Otter's Rock

sedoretuex has revealed, and I can now reveal that I wrote TWO stories! (I have not yet had time to read any stories but my own--I have been really busy this January--but I am planning on making my way through the collection soon.)

A sedoretu is a specific organization of a poly marriage created by Ursula K. Le Guin in her short story "A Fisherman of the Inland Sea" aka "Another Story" available in a 1994 short story collection of the same name. It includes four people and specific arrangements of the relationships inside it. All people have a "moiety" that is considered as inherent as gender; the two moieties are Morning and Evening. Sex with someone of the same moiety is considered incest. The expected relationships within each sedoretu are:
The Morning woman and the Evening man (the “Morning marriage”)
The Evening woman and the Morning man (the “Evening marriage”)
The Morning woman and the Evening woman (the “Day marriage”)
The Morning man and the Evening man (the “Night marriage”)
(i.e. two homosexual and two heterosexual pairings) Here is the Fanlore explanation of it and the E2 explanation.

I like sedoretus because they create such interesting dynamics, one doesn't often see poly arrangements with the more rigid structures and cultural weight that one tends to find in a marriage. And fitting them into the worldbuilding of whatever fandom is always an interesting challenge.

My assignment was a Star Wars Legends Luke/Mara/Han/Leia foursome. I wrote a getting-together story, because that was most obvious; problem is, I've already done a Mara poly getting-together story (though that one was Luke/Mara/Lando), and Mara's character arc was roughly the same in both, and although I like the fic in general I was not thrilled that I couldn't find some other driving force for her. I include a diagram at the end if you have trouble visualizing the structure of the relationship.

Title: Dawning Understanding
Author: Beatrice_Otter
Written For: SassySnowperson in Sedoretu Exchange 2023
Fandom: Star Wars Legends
Betaed by: Shadaras

On Squidgeworld. On AO3. Rebloggable on tumblr and pillowfort.

On Dreamwidth. On AO3. Rebloggable on tumblr and pillowfort.

Mara slogged out of the cave, every step squelching in the mud and sending up noxious gasses. None of it toxic, or they would have been dead long since. Just unpleasant. And the mud. Was. Everywhere.

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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?