Otter's Rock

I wrote three fics for Yuletide this year!

My main assignment was an Enchanted Forrest Chronicles story, In Which Cimorene Settles In As Chief Cook And Librarian and Deals With Politics, for ApocalypseAngel.  They gave me nothing but a fandom--no prompts, no letter, no DNWs, not even any characters.  Which in some ways is nice, and in others is nerve-wracking.  The fic started out as just "let's fill in a little bit of the stuff between books 1 and 2" and then turned into me exploring a lot of my feels about protocol and soft power and the role of women in medieval power structures, and then Cimorene's mother showed up.  I love the books, but they are very much built in "fairy tale land" which takes for granted and assumes all our modern stereotypes about the middle ages, very little of which have anything to do with actual reality, so I end up arguing with them a lot or rolling my eyes because it just didn't work that way.  Grump Harump.  Anyway, mlraven was an EXCELLENT beta, and a great help for me to work through the issues and figure out where the plot was going after Cimorene's mother showed up.  I was down to the wire, and I knew I could only finish it if I knew where I was going.  (I can crank out a TON of words in a very short time, IF AND ONLY IF I know where I'm going.  She was a marvelous help.)

Then I also picked up two pinch hits.  The first was Need To Know, a Murderbot Diaries fic for wickedwords.  One of their prompts was asking why Asshole Research Transport has a "debris deflection system" anyway, and so I wrote a fic about the final stages of ART's construction.  It was fun, but at the same time I was a bit nervous about whether I was getting ART's voice right.  sanity was an excellent help reassuring me about that.

My second pinch hit was for a prompt by litra that I'd had my eye on to consider treating already, so I snaffled it up when I saw it on the list.  They wanted to see Terry (from Batman Beyond) actually trying to be Bruce's PA instead of just using it as a cover when needed, and so I wrote Assisting Mr. Wayne, which was fun.  karanguni was a great beta, they're the go-to person for BB.

The first Yuletide fic I wrote was for shobogan, who wanted Dana and Max learning to be superheros from Barbara Gordon.

Title: Learning Curve
Fandom: Batman Beyond
Word Count:  6,431
Written For: shobogan 
Beta: sinesofinsanity 
AN: I couldn't figure out how to fit Damien in to a canon where Bruce and "Talia" interact and neither mentions or even hints about him. So in this continuity, there are only four Robins.
Summary: Dana knows who she is. What she doesn't know is who she's going to be.

( Dana stared at the costumes in the cases, coat wrapped firmly around her. )

The awesome argentumlupine has just podficced my Batman Beyond story Not Hero Worship.  You can find the podfic here.

Barbara Gordon and Max Gibson, legacy.

The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves.  Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing.  If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks just don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a good story with good spelling and grammar and everyone in character and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.

If you want to make me the happiest recipient ever, here are some other things to keep in mind: I like strong women, and I love the acknowledgment that strength comes in many forms, of which the kinds put forward by modern western feminism are only a few.  I like cultural diversity, and to know that culture matters to people, but I don't like it when non-western culture is fetishized or exoticised.  I like quirky characters.  I like acknowledgment that different people can have different points of view without either of them being wrong.  I like stories that engage with problematic aspects of the source, and which deal with privilege in one way or another.  If you don't know what I mean by privilege, here are a few links: White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, and possibly the Spock/Uhura Racefail Prevention Post and associated links. I like plotty, gen stories, and plotty stories in general, but I don't like explicit sex of any kind, nor sex thrown in just because.  If there's going to be sex, there needs to be a reason for it within the story--it advances the plot, or characterization, or something (and, again, if you have to do it, please don't make it explicit).

Donovan's Reef
Amelia Deham, Leilani Dedham, gen preferred.  At the end of the movie, Amelia has accepted her siblings, but she's still a privileged Boston upper-class woman, with no real understanding of the gap between her experience and theirs. I'd love some exploration of the relationship between the two of them. And, you know, I love all of the other characters too, so any of them you want to include would be wonderful.

Please be very careful with this story.  I love the movie, I grew up watching it regularly, but it has problems.  For all its progressive handling of the situation with the Dedham children, it handled the Asian characters poorly.  Also, it was fairly misogynist in its treatment of Amelia.  I would absolutely adore fic that handled the issues the film raised (and didn't raise) with more delicacy than was possible in a John Wayne action comedy of the early 1960s.  Also, there really isn't much chemistry between Amelia and Gunns in the movie, so if you want to make their romance a major point you're going to have to work to convince me that they're in love, or find other reasons for them to be getting married.  The Duke is a lot of fun, but my absolute favorite character is Lelani.  She's young, but she's very intelligent, and very sensitive, and can stand up for herself when she has to.  (I love the scene where Amelia mocks her for giving thanks to the goddess of the canyon for the Christmas tree, and Lelani quietly puts her in her place.)

16th Century RPF
Martin Luther/Katharina von Bora, Philip Melanchthon.  I would love a story where Luther starts theological fights, Melanchthon tries to smooth things over, and Katie pwns them all. Exploration of theological issues a plus.
Luther, Katharina von Bora, and Phillip Melanchthon.  I'd love something where their strong personalities really shone forth.  (And they all had strong personalities in their different ways.)  I would also love something that dealt with the theology if you know enough about it to do a good job, and please, please do not give them modern 20th-21st century attitudes.

Chalion series
Ingrey kin Wolfcliffe/Ijada dy Castos.  Anything with these two characters, but particularly something post-book dealing with their spirit animals and the theology and politics around that.

What I love about this series is the way it brings theology to life without being preachy about it. The way theology is shown to have concrete impact on the way people act, and the way they respond to the world. It's not just gods and goddesses throwing lightning bolts around, but a truly deep spirituality that is fully integrated into the world and the characters. What I also love about the characters is that they are realistic and flawed and still manage great things despite (and sometimes because of) their flaws. What I love about Lois' works in general is the lyrical nature of her prose, the depth and breadth and weight of the way she uses words and themes and mood, though that's harder to pull off. If that's not your style of writing, I'd rather something plainly written than something overflowing with purple prose because you're not used to writing that way.

Batman Beyond
Mary McGinnis, Matt McGinnis, Terry McGinnis.  I would love a story about Mom and Matt finding out about Terry's nighttime job.  One possible idea: Terry's a backup guy for the Justice League and gets called out in a big emergency. Part of the emergency is that someone has hacked the JL computers looking for family/friends to use as hostages, so the Justice League rounds up everyone they can get and puts them in one place so it's easy to protect them. Mom and Matt have no idea why *they've* been included, think its all some mistake. Until the emergency is over, and Terry comes to pick them up ...

I love the whole series and all the characters.  I adore Terry and Max and Dana.  I love how old and grim Bruce has gotten.  I love Barbara Gordon, police commissioner.  I love piecing together the history, how we got there from Justice League/BtAS/Superman.  I wish we'd seen more of how Terry gets trained, because you know Batman has got to be giving him more than we see on the series.  I love characters from the rest of the DC universe too, but I can get stories about them anywhere.  If you bring in, say, Green Lantern or Superman or Wonder Woman I'll enjoy it, but I can get those stories anywhere.  I can't get BB fic anywhere, so please do focus on the BB characters.

Okay, here I am to pimp my fandoms for Yuletide.  Some of them, you know, but one of them I bet you've never heard of.

Donovan's Reef is a morality play about racism disguised as a sixties action-romcom starring John Wayne and Lee Marvin.

It takes place in French Polynesia, in the sixties. Twenty years earlier during WWII, three US Navy guys washed ashore and fought the Japanese with the help of the natives.* Two of them (Dr. William Dedham and "Guns" Donovan (The Duke)) stayed, one to open a hospital, one to run a shipping company and a bar. The third (Gilhooley, played by Lee Marvin) is a disreputable sailor who shows up regularly to start bar fights. Dr. Dedham married the Polynesian princess Manulani and had three children with her, Lelani, Sally, and Luke.

Lelani is a beautiful, poised, teen girl at home in her role as royalty but conscious of what it means to not be white. At the start of the movie, Manulani has been dead for years and Doc is headed off on one of his regular traveling-hospital type trips around the islands, where he will be incommunicado for some time.

BACK IN BOSTON, we find that Dedham has a grown (white) daughter Amelia who has never met him, who is now the CEO of the family shipping business, a very proper (and hypocritical) New England operation. An aunt has just died and left most of her stock to Doc Dedham, which the family (not approving of him running off to the Pacific 20 years ago) wants to swindle him out of. So Amelia sets out to French Polynesia to dig up a reason they can declare that he's not "of sound moral character."  (For example, that he's gotten up to something with "one of those native women.")

Guns, Gilhooley, and the Governor of French Polynesia get wind of her visit and decide that the best thing to do is to pretend that Lelani, Sally, and Luke are Guns' children until the Doc gets back to explain things to his Boston daughter.

And so begins the farce. Amelia is charmed by Guns' three "half-caste" children, the governor wants to marry Amelia for her $18 million, Guns and Amelia are sparring and flirting, Gilhooley is picking fights, and Amelia's trying to figure out who this Manulani person was, why her father has a portrait of her, and why no one will talk about her.

Meanwhile, the three kids (particularly Lelani) are watching this from the sidelines, unable to greet their sister as a sister because they are not white.

It all turns out well in the end--Amelia learns the kids are her siblings and embraces them, realizing (at least a little) how wrong prejudice is, and its costs. (She also agrees to marry Guns, but the romance is fairly trite and predictable and there's not much chemistry between the two actors, so I don't usually pay much attention to the love story.)  Meanwhile, Lelani is mature and proud of her heritage, and stands up for herself even when that means contradicting an older sister she desperately wants to please.

Now, the movie isn't perfect. It was made during the sixties, and there's plenty of misogyny to go around. And the casting director didn't quite get the distinction between "Asian" and "Polynesian" at all times.  And there's some anti-Asian bigotry and stereotypes played for laughs.  (Yes, John Wayne character is also played for laughs at times, but it's different for a straight white man who gets some heroic and romantic stuff too.  Also, the acting isn't always the greatest, particularly the actress who plays Amelia. On the other hand, the actress who plays Lelani is fabulous. And their handling of the racial issues are surprisingly non-faily for the era, all things considered--I love how Lelani quietly puts Amelia in her place when Amelia starts trying to mock her for following her peoples' religious traditions.

The original trailer is on Youtube.

 

Note how it never mentions anything but John Wayne's fighting, exotic locations, and the love story--the message of the film is completely missing.

*Okay, in reality the Japanese never reached French Polynesia, please don't let minor details like that get in your way.


Aside from Donovan's Reef, I will be requesting

Reformation RPF
(come on, you can't tell me you've never had a sudden desire for fic about Luther, Melanchthon, and Katherine von Bora et al, where Luther starts theological fights, Melanchthon tries to smooth them over, and Katie pwns them all?)

Briefly: Martin Luther was the guy who started the Protestant Reformation.  His original goal, to reform the Roman Catholic church and get rid of its abuses and excesses was thrown out the window when they declared him a heretic for it, so he founded his own church and most of Germany followed.  He was a brilliant theologian, and was very pastoral and concerned with the spiritual needs and comfort of his flock.  He was also extremely prejudiced, and could be absolutely vitriolic in his denunciation of anyone who disagreed with him.  Phillip Melanchthon was his right-hand-man, and though he was less brilliant he was also much better in dealing with people.  He was also more willing to compromise, when necessary, leading to Luther (who never compromised) calling him "the pussy-footer."  Katharina von Bora was Luther's wife.  Sent to a convent at age five when her father remarried, she saw the Reformation as her ticket out and escaped with several other nuns inside empty barrels in a merchant's cart (it was illegal for a nun to leave her convent).  She convinced Luther to marry her (although by all accounts he loved her dearly, that came after their marriage).  She ran a farm, a brewery, their household, bore and raised their six (iirc) kids, and had time to talk theology with the many students who came to learn from her husband.  We know she had a profound impact on Luther and his theology; he talks about her frequently, and called her "my Lord."  Alas, because she was a woman, nothing of hers was ever written down.

Curse of Chalion
This is a great series by Lois McMaster Bujold of three books: Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, and The Hallowed Hunt.  I'll probably be requesting something from Hunt, which is not connected closely to the other three books.  I want to know what happens next!

Batman Beyond
This was an awesome cartoon of the 90s.  It took place fifty years in the future, when Bruce is a bitter old recluse much too old to go out and be a superhero.  A high-school guy named Terry McGinnis sees his father get murdered by Powers, the guy who took over Wayne Corporation, and shortly thereafter finds the batcave.  He steals the (new, improved batsuit that can fly and turn invisible) to go after his father's killer, and Bruce reluctantly agrees to train him.  Max has a good mother, an annoying kid brother, a cool girlfriend named Dana, and a kickass best friend named Max (short for Maxine).  Although there is a whole new crop of heroes and villains, there are cameos from current-day characters, and one of the fun things about the show is to figure out what happened between now and then ... because Bruce sure isn't telling.  There is still a Commissioner Gordon ... but it's Barbara, not Jim.

Title: Not Hero Worship
Author: beatrice_otter 
Fandom: Batman Beyond
Rating: G
Characters: Barbara Gordon, Max Gibson
Word Count: 1731
Written for: Gen Battle
Prompt: Legacy

Podfic: Not Hero Worship, read by argentumlupine