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jukebox_fest2024-02-18 08:30 pm
minutia_r) wrote in jukebox_fest2024-02-18 08:30 pm
Entry tags:
Dime in the Jukebox Fest 2024
Welcome to the Dime in the Jukebox Fest, a prompt fest for fanworks based on songs and music videos! Have fun, and feel free to promote it on your journal/community/tumblr/discord server/whatever if you want. You can copy the code in this box wherever HTML applies:
Rules
1) Leave a song or a music video as a prompt. Please include a listening/watching link. Links to the lyrics (if any) and translations of the lyrics (if they are not in English) are appreciated but not required. You may also include a short phrase, such as a quote from the lyrics or something that particularly interests you about the song/video, as an additional prompt; this is optional but not required. One prompt per comment. Leave as many prompts as you like.
Here's a possible template for prompting:
2) Reply to other people’s prompts with fanworks. All mediums of fanworks are welcome! But please create the fanwork about the prompted song/video only; no other fandom knowledge should be necessary in order to appreciate the work. Exception: if you are making fanvids, a vid to the prompted song for any fandom is considered an acceptable fill.
FAQ
Q: When you say all mediums of fanwork are welcome, what do you mean?
A: Really, all mediums of fanwork. Fic, art, meta, playlists, vids, songs, memes, crochet patterns, whatever you want to make, go ahead and post it or link to it here.
Q: Can I create fills without leaving any prompts, or leave prompts without creating any fills?
A: Go ahead!
Q: I want to fill a prompt, but someone else has already filled it.
A: That’s okay, prompts can be filled multiple times.
Q: I want to create explicit erotica, or fanwork with potentially disturbing themes, or prompt a song/video that contains such materials. Is that okay, and what sort of content do I need to warn for?
A: Sure, that's fine. Warnings are considerate and appreciated, but they're also up to the discretion of the individual poster. Consider this a warnings-optional space and read at your own risk accordingly.
Q: Are the fills I create considered to be gifts to the prompter?
A: Only if you and the prompter want them to be! Otherwise feel free to treat the prompt simply as inspiration.
Q: I want to participate, but I don't have a dreamwidth account/I'm shy.
A: That's okay--anonymous posting is on.
Q: How long is the fest going to be running for?
A: Currently, there’s no set end date, but we may close this post to comments once nominations for the Jukebox Exchange open, just so we don’t have two events running at once. However, we don’t yet have solid dates for this year’s exchange, and honestly I’ll be impressed if people are still actively posting here by that point.
Q: Is there a collection on AO3 where I can post my fills?
A: Right here.
Q: I want to participate, but I can’t think of any songs or videos to prompt.
A: Lucky for you, there’s a playlist tag right here in this community where you can find playlists of songs and videos that people have requested and created for during Jukeboxes past! There’s a lot of good stuff there; hopefully you can find some inspiration.
Q: I want to create fills, but I don’t know any of these songs.
A: Maybe you’ll find something you like if you give them a listen; discovering new music is part of what we’re all here for.
no subject
Listen/watch link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpH-pu0AtRM
Lyrics: https://heatherdale.com/lyrics-the-road-to-santiago-black-fox/
Additional prompt: I love the idea of the devil/fox not being antagonistic. "When your need is greatest, just call upon my name / And I will come and you shall have the best of sport and game." Perhaps when hard times fall upon the huntsman, he calls out again and the devil/fox returns for a brief time of chase.
Warnings: Hunting (no animals are killed in the song)
His Gallant Huntsman
"Just why do you want to know?" the huntman asks. "What do you write for?" and she only looks out at the sky, which is pale, unchanging; nothing for her there.
"My own research," she says, "a private thing, like I told you; please, if it happens every year, that must mean there's a pattern."
"A pattern? Aye, well," the huntsman says, "he comes when I call." The tale has been building in him for years, and the woman across the table doesn't narrow her eyes or sign a ward but listens, taking notes with that pen of hers.
"Some years, no need," he tells her - the woods full of game, plenty for the folk and sport for the lord; some years ... "but when the woods are barren, and we go hungry - it's not like the tales, like they tell," and the woman stops mid-line, and her handwriting is very fine.
"Then how is it?" she asks.
"His coming is no storm or a curse, nothing like that awful wild hunt, tearing trees right out of the ground, howling, dead riders, none of that; not at all like a curse, mind. The glen grows verdant, quick-like, more beautiful than you've ever seen, like he's fluffed it up, sweet as a mam with a down pillow, making it fresh and fine. Then he comes and he runs."
When his narration cuts off abrupt like that, she looks up from her notes and her pen goes still. "And then what happens?" she asks, and the huntsman shrugs.
"I hunt."
"You hunt? That's it?"
"What else did you expect?"
A fumbling noise that reminds him, pen or no pen, city airs or none, she's just a girl. "I was hoping for details," she says. "The hunt - what is it like?"
She doesn't mean the rich pockets of grouse that scatter at the barking of a hound, or the deer that weren't there the week before; he doesn't try to tell her how the world goes green and the game seems to burst out of the ground, all the hungry children fed; he only shrugs, and he asks her:
"Have you ever been hunting?" She shakes her head. "No, I expect you haven't." No more could he explain colors to the blind.
"It's the hunt I have in my dreams," he says, averting his gaze out that same window so he doesn't have to watch her scratching pen. "Like I'm back in the prime of my life. Like these woods are what they used to be, twice the size they are now, and I can skip three creeks without sight of another man. Like the land, in that way dreams do, like it don't obey its own rules." He closes his eyes and there it is again: the sweet sharp scent of pine and loam, and the low growl of a dog with the fox cornered.
"There's a clearing," he says. "Eastways, and uphill, the ground gives way to rock. There, when I come up on it, is where I find him."
"Him?" she says, and he nods at her interruption. "It's no curse," he reminds her. "He still is the devil."
She opens her mouth, shuts it. "Go on," she says, and the huntsman shakes his head.
"What is it that you're writing there? For a book of fairytales, something to tell the wee ones? For your research?" he says. "What is it that you're after?" and the girl - the young woman, he should call her - takes a breath.
"I'm hoping to meet something like him," she says, laying her confession out in the table. "If I can."
The huntsman sighs; her hand is steady, though, and the pen poised: no tremor of a lie there. He turns his eyes to the sky and shrugs.
In the clearing - not always the eastern clearing, but there more than once: the black fox, sun shining like oil on the sleek of him. His panting mouth, tongue curling in a grin. The eggshell fangs, the flash of it - like he's laughing.
The way the huntsman's aging heart hitches when time stands still, and then the drumbeat in his chest pounding alive, alive, alive, as that damn black fox stands and chases him right back down that hill.
He can't bring himself to tell her. The words have been building in his chest, and, those ones, there they stay. He's earnest, though, when says, "Then I hope you do, lass. I truly hope you do."
Re: His Gallant Huntsman
""It's no curse," he reminds her. "He still is the devil.""
"The words have been building in his chest, and, those ones, there they stay. He's earnest, though, when says, "Then I hope you do, lass. I truly hope you do."" I love this
Thank you so much for writing for my prompt! This scratches such a particular itch, and it was a delight to read.
Re: His Gallant Huntsman
Actually, on that note, if you're a novel reader then Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes shares a very similar premise and is simply phenomenal - it's one of my favorite books. (Ditto Mary MacLane's diary, I Await the Devil's Coming.)
Re: His Gallant Huntsman
Re: His Gallant Huntsman
the black fox, sun shining like oil on the sleek of him. His panting mouth, tongue curling in a grin. The eggshell fangs, the flash of it - like he's laughing.
no subject
The word came down from the highest servants, who held the keys to the storerooms, to the lowest of us, who slept in the kennels with the dogs: an envoy of the empress was coming to visit our mistress, and everything had to go perfectly. The cooks sweated over the ovens, preparing course after course of delicacies; the laundresses were boiled alive, washing every stitch of bed-linen, every wall-hanging and tapestry; the gardeners dug and pruned and weeded until the gardens were flawlessy manicured.
And as for us, who worked under the gamekeeper: the empress’s man was said to be an avid hunter, and of course our mistress would provide his favorite entertinment. So it fell to us to make sure there would be a fox to chase.
We scattered over the hills, tasked with stopping up the entrances to any burrow where a fox might retreat when pressed. As I dug into the black earth, I whispered apologies for this impious practice to the maiden of the girt-up tunic. I lay a blossoming branch of broom for the ragged green man at every blocked escape route, and I nicked my finger with my pocket knife and left a smear of blood on a nearby stone for the shadowed face of the moon. What else could I do?
The envoy arrived on a splendid gray gelding, in his wide-brimmed official’s hat and long robes trailing over his riding trousers and boots, with two dozen servants in train. The scraps from the evening’s feast reached even those of us in the kennels, fresh river fish and spiced fruit preserves and the ends of bread made with fine flour. And the next morning, when the pale light of dawn was only a streak on the eastern horizon, and mist still pooled thick between the hills, we led the dogs out to the hunt. Their joyful calls carried across the sleepy landscape, their tails lashed, and they threw up clods of dirt as they ran, circling the hunting party.
Our mistress, mounted on a long-necked black mare, in her bright silk hunting jacket and her long rifle by her side, was one carefully calculated degree less splendid than the imperial envoy. The gamekeeper was mounted too, and a handful of higher servants of our mistress’s and the envoy’s. No prey had been spotted yet, and so they set a leisurely place along the trails, and those of us on foot followed at a jog.
As the the sun rose higher and the day grew long, and still no sign of a fox was seen, the envoy began to yawn and the gamekeeper to grumble and curse. Our mistress kept a face like the smooth surface of a pond, pointing out this and that feature of her lands, her soft and pleasant voice never flagging. But the hairs stood up on the back of the necks of those of us who had long served her.
It was nearly noon when the fox appeared. Standing on the crest of the next hill over, boldly outlined against the clear sky; one of the gray foxes of our country, but this one wasn’t gray. Black as a starless night, ears and tail alert. A vixen.
My first relief turned to disappointment, and then to unease, as my mistress drew up her reins and the whole party came to a stop, staring at the vixen as she stared at us. Stopping up the burrows—no one ever needed to acknowledge it at all, and if it were dragged to light, it was the servants who had done it, presuming too far on our mistress’s wish for a good hunt. She had never dirtied her hands.
But to chase a vixen in the springtime was unlawful, and not so easily swept aside. Surely she wouldn’t—in the very face of the imperial envoy, to whom she must present a picture of a loyal and law-abiding vassal—
In the event, it was the envoy himself who clapped his heels to his horse’s flanks and gave chase, and the rest of the hunt followed after. Those of us on foot were quickly left behind; we couldn’t keep pace with horses and dogs at a run.
Soon we came upon one of the envoy’s fine servants who’d been thrown from his horse. One of our stableboys helped him up and tended to his scrapes and led him back to the house. The rest of us pressed on as the vixen’s sharp yips of laughter echoed from hill to hill.
One by one, we came across members of the hunting party who’d met with misfortune and fallen behind: one had been dragged through a thornbush, her clothes shredded and her horse’s side scratched and bleeding. Another had gotten himself hoplessly turned around and lost. A third had sunk her leg deep into a mole-hole, from which it took several of us to extract her.
The sun was westering, and of the hunting party the only ones that remained were the gamekeeper, our mistress, the imperial envoy, and me.
I caught up to them just as it seemed they had cornered the vixen at last. The three of them, on their horses, had backed her up to the steep bank of a stream between two hills. One of the dogs leapt at her, and my mistress drew her rifle in steady hands, and the black vixen plunged over the edge of the bank and into the rushing water.
Two shots flew wide—my mistress’s, and the envoy’s. The vixen’s ears appeared above the water, swimming steadily. The envoy spurred his horse after her.
But the water was fast, and the footing unsteady, and the horse tired from being kept at the chase so long. There was a sickening snap, the sound of breaking bone, and the splendid gelding slewed over wth a scream, and the envoy, too, was thrown into the stream.
The gamekeeper jumped from his own horse and rushed to the bank, my mistress right on his heels. Between them, they pulled the envoy to shore, sputtering with fury. The vixen, in the meantime, gained the opposite bank. She shook the water out of her fur, barked once, and dashed up the hill into the shadows of the trees.
Two of the dogs—Challenge, with the heavy muzzle and the golden fur, and Step-Fast, with the long legs—were also struggling through the water. They were my charge, not the imperial envoy. I let my mistress and the gamekeeper look after him, and jumped into the stream after them.
The water was cold, and the current strong. I broke the surface, gasped, was pulled under again, kicking and cleaving with my arms until I finally dragged myself onto the opposite bank. From the trees ahead, I heard the triumphant shouts of dogs who had brought their prey to earth, and I staggered to my feet and ran.
The vixen had her back to a freshly-dug mound of earth where a burrow entrance had been. A branch of broom lay on the ground nearby. Her lip was back, teeth bared in a snarl, her eyes like burning coals.
It wasn’t right.
I laid a hand on the neck of each dog and said, “Stop. Hold. Lie down.”
Growling and whining, they obeyed.
As the golden afternoon light slanted through the green leaves, the vixen stood up, and up. Her head remained a fox’s, only bigger, with a long, elegant muzzle. Her body became a woman’s, dark as a starless night, her long brush of a tail wrapping her around from behind.
I fell to my knees and pressed my face to the dirt.
A hand touched the back of my head. I heard, “Don’t fear. You spared my life. I’ll spare yours—this time. And if you ever want a chase again, you may call me.”
A threat, or a promise? It was long before I dared look up, and by that time she was gone. I led the dogs down the hill and returned to the hunting party.
The imperial envoy rode back the to the house on my mistress’s horse, she on the gamekeeper’s, and the gamekeeper walked beside me. Though our mistress tried to soothe the envoy’s temper, he remained silent and frozen with anger.
“Mark my words,” the gamekeeper grumbled, loud enough for the to riders to hear, “that was no fox, it was a devil.”
I didn’t speak of what I had seen and heard. What good would it do?
The envoy wouldn’t stay another night, and carried no good report of our mistress to the empress.
In ordinary times, such crimes as our mistress stood accused of—misappropriating funds meant for fortifications for her own use, and so on—might never be acknowleged at all, or if they were dragged into the light, punished with a reprimand, a fine, perhaps a demotion in the ranks of nobility. Petty corruption is expected of great landowners. But lately there had been heavy losses along the border, and it was necessary to find someone to blame.
My mistress was found guilty of treason, herself and all her household brought to the capital in chains, slated for excecution.
In the stinking cell I shared with many others, little light ever reached. I prayed then to the nameless spirit of the hills. If she should hunt me down and tear out my throat for my trespasses against the gods, my situation would be no worse. At least it would be for something I had done.
As I spoke, I felt the manacles fall from my wrists and ankles, no longer weighing me down. Though no one else seemed to see it, the heavy door of our cell stood ajar the barest crack, light and clean air beyond.
I heard, “Run, little one.”
I ran.
no subject
The descriptions and language are beautiful, and what a creative take on the story! Thank you for writing for me!
no subject