Yuletide 2010 and Many Exclamation Points!
In short order -- I'm figuring tomorrow night (11/22) -- this will be a most excellent and hopefully enlightening Dear Yulegoat letter. Until then, it is a most generic placeholder post.
Thank you for your patience, dear writer (or if you don't have any, sorry about the wait -- I'll get back here quick as I can)!
ETA: Okay, I just nearly fell asleep in the middle of typing about why I'm so enthused about my fandoms, and that's just not right. :>P
It'll all still get finished, honest, but in case you're champing at the bit, let me just say that optional details are indeed optional, that I don't expect you to answer any/every question or include any/every extra character suggested therein, that I really want you to write the story you want to write in this incredible fandom, whichever incredible one it is; they're all just so awesome and... yeah, nodding off again.
Good luck and plenty of yawns and good wishes,
~Mardy
ETA2: Yay! Finished! (Note to self for next year: decide on fandoms sooner; write Yulenote quicker; don't try to schedule anything extra around Thanksgiving week, you know better.)
Again, to my writer, so many apologies -- I'm typing this with the expectation that you might have already started work on a story instead of waiting around for this slowpoke letter to happen, so it's probably unnecessary (but maybe a bit reassuring) to say at this point that those extra tickyboxes on the signup I left unticked for a reason. Any kind of pairing/moresome or no pairing at all, any kind of rating -- that's your call to make. Whatever you're inclined to write, I'll be more than inclined to read.
The Path (Video Game) - Girl in Red aka Ginger's Wolf
Details: We only see her for a single scene, this giggling girl, this "wolf" who turns into butterflies -- I'd be thrilled if you'd expand on the character a little. What's her particular connection to Ginger? Has she ever had anything to do with the other Red sisters, or the Girl in White she so closely resembles, or the other semi-metaphorical wolves in the woods or even the grandmother in her freaky-deaky house (oh, criminy, that /house/)? Anything you want to write about the Girl in Red, anybody you'd like to write her with is absolutely fine by me -- go for it!
Links:
Ginger's Wolf Encounter (to 2:37) and Success Ending (5:50 on) Might be a good idea to turn the volume down a bit beforehand.
You know what gets me about that encounter? It's the only one without spooky lighting, with almost kind of happy music, the only one that doesn't really feel like a disaster waiting to happen. And the wolf here doesn't have claws like Scarlet's wolf or teeth like Robin's wolf. She doesn't carry an axe or haul around suspicious rolled-up carpets or tempt people to disregard the laws of gravity and safe boating habits. She looks like the friend who always leads you back to the path, she hangs around the field of flowers that remind you of Grandmother, she acts very much like Ginger herself. Why is this? And where does the danger (not to mention all that barbed wire) figure in?
Ninth Wave (song cycle) - Any
Get out of the waves! Get out of the water!
Details: Pick one of the songs, any song. Now forget for just a minute or so about the others, the wider context of the Ninth Wave, and picture what a story would look like about only that song you chose, the place and characters and situation it suggests to you. Witches and inquisitors, old ladies and poets, skaters on thin ice and things that move under ice, watchful ghosts, talking dream sheep, sleepy little worlds, or something less literal, something else entirely -- it's completely up to you what you make of it, and I'll be fascinated to see whatever it is you do make.
Links:
Hastily thrown-together playlist of all the songs (because there's no official site to buy/listen to them at the moment, alas).
The lyrics.
The first time I heard most of these songs, they were mixed in with a jumble of other Kate Bush songs from a bunch of other albums -- I didn't have any idea they were supposed to be interconnected, meant to be listened to in a set order, intended to be more than the sum of their parts. And yet, separate and self-contained, they still worked, which seems kind of wonderful in retrospect. Feel free to allude to the other six songs in your fic if you want to, or even other Kate Bush songs that you think fit in with the story you want to tell -- I'd just like for the focus to be on one in particular, the specific imagery of it, as well as the lines and places between the lines that seem so wide open to interpretation.
The ArchAndroid - Janelle Monae - Nurse (Palace of the Dogs)
Strange how certain details subvert everything.
Details: The nurse in the Tightrope video isn't some slavering Wolfmaster or auction-attending oppressor of androids, but she's clearly not on the side of the angels either -- so what's her story? What is she doing (or what does she tell herself she's doing) at the Palace of the Dogs? What about her interactions with the residents? The mirrormasks? Does her story intersect with the ongoing saga and songs of Cindi Mayweather, with the uprising, with the wider world of Metropolis? I'd love to get some little bit of insight into this strange, familiar universe from her perspective, what it is she might be afraid of....
This video fascinated me when it first came out, even not knowing much of anything at the time about Janelle Monáe or her robot renegade alter ego. And now that I do know (sort of), I'm still intrigued with how much of who and what we see ties in with the mythos, the albums, the other videos. If you want to explore possible connections, great! But if you don't, I'd be just as pleased with something written strictly within the confines of the Palace of the Dogs Asylum (seems like there's plenty enough going on in that place to keep things interesting).
Links:
Janelle Monáe's official site with audio and lyrics for all the songs.
Tightrope video.
Artists RPF - Any
Details: I'm just so glad this fandom even exists, so write me anybody and anything! Artists being chummy, being catty, in love or in angst, talking, working, talking about work, working while they're talking, talking about other artists' work in glowing or critical or scatological terms -- you get the idea. Write about other names who aren't on the list, even. Any story about the people behind and beyond what you see in museums and textbooks, any story about these people as /people/, I'll be better than pleased to read.
This is basically a rehash of the Classical Composers request from my first Yuletide since pretty much the same things I love hold true for that fandom as this: teachers and students, lovers and friends and rivals -- all these creative types influencing the lives and output of other creative types, anywhere, any era. Be as imaginative with the facts as you like -- I'm hankering for a good story more than good history.
***
The only other thing I can think of to say is the thing I say every year about place, and how much I like to read fics where the setting really matters to the tale being told, where it feels as vibrant and individual as any character.
Hope this letter turned out to be more of a help than a hindrance, but anything in it that doesn't work with what you want to do, you have my full and enthusiastic permission to scrap in favor of something else new and surprising and awesome.
Looking forward to it :>D
~Mardy
(Oh, and credit where it's due: images in order of appearance are from here, here, the Tightrope video of course, and Google image searches for um... *has to check* okay, left to right, top to bottom: Carrington, Ernst, Duchamp, Ray, Täuber, Schwitters; Varo, Höch, Johns, Rauschenberg, van Gogh, LeWitt; Tzara, Hausmann, Ball, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Warhol. Whew.)
ETA3 (post-reveal): Two gifts this year! Two lovely-sad stories exploring the lives and afterlives of people who have no place to be: Don't forget your dancin’ shoes by Katarik in The ArchAndroid fandom, which is about (among other things) a future world where heritage and history are all mixed up with music and magic, and how this could be a very unsettling thing for a certain nurse at the Palace of the Dogs; as well as Watching You Without Me by gamerfic in The Ninth Wave fandom, about what happens after the end of all the songs, what it means to be a ghost in the empty spaces of living people’s stories.
So much gratitude to both writers, and happy reading and writing till next year! *dives back into the archive, and is gone*
Thank you for your patience, dear writer (or if you don't have any, sorry about the wait -- I'll get back here quick as I can)!
ETA: Okay, I just nearly fell asleep in the middle of typing about why I'm so enthused about my fandoms, and that's just not right. :>P
It'll all still get finished, honest, but in case you're champing at the bit, let me just say that optional details are indeed optional, that I don't expect you to answer any/every question or include any/every extra character suggested therein, that I really want you to write the story you want to write in this incredible fandom, whichever incredible one it is; they're all just so awesome and... yeah, nodding off again.
Good luck and plenty of yawns and good wishes,
~Mardy
ETA2: Yay! Finished! (Note to self for next year: decide on fandoms sooner; write Yulenote quicker; don't try to schedule anything extra around Thanksgiving week, you know better.)
Again, to my writer, so many apologies -- I'm typing this with the expectation that you might have already started work on a story instead of waiting around for this slowpoke letter to happen, so it's probably unnecessary (but maybe a bit reassuring) to say at this point that those extra tickyboxes on the signup I left unticked for a reason. Any kind of pairing/moresome or no pairing at all, any kind of rating -- that's your call to make. Whatever you're inclined to write, I'll be more than inclined to read.
The Path (Video Game) - Girl in Red aka Ginger's Wolf
Details: We only see her for a single scene, this giggling girl, this "wolf" who turns into butterflies -- I'd be thrilled if you'd expand on the character a little. What's her particular connection to Ginger? Has she ever had anything to do with the other Red sisters, or the Girl in White she so closely resembles, or the other semi-metaphorical wolves in the woods or even the grandmother in her freaky-deaky house (oh, criminy, that /house/)? Anything you want to write about the Girl in Red, anybody you'd like to write her with is absolutely fine by me -- go for it!
Links:
Ginger's Wolf Encounter (to 2:37) and Success Ending (5:50 on) Might be a good idea to turn the volume down a bit beforehand.
You know what gets me about that encounter? It's the only one without spooky lighting, with almost kind of happy music, the only one that doesn't really feel like a disaster waiting to happen. And the wolf here doesn't have claws like Scarlet's wolf or teeth like Robin's wolf. She doesn't carry an axe or haul around suspicious rolled-up carpets or tempt people to disregard the laws of gravity and safe boating habits. She looks like the friend who always leads you back to the path, she hangs around the field of flowers that remind you of Grandmother, she acts very much like Ginger herself. Why is this? And where does the danger (not to mention all that barbed wire) figure in?
Ninth Wave (song cycle) - Any
Get out of the waves! Get out of the water!
Details: Pick one of the songs, any song. Now forget for just a minute or so about the others, the wider context of the Ninth Wave, and picture what a story would look like about only that song you chose, the place and characters and situation it suggests to you. Witches and inquisitors, old ladies and poets, skaters on thin ice and things that move under ice, watchful ghosts, talking dream sheep, sleepy little worlds, or something less literal, something else entirely -- it's completely up to you what you make of it, and I'll be fascinated to see whatever it is you do make.
Links:
Hastily thrown-together playlist of all the songs (because there's no official site to buy/listen to them at the moment, alas).
The lyrics.
The first time I heard most of these songs, they were mixed in with a jumble of other Kate Bush songs from a bunch of other albums -- I didn't have any idea they were supposed to be interconnected, meant to be listened to in a set order, intended to be more than the sum of their parts. And yet, separate and self-contained, they still worked, which seems kind of wonderful in retrospect. Feel free to allude to the other six songs in your fic if you want to, or even other Kate Bush songs that you think fit in with the story you want to tell -- I'd just like for the focus to be on one in particular, the specific imagery of it, as well as the lines and places between the lines that seem so wide open to interpretation.
The ArchAndroid - Janelle Monae - Nurse (Palace of the Dogs)
Strange how certain details subvert everything.
Details: The nurse in the Tightrope video isn't some slavering Wolfmaster or auction-attending oppressor of androids, but she's clearly not on the side of the angels either -- so what's her story? What is she doing (or what does she tell herself she's doing) at the Palace of the Dogs? What about her interactions with the residents? The mirrormasks? Does her story intersect with the ongoing saga and songs of Cindi Mayweather, with the uprising, with the wider world of Metropolis? I'd love to get some little bit of insight into this strange, familiar universe from her perspective, what it is she might be afraid of....
This video fascinated me when it first came out, even not knowing much of anything at the time about Janelle Monáe or her robot renegade alter ego. And now that I do know (sort of), I'm still intrigued with how much of who and what we see ties in with the mythos, the albums, the other videos. If you want to explore possible connections, great! But if you don't, I'd be just as pleased with something written strictly within the confines of the Palace of the Dogs Asylum (seems like there's plenty enough going on in that place to keep things interesting).
Links:
Janelle Monáe's official site with audio and lyrics for all the songs.
Tightrope video.
Artists RPF - Any
Details: I'm just so glad this fandom even exists, so write me anybody and anything! Artists being chummy, being catty, in love or in angst, talking, working, talking about work, working while they're talking, talking about other artists' work in glowing or critical or scatological terms -- you get the idea. Write about other names who aren't on the list, even. Any story about the people behind and beyond what you see in museums and textbooks, any story about these people as /people/, I'll be better than pleased to read.
This is basically a rehash of the Classical Composers request from my first Yuletide since pretty much the same things I love hold true for that fandom as this: teachers and students, lovers and friends and rivals -- all these creative types influencing the lives and output of other creative types, anywhere, any era. Be as imaginative with the facts as you like -- I'm hankering for a good story more than good history.
***
The only other thing I can think of to say is the thing I say every year about place, and how much I like to read fics where the setting really matters to the tale being told, where it feels as vibrant and individual as any character.
Hope this letter turned out to be more of a help than a hindrance, but anything in it that doesn't work with what you want to do, you have my full and enthusiastic permission to scrap in favor of something else new and surprising and awesome.
Looking forward to it :>D
~Mardy
(Oh, and credit where it's due: images in order of appearance are from here, here, the Tightrope video of course, and Google image searches for um... *has to check* okay, left to right, top to bottom: Carrington, Ernst, Duchamp, Ray, Täuber, Schwitters; Varo, Höch, Johns, Rauschenberg, van Gogh, LeWitt; Tzara, Hausmann, Ball, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Warhol. Whew.)
ETA3 (post-reveal): Two gifts this year! Two lovely-sad stories exploring the lives and afterlives of people who have no place to be: Don't forget your dancin’ shoes by Katarik in The ArchAndroid fandom, which is about (among other things) a future world where heritage and history are all mixed up with music and magic, and how this could be a very unsettling thing for a certain nurse at the Palace of the Dogs; as well as Watching You Without Me by gamerfic in The Ninth Wave fandom, about what happens after the end of all the songs, what it means to be a ghost in the empty spaces of living people’s stories.
So much gratitude to both writers, and happy reading and writing till next year! *dives back into the archive, and is gone*