(no subject)
Much like the chupachabra, the manticore, and a theoretical chupacabra made out of manticores (some kind of superchupacabra, what), the Yuletide Author is a fabled being whose existence, while impossible to confirm, remains totally awesome.
Hello, I am Vnutrenni and I’ll be your recipient this season. You’ll hate me! You’ll love me! But, most importantly of all - you’ll hate me. I’M SO ECKSITED, LET’S START.
First of all, I hope there’s something in my request blurbs that appealed to you (even if it’s just the fandom and characters, to be true!), because - above all else - I think I’d most like to read a story that you liked writing. I could sit here and outline everything I want like a greedy little kittenpig, and you could take it all into account and write the perfect story for me; but I wouldn’t really deserve it, and in the end it wouldn’t even be as nice a gift as a story that you planned, interpretations that you made on the original idea, prose that you crafted to your own liking. For me, Yuletide’s about getting something that I can’t make for myself, and being inordinately grateful for it. No matter what you do, you can do no wrong. I SIGN MY NAME UNDER THAT STATEMENT. So onto the requests themselves, yes.
Heavenly Sword
You probably weren’t matched to me on this one, but! I shall talk briefly about it anyway, just for kicks. This is a Playstation 3 game, and one of the system launch titles, so it kind of killed itself with its own hype, which is unfortunate. It was written and produced by Andy Serkis, and he even did the motion capture and voice work for the antagonist, King Bohan. It’s not even remotely original so far as video games go (a friend of mine summed it up as “God of War with boobs”, s-sob) - but the characters! It’s been a while since I was last exposed to such layered and unpredictable personalities in ... any sort of popular media. Despite a straight “good versus evil” shot to the plotline, the villains in particular manage to be genuinely frightening, and laughable, and - oddly enough - human. So that’s what I would have been looking for here: lots of character exploration, maybe some backstory, a touch of their perspective on morals, ambition, the world at large. All that good stuff.
I Love: Flying Fox, Kai, The Masked Raven; the monumental size and scope of the game's environments; Nariko's afterlife dialogue.
I Could Live Without: Nariko's near-constant angst; Shen as a catalyst for Nariko's near-constant angst; the "prophecy" angle.
Prince of Persia: It has, in fact, been forever since I last played any of the games in this series, but I still covet them. I loved the exotic undertones, clumsy as the presentation might have been at times, and I was on good terms with both kinds of atmosphere pushed by the different titles; The Sands of Time carried that heavy stylization and sense of adventure with confidence, and the dark realism that came out of Warrior Within helped ground the whole thing in a wildly entertaining vein of historical fantasy for me. So either approach is welcome, and it’s really up to your own preference!
The reason, of course, that I don’t mind even the most astronomically huge leap in the series’ methods of storytelling is this: the whole timeline thing, and its subsequent messing about by His Royal Highness the Prince of Subtlety, is so cool and yet so underdeveloped. I-I mean, augh. Sure, it plays a large enough part in gameplay; and yeah, there’s enough reference to “the consequences” within the overarching plot. But cross-section The-Prince-before-the Sands and The-Prince-after-the-Sands and try to tell me that’s the same person. What’s left to value when one doesn’t have to approach any decision as being final? What’s time itself worth if it never runs out? Alternately, even after he’s deprived of the Sands, maybe The Prince finds himself hard-pressed to distinguish what-he-has-done from what-he-plans-to-do. Maybe he misses the Sands and their power.
I dunno; this is one of those things I’ve always wanted to read and never been able to write for myself. As ever, don’t focus on it if it doesn’t grab you; it’s a look at The Prince’s perspective I’m after, and I can easily gather that from a plotline of your own devising.
I Love: The Prince, the Dahaka, Farah; references to ancient cities and the way that life might have gone on within them; tangled, mangled timelines.
I Could Live Without: superfluous mention of chariots, just because it will remind me how badly I do in the chariot sequences of Two Thrones. 8D
2001: A Space Odyssey: This one’s tricky. Um. Truly and honestly, I’d be happy with absolutely anything. The film has been a favourite of mine since I was a kid, and I love the book, and ... hey, actually I’ve had a 2001 wallpaper up all week, in line with my excitement for Yuletide. I went on about HAL in my request, but like I say: anything, aaaaanything. I just adore the idea of science fiction that doesn’t wallow in the future tense. When I say that I mean, you know, the visual slum-glitz of Blade Runner, or Star Wars Syndrome, in which we must often pause to ooh-and-ahh over technology and explosions. (Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy both; but they smothered my subtly-snarky, brooding sci-fi subgenre, boo). Pretty much all of 2001’s tech, on the other hand, is taken for granted in canon, including the talking computer. There’s no particularly fantastic quest (er, okay, debatable), no stark difference between hero and villain. There’s just a little blue planet, a ship crewed by people who don’t know their computer as well as they think, and a whole lot of space.
I Love: HAL 9000; discussion of technology in pseudo-biological terms, discussion of human anatomy/psychology in pseudo-mechanical terms; casual conversation between humans and computers.
I Could Live Without: meticulous descriptions of tech.
Samurai Warriors: And, haha, if you were matched up with this one, I am so sorry; a) because everyone I’ve ever spoken to seems to hate writing/reading/thinking about Kotaro at all, and b) because I really don’t have any idea what I want. Maybe this is a good thing! I spent a good chunk of the summer playing SW2 and it was just ... so much fun. It’s easy to laugh at it, but then there are some (possibly accidental) references to real alliances, campaigns and anecdotes in history that give it unexpected depth. I don’t dislike anyone, so if you’d like to pick a favourite character or pairing or whatever that you’d be more comfortable dwelling on, I am entirely happy to accept that.
I Love: Kotaro, Hanzo, Ina, Ginchiyo, Mitsunari; awkward conversations!
I Could Live Without: ... I can't think of anything! 8D
In summary, you are my favourite person ever, hi. Please enjoy yourself, do whatever you think needs to be done to make a request really work, and so on! Until we meet, O fabulous and mythical creature, take care and rest assured that I am already stressing over my own assignment. Stressing hard. :]
P.S.: So far as I know, I have no squicks. At all.
Hello, I am Vnutrenni and I’ll be your recipient this season. You’ll hate me! You’ll love me! But, most importantly of all - you’ll hate me. I’M SO ECKSITED, LET’S START.
First of all, I hope there’s something in my request blurbs that appealed to you (even if it’s just the fandom and characters, to be true!), because - above all else - I think I’d most like to read a story that you liked writing. I could sit here and outline everything I want like a greedy little kittenpig, and you could take it all into account and write the perfect story for me; but I wouldn’t really deserve it, and in the end it wouldn’t even be as nice a gift as a story that you planned, interpretations that you made on the original idea, prose that you crafted to your own liking. For me, Yuletide’s about getting something that I can’t make for myself, and being inordinately grateful for it. No matter what you do, you can do no wrong. I SIGN MY NAME UNDER THAT STATEMENT. So onto the requests themselves, yes.
Heavenly Sword
You probably weren’t matched to me on this one, but! I shall talk briefly about it anyway, just for kicks. This is a Playstation 3 game, and one of the system launch titles, so it kind of killed itself with its own hype, which is unfortunate. It was written and produced by Andy Serkis, and he even did the motion capture and voice work for the antagonist, King Bohan. It’s not even remotely original so far as video games go (a friend of mine summed it up as “God of War with boobs”, s-sob) - but the characters! It’s been a while since I was last exposed to such layered and unpredictable personalities in ... any sort of popular media. Despite a straight “good versus evil” shot to the plotline, the villains in particular manage to be genuinely frightening, and laughable, and - oddly enough - human. So that’s what I would have been looking for here: lots of character exploration, maybe some backstory, a touch of their perspective on morals, ambition, the world at large. All that good stuff.
I Love: Flying Fox, Kai, The Masked Raven; the monumental size and scope of the game's environments; Nariko's afterlife dialogue.
I Could Live Without: Nariko's near-constant angst; Shen as a catalyst for Nariko's near-constant angst; the "prophecy" angle.
Prince of Persia: It has, in fact, been forever since I last played any of the games in this series, but I still covet them. I loved the exotic undertones, clumsy as the presentation might have been at times, and I was on good terms with both kinds of atmosphere pushed by the different titles; The Sands of Time carried that heavy stylization and sense of adventure with confidence, and the dark realism that came out of Warrior Within helped ground the whole thing in a wildly entertaining vein of historical fantasy for me. So either approach is welcome, and it’s really up to your own preference!
The reason, of course, that I don’t mind even the most astronomically huge leap in the series’ methods of storytelling is this: the whole timeline thing, and its subsequent messing about by His Royal Highness the Prince of Subtlety, is so cool and yet so underdeveloped. I-I mean, augh. Sure, it plays a large enough part in gameplay; and yeah, there’s enough reference to “the consequences” within the overarching plot. But cross-section The-Prince-before-the Sands and The-Prince-after-the-Sands and try to tell me that’s the same person. What’s left to value when one doesn’t have to approach any decision as being final? What’s time itself worth if it never runs out? Alternately, even after he’s deprived of the Sands, maybe The Prince finds himself hard-pressed to distinguish what-he-has-done from what-he-plans-to-do. Maybe he misses the Sands and their power.
I dunno; this is one of those things I’ve always wanted to read and never been able to write for myself. As ever, don’t focus on it if it doesn’t grab you; it’s a look at The Prince’s perspective I’m after, and I can easily gather that from a plotline of your own devising.
I Love: The Prince, the Dahaka, Farah; references to ancient cities and the way that life might have gone on within them; tangled, mangled timelines.
I Could Live Without: superfluous mention of chariots, just because it will remind me how badly I do in the chariot sequences of Two Thrones. 8D
2001: A Space Odyssey: This one’s tricky. Um. Truly and honestly, I’d be happy with absolutely anything. The film has been a favourite of mine since I was a kid, and I love the book, and ... hey, actually I’ve had a 2001 wallpaper up all week, in line with my excitement for Yuletide. I went on about HAL in my request, but like I say: anything, aaaaanything. I just adore the idea of science fiction that doesn’t wallow in the future tense. When I say that I mean, you know, the visual slum-glitz of Blade Runner, or Star Wars Syndrome, in which we must often pause to ooh-and-ahh over technology and explosions. (Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy both; but they smothered my subtly-snarky, brooding sci-fi subgenre, boo). Pretty much all of 2001’s tech, on the other hand, is taken for granted in canon, including the talking computer. There’s no particularly fantastic quest (er, okay, debatable), no stark difference between hero and villain. There’s just a little blue planet, a ship crewed by people who don’t know their computer as well as they think, and a whole lot of space.
I Love: HAL 9000; discussion of technology in pseudo-biological terms, discussion of human anatomy/psychology in pseudo-mechanical terms; casual conversation between humans and computers.
I Could Live Without: meticulous descriptions of tech.
Samurai Warriors: And, haha, if you were matched up with this one, I am so sorry; a) because everyone I’ve ever spoken to seems to hate writing/reading/thinking about Kotaro at all, and b) because I really don’t have any idea what I want. Maybe this is a good thing! I spent a good chunk of the summer playing SW2 and it was just ... so much fun. It’s easy to laugh at it, but then there are some (possibly accidental) references to real alliances, campaigns and anecdotes in history that give it unexpected depth. I don’t dislike anyone, so if you’d like to pick a favourite character or pairing or whatever that you’d be more comfortable dwelling on, I am entirely happy to accept that.
I Love: Kotaro, Hanzo, Ina, Ginchiyo, Mitsunari; awkward conversations!
I Could Live Without: ... I can't think of anything! 8D
In summary, you are my favourite person ever, hi. Please enjoy yourself, do whatever you think needs to be done to make a request really work, and so on! Until we meet, O fabulous and mythical creature, take care and rest assured that I am already stressing over my own assignment. Stressing hard. :]
P.S.: So far as I know, I have no squicks. At all.