Otter's Rock

I AM SO HAPPY.  I got two great fics, one Star Wars fic (with a great Mara Jade), and a Donovan's Reef treat.  I have been nomming and requesting Donovan's Reef for YEARS, and I have FINALLY GOTTEN IT and it is an AWESOME fic!

we floated there along with the clouds.  The trip to the canyons of Hakeakaloha for a Christmas tree had made for easily the strangest day Amelia had spent on the island. (Or: between the Christmas tree scene and Miss Lafleur's performance, Amelia invites Lelani to go swimming.)  The author REALLY gets both characters, it's awesome.  (You do need to know something of the movie to understand the fic.  Basically: Amelia is a Boston shipping firm CEO whose Dad has been off in the South Pacific for her entire life and who just inherited enough stock to give him control of the family business.  She goes to dig up dirt and cheat him out of his stock, he's off traveling, and so his friends pretend that his half-Polynesian children belong to John Wayne until the real Dad gets back and can explain things.  So here, Lelani knows that Amelia's her older half-sister and that she and her siblings are being kept out of the way because they're not white, but Amelia only sees a cute and mysterious island girl.)

Massassai Dreams.  During the events of "I, Jedi" (11ABY) after Mara's first departure from the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin IV - Mara Jade reflects on her training at the Jedi Academy and overcoming her history as an Agent of the Darkside.  The author really understands Mara, and I liked the way she was written here.  And the glimpses we got of Mara's past were also interesting.

I feel sorry for the author who was assigned to me, because they wrote a wonderful fic about one of my favorite characters in any media--I deeply love Mara Jade when she is written well (as she is here), and in any other year that fic would be the highlight.  But I've been waiting for Donovan's Reef for YEARS.

Also, I wrote FOUR Yuletide fics this year.  Can anyone guess what they are?

DON'T PANIC.

This is a very long letter with lots of stuff, but DO NOT PANIC.  I'm actually fairly easy to please; I am very rarely disappointed with a ficathon story.  I write long and detailed Dear Author letters because I find such things helpful when I'm writing for other people; if you are like me, here you go!  If your style is different and a detailed letter makes you feel hemmed-in, feel free to do what works for you.

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 everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.

One thing: I do have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes.  The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable because I identify too much with the person getting laughed at, so instead of being funny it is squicky.  On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.

( My generic preferences )

( Fandoms )

Unsurprisingly, I appear to be the only person to either offer or request Donovan's Reef.  Just like last year.  My chances of receiving a story in that fandom are therefore ... small.  Who knows, maybe someone will stalk it on the Yulegoat letters and decide they just have to write for it.  That's how there came to be three Rio Bravo stories on AO3, after all.  But the odds are still against it, particularly considering that Donovan's Reef is a lot less popular than Rio Bravo.  Sigh.

I will genuinely and truly be overjoyed getting a story in any of the four fandoms I requested--that is, after all, why I requested them--but it is kind of a bummer to have a fandom that may be too rare even for yuletide.

I shouldn't have looked at the fandoms offered/requested list.  Takes a little bit of the squee away to only be gleefully chortling over three fandoms, instead of four.

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.