ageorwizardry

Hello, Yuletide Writer!

One of the greatest pleasures of Yuletide for me has been getting wonderful things I couldn't have even imagined to ask for in the first place, so if you get a different idea from the specific suggestions in my requests below, please go for it! I'll be so interested to see what you come up with. :-)

I have no squicks or triggers you need to avoid, and you can find a lot of my likes and dislikes in previous letters if you want more than what I've said about what I like in each fandom below. I have come to realize how important it is to me for characters in romantic relationships to act like they like each other, but I don't think that should be a problem or a surprise with the fandoms I've picked.

And finally, I don't just talk about what I like in each movie below, but also give some information as though you may not have seen them, in case you're considering branching out and writing a different movie than you were assigned or volunteered for (as I didn't see anyone offering any of these fandoms in the final signup summary, I expect I may have been sent to the pinch hit list straight off!).


Fandom: The Uninvited (1944)
Characters: Roderick Fitzgerald Pamela Fitzgerald (The Uninvited (1944)) Stella Meredith Dr. Scott (The Uninvited (1944))
Request: This may be the most good-natured, pleasant group of people ever to encounter a haunting; no matter what eerie or dangerous event takes place, their spirits never stay down for long! I'd just love to spend more time with this group of characters, even something mundane like their all spending an evening together having dinner and playing games or something--I enjoyed the night they spent trying to stay awake to catch the ghost so much!

It could also be lots of fun to see them encounter other genre tropes and react to them--I'd be up for almost anything else supernatural or science-fictional. Vampires? Werewolves? Aliens? Something they think is one thing at first but turns out to be another? Some combination of things???

As for relationships, the movie leaves us with two couples clearly set up, which I'm happy to go with, though you don't have to if you have other ideas. I liked Roderick's and Stella's romance much better than I expected to given the age difference between them--I think because the movie successfully undercuts any idea that he might have the upper hand (such as with the sailing and seasickness scene!), and because Stella's well-being is so obviously prioritized by all three of these characters throughout the movie. I do enjoy Dr Scott, whether romantically or platonically involved with Pamela. I could quite happily see them as two couples setting up housekeeping together in the cliff house, or with Dr Scott (and/or Pamela?) remaining nearby, or just spending time together as trial-tested and lifelong friends. So long as they continue to enjoy each other's company and treat each other well, I'll be pleased!

More: I saw this film in a double feature with the UK version of Gaslight, and from the description on the theater’s website, I thought I was more interested in the other film. I almost wasn’t even going to stay for this one, until I saw that Dodie Smith (best known either for I Capture the Castle or 101 Dalmatians, depending on the audience) was a screenwriter. And I wound up enjoying this film much more than the other one! (This has now happened enough times that I have learned my lesson: always stay for both films in a double feature, if at all possible! Because you just never know.)

I found spending time with the people in this film exactly as charming as you’d hope for from the writer of I Capture the Castle (and something she didn’t quite recapture, at least for me, in the other two of her novels I’ve tried so far). I love the spirit (...I’d say no pun intended, except it kind of is ;-)) with which Pamela and Roderick tackle any project, from deciding to buy the cliffside house they’ve just discovered and fallen in love with, to figuring out just what’s going on with this strange house once they move in. When Dr Scott joins them to stay up all night to try to investigate, it seems like the stuff of which lifelong friendships are made. And Stella is such a delight, and I love how much the movie is about her and centers her.

As I said in the request, it would be cool to see the team tackle something else supernatural (or science-fictional? or fantastical?), but I also thoroughly love them in mundane situations. A quiet night at home? Roderick and Pamela throw a party filled with friends of theirs who are no doubt as delightful as they are?

I thought it was kind of hilarious how you needed the actors to tell you that the upstairs room Roderick selects for his music room is a miserable room, because otherwise it looks gorgeous: huge windows overlooking the sea, exactly where you’d want to sit for hours to read and look out at the scenery. You can definitely tell why the artist who previously inhabited the house selected the room for his studio. But, while pretty for us to look at, it’s miserable to actually be in; too cold and with an unpleasant feeling underneath that. This will, of course, be significant.)

I am not overly familiar with the gothic genre, but I did see Crimson Peak, and I think this could make an interesting double feature with it, if only for the ghostly presence who is not trying to scare or harm the young woman protagonist, but only wants the truth to be revealed. (I don’t know how common a gothic feature that is.) This does seem to have a lot of tropes of varying gothicity: an uncanny house! disturbing sounds in the night that vanish at dawn! a mysterious family history that must be revealed! a woman fleeing a house! being imprisoned in an asylum against one's will! Mortal Peril!

There are a couple of genuine jump scares and suspenseful moments, but when Stella was climbing the staircase toward the miserable room with the windows, alone in the dark house, I wasn’t afraid at all. I thought, she’s going to learn the truth. And there’s nothing to be frightened of in the truth.

After Stella’s mother’s beautiful, blond hair came up a few times, with no mention of Stella’s father’s hair color, I began to wonder if we were supposed to be wondering where Stella’s dark hair came from. (A good question, as it turned out.)

I don’t love that the movie plays on “gypsy” stereotypes, but at least the (offscreen) character described with those stereotypes (and for a time suspected of being the villain) is ultimately recognized as the good, loving person she actually was? I’d have preferred a misdirection not based on “of course you’re logically going to assume that this type of person is bad,” but, well, old movies. What are you going to do?


Fandom: If I Had a Million (1932)
Characters: Mary Walker (If I Had a Million (1932)) John Glidden
Request: I nominated and requested these two characters because I *particularly loved* them in the last part of the movie--how Mary has transformed her "old ladies' home" into a rollicking social club, and how John (always a very energetic man on his deathbed, I thought) seems to have found even more of a new lease on life in her company. Mary clearly has just as forceful a personality (and as little patience for fools) as John does, so it makes perfect sense that they'd get along so well! I'd love to read more about the further adventures of Mary, with or without John (in either a romantic or platonic capacity).

But you can also take both these character requests as optional--if you'd rather explore the aftermath of one of the other stories instead, go for it! Or you could explore the same basic premise played out in a different way (for instance, would eight people randomly selected from the telephone directory of a major American city *really* have all been white?). Does an IN SPACE AU seem fun? Have a blast.

More: Part of my adventure into watching Pre-Code films!

The premise: a fabulously wealthy and successful magnate who is told he is going to die soon does not want to leave his fortune to any of his relatives — he thinks that all of his family and everyone at his company are drips. When he’s told that if he tries to direct his money elsewhere, the will is likely to be contested and his wishes not actually carried out, he resolves to give his money away while he’s still alive, then! And opens up a telephone directory and flips through the pages, flicking ink drops until he has selected a name each on eight pages: each name is a person who will get one of his eight million dollars.

Sidenote: John Glidden is the most energetic man on his deathbed I’ve ever seen, and I was not at all surprised that he whirled away with a new lease on life in the final reel. Also, I’m sure that the contrast between himself and those we see working in his business was intended for comedic effect, but realistically speaking I’m completely unable to see how he could have built multiple fabulously successful companies if the people he hires are all unable to make decisions without him. Seriously, in the opening scene we see an employee telling someone that it’s impossible to make a decision in this matter without Mr. Glidden’s input, and he’s expected to die soon. Well, and how do you expect to continue after his death, then?! A strongly built institution should be able to survive after its founder’s death much more smoothly than that.

What follows are separate stories for each of the eight recipients of a million dollars, some quite short, others more elaborate, most of them funny, but at least a couple that are genuinely tragic, such as the man who has been sentenced to execution that day, and is convinced he only lost his appeal because he had no money to afford a good lawyer. When Mr. Glidden arrives at the prison to deliver the check, the warden urges him to pass it to the condemned man’s wife (soon to be widow), and not even tell the man himself about it. But Glidden insists on delivering it in person, and the condemned man is convinced that this can now repair the fault that led to his doom. If the only problem was that he didn’t have any money, see, and now he has money — well, surely that means the problem is solved?!

He had been prepared to go to his death with a kind of grave equanimity, but now is dragged to it, screaming about the injustice. All your money can’t fix this man’s real problem, Mr. Glidden, and no doubt the prison warden was right that the condemned man would have been happier if he had gone to his death without ever learning of the money.

A couple of recipients are hoist on their own petard — a check forger, known as such to all the banks in the city, finds himself unable to cash or deposit the check because no one will believe, coming from him, that it’s real. Denied the face value of the check, he keeps trying to find a way to trade it for only a portion of the value — less and less with each refused offer he makes — and at last is willing to accept only a night in a cot at a flophouse in exchange for the entire thing. Even this doesn’t work, though: the proprieter calls the police to pick him up, and burns the check as an obvious ridiculous fake.

Another recipient — cannily noticing the date the check is delivered (in person, as they all are) is April 1 — decides the check is fake to begin with, and tries to cheat a vendor by trading it for cash — ten dollars, he tells the shortsighted vendor that it’s worth — so he can take the vendor’s daughter on a date to the carnival. He and his pals only learn of their mistake when they see father and daughter alight from a fancy car in finery and furs — the bad trade went in the opposite direction!

One is almost too short to mention (a man who works in an office goes up through successive layers of management until he blows a raspberry at the head of the company), but another short one is one of my favorites (I’m saving my favorites for last, apparently). John finds a young woman to deliver a check to in a bar, and she assumes he is trying to hire her as a prostitute. This is how he learns of her profession, and he is flustered, and anxious to correct the misunderstanding, but is otherwise not judgmental of her at all, and neither is the film (ah, the joys of pre-Code films!). After he successfully explains the situation and gives her the check, she endures for a time the unpleasant company of her boyfriend or client, until she loses patience and leaves for a hotel, asks for their nicest room, takes off most of her (probably uncomfortable) clothes, and takes the second pillow from the elaborate bed and throws it in the closet. The single remaining pillow she centers at the head of the bed, and goes to sleep in luxurious solitude. (There are two moments in this film where the number of pillows on a bed has significance — later, in the story with Mary Walker, one of her fellow inhabitants of the retirement home hoards an extra pillow from another bed so that she can pretend her husband is using it, and still with her.)

I understand that the car-driving sequence may be the most famous/best-remembered. I did enjoy it; I loved the characters of the woman who receives the check and her husband, and their happy marriage; I enjoyed the conversation between the woman and an old friend from their vaudeville performance days at the beginning of the story (including the sly bit of misdirection where the woman says that, now that she's married, there's only one thing she lacks to be happy, and that's on its way — her old friend looks not at all thrilled at the prospect of congratulating her for a pregnancy, and I love that her forthcoming joy in fact turns out to be a car). Her use of the money to buy a fleet of sturdy cars and hire drivers to, at her direction, run badly-behaved "road hogs" off the road is exactly the kind of thorough working-out of a premise that I love in comedy — though their own driving behavior is definitely no better than anything they're driving others off the road for! (And it's a good thing this is a comedy, or people in the story would undoubtedly have been seriously injured as a result of all the smash-ups!).

I loved the first story for being a thorough working-out of a premise as well. This recipient is a man who is unhappy at work and at home; at work, he has been moved from the bookkeeping department of a china shop to the sales floor, at a higher rate of pay — less the cost of any breakages, of which there always are some, due to his nervousness. This means a lower actual rate of pay, but unfortunately there is no position in the bookkeeping department he can go back to — he must continue in the salesroom position and try to make it work, or else lose his position entirely. And at home, his wife (none too happy about the effective pay cut either!) nags him.

He initially takes John Glidden for a bill collector and offers him some nervous explanations, before grasping the true nature of the situation; when next we see him, he is magnificently dressed, with a pet rabbit on a ribbon (evidently a personal passion of his), and fabulously late to work — where he proceeds to apply the logic of the previously agreed-upon arrangement that breakages must be paid for and smashes up everything in the shop with the greatest glee!

The final story, with Mary Walker, is magnificent. She is an unhappy inhabitant of a women’s retirement home, run by a woman who is all too happy to impose her “Christian” virtues on the residents (no smoking! no playing cards!) but is callously uncaring when a new resident objects to the idea of changing clothes in a room full of other women on the grounds of modesty. She is cruel in many ways, and when she is on the point of bluntly reminding the lady with the extra pillow that her husband is dead, Mary slaps her hand over her mouth and drags her backward out of the room to yell at her in her own office. John Glidden finds her there, and hesitantly interrupts her rant (he would clearly be delighted to listen to her yell all day long) only because he hopes the news of the check he has for her will improve her day.

Oh, does it. The residents have not been allowed to do anything that brings them joy, from the “illicit” pleasures previously mentioned to having cats or even just cooking, but when they complain the woman in charge reminds them they are free to leave at any time, and they all know they have nowhere else to go — no family that would welcome them to stay, no other resources to fall back on. Mary’s million changes all that, and the retirement home is transformed into a social club, with all the pleasures denied to them before. Cats everywhere! Tables filled with card games! Smoke fills the room! Music! Dancing! Mixed company! And the ladies cook themselves, as they’ve been doing all their lives, and enforce the former staff sitting quietly in rocking chairs and not doing anything. John Glidden whirls out of his office in the last scene to join them.

I can definitely see why John and Mary hit it off so well. He complained voluminously at the beginning of the film about being surrounded by spineless people, and Mary is the first person in the film who’s as forceful a personality as he is. They go beautifully together, and I hope they’ll be very happy (in whatever capacity they spend time together).

And I think what I really loved most about this movie was watching the unfolding of people's private desires into the beautiful daylight of possibility. Someone wants to smash everything in the ship, or go to sleep in the finest hotel room alone, or be able to smoke and play cards and pet cats and cook biscuits — and then they get to do it! With gusto! It was a delight to watch, almost every time.


Fandom: The Talk of the Town (1942)
Characters: Michael Lightcap, Leopold Dilg, Nora Shelley
Request: IT'S SO THREESOME-Y! Give me the threesome, please :-D (Explicitness not at all required--though also not at all minded! ;-)--I love the sweet emotional gooey core of a relationship just as much as I could ever love any smut :-))

I could see Nora marrying Leopold and working as Michael's legal secretary (did married women work as legal secretaries then? I DON'T CARE), and them all actually being together outside of work--or whatever other arrangement of the details you like; so long as they ALL LOVE EACH OTHER and continue to think each other are THE GREATEST.

More: I used up all my time talking about the other two movies, and now my letter is already late; I have to post! So if I don’t have as much extra to say about this movie, that doesn’t mean it’s because I’m not as interested in it as the other two or anything. (Trust me, these three fandoms earned their nominations and request slots against fierce competition!)

I will note that this movie features a Supreme Court vacancy, at a time when, once we see the Supreme Court, it's a whole row of white dudes; also a bunch of townspeople conspire to fake a death and frame a guy for murder, when the death penalty is a possible sentence, and just, in case you weren't already familiar with the movie and were considering picking it up, I didn't want to let it go without a notification that it may contain more resonances with certain Stressful Current Events that you might necessarily be expecting from a randomly selected classic movie. (As for how this could impact fic-writing, if you feel like incorporating some of the political etc. themes from the film, please feel free! But if you'd rather just focus on the fluffy threesomeness, I would also be delighted!)

Dear Yuletide Writer,

We matched!

And, based on the sign-up summary, I am guessing that we probably matched on The Artist, since—unless offers for any of my other fandoms were hidden in a bucket list—that was the only fandom I requested that anyone offered. :-P If this is true, yay! And I also want you to know that all three of the other fandoms I requested have sources that are even shorter than The Artist, as well as being entirely available online, so if for any reason you don't want to write for my prompt for The Artist, or are just interested in the possibility of exploring my other fandoms, that should be a very feasible option.

My default stance on characterizations, pairings, interpretations, etc. is that of willing to be convinced; even if it doesn't match the way I see things, if I can believe it for the length of the story I can enjoy it very much. So please don't feel bound or restricted by what I say here if you have another idea! Also, while I haven't specifically requested sexual content or kink, I am definitely open to both (except that, as I said in the request, I'd prefer that the relationship between George Valentin and Peppy Miller in my request for The Artist not be a sexual one).

I have no squicks or triggers!

Some things I like in stories: time travel, robots, trust, competence, friendship, threesomes, audacity, revolutions, worldbuilding, meaningful gifts, responsible use of authority, the moment when everything changes.

Some things I tend not to find interesting in stories: love triangles, jealousy, angst about physical attractiveness, unremitting bleakness or despair.

Fandom:
The Artist (2011)
Characters:
George Valentin
Peppy Miller
Optional details:
I have a great love for platonic relationships between men and women in my media, which I don't get nearly enough of; one thing I really appreciate about this movie is that, while the relationship between George Valentin and Peppy Miller can easily be read as romantic, the movie doesn't force that reading. (See also: reasons I <3 Pacific Rim!)

So what I would like is the story of the great platonic friendship of George Valentin and Peppy Miller! Either during or after the movie is fine—in fact, some nice hurt/comfort-iness around Peppy providing George with a safe haven when everything goes so badly for him would be right up my street (although don't feel at all obliged if it isn't up yours!). I just want to see them recognizing how important they are to each other without that importance being based on romantic or sexual attraction.

While I can understand that, depending on their personalities or past experience, they might have to do some figuring out that the bond between them isn't romantic/sexual, I would really prefer that that kind of "will-they-or-won't-they" romantic tension not be the focus of the story.

I'm fascinated by the history of film (though I still have a lot to learn about it!), so I really enjoyed this film for its depiction of the transition from silent to sound films as well as for the characters and the story—especially all the meta tricks having to do with sound and sound effects. If you are so inclined, I'm sure I'd love any further glimpses into film history to appear in your story! For instance, apparently in this universe George and Peppy helped to invent the movie musical? How does that go? How do Peppy and George fare through the transition to color later on? (I mean, with Peppy at the helm, I'm guessing they do okay!)

And of course if you'd prefer to focus on the characters and not go on a romp through film history, that would be cool, too!


Fandom:
We Haven't Got There Yet - Harry Turtledove
Character:
William Shakespeare (We Haven't Got There Yet - Harry Turtledove)
Optional Details:
Shakespeare + time traveling players = AWESOME.

I don't have a specific story in mind for this; any possibility you care to explore should be interesting! What did Shakespeare turn out to think of Waiting for Godot? Which other plays do the time-traveling theatre troupe choose to perform? What becomes of them—do they get to go home eventually, or do they stay in Shakespeare's London? Does Shakespeare become involved in their troupe in any way, and/or does their work have any influence on his own? What if Shakespeare wound up visiting them in their future?

As you may be able to tell, while Shakespeare is the only character I nominated, I don't at all mind if your focus is elsewhere: on the time-traveling theatre troupe themselves, on the situation in general: you have a free hand!

This story is full of things I love—time travel, theatre—but one of the things I enjoyed most about it was the fannish nature of what Shakespeare experiences; that he encounters a derivative work based on a play that he wrote and comes to appreciate it so much for what it accomplishes that his play can't. So anything playing with the meta nature of it would be neat.

I want to throw one neat thing out there in case it sparks something for you—I recently learned from Tiffany Stern's talk "Shakespeare and the Stage" [video][audio] about how scripts and rehearsals differed in Shakespeare's day from ours—actors received scripts with only their parts, and a cue of the last three words from the previous speaker would indicate where they should come in. And how Shakespeare played with this aspect of the form he worked in, for instance, having an actor repeat his cue for the next player multiple times throughout a speech, so the next actor would repeatedly try to interrupt him, and making that part of the plot and characterization in the play! (Seriously, I recommend watching/listening; it's only about fifteen minutes long and it's so cool.) So that got me wondering and wishing we could find out how Shakespeare would have applied his genius to playing with other forms, had they been available to him—modern plays, with their full scripts and lengthy rehearsal periods? movies? television? It would even be cool just to have him find out more from the theatre troupe from the future about how their plays and other media are made—to appreciate the process as well as the product. But again, this is just an "I think this is cool, and if you're interested in this story I bet you'll think it's cool, too!" thing—use it if it's helpful, discard if it's not!

And, while that's a neat tidbit I learned recently, I am still by no means an expert on Shakespeare or his time period, so you don't need to worry about throwing me out of the story if the characters have the wrong kind of shoes or whatever. (If you are an expert in the time period, then I will bask in your expertise and make suitably admiring noises in the comments!) And of course, any anachronisms could surely be easily explained away by the presence of the time travelers...

Source availability: The short story "We Haven't Got There Yet" by Harry Turtledove is available in its entirety online!


Fandom:
Mr. Fox - Frankie Armstrong (song)
Characters:
Mary (Mr. Fox (song))
Mr. Fox (Mr. Fox (song))
Optional details:
The wall is high...

Augh, this song. The isolation, the fear, the rising tension, how the ending is left unresolved...

I mean. You know what has to happen, after the end of the song. But we don't actually see it happen, so maybe not..?

This song captivates me. The fine depiction of how Mary is made subject to a cruel and capricious power makes me feel for the terrible situation she's put in, makes me feel trapped right along with her. Obviously I'm interested in the darker themes and emotions involved in the song—still, while a certain degree of bleakness, danger, despair, and other unpleasant things would clearly be appropriate for this source, I do prefer stories that are not absolutely hopeless. What can be salvaged from Mary's situation; how can the ending it seems her story must have be changed? I confess, I have a hard time seeing a way to an unambiguously happy ending from here, but if you do, go for it. I would certainly be satisfied with an ending with more mixed emotions, as well.

I love remixes and retellings of fairy tales, so if you'd like to bring in elements from any other fairy tales/folk tales/folk songs, that would be very cool.

(Some singers include an optional extra verse at the end, which I hate; I will include a (probably too-lengthy) section in my Yuletide Letter about why. For now, though, just know that this singer does not, so if you're working from this version of the song you should be fine.)

The golden ball can easily be read as a transparent metaphor for virginity (Girls! Be careful what you do with it, or you could end up stuck in a bad situation! —Ugh), but it doesn't have to be read that way. For instance, Catherynne M. Valente offers quite a different view of golden balls in The Orphan's Tales, in which a girl is given a golden ball after a neighbor boy steals a kiss from her:

"Perhaps a good child would not admit that she owned such a thing as a golden ball—it has never done a girl any good to have one, in all the history of the world. But I am not a grown woman, and I loved my ball.

My sister was not given one, nor my cousins. What you must understand about a golden ball is that by giving one over into eager hands, parents acknowledge a certain wickedness in their children that must be occupied by something other than flesh or sweets. A mother does not give such a gift to the daughter she bathes in milk and perfumes in asters and daisies. She gives it to the scraggle-haired, mud-kneed child who plays by herself at the side of the old well. It will keep her from young men and candies that glitter like fluttering eyelashes, and if she or it or both together should tip over the side of the well, as has been known to happen from time to time, well, at least no daisy was wasted on her."

Here a golden ball seems more to represent the indifference of authority figures and society in general to the abuse of the vulnerable, which is certainly an idea that's also relevant to the story in Mr. Fox (why did no one come looking for Mary?). And of course, the golden ball doesn't have to ~symbolize~ anything at all! I'm just throwing stuff out there in case any of it is helpful.

Now, about that extra verse I hate! I first heard this song performed by live singers, who hadn't recorded it; when I went looking for a copy I could download a few months later, I had some trouble finding one that matched the one I had heard. I learned that a number of singers include an extra verse at the end, as this one does:

Outside Mr. Fox's garden
Three maids playing with a golden ball,
Jenny threw it up and Susan caught it
Nancy bounced it over the wall

Part of what makes this song so haunting to me is, as I said in the optional details, you know what has to happen next. But you still don't know; you don't see it happening; it just hangs there, unresolved, as the final note hangs in the air, as Mr. Fox hangs in the air frozen in his leap towards Mary, teeth flashing but never yet reaching her, and as long as we don't see the end of that leap the possibility is preserved that something else might happen instead (though we still feel the dread that there is no escape after all).

And to me what this final verse says is, "Not only is this how the story resolves, but it resolves the same way over and over again." It takes all of that tangle of anticipation and dread and hope and fear and ambiguity and lack of resolution and just takes it away. So: I don't like the final verse. Write me a story that ends in any way but that final verse, and I'll be happy! :-P

Source availability: I have made Frankie Armstrong's version of the song "Mr. Fox" downloadable from mediafire.

I have also transcribed the lyrics here:
Outside Mr. Fox's garden
Three maids playing with a golden ball
Jenny threw it up and Susan caught it
Mary bounced it over the wall

The wall is high
Mr. Fox has a little red eye

In she ran to fetch it back again
The garden gate stood open wide
It silently closed and locked behind her
Mr. Fox stood just inside

The wall is high
His smile is cruel and his eyes are sly

He says, "I'll keep this golden ball, Miss Mary
I shall have it, and here you will stay
You will keep my house and be my servant
Never stir out for a year and a day."

The wall is high
the grasses shiver and the tall trees sigh

Spring and summer passed like shadows
she watched the green leaves fade and fall
she walked alone in the empty garden
Mr. Fox said nothing at all.

The wall is high
Never a soul come near nor by

But three strange things he did forbid her
"Never touch my iron box
Never go near the thirteenth bedroom
nor near the bed," said Mr. Fox.

The wall is high
Mary, don't you dare ask why!

Mary, she rose up one morning
found an iron box on the shelf
but of all the rooms at Mr. Fox's
bedrooms there were only twelve

The wall is high
Mary, don't you peep or pry!

One day, Mr. Fox went walking
in that box she found a key
it fitted a door she'd never unfastened
and when she opened it, what did she see?

The wall is high
The door said "Run!" and the key said "Fly!"

In Mr. Fox's thirteenth bedroom
a naked sword hung on the wall
In a silver bowl on the bed's black counterpane
there she saw her golden ball!

The wall is high
The bed said "Come!" and the sword said "Die!"

In she ran to fetch her ball again
to snatch it off that great black bed
Out jumped Mr. Fox and leapt at her!
His teeth flashed white and his eyes burned red!

The wall is high...


Fandom:
Geordie (Child 209) - Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer (song)
Characters:
A fair pretty maid (Geordie (Child 209) - Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer (song))
Geordie (Geordie (Child 209) - Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer (song))
The judge (Geordie (Child 209) - Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer (song))
Optional details:
By the time I got to the end of this song, I was all prepared for an installment of Swordfighting Women in History: Even More Awesome Than You Could Have Imagined!

And then the song just ended! I didn't get to see this awesome brave tenacious lady challenge this judge to a duel and fight him after all, and it was just—why? Why would you miss an opportunity like that? A pregnant lady dueling a judge FOR JUSTICE. It would be awesome!

So, obviously I would enjoy an exploration of that scenario, but there are any number of other interesting threads here, too. I'd love to know more about the background of this lady and her Geordie. It certainly seems to me like she can back up her words about fighting with a broadsword and a pistol—how'd she get those skills, and how has she used them in the past? What about the history of how she and Geordie came together and made their family together? If Geordie is hunting the king's deer to feed his family, they clearly have fallen into some misfortune, if they weren't always poor—what happened there?

I also can't get over the dynamic between the "fair pretty maid" and the judge—at first he says "I'm sorry for thee," but if you believe it then what can you make of "he'll be laid in a coffin brave / for your six fine sons to carry." HOW IS THAT A THING YOU SAY TO HUMAN BEINGS. Is he just a callous asshole, or is something else going on there?

TL;DR summary: anything you'd like to explore about what's happening here—or things we don't see happening in the song—I'd be interested in seeing. Go wild. :-)

When I listened to this song, I had just been reading about Julie D'Aubigny ("Julie D'Aubigny was a 17th-century bisexual French opera singer and fencing master who killed or wounded at least ten men in life-or-death duels, performed nightly shows on the biggest and most highly-respected opera stage in the world, and once took the Holy Orders just so that she could sneak into a convent and bang a nun. If nothing in that sentence at least marginally interests you, I have no idea why you're visiting this website.") as well as a duel between a princess and a countess in which all the participants were women and in which the duelists fought topless at the suggestion of a baroness with a medical degree on the grounds that " strips of clothing being driven into the wound by the point of a sword."

(THAT'S RIGHT THIS IS ACTUAL HISTORY, ZOMG. History, how are you so awesome.)

So this was what primed me for expecting Swordfighting Women in History: Even More Awesome Than You Could Have Imagined! And then I was terribly disappointed that a swordfighting woman did not actually appear in the song. So if all you want to write is a fair pretty maid dueling a judge for the life of her lover, I WILL ADORE IT.

But you don't have to write swordfighting at all if you don't want to! I've outlined several other possibilities in my request—and feel free to do something else entirely if you get an idea for something besides them. (Also, while I've requested all three characters in the song, feel free not to focus on them equally if you don't want to.)

Source availability: The song appears on the album Child Ballads by Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer. You can see Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer perform "Geordie" on youtube here. I have included the lyrics here, and lyrics for the full album are also available on Anaïs Mitchell's website.

Lyrics:
As I walked out over London bridge
On a misty morning early
I overheard a fair pretty maid
Crying for the life of her Geordie

“Saddle me a milk white steed
Bridle me a pony
I’ll ride down to London town
And I’ll beg for the life of my Geordie”

And when she came to the courthouse steps
The poor folks numbered many
A hundred crowns she passed around
Saying,“Pray for the life of my Geordie”

“He never stole a mule or a mare
He never murdered any
If he shot one of the king’s wild deer
It was only to feed his family”

And then she strode through the marble hall
Before the judge and the jury
Down on her bended knee she falls
Crying for the life of her Geordie

“He never stole, he never slew
He never murdered any
He never injured any of you
Spare me the life of my Geordie”

The judge looked over his left shoulder
He says, “I’m sorry for thee
My pretty fair maid, you’ve come too late
He’s been condemned already”

“But six pretty babes I had by him
The seventh one lies in my body
And I would bear them all over again
If you give me the life of my Geordie”

“Your Geordie will hang in a silver chain
Such as we don’t hang many
And he’ll be laid in a coffin brave
For your six fine sons to carry”

“I wish I had you in a public square
The whole town gathered around me
With my broad sword and a pistol too
I’d fight you for the life of my Geordie"

This is no longer a work in progress! It is DONE.

All of my requests turned out to be at least a bit Shakespearean this year. The part of ShakespeaRe-Told I've requested is of course a modern-day re-telling of The Taming of the Shrew; "The Fool's Tale" features a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night as a major plot point; and in Lettice and Lovage, Lettice adores Shakespeare's plays after growing up doing them in translation in the French countryside with her mother's theater troupe. It's a theme! How nifty!

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HAPPY YULETIDE! \o/