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buggeryI meant to get this done and posted yesterday, in honour of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but as it turns out I need sleep.
It's not that there aren't black / African-American characters in the DCU (though there could be more) but they get written about in fanfiction even less than they could be. The day Dr. King's birthday is celebrated here in the States seemed a good time to address that by writing about at least one such character.
Thanks to Te for requesting Detective Cris Allen as a focus character and for audiencing, and to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siviusx (a promising new DCU fan-writer you should all check out) for her beta thoughts. Any errors or suck are on my head alone.
The Universality of This Experience
There are only so many rooftops that overlook Grieve High -- 'memorial' or not, Cris can't help but want to spit at the stupid blind lack of foresight in whoever decided that was an appropriate name for a *school* -- and he doesn't really expect that there would be any useful evidence left, if they'd even left any to begin with, but none of that absolved or assuaged his need to see for himself.
No more than did the fact that the case was, for all intents and purposes, closed. It hadn't been a matter of tried in the media; the media had made an accusation, and it was being taken as fact by all too many, no matter how ridiculous it was on its face. Akins had seized on it and wanted a case to be made, one that could be prosecuted in the courts. Nobody in the MCU would do it; however much any of them might be angry and laying blame for the cops who'd fallen, there was still a sense that *he*, if not all of the capes, was one of theirs, and the blue wall had closed.
Akins had taken the case away from the squad, with a public justification of their being overburdened in the aftermath of the gang wars, and a pointed glance towards the roof so that everyone in the squad room felt the inference -- that they were the ones who couldn't be objective about it. But if there were cops in Gotham who would've been happy to *pin* the blame they were feeling on a bat-shaped target, that didn't mean there were enough who'd manufacture the evidence Akins wanted, especially when all the evidence they did wring from the scene and the witnesses pointed the other way.
So it was being left open, with the official suspect list a fantasy but the likeliest real suspects there between the lines of the reports, for anyone who cared to look. The media were having the last word, and mostly insinuating that only the difficulty in serving a warrant had kept the GCPD from trying to make an arrest. A few commentators suggested the cops' reticence was due more to cowardice. Those were the most sensational readings of events, and sensationalism was what sold ad time for the news, after all.
Gang family or not, it isn't right that the girl's killers would go unpunished, but in Gotham a lot of things aren't right. Maybe that's a little more true lately than usual, but Cris couldn't say he isn't used to it.
"You shouldn't be here."
The voice out of the shadows behind him is something else he's used to in a way that makes him no less uncomfortable for its familiarity.
"I really think that should be *my* line," he answers, without turning around.
"I can operate without police sanction of even the tacit variety. I did it before..." the dark, gravelly voice pauses, but not for emphasis, and Cris wonders *what* that's about. "And I can do it again."
"Were we shooting at you, before?"
Beside his foot, the surface of the roof is gravel under layers of tar. If Cris stood, turned, shifted at all, it would grind under his feet. But the voice comes from closer without there being any other sound.
"Not with such deliberate intent or eagerness." He can hear the humour in the voice, and it pisses him off.
He stands and turns and can just make out the figure between the chimney and the exhaust manifold, black on black. Cris bares his teeth and snarls, "I *lost* people in that damned war of yours."
"So did I."
When he steps forward, the man's face -- the part he can see -- is as impassive as it's ever been. The mask doesn't hide the depth of his pain in the least. Not from Cris. It's in every line of muscle and every fold of his cape and the way he's holding himself so that the light falls on him at all.
Cris blows out a breath and thinks about tracking down and throttling whatever cop first struck up a dialogue with this man. Then he thinks about gathering all the cops who've *ever* had to deal with him the way Cris has and taking them all out for a *drink*.
"Why are you here?"
"How's Montoya?"
"Answer my damned question."
When he advances, Cris doesn't move out of the way, doesn't even flinch. But he stops beside Cris, looks out and down at the view of the school grounds rather than getting in Cris's face.
Cris turns and looks, too. There's no sign of what happened at this hour, without the kids huddled in subdued groups the way they would during the day, and it seems wrong that anyplace in Gotham should look more innocent, more *untainted* by night.
"Maybe I'm here for the same reason you are."
Cris is about to say he couldn't be, but then he thinks about it, and holds his tongue.
"Renee's doing fine," he offers after a moment.
[end]
Title taken from Reverend King's Eulogy for the Young Victims of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing, written in September 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama.
I encourage others to write and post (or re-post) stories about African-American characters this week, as well... or take a little longer and post them during February, which is Black History Month in the U.S. I'm not going to call it a challenge, because I've got all I can handle in that department, and there are enough other challenges going on right now in comics fandom besides, but... Challenge yourselves anyway.
read Jack's other DCU stories
read Jack's fanfic (all fandoms)
read fanfiction about Crispus Allen by other authors on LJ
It's not that there aren't black / African-American characters in the DCU (though there could be more) but they get written about in fanfiction even less than they could be. The day Dr. King's birthday is celebrated here in the States seemed a good time to address that by writing about at least one such character.
Thanks to Te for requesting Detective Cris Allen as a focus character and for audiencing, and to
siviusx (a promising new DCU fan-writer you should all check out) for her beta thoughts. Any errors or suck are on my head alone.The Universality of This Experience
There are only so many rooftops that overlook Grieve High -- 'memorial' or not, Cris can't help but want to spit at the stupid blind lack of foresight in whoever decided that was an appropriate name for a *school* -- and he doesn't really expect that there would be any useful evidence left, if they'd even left any to begin with, but none of that absolved or assuaged his need to see for himself.
No more than did the fact that the case was, for all intents and purposes, closed. It hadn't been a matter of tried in the media; the media had made an accusation, and it was being taken as fact by all too many, no matter how ridiculous it was on its face. Akins had seized on it and wanted a case to be made, one that could be prosecuted in the courts. Nobody in the MCU would do it; however much any of them might be angry and laying blame for the cops who'd fallen, there was still a sense that *he*, if not all of the capes, was one of theirs, and the blue wall had closed.
Akins had taken the case away from the squad, with a public justification of their being overburdened in the aftermath of the gang wars, and a pointed glance towards the roof so that everyone in the squad room felt the inference -- that they were the ones who couldn't be objective about it. But if there were cops in Gotham who would've been happy to *pin* the blame they were feeling on a bat-shaped target, that didn't mean there were enough who'd manufacture the evidence Akins wanted, especially when all the evidence they did wring from the scene and the witnesses pointed the other way.
So it was being left open, with the official suspect list a fantasy but the likeliest real suspects there between the lines of the reports, for anyone who cared to look. The media were having the last word, and mostly insinuating that only the difficulty in serving a warrant had kept the GCPD from trying to make an arrest. A few commentators suggested the cops' reticence was due more to cowardice. Those were the most sensational readings of events, and sensationalism was what sold ad time for the news, after all.
Gang family or not, it isn't right that the girl's killers would go unpunished, but in Gotham a lot of things aren't right. Maybe that's a little more true lately than usual, but Cris couldn't say he isn't used to it.
"You shouldn't be here."
The voice out of the shadows behind him is something else he's used to in a way that makes him no less uncomfortable for its familiarity.
"I really think that should be *my* line," he answers, without turning around.
"I can operate without police sanction of even the tacit variety. I did it before..." the dark, gravelly voice pauses, but not for emphasis, and Cris wonders *what* that's about. "And I can do it again."
"Were we shooting at you, before?"
Beside his foot, the surface of the roof is gravel under layers of tar. If Cris stood, turned, shifted at all, it would grind under his feet. But the voice comes from closer without there being any other sound.
"Not with such deliberate intent or eagerness." He can hear the humour in the voice, and it pisses him off.
He stands and turns and can just make out the figure between the chimney and the exhaust manifold, black on black. Cris bares his teeth and snarls, "I *lost* people in that damned war of yours."
"So did I."
When he steps forward, the man's face -- the part he can see -- is as impassive as it's ever been. The mask doesn't hide the depth of his pain in the least. Not from Cris. It's in every line of muscle and every fold of his cape and the way he's holding himself so that the light falls on him at all.
Cris blows out a breath and thinks about tracking down and throttling whatever cop first struck up a dialogue with this man. Then he thinks about gathering all the cops who've *ever* had to deal with him the way Cris has and taking them all out for a *drink*.
"Why are you here?"
"How's Montoya?"
"Answer my damned question."
When he advances, Cris doesn't move out of the way, doesn't even flinch. But he stops beside Cris, looks out and down at the view of the school grounds rather than getting in Cris's face.
Cris turns and looks, too. There's no sign of what happened at this hour, without the kids huddled in subdued groups the way they would during the day, and it seems wrong that anyplace in Gotham should look more innocent, more *untainted* by night.
"Maybe I'm here for the same reason you are."
Cris is about to say he couldn't be, but then he thinks about it, and holds his tongue.
"Renee's doing fine," he offers after a moment.
[end]
Title taken from Reverend King's Eulogy for the Young Victims of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing, written in September 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama.
I encourage others to write and post (or re-post) stories about African-American characters this week, as well... or take a little longer and post them during February, which is Black History Month in the U.S. I'm not going to call it a challenge, because I've got all I can handle in that department, and there are enough other challenges going on right now in comics fandom besides, but... Challenge yourselves anyway.
read Jack's other DCU stories
read Jack's fanfic (all fandoms)
read fanfiction about Crispus Allen by other authors on LJ
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 08:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 12:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 12:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 12:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 06:03 pm (UTC)Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 05:39 pm (UTC)This feels very real for a story with a man in a bat costume.
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Date: 2005-01-18 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 06:13 pm (UTC)page 2
page 3
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page 5
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page 8
This feels very real for a story with a man in a bat costume.
Hee! Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-21 11:58 pm (UTC)Te wrote some really hot Cris/Batman awhile back, and
no subject
Date: 2005-01-22 12:01 am (UTC)Oh, thank you. That's just the feel I was going for, so high praise indeed.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-21 06:35 pm (UTC)Cris is about to say he couldn't be, but then he thinks about it, and holds his tongue.
Eee, beautiful.
Cris is such a great character, and you write him so well. Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-22 12:02 am (UTC)