Amy Sykes
I knew I was going to like Major Crimes because of Sharon, but I did a little seal-clapping sofa dance because of Amy. AMY. She doesn't get nearly as much screentime as she should, but I love every second she does get, her snarky little asides and her suits and her perfect serious face when shit is going down. I adored her introduction as the new kid/suckup, and the way she's integrated herself into the team since then, and every single moment of her working with Rusty on the undercover operation - from taking him driving to the test with the threat against his mother, and everything in between. If there's anything I don't get from this show, it's enough Amy Sykes, so I would love basically anything where she plays a bit more of a central role, and if you have headcanon to share about her family, her relationships, or her military service, PLEASE DO.
Seriously, any of these women or any combination, I'm so there; and if you'd like to go AU in any direction at all, feel free. Still-military Amy meets law student Emma in a bar while she's on leave! Sharon is a newly-appointed sheriff in the Old West/SPACE! Major Crimes faces the zombie apocalypse! YES PLEASE.
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Push (2009)
Emily Hu, Kira Hudson
This movie is like catnip for me: conspiracies! Superpowers! People who aren't sure who to trust, but who have to work together! YES GIVE ME MORE. For Emily, the door is pretty wide open - she's only in a couple of scenes, but all that means is that there's a lot to explore about her. How did she end up where she is? She knows about Division - did she have to escape them, too, once upon a time? Who else has she helped with her power? As for Kira, I'd take just about anything: pre-movie, wrestling with her power and what it means, her thoughts at basically any point during the movie (especially that incredibly unnerving final scene), post-movie adventures (what happens when that plane lands?) ... Or a post-movie fic with both of them where Emily ends up tracking Kira down again and chooses to help her out some more. Anything! My one caveat is that I really do like Kira; I'm down with moral ambiguity, but I'd very much rather she weren't depicted as out-and-out villainous.
Right off the bat, I want to say it is nothing but SHEER GREED that has me asking for Kira again this year, because last year the absolutely fabulous
jedibuttercup wrote me If Not For The Life That Was, which was FANTASTIC and everything I wanted, and if you are at all interested in Kira you should totally go read it right now.
I've seen this movie a whole bunch of times and loved it every time - it is in no way a masterpiece, but it's fun and funny and exciting and I'm very fond of it. The complexity and twistedness of Kira's story is one of the things I find the most interesting about it, and her power is so weird and awful and amazing (as I said in last year's letter: omfg final scene). I would in no way mind a fic about her interacting with Cassie (or an AU where Nick was taken by Division and Kira's the one who teamed up with Cassie), but I didn't include Cassie in my requests because fic about Kira is so so much rarer.
Emily Hu
I love characters who appear really briefly and yet clearly have their own lives and interests outside the story, and so when I saw Emily had been nominated this year I knew I was going to end up asking for her. She's in the movie for a really short time, but Ming-Na does such a great job with her - her prickliness, her suspicion, her grudging agreement to get involved - and basically I just want to know more about her! I'm pretty sure there's a novelization, and/or some comics, and I have no idea whether there's more information about Emily in those; if there is and you know it, feel free to use it, and if there isn't or you don't know any more about it than I do, feel free to make things up! The worldbuilding in the movie is pretty vague about a lot of things, so if you'd like to take the opportunity to fill in some blanks, you absolutely should - I love worldbuilding and I love filling out minor characters with backstories, and if you'd like to do either of those things with Emily, I would LOVE THAT.
Kira Hudson
Like I said above, I find Kira's half of the movie absolutely fascinating - she has so many different layers, and her power is so compelling and terrible at the same time, which just FILLS ME WITH QUESTIONS. How did she learn to use it? She's clearly made some rules for herself about it or else she'd already be the most terrifying supervillain on the planet - what are they and how does she keep herself from breaking them? She's smart (see: bathroom scene) and her ability is obviously immense (see: final scene); I can't imagine how much she must struggle to trust herself when she can't help but be aware of the possibilities. I also mentioned above that I'm most interested in a good Kira. Not necessarily a paragon Kira, because I love it when characters are unsure of themselves and I'm a sucker for placing the good of the many above your own personal moral code. But a Kira who is trying; and in my personal reading Kira is always trying, Kira can never stop trying, because if she does, she could do something terrible and she knows it. (UGH MY HEART. An internal struggle like that is my EMOTIONAL KRYPTONITE, which is probably something I can thank Xena for.)
Basically I'm super interested in anything you could write me about either of these women - or both, if you can figure out a way to put them in the same fic! For this fandom, I'd rather no ordinary-people AUs; anything from fork-in-the-road to Firefly AU would absolutely float my boat, as long as there are still superpowers. :D
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Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Eirtaé, Rabé, Sabé, Saché, Yané
In all the prequel Star Wars movies combined, my favorite thing is these girls (+ Amidala, of course) and the movie leaves SO MUCH ROOM for headcanon/worldbuilding. The Expanded Universe fills in some of the details, but not that many, and I'm not a stickler for EU canon anyway; basically, whatever story you may have wanted to write about the handmaidens, I'd like for you to write it. :D Seriously, anything - backstory for any of these girls, what part of Naboo they're from or how they were selected to be Amidala's bodyguards, what their training was like, what their relationships with each other and with Amidala are like ... Is their duty toward Amidala religious, or patriotic, or personal? A combination? What was it like for Sabé being trained to pretend to be Amidala (well enough to fool Jedi)? What was it like for Yané and Saché while Naboo was under occupation? It's EU canon that Rabé is responsible for Amidala's hair - when and how did she learn to do that? It's EU canon that Eirtaé also ran in the elections for queen but lost to Amidala - what was it like being asked to guard Amidala afterward? Tell me anything at all about these girls and I will love it.
Let me be frank: I really really hate the way a lot of Star Wars media is executed. HOWEVER, I adore the Star Wars universe, the galaxy and the technology and the characters and the ridiculous sprawling vastness of the canon; and for all its flaws it will never not be part of me. So there are a lot of things I love about it and a lot of things I like to pretend didn't happen, and when I say I'm not a stickler for EU canon, what I mean is that in my own head I like to pick and choose what parts I'm going to consider real and what parts I'm going to ignore, and I will in no way get on your case for doing the same thing. (If you're a purist ... sorry? /o\ The parts I love, I really do love, if that helps you not hate me.)
I'm totally ridiculous about the handmaidens; I don't post to my tumblr much these days, but when I did it was about one-third Amidala/handmaidens by weight, because I'm just so incredibly enamored of their entire existence. They are ladylike, calm, demure fourteen-year-old stone-cold badasses, and if George Lucas had made three movies about them, I would have thrown all my money at him and not regretted it.
Eirtaé
Aka "the blond one" - I actually am really fond of the EU quasi-canon that she ran alongside Amidala and lost, and I am fascinated by what that was like for her, and how that must have affected her relationship with Amidala and with the other handmaidens, at first. On the one hand, she must have resented it to some degree, especially because she was running against Amidala - what matters of policy did they disagree on, that led them to run against each other? On the other hand, Eirtaé must have volunteered to serve Amidala afterward, or was invited to do so and agreed - what made her agree? (Does she still argue with Padmé, and/or with the other handmaidens, about politics?) She risks her life every single day for someone she disagrees with and maybe didn't even like to start out with, and that's absolutely fascinating to me.
Rabé
Rabé is one of the handmaidens there isn't much information about, except, as noted, the detail that she is responsible for Amidala's hair - and, by inference, has extremely steady hands and a great deal of patience. Honestly, if you wanted to write a Rabé fic just crammed with Nabooian worldbuilding, I would be all over that. Does Rabé pick the hairstyles, too? Amidala's whole appearance seems so culturally dense and carefully orchestrated - are there historical archives Rabé has had to study in order to come up with appropriate hairstyles for the queen? Does she practice on the other handmaidens before she tries hairstyles on Padmé? If you don't want to see the word "hairstyle" one more time, then, more generally: how did Rabé get selected to serve as one of Amidala's primary handmaidens? What tests did she have to undertake? What examinations did she have to pass?
Sabé
Hi, tiny Keira Knightley, hi! The major prompt for Sabé is obviously the excruciating amount of effort and practice it must have taken to learn to mimic Padmé - or perhaps for both of them to learn to adopt the persona of Amidala, as it were - and I would LOVE a fic that just rolls around in that. I'm also really fond of the interpretation that Sabé ordering Padmé to reward R2-D2 for his service by cleaning him was actually a sort of prank (if you watch that scene with generous goggles, the other handmaidens seem like maybe they're smirking a little), because underneath the ladylike, calm, demure stone-cold badassery, they are still fourteen-year-old girls. (Or Amidala's fourteen, anyway, and the rest of them are probably close to that.) And, again, I'm interested in who Sabé was and where she came from before she was chosen as Amidala's decoy; how she came to be selected; and how she relates to the other handmaidens and to Amidala. (I ship Sabé/Padmé SO BAD - I don't think Padmé is rare, but if you wanted to work this in somewhere I would LOVE IT, as long as nothing happens 'til they're more like sixteen than fourteen.)
Saché
Saché is another handmaiden there isn't much information about. She's one of the two handmaidens left behind on Naboo when Amidala flees; and she's present at Qui-Gon's funeral but not at the big parade, so by implication it's possible she was injured during the occupation. I'm fascinated by the martial side of the handmaidens' roles as much as the ceremonial or political side; if you'd like to explore her and Yané on Naboo after Amidala leaves, running around the palace sniping droids until they're captured - or escaping the palace and organizing a resistance in Theed while Amidala is gone - I would FAINT. I'd also be ecstatic about anything going into what that experience did for her friendship with Yané; as above, I'm not really comfortable with shipfic unless they're older, but incredibly strong platonic bonds forged under fire are CANDY to me. CANDY.
Yané
Yané is the last of the Fab Five and there's almost nothing about her at all except the factoid that she's the youngest handmaiden in the bunch, which you should absolutely run with if you'd like to. Is she nervous about not measuring up to the others, since she's the youngest? Do they do nice things for her to help her out? (Does she hate that, because it just makes her feel even younger?) She must have some pretty exceptional skills, if she's younger than Amidala (which she probably is) but still got chosen to help, you know, protect the queen's life. Where did she acquire those skills? And see above re: Saché and occupied Naboo - what was that like for the two of them? What did they do during the time the planet was occupied and Amidala was gone?
Basically I've got a lot of handmaiden feelings, and anything that delves into the incredibly rich possibilities that the movie just kind of blipped over in favor of MOAR SPACE RACECARS would be a glorious gift to receive! I went through them one at a time in case we only matched on some of them, but I love them all, and any fic about their relationships with each other and/or the circle of companionship/shieldwall they form around Amidala would just, my heart. MY HEART.
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Stargate: Atlantis
Amelia Banks, Kate Heightmeyer, Larrin, Dusty Mehra, Alison Porter, Shen Xiaoyi, Anne Teldy, Alicia Vega
You wouldn't know it by looking at my AO3 account, but I've been lurking around the edges of Stargate fandom for YEARS, and when I saw the nominations for Stargate: Atlantis this year, I just couldn't resist. Starting chronologically, I'll lead off with Heightmeyer - she wasn't in half as many episodes as I wanted her to be in, and I cannot even imagine what being the lead psychologist on an expedition like Atlantis must be like: sublime, ridiculous, painful, all three by turns. Tell me about it! Larrin was one of my favorite one-episode characters, smart and sharp and deceptive (and the entire concept of the Travelers is a riveting one for me, so anything you wanted to write about them would be wonderful). Banks is the best kind of Stargate character for me, someone who appears in the background multiple times and then ascends to the foreground; I love her calm, her practicality, and of course her kickboxing. One of the brightest spots in Season 5 for me was Whispers, solely because of Teldy's team: Teldy is so in charge of everything, Porter is so sweet and smart, Mehra just wants to kill bad guys, and Vega and her marksmanship are not even a little bit dead as far as I'm concerned. And Shen Xiaoyi - I would be happy with anything that retains her ambition and drive and pokes at the edges of the IOA and the complexity of its relationship with Stargate Command, but if you felt like writing a piece of the AU where she's the one who's assigned to Atlantis after Sam Carter, I would die of awesome.
I have no idea how many of these women we may or may not have matched on, but I'm up for any of them in just about any combination, too. AU where Heightmeyer lives and ends up interviewing Mehra and Porter and Vega when they join the expedition? YES. Snippet where Mehra and Banks spar, or Teldy's the one who got Banks started with kickboxing? YES. A universe where Shen is in charge of Atlantis and attempts to formalize an alliance with the Travelers through Larrin? YES. My only hard-and-fast request would be to please have them all be alive at the end of the story; canon killed or disappeared enough of them without any help.
This section is going to be SO LONG, but the SG:A nominations this year were an embarrassment of riches and I just kept adding women to my signup. /o\ SORRY NOT SORRY.
Stargate: Atlantis is a lot like Star Wars for me, in the sense where I love the universe canon presents and it's just exploding with possibilities - but the canon didn't typically capitalize on those possibilities in a way that I enjoyed, which has made me very flexible in terms of embracing some parts of canon and rejecting others. But! The things I love about SG:A are things I REALLY REALLY LOVE, and these women are eight of those things. (EIGHT. THIS IS GOING TO BE SO LONG.)
Amelia Banks
Characters like Banks are one of my favorite things about the Stargate franchise: repeating background characters who gradually ascend to "visibility", as it were (Grodin in S1, too, and in a slightly different way, Chuck and Walter). Calm and competent gate technician + kickboxing badass = character I'd like to know more about! Banks has a US patch on her shoulder, but I don't think we learn much about exactly where she's from - backstory fic for Banks's entry into the Stargate Program and eventual journey to Atlantis, or fic about her early days in Pegasus and what it's like joining the program in the later seasons would be fantastic. Her interacting with any of the other women would also be gold: sparring with Mehra or Teldy, teaching Porter about the technical side of gate operation, asking for shooting lessons from Vega (because you never know what's going to come through the gate), or even just having lunch at the same table as Shen Xiaoyi when Shen comes to evaluate Woolsey. GOLD.
Kate Heightmeyer
Oh, Heightmeyer. WE HARDLY KNEW YOU. As far as I'm concerned, Kate Heightmeyer was a glorious idea and very necessary character (EXPEDITION PSYCHOLOGIST - Elizabeth must have come up with that, and you know they needed one!) and then the writers couldn't figure out what to do with her except kill her off. :P I would absolutely love anything where Heightmeyer gets even a little spotlight - lives to help Teldy put together her team, or actually has a hand in saving the day. (Not necessarily with psychology, although I'd love to see her talk to Sora or another Genii or even later-season Michael; but by being sensible and listening and not giving anything away, because that's how she rolls.) If the only thing you wanted to do was write me your own version of the AU where she survives Doppelganger and lends her skills to taking out Evil!Dream!Sheppard ... DO IT. DO THE THING.
Larrin
I don't think they're nominated, but I'm guessing they'd have qualified if they had been, so if you want to add Katana Labrea and/or Mila to any fic you write about Larrin, BE MY GUEST. Larrin! I love the whole concept of the Travelers so much and will be angry forever that Atlantis didn't reach out to them more often; and Larrin is QUEEN OF THE SPACE PIRATES and therefore also MY HEART. She is hot and smart and devious and so beautifully, impenetrably charming - I love characters whose faces say one thing while their mouths say another and they're thinking a third. Larrin is just fantastic, and anything you want to tell me about her - how did she end up in charge of the Travelers? How did she and Katana become friends? What would happen if she'd met Kate, or Team Teldy, or had to negotiate with Xiaoyi? - is a thing I want to hear. (And if you wanted to write a little Katana/Larrin, I SUPPORT THAT 1000%.)
SGA-♀ (Dusty Mehra, Alison Porter, Anne Teldy, Alicia Vega)
I'm treating SGA-♀ as a unit because otherwise this letter will be TEN THOUSAND WORDS LONG. I didn't find the plot of Whispers terribly enthralling, but maybe that's because I was ignoring it so I could absorb every second Team Teldy was onscreen through every pore of my being. The simplest possible 1001-word fic about these women out on a bog-standard ordinary mission together would make me happier than all of Season 5 of Atlantis put together, as would any fic on the theme of their existence: the process Teldy went through to select them in the first place, Mehra pulling a Sheppard and commandoing around killing bad guys singlehandedly, Porter doing science, Vega shooting things from extremely far away and hitting them. Anything at all about the development of the four of them as a team, Teldy being all gruff and mentory while Porter does science and Mehra makes bored faces until Vega ropes her into doing a little target practice with the nearest innocent tree - I WOULD DIE HAPPY. Basically, it gave me great comfort throughout Season 5 to imagine SGA-♀ retrieving a badly-injured Vega from Whispers-world, annoying the crap out of her throughout her recovery, and then going out on awesome missions where they annoy the crap out of each other and save each other and play card games in the back of their jumper. If you would like to bring any part of that to life, I would be grateful beyond all words.
Shen Xiaoyi
As noted in the signup, my secret dream is a world where the IOA replaced Sam Carter with Shen Xiaoyi right off the bat - in contravention of everything Stargate ever seemed to expect from me, I absolutely love the idea of international civilian oversight of the Stargate program in general and the Atlantis expedition in particular, and the more commanding ambitious excellence-demanding women involved, the better. If you'd like to go AU and write me her talking Woolsey out of his post, or her being Sam's replacement from the start, I AM SO THERE. I would also love pretty much any snippet from her time on Atlantis, short as it was; where did she go when she wasn't talking to Woolsey? What set of quarters was she given? How much of Atlantis did she get to see? I would cause minor property damage to see her talking to Teyla, or to Teldy or Mehra or Porter - if any or all of them were assigned to show her around the rest of Atlantis after Woolsey was done showing her the control tower, or if she simply ran into them in the hallway. I love Xiaoyi for her ability to tell people what they want to hear while she keeps her own counsel, to pull their strings without them knowing it's her doing the pulling - or turn around and confront them with their failures and inadequacies, if she thinks that's what will serve her ultimate purpose. ("Manipulativeness" sounds so negative that I don't want to use it, but I love a lot of women in fiction who are playing a sort of chess game with everyone around them, and Shen Xiaoyi is one of them.)
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You deserve so many points if you actually read this whole letter! Obviously nothing I've said here is in any way binding, and if none of it was helpful to you, then IGNORE THE WHOLE THING and write whatever glorious masterpiece is waiting to burst free from your fingertips. And if there's a fandom here that we didn't match on, but you know it or can locate it and you think you'd prefer to write it, go ahead! Push and Star Wars should not be difficult to obtain via Netflix or torrent; there are two seasons of Major Crimes and five seasons of Stargate: Atlantis, but I would be as happy with a Season 1 story as a Season 2/Season 5 story, if you've been waiting for an excuse to watch either one. :D
Again, thank you so much for signing up for Rarewomen, and I'm sorry this letter got so unbelievably long. I hope you have fun writing a story, and I can't wait to read it!
[crossposted; original at Dreamwidth]