osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2012-12-29 12:20 am
osprey_archer) wrote2012-12-29 12:20 am
Entry tags:
Meet Samantha
I have been remiss, these in these last few American Girl series reviews, in churning pit fic ideas. The 1850s and 1860s are chock full of dramatic potential, I realize, but they just don’t speak to me.
But now! Now I am going to make up for lost time! For we have reached the early twentieth century, which is the time period I study, and we have reached Samantha, who was my second favorite American Girl in my youth! She’s the most imaginative of them, building castles in the air. (I would argue there’s a distinction between imaginative and artistic: imaginative Samantha dreams possibilities, while artistic Josefina finds beauty in the real world, and moreover creates beauty, singing playing music and growing flowers.
...I still kind of want Josefina fic.)
Samantha’s imagination is only a side note, though: the heart of the books is Samantha’s friendship with Nellie, a working class girl who starts out as a servant at the house next door and ends up being adopted by Samantha’s aunt after she’s orphaned. My first fic idea, therefore, was “fic about how Nellie adjusts to being adopted by Samantha’s upper class family,” because really, that had to be a tough transition, even though the last Samantha book pretty much presents it as “and then they lived happily ever after.”
But American Girl beat me to it: there’s a companion book to the Samantha series, Nellie’s Promise, which pretty much hits everything that I would have wanted in a Nellie fic. The difficulties of trying to be grateful for a change that is painful (even if it’s also wonderful), of adjusting to Samantha’s swanky school and of becoming Samantha’s sister rather than her friend: all there, and all well-handled.
So that fic is unnecessary. What about romance, then? Unlike Felicity & Elizabeth, I don’t see much romantic potential for Nellie & Samantha: even before they actually become stepsisters, they really seem more like sisters.
There are people in this world - I used to be friends with one of them - who believe that future!Samantha should get together with her neighbor Eddie Ryland. This is a terrible idea. Eddie Ryland is a twerp. He put salt in the ice cream at Samantha’s birthday party. Salt in ice cream. Sacrilege! Samantha should never, ever be with him.
Actually I felt more sympathetic to Eddie this read-through than I did as a child. He’s clearly lonely and wants to play with Samantha, who always snubs him severely, to which he reacts by, for instance, putting salt in the ice cream. It’s a vicious cycle.
So...maybe you can convince me of their True Love? Preferably with fic! Samantha becomes a Red Cross nurse and falls in love with Eddie Ryland while nursing him back to health from a World War I war wound?
The problem is that this story is so much better with anyone in the world aside from Eddie Ryland. Samantha becomes a Red Cross nurse and falls for a wounded French pilot! Samantha becomes a Red Cross pilot and falls for a wounded French pilot who is secretly a girl in disguise! Samantha becomes a Red Cross nurse and falls for a wounded German pilot who is secretly a girl in disguise!
Okay, that last one has awesome dramatic possibilities. I call dibs.
It is also pretty much utterly divorced from the Samantha books, aside from the character of Samantha herself. This is the problem with a lot of my ideas for Samantha fic: it’s all Samantha futurefic, and Samantha futurefic, unlike Felicity futurefic, kind of demands a new setting and a new cast of characters, because the thing that interesting about Samantha’s time period is women leaving home and meeting new people and doing things they weren’t allowed to do before.
One last thought: in book five, we find that Samantha’s grandmother (called Grandmary) has a British beau, Admiral Archibald Beemer. After her husband died, Beemer continued coming to Grandmary’s summer retreat. Every year, he asks her to marry him - and every year, she says no. But somehow between books five and six, Admiral Archibald Beemer and Grandmary get hitched! Why did she change her mind? Is there anything sweeter than old people falling in love?
(And how did they meet, anyway? He was her husband's best friend, but that still leaves a lot of questions. It doesn't seem like a British admiral and an American...whatever Grandmary's first husband was...businessman? - would run in the same circles.And is there OT3 potential?)
But now! Now I am going to make up for lost time! For we have reached the early twentieth century, which is the time period I study, and we have reached Samantha, who was my second favorite American Girl in my youth! She’s the most imaginative of them, building castles in the air. (I would argue there’s a distinction between imaginative and artistic: imaginative Samantha dreams possibilities, while artistic Josefina finds beauty in the real world, and moreover creates beauty, singing playing music and growing flowers.
...I still kind of want Josefina fic.)
Samantha’s imagination is only a side note, though: the heart of the books is Samantha’s friendship with Nellie, a working class girl who starts out as a servant at the house next door and ends up being adopted by Samantha’s aunt after she’s orphaned. My first fic idea, therefore, was “fic about how Nellie adjusts to being adopted by Samantha’s upper class family,” because really, that had to be a tough transition, even though the last Samantha book pretty much presents it as “and then they lived happily ever after.”
But American Girl beat me to it: there’s a companion book to the Samantha series, Nellie’s Promise, which pretty much hits everything that I would have wanted in a Nellie fic. The difficulties of trying to be grateful for a change that is painful (even if it’s also wonderful), of adjusting to Samantha’s swanky school and of becoming Samantha’s sister rather than her friend: all there, and all well-handled.
So that fic is unnecessary. What about romance, then? Unlike Felicity & Elizabeth, I don’t see much romantic potential for Nellie & Samantha: even before they actually become stepsisters, they really seem more like sisters.
There are people in this world - I used to be friends with one of them - who believe that future!Samantha should get together with her neighbor Eddie Ryland. This is a terrible idea. Eddie Ryland is a twerp. He put salt in the ice cream at Samantha’s birthday party. Salt in ice cream. Sacrilege! Samantha should never, ever be with him.
Actually I felt more sympathetic to Eddie this read-through than I did as a child. He’s clearly lonely and wants to play with Samantha, who always snubs him severely, to which he reacts by, for instance, putting salt in the ice cream. It’s a vicious cycle.
So...maybe you can convince me of their True Love? Preferably with fic! Samantha becomes a Red Cross nurse and falls in love with Eddie Ryland while nursing him back to health from a World War I war wound?
The problem is that this story is so much better with anyone in the world aside from Eddie Ryland. Samantha becomes a Red Cross nurse and falls for a wounded French pilot! Samantha becomes a Red Cross pilot and falls for a wounded French pilot who is secretly a girl in disguise! Samantha becomes a Red Cross nurse and falls for a wounded German pilot who is secretly a girl in disguise!
Okay, that last one has awesome dramatic possibilities. I call dibs.
It is also pretty much utterly divorced from the Samantha books, aside from the character of Samantha herself. This is the problem with a lot of my ideas for Samantha fic: it’s all Samantha futurefic, and Samantha futurefic, unlike Felicity futurefic, kind of demands a new setting and a new cast of characters, because the thing that interesting about Samantha’s time period is women leaving home and meeting new people and doing things they weren’t allowed to do before.
One last thought: in book five, we find that Samantha’s grandmother (called Grandmary) has a British beau, Admiral Archibald Beemer. After her husband died, Beemer continued coming to Grandmary’s summer retreat. Every year, he asks her to marry him - and every year, she says no. But somehow between books five and six, Admiral Archibald Beemer and Grandmary get hitched! Why did she change her mind? Is there anything sweeter than old people falling in love?
(And how did they meet, anyway? He was her husband's best friend, but that still leaves a lot of questions. It doesn't seem like a British admiral and an American...whatever Grandmary's first husband was...businessman? - would run in the same circles.
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Peppermint ice cream, however, is awesome.
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But yes, his salting the ice cream was a dick move. And peppermint, of all flavors! Salted caramel I could understand but no, he had to ruin peppermint.
(Samantha/Edith Eddleton? Or is that just my soft spot for spirited heroine/alpha bitch pairings showing?)
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