Meet Rebecca
Feb. 16th, 2013 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerIt’s Saturday, and you know what that means: American Girl time! I’ve kind of fallen off the wagon with this, but I have discovered that the American Girl books make great bedtime stories, so I’m hoping to get through the twentieth century in the next few weeks.
This week: Rebecca! The daughter of Jewish immigrants living in New York City in 1914. She is dramatic and brave and loves an audience, and pretty much made of awesome. And her books have two of my favorite American Girl side characters: Rebecca’s cousin Max the movie actor, and Max’s eventual girlfriend Lillian Armstrong, movie actress with bobbed hair. Bobbed hair! In 1914! Lily and Max are basically a comedy double act: it is adorable.
I must confess, I read the Rebecca books now partly because I think it would be awesome to write a Purim story for Rebecca. I don't have a lot of (or, well, any) good ideas for Rebecca fic, but I want there to be fic just to ratify her awesomeness, and Purim seems basically designed for her. There are masks! And costumes! Maybe I could even come up with an evil vizier character for Rebecca to outsmart!
I have no idea what would be a good evil vizier analog in early twentieth century New York, but I daresay Rebecca could come up with something, resourceful as she is. She finds adventure everywhere else! Over the course of her books, Rebecca:
- attempts to be a busker
- acts in a movie
- climbs the Ferris wheel at Coney Island to save her cousin Ana
- gives a speech at a strike and gets hit in the head with a rock
Actually, she’s climbing a ladder beside the Ferris wheel, not the Ferris wheel itself, but still.
I have to admit, I’m astonished that American Girl went ahead with the strike plotline: given that they try really hard to be middle of the road and appeal to everything, I’m surprised they stuck in a plotline that smacks of socialism (at least by the weird Republican definition of it). But thrilled! If Rebecca doesn’t end up becoming a movie actress, I hope she becomes a labor agitator.
Although that would go badly for her come the Cold War. Maybe she should just stick with movie actress. She could go out to Hollywood to visit Max and Lily and foil an assistant director (playing the part of the evil vizier in this story)!
All my ideas for American Girl fics are 10,000 word epics. (Shut up, that is totally epic for me.) I have this problem in no other fandom. WTF, self?
Maybe I can think of it as training for writing children's books - notwithstanding that neither of the Felicity fics are all that children's bookish. Well, I don't know. "Loyalty for Felicity" might be? Assuming the part with the overseer isn't too scary, and the slavery bits aren't too upsetting.
This week: Rebecca! The daughter of Jewish immigrants living in New York City in 1914. She is dramatic and brave and loves an audience, and pretty much made of awesome. And her books have two of my favorite American Girl side characters: Rebecca’s cousin Max the movie actor, and Max’s eventual girlfriend Lillian Armstrong, movie actress with bobbed hair. Bobbed hair! In 1914! Lily and Max are basically a comedy double act: it is adorable.
I must confess, I read the Rebecca books now partly because I think it would be awesome to write a Purim story for Rebecca. I don't have a lot of (or, well, any) good ideas for Rebecca fic, but I want there to be fic just to ratify her awesomeness, and Purim seems basically designed for her. There are masks! And costumes! Maybe I could even come up with an evil vizier character for Rebecca to outsmart!
I have no idea what would be a good evil vizier analog in early twentieth century New York, but I daresay Rebecca could come up with something, resourceful as she is. She finds adventure everywhere else! Over the course of her books, Rebecca:
- attempts to be a busker
- acts in a movie
- climbs the Ferris wheel at Coney Island to save her cousin Ana
- gives a speech at a strike and gets hit in the head with a rock
Actually, she’s climbing a ladder beside the Ferris wheel, not the Ferris wheel itself, but still.
I have to admit, I’m astonished that American Girl went ahead with the strike plotline: given that they try really hard to be middle of the road and appeal to everything, I’m surprised they stuck in a plotline that smacks of socialism (at least by the weird Republican definition of it). But thrilled! If Rebecca doesn’t end up becoming a movie actress, I hope she becomes a labor agitator.
Although that would go badly for her come the Cold War. Maybe she should just stick with movie actress. She could go out to Hollywood to visit Max and Lily and foil an assistant director (playing the part of the evil vizier in this story)!
All my ideas for American Girl fics are 10,000 word epics. (Shut up, that is totally epic for me.) I have this problem in no other fandom. WTF, self?
Maybe I can think of it as training for writing children's books - notwithstanding that neither of the Felicity fics are all that children's bookish. Well, I don't know. "Loyalty for Felicity" might be? Assuming the part with the overseer isn't too scary, and the slavery bits aren't too upsetting.
