I'm thinking of signing up. I have the page open and the nomination form partially filled out, but I want to make absolutely sure I'll have time. If I do participate, I'll surely request FK among my fandoms. (I'll probably nominate it too, to get Amanda Cohen in there. I don't think we need to nominate characters who have already been nominated, do we? I should check on that...)

I'm also thinking of nominating Justified, rare characters in The Mentalist, and probably a couple of rare women from SG-1. I'm debating about the last one...possibly Babylon 5 or The Dresden Files.

And yes! There should definitely be more fic for Tessa. It's frankly amazing to me that there's so little.

Edited at 2012-01-09 04:14 am (UTC)

>"I don't think we need to nominate characters who have already been nominated, do we? I should check on that..."

I believe that the nominations phase accumulates a master list of fandoms with their characters, so we don't need to nominate characters already mentioned. However, if you find the specific admin statement clarifying that, I'd be grateful for a pointer!

I'd be happy to write any of the FK characters... though a few guest stars (like Ann in "Dance by the Light of the Moon") are fairly played out in canon.

>"It's frankly amazing to me that there's so little."

The AO3 lists ~22 HL stories tagged for Tessa Noel, and 2K+ stories in HL total. If the tagging list draws from only the first 1K stories that appear in a big fandom, then she's in ~2% of the total. If it applies to the whole collection, then she's in ~1%!

This is not news, but I do not understand my fellow HL fans. :-)

I did end up nominating in the end, and since nominations are separate from sign-ups, I just trusted that I'd be able to request characters nominated by people other than myself. If it turns out that I'm wrong, I'll be disappointed, but I also nominated plenty of characters who I love, so I'm sure I'll still receive something fantastic. Which is a long way of saying I have no official statement from the admins to point you to. Although this exchange suggests that others interpret things the same way, and the challenge mod did not disagree.

I added Captain Cohen and Grace to the FK list, by the way. And I agree with you--there are some characters who I would have trouble writing about, either because we know so very little about them or because what little we know has already been explored by others, often in a much better fashion than I'm capable of.

Thanks for the link; yes, that answer implies that we're interpreting the rules correctly. Yay, Cohen and Grace! (I wonder, therefore, whether I should go all-in on as-yet-unmentioned characters? No, I'll want an insurance policy of a major character or two, just in case...)

>"or because what little we know has already been explored by others, often in a much better fashion than I'm capable of."

This is how I feel about LastScorpion's Grace Balthazar story, "Full of Grace," from FKFicFest 2011! Her grasp of Grace delights me and blows my mind. I am in awe of her Grace.

(I wonder whether it's still too soon to rec that story? Probably. I don't like to plunder FKFicFest for monthly recs too soon, because, first, most everyone read them not long ago, and second, I don't want to make anyone feel bad because I didn't spotlight hers/his as soon as someone else's. All are admirable in their own ways!)

I don't blame you at all for wanting insurance! I debated hard before not including Janette, and it it turns out I can't request or offer her, I'll be very disappointed. But Amanda Cohen must have a story to be told too.

Thank you for the Grace rec! I missed so many of those stories being so late with mine; I should really go back and read them all!

:-) You give me a happy excuse to recommend the Grace story now, rather than later. :-)

---

And yes, the Amanda Cohen character must have many stories in her! How can we better shake them loose? I've seen two serious attempts at it over the years, but neither was definitive for me.

Obviously, part of the challenge is that Cohen never got "her own episode," so to speak, as Stonetree got "Fatal Mistake" and "Dead Issue," and Reese got "Jane Doe." It's also, I believe, that all her scant personal references are garnered in silence. We see Cohen silently look at a photo presumably of her daughter (but perhaps of herself, or a niece, or...); we see her silently look at a photo presumably of her parents (or her grandparents, or friends, or...); we see her silently read Emily Weiss's book, alone with the shades drawn (like it? hate it? reading it only for the case?). She doesn't have a "Stranger than Fiction" fantasy sequence to clue us in on her thoughts. She doesn't have the opportunity to see a ghost, as Reese does in "Dead of Night," or to reveal that she's an award-winning accordion player, as Stonetree does in "Dance by the Light of the Moon." We don't even hear her side of phone calls with the mayor or commissioner, as we do with both Stonetree and Reese. The only characterizing tidbits said are Nick's "With all your experience?" (AMPH) and Natalie's observation about Valentine "sweet nothings" on the phone off-screen (BMV). Slim pickings! Ever more questions than answers...

And, of course, Cohen's conventionally Jewish surname paired with her visible Asian ancestry are potentially treacherous ground for writers insufficiently familiar with myriad cultural cues. I admit that it has intimidated me when I otherwise hoped to tackle Cohen's perspective. It seemed too daring or too much research to render as well as it deserves.

Perhaps I might try a post asking everyone to share their favorite personal speculations on Cohen's background...?

(Apropos of very little, I once in '96 bumped into a battered, thin, green-bound book in a university library about a small and obscure settlement of Jewish Chinese people in the 18th century. I could never find it again. It was probably someone's obscure thesis; pity! every time I've thought of it since, I've wished I could remember the title or author. It was interesting, and I should have taken the time while it was in my hands...)