yuletide | 2022 Yuletide Promo Post

Welcome to the Fandom Promo post, everyone!

Here's where you get those eyes on your fandoms for sign-ups!

Share what makes your Yuletide fandoms the shiniest and why you love them. A big part of Yuletide is how small our fandoms can be, and this is a good way to make sure other people know what gems there are out there!

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What is it, in summary?:

What do you love about it?:

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?:

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Title:
Galatea (Interaction Fiction)

Media:
Interactive Fiction

Approx length:
Probably about 1-2 hours to read all the content.

Where to find it:
https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=urxrv27t7qtu52lb

https://iplayif.com/?story=http://mirror.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/Galatea.zblorb

Cheats and Walkthrough page.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180929015031/http://emshort.home.mindspring.com/cheats.htm

What is it, in summary?:

Galatea is a character-focused interactive fiction game by Emily Short. You play as the Art Critic, someone assigned to critique "Galatea," a sculpture or "animate," that appears to be sentient. Depending on how you interact with her, Galatea grows and shifts -- and depending on how you interact, the Art Critic shifts too.

Emily Short's description:

A conversation with a work of art. "47. Galatea. White Thasos marble. Non-commissioned work by the late Pygmalion of Cyprus. (The artist has since committed suicide.) Originally not an animate. The waking of this piece from its natural state remains unexplained."

Galatea is my first released foray into interactive fiction. It is a single conversation with a single character, which can end any of a number of ways depending on the player's decisions. Despite its age, I continue to get strong reactions to it in my email inbox on a fairly regular basis. Some people love it; some people find it annoying or distressing.

Galatea has what I call a multilinear plot: unlike traditional IF, it has no single path to victory. Instead there are a large number of endings, some more satisfactory than others, of which many could be considered "win" states. It takes only a few minutes of play to arrive at an ending, but considerably longer to find all of them.

The game also takes an ambitious approach to NPC (non-player character) conversation, both in terms of volume (Galatea has many hundreds of things to say) and complexity (she keeps track of the state of conversation and reacts differently according to what has already been said and done).

What do you love about it?:

You come around a corner, away from the noise of the opening.

There is only one exhibit. She stands in the spotlight, with her back to you: a sweep of pale hair on paler skin, a column of emerald silk that ends in a pool at her feet. She might be the model in a perfume ad; the trophy wife at a formal gathering; one of the guests at this very opening, standing on an empty pedestal in some ironic act of artistic deconstruction --

You hesitate, about to turn away. Her hand balls into a fist.

"They told me you were coming."

The strength of the prose and character-writing in this game is like nothing else. Emily Short is one of the most underrated authors right now, and I think if she chose to write novels, her work would be highly celebrated. Galatea is just -- where does one begin?

I adore the options Interactive Fiction gives you for character writing, and Galatea is one of the best. Both the Art Critic and Galatea are so fully fleshed out and realized -- I love how they grow and change, I love the tension between them, I love how you can either end up kissing or killing each other. I love how the Art Critic is a character in his own right, with his own backstory and motivations. I love Galatea's fierce and wild grief. I love her strangness, her uncanniness. I love how there are no easy answers.

You put a hand on her back, between the shoulderblades, to feel her breath rising and falling, and the faint motion of implied muscle.

When you take the hand away, however, she shivers.

All you can think is: animates don't do that. There's a conventional limit to their interactivity. They're meant to be touched -- but not to react--

You run a finger along her spine, from the nape of her neck to the place where her dress begins, noting with approval the distinct vertebrae under the skin.

But when you draw your hand away she shivers.

"Yes," you say softly. "That's what I thought." Whatever she is, she's no animate.

She says nothing, but you suspect that she heard you clearly enough.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?:

I want to see the aftermath of certain endings. I need to replay again to get a full list, but certain ones I want to see right now are -- Exchange of Glances, Kiss, Stilton, and Hug. You can find ways to see these endings on Emily Short's Cheats and Walkthroughs page. I want to see the relationship between Galatea and the Art Critic and the forms it can take -- it's so fascinating and interesting and SO well-written. Galatea especially is just one of the strongest and most interesting characters I have ever read. I adore her

It's a bit awkward at this angle -- the best you can manage is to put your arm around her at the waist. With a sigh, she steps off the pedestal entirely and into your arms.

No one has ever hugged her before. The certainty makes you want to weep for her. You hold her longer than you should; longer than is honest, considering the ambivalence of your feelings toward her.

"Come on." You disengage at last, but only enough to lead her. She comes with you, still leaning on your shoulder.

You may not be able to mend the world for her -- in fact, you may end by hurting her quite desperately, by failing to be what she needs. But you also can't leave her standing there forever.

Her gown hushes on the pale floor as you turn the corner, back to the main gallery. Sometimes there's no right way to do what needs to be done

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?:

You do not have to play through all the endings to enjoy the story, but I do recommend it as there are bits of character information and backstory that are not revealed in all routes. I plan to make a guide to that at some point, and I will link it in my author's letter if I do.

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence):
This is at your discretion and is not expected to be comprehensive

You can either kill or be killed by Galatea depending on the routes you take.

2022 Yuletide Promo Post

Galatea (Interactive Fiction)