Yuletide 2020 harvest

[brightknightie]

Of my core fandoms, 2 won new stories in this year's main Yuletide collection:

D&DC: "Kennig's Ransom"
(G, gen, ~9K words; stars Eric; all the kids play roles; neither DM nor Venger appear)
Aside from an apparently requested incorporation of a certain realistic element that canon usually blinked past, this story unfolds very much in the tone, scope, and level of an episode that could have been, had the story stars aligned and snuck past the Parents Television Council of the day.

The story puts me in mind of how the character Eric was specifically designed to teach us kid viewers the lesson to never be like him, and yet -- take a look at the archive tags -- so many of us ended up identifying with him most. The show's writing was too good to fail to build motivation for Eric's "anti-social" tendencies, as seen by '80s parents, but not often enough excellent enough to shatter the parent-approved goodness encasing some of the others. Why is Eric the way he is? We think we know. (Hank? Not a clue. We love Hank, but he is a closed book in canon.)

BSG78: "The Wandering Prince"
(G, gen, ~6K words; stars Starbuck; almost all recurring characters appear or are referenced, plus Chameleon)

Starting before canon and ending after, this retrospective weaves around canon incidents to highlight the thematic thread of Starbuck's identity in relation to the family he cannot remember and the family he can never quite believe he found.

I particularly like a certain scene with a teenage Boxy that highlights parallels between Starbuck and Boxy that I hadn't previously registered. Most of all -- spoiler -- I was touched and impressed by the construction that Starbuck would actually become (quietly, in his off time, not telling his fellow pilots) a genetic tracer, to help kids like he had once been, and, extra pay-off, that he would turn to Cassiopeia with this for both practical and emotional reasons.

Comments

[malinaldarose]

So now that reveals have happened, I can say that I'm glad you liked it?

[brightknightie]

Ah! I had not gone back to see the revealed authors, and I had not suspected you on "The Wandering Prince" (though perhaps I should have!).

Yes, thank you, and congratulations! :-) I did enjoy it, and most particularly I will recall that nugget about Starbuck (quietly) becoming a genetic tracer, not only in retirement, but in his spare time in the present.

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BTW, in case you don't happen to know, your Yuletide recipient this year, James, wrote a lot of FK fanfic back in the day, and used to sometimes let me proofread a little of it for her between email list and archive. :-) She wrote some scenes I will never forget, like an emotionally wounded Nick after a crime scene with an abused child who retaliated against the abuser, breaking down, and, essentially, crying on Schanke's shoulder, and Schanke coming away with an emotional (very much not literal) understanding of what Lacroix has done to Nick.

James also wrote a lot of longing-intensive Xander-centric BtVS fic, which I would never have thought could work from the description on the tin, but somehow did work -- powerfully.

And James once wrote a Cain-Sheba BSG78 story that gave me a canon-consistent sympathy to Sheba and her father that canon itself never had.

[malinaldarose]

I was really struck by the Chameleon episode on this rewatch (in a different way than when it inspired the Boomer story), particularly the ending, with Chameleon thanking Cassiopeia over his shoulder. Even if Starbuck didn't see it, Adama was in a perfect position to do so.

I have never read any of James' work; I will have to go back and do so.