gwyn: (bucky end of the line)
Day 03

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


I think pretty much everything I've ever made public defines me as a creator, unless it was a collaboration that was very heavily someone else's work. There were definitely a few Media Cannibals vids that did not turn out how I saw them! But overall, if I've done it or been in charge of it, it would define me, even with the vids I've made for auctions and gifts/challenges.

So these are a very random assortment of things wot I made.

Mercy Street (12957 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Angel: the Series
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Spike & Dana, Angel & Spike
Characters: Spike (BtVS), Dana (AtS), Angel (BtVS), Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Charles Gunn, Illyria (AtS), Harmony Kendall, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce
Additional Tags: Redemption, Vampire Slayer(s), Insanity, Atonement - Freeform, making amends, Training, Male-Female Friendship, Understanding, Episode: s05e11 Damage, Damaged
Summary:

When Dana returns to LA looking for Spike, they make a strange truce and find a way to help each other with their damage.



I've always been really weirdly attached to this story, for a lot of reasons, but one of the things I especially loved was being inside Dana's head and trying to think of how she'd make sense of things, how someone like her would see that world. I was really proud of her interior voice, and also Spike's.


Shelter (179 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov
Additional Tags: Video, Fanvids, Friendship, Shelter, Everything Hurts and I'm Dying
Summary:

All I know is to keep you close.



Most of my vids are not streaming anymore and only available via download at my vids site, which no one seems to want to do these days, so I tried to pick something streaming. And honestly, I think you couldn't get a more accurate picture of me as a vidder--very basic editing, none of the flashy stuff or voiceovers kids seems to like these days, good timing, and a clear narrative. Epic feels. A song that either most people haven't heard or would never think to use that way. And nothing probably says more about my love of Steve Rogers and the people he loves and wants to protect than this vid.


Dark Approach (93073 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson
Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov, Peggy Carter, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Pepper Potts, Clint Barton, Thor
Additional Tags: Memory Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, World War II, Flashbacks, Soooo Many Flashbacks, Identity Issues, Find Bucky, Everybody Just Wants Steve To Be Happy, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Implied/Referenced Torture, Longing, Pining, Found Family, Artist Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Recovering
Series: Part 2 of Dark Approach
Summary:

I have loved you across decades and centuries, over countries and continents and oceans.



Honestly, I couldn't decide what to pick for a third. Mostly I just loved writing this over the Summer of Cap Love, and I often wish more people loved it too, but I was happy with it (and the whole series).


The Gift of Forgetfulness (6049 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pacific Rim (2013)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hercules Hansen/Stacker Pentecost, Chuck Hansen & Hercules Hansen
Characters: Hercules Hansen, Stacker Pentecost, Chuck Hansen, Tendo Choi, Mako Mori
Additional Tags: Grief/Mourning, Loss, Child Loss, Road Trips, Cage Fights, self-punishment, Drift Bond, The Drift (Pacific Rim), Eventual Happy Ending, Team Hot Dads, Drivesuit Scars
Series: Part 2 of All They Had Lost
Summary:

He’ll not be anybody’s fucking tragic hero who lost his son and his best friend and still won the fight.



Since it said at least three, and I couldn't decide between Dark Approach and this, I'll put this here. I am still really, really happy with the writing I did for this Pacific Rim series, and I think this story is some of the best writing I've ever done, real-world or fannish. But it's a pairing with few fans, woe.
gwyn: (spuffy)
[personal profile] killabeez gave me: Spike and the Summers women.

I could write a book on this topic. Well, I actually have written a book about it, when you take the word counts of all the fanfiction and meta I've written. In the beginning, I enjoyed Spike as a fake-out Big Bad in season two, though I was never quite as enchanted by him and Drusilla as most people. I think his antagonism, especially to Angel, was hilarious and the whole second season was a ball in so many ways, but it wasn't until that moment when he saves Buffy from being arrested, and then subsequently meets her mom, that I became the dreaded Spike Fan.

It was completely his relationship to the Summers women, even Dawn a while later and extending that to Willow, because Lovers Walk is still one of my favorite Buffy eps ever, that changed how I felt about him. Even before he fell in love with Buffy, it was the strange give and take he had going with Joyce and Buffy that mesmerized me. It was funny, it was tense, and you never really knew which way he would go when he was around them. Much like poor Willow when he kidnapped her in S3, we had no idea if he would kill them or just hang with them, and ask for mini marshmallows in his cocoa. For some reason that made me deliriously happy; I've never really understood what it was, but that unexpected tension really worked for me.

I don't know that I have a bulletproof kink, but if I do, it's found family. Even though he was a vampire, he needed a family to replace what he'd lost when Angel and Darla and Dru and he had gone their separate ways. I loved the way he settled on Joyce as someone he wanted to be part of his family; when he shows up at their house in Lovers Walk of course we think something terrible will happen, and then we cut back to him and Joyce and she's there-thereing him while he complains about his lost love.

As much as Buffy tried to reject him, that slow friendship development that happens in season 5 is my favorite after season 2, the way she comes to rely on him when the things with Dawn and her mother are happening, and then you throw in the friendship that develops with Dawn, I was in heaven. There are a lot of things that I hate about S6 and S7, but the lack of Spike family friendship with Dawn and Buffy is a huge part of it. And as much of a Spuffy shipper person as I am, and thus should have been happy at the sexual relationship that developed, I would have traded all that for more Joyce and Spike, Dawn and Spike, and Buffy and Spike being friends and co-demon hunters.

I looooved writing Spike. Just absolutely loved it, despite him being so very different from me. And honestly, I think the single biggest reason I loved writing him was being able to write his relationships with Summers women (and by extension, women who were in some way connected to them: Willow, Cordelia, Fred, and even Dana). There were so many layers there. Really, if they hadn't soured so much of the experience for me, I'd probably have been content to write them forever.
gwyn: (spuffy band kathyh)
Ugh, I knew this would happen. Whenever I have a book to edit, I fall behind on whatever project I take on. So I have talking meme points 6 & 7 to do today.

[personal profile] sperrywink asked: How about vidding in Buffy fandom: Likes and dislikes?

Buffy fandom actually helped me transition from being a VCR vidder to a computer vidder. I had done a vid on VCRs, Do What You Have to Do, that I decided to remaster as my first-ever computer vid when I got my first iMac. I had to record the dvds onto a digital tape using my dad's camcorder, then load the digital copies on to my Mac, and then the fun of editing in iMovie occurred. It was really hard for me to grok, but I was so happy with the results, especially because I had dealt with one of the worst aspects of VCR vidding -- trying so hard to get an insert edit to work, ruining both the master and source tapes -- on that vid, and I could not fix it. As much as many people I know loved that vid, all I could see was this terrible clip I'd had to use just so I could move on. It tortured me for years, man.

Because I was still working on VCRs, I never got into a lot of the Buffy vidding fandom community -- I came late to the party in that respect, even though I'd been making Buffy vids from a lot earlier than, say, most of the people on Nummy Treat. That was hard, because I felt really isolated and one of the most important aspects of vidding, and of fandom, for me, is being part of a community. When I'm in a fandom of one, or isolated from most of a community, it is really hard to motivate myself. I think that's a lot of why I despair of the level of communication (everything from mailing lists and LJ to comments on stories and vids) in fandom these days; without the community and the participation, my enthusiasm dries up and wafts away.

But anyway, like I said, I came to computer vidding in Buffy later than most, but that's not to say I didn't have a lot of vids in the fandom already. For some reason, it was Spike that got me started in writing fic and most of the vidding. I wouldn't have expected that at all, he's not my usual type of character, but I fell hard for him, and his story once he came back to Sunnydale really made me want to create fannish things.

And that was a whole other problem in itself. I was...kind of shocked at the animosity toward Spike vids or Spuffy vids. Especially after S6 and that whole execrable attempted rape scene. I mean, OK, I get it when a fandom erupts around a character you don't like, especially when said fandom is a lot of people turning a rough character into a woobie. I've been there -- I watched all the excuses everyone made for Krycek, and the way the fans turned him into poor wee ickle Alex. But wow, I still was somehow not prepared for the nastiness you got when you vidded Spike, especially after S6.

Because for me, that was a goldmine of vidding subjects. One vid that isn't online that I should really remaster, I think, was 3 Libras, which was my way of trying to make sense out of the whole wretched season (I really hate S6, if you can't tell), and it made me terrifically happy when I showed it at Escapade and a couple people commented on how it was the first time the season made sense for them. There was just so much you could do with Spike in a way you couldn't always with other characters, and I really loved that flexibility and that depth of creativity I could find in vidding him. His story inspired me a lot.

Not that that was all I vidded, I've done lots of other Buffy characters, but I stopped after a while because of some concerns that I was focusing too much on a couple fandoms. I loved vidding La Femme Nikita and Buffy so much that really, outside of Firefly and the other other fandom, I could have done nothing else and still been happy, but that monomaniacal focus can turn into a joke pretty easily. I still have some songs that I want to do for the show, especially Giles because there never were enough Giles vids. Maybe at some point I will go back to it, even if I do worry that that might seem odd. I miss the show and I would love to see if I can recapture the magic that was lost with the souring of my feelings about Joss.

[personal profile] van asked: The best thing you ever ate!

This is so tough, because I have a really hard time remembering things like this. I mean, I remember lots of wonderful meals and menu items, but I have this nagging feeling that there's something really important to remember out there that I can't. I have been to some amazeballs restaurants and had astounding meals cooked by people I know, but I forget all those things quickly.

One meal I do remember was going to a super-exclusive private club at the top of the Columbia Tower, at that time the tallest building west of Chicago, with our new CEO at the association I worked for, who was a member of the club and who had invited us all to dinner to celebrate his new position. It was an amazing meal, just amazing, but I remember the lobster bisque before dinner -- it was simply incredible and I've been searching for a lobster bisque as good ever since. Never found it. Everything that came after was superb, as well, but that lobster bisque...oh, man, was that fine.

Another really wonderful food night came just recently. When I was visiting [personal profile] therienne, [personal profile] arduinna, and [personal profile] mollyamory last May in Boston, they took me to this basic, nondescript Mexican place near their home. It wasn't a special place or anything, had previously been a chain restaurant, but they made guacamole at your table to your specifications, so I could get it without onions tainting it, which was awesome. It was salty and delicious and fresh, and so wonderfully avocado-y, and I nearly cried when it was gone (which it was, right away). I wanted more and more and more. Then we followed that up with some queso, and I about died and went to heaven -- it was so fresh and tasty, not like what I was used to with queso at all. Really, that was just the best dinner, even though it wasn't some special hard to get into restaurant that would cost you $500 for dinner. (I'm sure the company didn't hurt, either!) I can't find anyplace like it around here, and really, I would consider flying out to Boston just to go to this restaurant again.

Last day

Jun. 29th, 2010 11:40 pm
gwyn: (deb morgan problem)
So, last day of the 30 days of TV meme! Today is

Day 30 - Saddest character death

Hm. I had to think about this one for a while and I still haven't decided. I expect a lot of people would peg Joyce's death on Buffy as the one that would get me the most, because it came so close on the heels of my own mom's death. But I really didn't like The Body; I found it stagey and preachy and full of annoying and precious, twee actorly moments. I was a lot harder hit by the episode after The Body, which felt much more real and accurate and heartbreaking to me.

And I don't watch a lot of the shows that have big, Emmy-nom-targeted death scenes, so that affects choices, too. I would probably pick Wesley's death on Angel except that it just pisses me off too much. I have no objections to a good character death -- I actually like it when it's done well -- but once again, I felt like we were set up so baldly that it left a bad taste in my mouth (not that I didn't cry like a baby when it happened). And the... characters on The Wire who died were all sad, but in the scheme of things, you kind of had to expect them, so I don't know if they can qualify as saddest (well, okay, except for ). And then there is Deadwood's )

So that leaves...I'm sure this would surprise people )

Late, late

Jun. 19th, 2010 01:51 pm
gwyn: (spuffy)
Catching up!! (But hey, how 'bout that World Cup, huh?)

Day 19 - Best TV show cast
I could say a lot of things here about some of my favorite shows, because I discovered long ago that what often cements my feelings about a series is the cast, and how they interact. So you got your Buffys, your Fireflys (which is probably the first time I have ever loved every single character in a show with an ensemble with equal devotion), your Deadwoods (which was so expertly cast that I sometimes felt like I was in a time machine -- I mean, I have one word for the incredible verisimilitude of that cast: Richardson), your Treks... but I'm not sure I've ever seen such a sprawling cast handled as well as The Wire did.

The cast was also constantly changing, and made up frequently of nonactors, and yet it was one of the most well-oiled machines ever, and all of them, newbies and old pros alike, brought such life and depth to the scripts that you felt like you were in the middle of their lives each episode. Like most people, I expected to hate S4, with its focus on kids in an inner city, crumbling school, and yet that is still one of the most powerful and affecting stretch of episodes on TV ever. Maybe THE most powerful.

Even though this video is about the 100 greatest quotes on the show, I think it's a great example of the incredible range of the cast, and how brilliant this show is. And the fact that it starts with Omar, maybe the greatest character ever created for TV, whistling Farmer in the Dell, is bonus points.



Day 20 - Favorite kiss

Oh wow. I have a lot of these. But it's pretty hard to decide if the Buffy -Spike kiss in Tabula Rasa wins, or the kiss Omar gave Brandon in the "dirty language" scene in S1. Don't ask me to choose! The former left me pretty much breathless when it happened, and the latter just surprised me so much, because it came in the middle of a scene when two drug thieves are preparing for a raid, in a culture that is hugely homophobic... just so surprising, and I thought showed what kind of guy Omar really was.

I can't find a Buffy clip with the original music by Michelle Branch, and a lot of the power of that kiss was the way the music was building up, and the camera came sneaking around the stairway to find Buffy and Spike kissing so passionately. It was all so cinematic. I assume that every clip a fan has put up with music has been taken down by the evil powers that be.

I can, at least, show the Wire clip.


And a recent one I might consider adding to the kiss pantheon (I love a good kiss, I really do) is Nate kissing Sophie at the end of the S2 Leverage episode. That was just hot. It's been a long time since I saw a kiss on TV that didn't feel rote or forced or actorly, and that one succeeded on all levels.
gwyn: (spike bad)
Man, yesterday got away from me. I spent the whole day at a bead weaving class -- learning right angle stitch. I have to say, I am really sucky at the whole jewelry making thing. Especially for things that involve spatial relationships. A bunch of people have complimented me on a necklace I made a few days ago, but I think that's probably going to be the one successful thing I do. I should stick to banging on metal and using cord and making the simple (and I suppose simplistic) designs like that. The weaving is hard, yo. I keep getting turned around in the wrong direction, or looping thread back onto itself, and having to pull it apart, which means the (not cheap) Swarovski crystals go flying everywhere. I brought home the two projects I started and tried to work on them a bit last night but I quickly learned one thing: no bead weaving when cats are inside. I think I will try to finish these two bracelets and call it a draw. I love the bling, but... I'm not skilled enough to keep doing it.

Anyway!
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show

Ah, so much to choose from with Buffy. Pretty much all I have to do is rewatch season 6 or 7 and I'm sure I could find quite the handful. I've seen others pick As You Were, Doublemeat Palace, and so on, and those are all good choices. So since the other ones I hate have been mentioned, I'm going with... Dead Things. Or... Empty Places, an episode I hated so much I forgot the name of it. Um... Dead Things. Because it featured the slimy Warren, a character I loathed from the very first moment we saw him, and rape as a plot device where two other guys basically go along with their rapist buddy and don't take action and yet somehow we're supposed to believe they are characters we should like, and Buffy beating on Spike so gratuitously I can't believe the show didn't come with some kind of extra violence warning, and the whole time distortion thing, a device I would normally love because I love fucked-up timeline things except they did it so badly, and I could go on and on. OMG I hate that episode so much. But apparently I hate it as much as Empty Places because I block out their episode titles.

Day 08 - A show everyone should watch

Wow, isn't that tough? Because of course you want to pimp a fannish show that you think everyone should love. But I'm going to go with something a little unusual here. I think everyone should watch The Dog Whisperer on National Geographic Channel. Even if you're a die-hard cat fan (or bird fan, or ferret fan, or whichever animal captured your heart the most) or you don't even think you're a pet person, this show has a lot to offer about what it means to be a leader. Now, I know that sounds crazy, but let me explain -- Cesar Millan is obviously very gifted at working with dogs and getting to the root of their psychological problems that manifest as behavior issues. But what he says at the start of the show, "I rehabilitate dogs, and I train people," is the point of what he really does. Because pretty much 99.9% of the time, what causes dogs to behave badly is their people.

And here he gets into a bunch of things you wouldn't see in many other pet shows. He looks at what's happening inside the person in control of the animal, he hears what they have to say, and he teaches them skills that also make a difference in the rest of their lives. He's had people on the show who were just so dumb that you want to knock their skulls in, but through patience (and sometimes impatience; in an early episode, he totally lost his temper with this idiotic woman who was choosing her dog over her son) and repetition, he helps people see where they're going wrong, and gives them the skills to overcome that.

For some people, that's meant a huge difference in the quality of their lives -- disabled people, people with severe emotional trauma, you name it, he's helped them by helping their dogs, and it's just wonderful to see. Not every dog is 100% perfect, but he follows up with people, and he gives them the tools to tackle things on their own. Some people's lives have changed so drastically they're almost different people when they check in with them later.

The thing I love the most is when kids get involved, and you can see them become confident and proud by being the "pack leader," the concept Cesar espouses. Yes, I know he's self promotional, and there are a lot of naysayers to his methods and beliefs, but I for one, as someone who was raised around dozens of animals and has always had animals in my life, completely understand and believe in everything he does. Yes, he's turned himself into an industry, but if the worst thing you can say is that the guy has helped thousands of people and animals become healthy and happier and gotten famous for doing it? Well, that seems like a pretty good deal to me.

I can't wait till I get a dog of my own at some point, and practice being "good pack leader" as he always says. If the whole world was made up of good pack leaders, even if they didn't have dogs, it would be a better place.
gwyn: (spuffy band kathyh)
Favorite episode. Jeez! Why not make you pick your favorite kid or something? (Not that I, you know, have kids, but I'm just saying.) I think most people go for Once More, With Feeling -- I've seen a couple other Buffyites mention it. But I have some issues with that one, and the other related possible candidate, Tabula Rasa. I think I might pick Intervention, just because it subverted so much of the expectations (I defy anyone to say they didn't cringe when they first heard it was going to be a Buffybot created by Spike).

But then... I go back to season 2, and Becoming, and how amazing that whole story was, not the least of which was Giles being tortured and Buffy and Spike forming their strange alliance (see icon), and that unforgettable ending. It seemed as if everyone got something spectacular to do in those episodes.

And there was evil Angel, and that one final glimpse of good Angel, and my favorite thing in the whole world, thwarted love and supreme sacrifice of the "killing you means I love you" variety... and bonus Sarah McLachlan at the end. It was all good, and operatically tragic, leavened with moments of wit and brilliant action, and I never get tired of watching it.

Hey, remember when Spike and Joyce first met, and sat there in the living room, trying to make small talk? Good times.
gwyn: (spuffy)
Oh wow. Hard question is hard. So, really, my favorite show ever? How can I pick just one? Everything I love, I love a lot. And when I think about the two most likely contenders, The Professionals and Buffy, there are good reasons for one taking the #1 spot and good reasons for one not being top dog, because both have spectacularly bad qualities as well. And I leave off a show like The Wire, which is probably the best show on TV ever, because I think favorite in this case means something maybe more emotional than that -- although, it's a tough call, because my love for The Wire is pretty intense. I just think it's in a different category, maybe.

But I guess, if I had to pick between my ur and uber fandom, the once and future fandom that got me into media fandom in the first place (Pros), and the one that probably provided my biggest ups (and downs) and most passionate feelings (Buffy), I'd have to choose the latter. Pros is kind of always there for me, but if I couldn't have it on a desert island, I'd have the memories of the show that are imprinted on my brain for the 30 years I've loved it. But Buffy -- I'd watch that over again, and over again, and it could keep me satisfied for a good long time.

Of course ideally I'd have seasons 1 through 5, with a smattering of select episodes from the egregious seasons 6 and 7 thrown in that don't murder my soul or don't make me want to spork my eyes out. Buffy gave me some of the characters dearest to my heart, some of the story tropes I love most in my life (which I have to say, Pros never really did, because of the nature of its storyline), and offered all those amazing opportunities for a fan to delve deeper through fanfic, meta, vids, and so on, in a way most shows don't.

The last two years definitely did some damage to my love of the show, and some of the behind the scenes machinations tarnished the shininess (not to mention I have very different feelings about Joss after Serenity and Dollhouse). But when it comes down to it, I can't think of anything I'd rather get stuck with on a desert island than Buffy and her buddies.
gwyn: (nikita fatale sinecure)
It is more joy day! Yay! I have a very meager entry for more joy, and it's probably only going to give me joy because these are some of my favorite grrls out there. BUT. I have long enjoyed other people's Fights Like a Girl icons, and have wanted to make some for my favorite ladies, many of whom have sadly been kind of forgotten these days. I have some more I want to make a little later, but my arm is killing me at this point, so here are just 8 girl fighting icons with some current and distant faves. Take, share -- I'm not the best artist in the world and not very skilled with p-shop, but I love playing around anyway.

Fight like girls )
gwyn: (spuffy)
The other day, [livejournal.com profile] greensilver came over and we watched some older vids, although I still have hundreds left unwatched that I need to borrow from others so she can see them. There's just no way to get even partway through all the stuff that's out there from the early days, but it's so fun to have a newer vidder be interested that I can't resist trying. Most of it's still only on old tapes, but some of them have been digitzed (not digitally remastered, which is a different thing altogether).

One of those we watched is probably my favorite Buffy vid, certainly my favorite Spike or Spike/Buffy vid, and possibly my favorite vid of all time (well, that someone else made, because I still love our own A Fire Is Burning beyond all reason), Lynn's Motorcycle Drive By. If you've never seen it, there's a DL available at JKL's vids site, which is passworded but it's super easy to get the PW as they have an autoresponder that will send it immediately.

Alas, Lynn has kind of gafiated from fandom, but if she were ever to attempt to remaster something, I would probably enslave myself to her to remake this one. If I could figure out how to do it exactly, I would probably remaster it for her, in fact, but I know she time-shifted some clips and I'm not always certain which ones those were (I can spot some of them, but others I don't know).

It's just such an exquisite piece and one of the best song choices I've ever come across -- it's sad, romantic, rocking, tough, tragic, violent, all the things that defined Spike's love for Buffy. One of the lines, "this is the last time/we'll be friends again" is paired with the clips of the two of them drinking shots on the coffin in S6, and out of the hundreds and hundreds of vids I've seen in my life, that may still be one of the best lyric-clip fits I've encountered -- unless it's the shot from early in the song on "I could never have you/I knew that before you did" where Spike is walking with Buffy toward her house in S2 in the second half of Becoming, and she's so suspicious of him when he's offered to help her get rid of Angelus. Augh.

It breaks my heart, even after all this time of being away from the Spuffy and feeling like the end of S6 and S7 ground away my heart for that story. Watching it again after a long time, I'm reminded of how intensely I felt that pairing, and since it was made long before Seeing Red destroyed the fandom for so many people, it's still got the power to show how doomed it all was without it being a forced, contrived, repugnant character destroying device perpetuated by brain dead showrunners. Because that was the nature of their relationship -- the line in the song that's repeated is "I've never felt so alone, and I've never felt so alive" and that was pretty much what it did to Spike and in many ways to Buffy, and we never needed the crappy anvilly nature of an attempted rape to show that.

Lynn managed to encapsulate everything that was tragic and doomed and wonderful and sexy and just... crazy good about their relationship through this song and her superb use of clips and her excellent vidding skills. It's an early computer vid when people were still using off-air tape source, and there are effects like superimpositions and dissolves in it, but they are used sparingly and with good taste, so they don't overpower the simplicity of the narrative or the complexity of the relationship. I wish that more vids were made like this one, so powerful and clear and emotional, instead of showing vidders who are amused by their own technology or envelope-pushing.

I've slavered over the vid before years ago to her, but in case she's still reading my LJ, thank you again for this lovely vid. I've totally felt a renewed a desire to rewatch Buffy again, and I think if I watch this vid enough times, I may even be able to try writing again and finish my WIP. It provided inspiration for other Spuffy stories I did, too, and I hope maybe it can do that again.

Although now I really wish I had a copy of the song!
gwyn: (jack ianto hex_graphics)
Okay, so here are the vids. Links to the high quality files first (my main vids page, please follow the links there, and it is no longer password protected btw), followed by embedded Imeem streams. Squee, criticism, general blathering, linkage or pimpage are all terribly welcome.

For Club Vivid 2008

Jump Around
Artist: House of Pain
Fandom: Angel
File: QT Divx avi, 28 MB
Get out your seat and jump around!
Streaming: here

Jump Around behind the cut )

For Premieres

Try Not to Breathe
Artist: R.E.M.
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
File: QT .mov 40 MB
Who remembers the rememberer?
Streaming: here

Try Not to Breathe behind the cut )
gwyn: (painscary  impetus_icons)
Ooo, [livejournal.com profile] sdwolfpup had a great TV meme today that I am gakking and filling out, because I don't want to think about things like impending joblessness and etc. I'm sure it will contain spoilers because so many people think even your opinion is a spoiler, so you are warned.

Also, there is still time to send me anonymous comments in her vidding truth meme -- you can say nice things or tan my hide, or both, and stay hidden!
http://sdwolfpup.livejournal.com/406338.html?thread=8385090#t8385090

TV watching memes are always fun )
gwyn: (giles)
Week before last, I had posted a new Buffy- and Angelverse vid, though all I could get was a regular small QuickTime window, unfortunately, and feochadn was going to see if she could get a better compression for me with her apps. Even though I was unknowingly shortly to be on my way to emergency surgery, I was busy bemoaning the fact that I keep getting less and less feedback the more I vid. Wah, woe was me, and I was crying in my beer and Jo told me she couldn't get a better large file for me (I think it's the same iMovie filters I used on this vid that have caused me such a headache, too) and it was very woe, woe, woe. I promised people I'd try to get a bigger, better file if I could. But then I got kind of... you know, sidetracked.

Sorry for the delay if you were waiting for that larger vid file. Female of the Species is there now in a Divx avi file, mostly toned down on the pixelization problems but at the expense of a large file -- it's about 60MB, I'm afraid. I've got both the smaller QT file there as well if you'd rather grab that.

I was also kind of making this the last vid of my yearlong experiment to see if putting your URL or email address will help with feedback. Everyone insists that it does, but I've never believed it at all, and I can now safely say that it makes no difference whatsoever. I've done different approaches in subsets of different vid types: large, relatively current fandoms with mixed-interest followings, small fandoms with mixed-interest followings, large fandoms with devoted vid followings, small fandoms with devoted vid followings, and small fandoms with nearly no vid following, and not one subset has shown a difference in response. And maybe it's just that I suck and make bad vids, or whatever, but the only noticeable difference in feedback levels have come from... recs or links. This has been especially borne out by a vid I made in a super small fandom with a not very big vid audience (After Rain), where I did not put a URL or email address -- I've received more feedback on the vid because it's been recced in a couple of LJs by people who did not know the series at all, and was mentioned in a lot of Escapade review panels. Many of the feedbackers were fans of the series, but did not watch vids in it; a lot of them just tend to follow any of the recs made by certain people, and one of the recs was pretty awesome.

So, my theory was proven (you can announce a new vid till the cows come home, but it makes almost no difference unless your friends and viewers mention your vid in their recs or LJ space), but that is not exactly satisfying. I hoped I'd be wrong, that putting the URL at the end of the vid, or an email, would cause a significant result, but it hasn't. Nor has making my password more readily available made a difference as everyone insisted it would -- it just reminds you how many *more* people access your vid and will never say anything to you about it one way or another.

Of course, I suppose if I could ever care for a show like Supernatural, maybe that would change, since that seems to be all anyone wants to watch these days. One shot of the burning woman on the ceiling, and I'd be golden...
gwyn: (insane angel elz)
I've been trying to get a decent compression with Divx avi for a while now on this vid, but it isn't happening, and between my constant gallbladder attacks (of which I'm having one right now, arg) and [livejournal.com profile] feochadn's schedule, we haven't been able to try her setup out to see if we'll get something better. So, in the meantime, I'm putting up an old-fashioned MP4 with a small 320x240 window. I'm sorry for the tiny size, but it is a lot clearer than what I'm getting with Divx right now. Whenever Jo and I can figure out a better format, I'll put that up, but in the meantime, I hope you can enjoy this even though it's small.

This is just the silly fluff. About a year ago I put up a poll for what vid I should do next, and the "lightweight, humorous Buffy and Angel all-cast vid" won by a longshot. I didn't feel up to making it then, but I finally got around to it. ETA: In my pain from last night, I forgot to acknowledge [livejournal.com profile] mlyn for creating the little animation on the credits, and [livejournal.com profile] killabeez for the beta.

Female of the Species
Artist: Space
File: QT 32MB
They're the women of the Buffyverse. You got a problem with that?

Vids page is here. Still passworded, but here it is:
The user is gwyn, PW: cymru
gwyn: (spuffy)
I've been capturing (for what feels like years, but has really only been over the past month or so, in between weeks of not being able to capture at all) clips for an all-Buffy-and-Angel cast vid. It's been a long time since I revisted these shows to such a degree -- I've done a fair amount of vidding in the Jossverse the past couple years, but I haven't had to look at so many eps, scan through so many whole chapters, in ages. Maybe even ever, because most of the vids have had a specific story and focus and I knew where to grab those clips I wanted.

I'm amazed at how much I remember of Buffy's first seasons, and how little I remember of Angel's. I don't know why this is. It's weird. But there are other things that really strike me as I go through these eps with the sound off.

- Buffy used to have a body, before SMG caved in to that emaciated look that is the only thing that counts among young actresses today. She had actual boobs (enough so that at one point I wondered if she'd gotten reduction surgery) and hips, and that soft roundness to her face in S1 and S2 made her look so lovely, made that whole deception of the little blond girl with superpowers even more amazing. I kind of stopped capturing after S5, in fact, because I just like looking at my girl when she seems less haggard and starved and scrawny. I adore Buffy, but I had a really hard time watching her get scrawnier and scrawnier toward the end; it made me sad.

- It took them three seasons to figure out that Anthony Stewart Head was sexay, and to use that. Even with his relationship with Jenny, and even after the Ripper revelations and his interactions with Ethan, he's still stuck in the tweedy English professor type at the start of S3, which he does well. But anyone who ever watched VR5 or any of his other roles knew that he was a lot cooler and sexier than they were allowing him to be. Weirdly, when he really starts to get out of that box is when Faith arrives. She's the one who comments right away about Buffy having a hot watcher, she's allowing us to see something else in him that we haven't before, looking through the eyes of the Scoobies. And then they start allowing him to do other things, wear other clothes (behold the power of a casual sweater with the sleeves pushed up), and once he's officially out as Buffy's watcher, act more powerfully independently of his role. When they bring Wes in as an even tweedier, dorkier, sillier contrast, Giles has officially broken out of that box. I love it.

- It's fun to see all these young faces again, before they were on everything else you watch on TV. Same thing with X-Files, which I have been watching on Sci-Fi regularly in an effort to remember more of the series for a vid.

- Out of all the people who changed the most physically over the years, I think David Boreanaz went through the most dramatic physical changes (not hair changes, a la Anya and Cordy). He's so unbelievably young in those early eps, and then he seems more solid and mature, and then he beefs up a little, and then he's back in fighting form... it's really interesting to chart. Still, as long he has hair that stands up, I'm okay! (I'm thoroughly convinced that this is why I think Rob Morrow's so hot now -- his standup Angel hair.)

- Before James Marsters started showing his age, my god, was he creamy-dreamy. That porcelain skin! Those insanely blue eyes! Yum.

- I never thought much about Riley -- he seemed like dead space to me and he didn't seem to have any chemistry with anyone (except James, who has chemistry with everyone). But he's really in a lot of ridiculously slashy situations throughout his run on the show. I mean, at one point he's even manhandling Giles, whose shirt is mostly off, and all I could think was, wow, this would be slasher heaven for most people on a show. I mean, most slashers would kill to get the kind of male-male interactions for vidding that Marc Blucas had.

- I liked Cordelia a lot more when she was a shallow bitch. When they made her more saintly in Angel, I was way less interested in her. I can see the need to have her grow, but I think they had her grow too far in the other direction. Late Angel season one is the last time she was really fun for me (well, with the exception of Billy and the whole shoe show-down with Lilah).

- But out of all the people who grew and changed emotionally on both series, it's Wes who is still the champeen for me. Man, what an incredible journey he went on, and how amazing Alexis Denisof was in portraying that. When you watch him in those early days on Buffy S3, and then the way he begins to transform in S2 Angel... it's really incredible to watch him. If you compare visually the Wes of S3 Buffy with just a year later, when he's been tortured horribly by Faith and then rises up and helps her because he cares about what Angel cares about is just... wow. I'm looking for all this silly stuff, but it reminds me now that I need to do the serious Wes vid I've always wanted to do (though I have to find a different song now).

- I know Spike is famous for the black leather coat, but no one -- NO ONE -- wears a coat like Angel. He is peerless at the outerwear.

- My goodness, the sexual innuendo and visual metaphors they got away with.
gwyn: (lesbians scarymime)
I should know better than to post on weekends. Or maybe it's just that no one really loves me. Sniff. I asked for clip help for a Buffy and Angel all-cast vid, but only three people responded and either no one saw it or no one wants to help me or no one likes me or everyone's forgotten all their stored up Buffy and Angel clips too. Or and stuff! All the times I've responded to people's pleas for clip help, but I can't get help when I ask?

::cries::

Okay, seriously, I really do need help. I have a LOT of repeating lines to fill, and already scanning through just first and second season Buffy is getting hard to avoid repetition of the same characters doing the same things. And I still have 5 more of Buffy and 5 seasons of Angel to go! ::cries again::

So I'm reposting my plea for help -- when you're bored at work, take a trip down memory lane and see if you can recall anything that fits these: I will love you forever, and also, it will help me make the vid, and it will light and fun and cute. But only with your help! Otherwise it will be left to my own lame devices. And then it will suck!!!!!11!!OMG

- Any clips where guys are in danger from women, preferably if the women are supernatural (along the lines of Xander and the preying mantis teacher/ inca mummy girl/Drusilla in BB& B). Bonus points if the women aren't just kicking their asses, but about to eat/torture/kill in some elaborate way, and if the clips seem visually funny, that's great (like the way Xander panics in BB&B). I don't want to use anything that's painful or sad, like Gunn killing his sister -- this is for a lighthearted vid.

- Clips where guys are reacting in a shocked -- shocked! -- or scared way. Facial reactions are often the hardest to scan for when you're looking for clips, and 7 and 5 seasons' worth of scanning for looks of surprise or horror are hard! The funnier the better -- early Wes is obviously going to be a good resource, as is Xander. (I need a LOT of these, so feel free to suggest like mad.)

- Clips where anyone's kind of skulking around or using funny physical motions (a la Spike's mugging for the cameras in Restless)

More specific:

-something/someone that would work for "Jekyll" and a different one for "Hyde"

- Some kind of "zapping" kiss -- stunning or knockout or something a long those lines

- A guy shouting loudly, or longly

Dogpile!

Jul. 22nd, 2006 05:44 pm
gwyn: (whatever scarymime)
After the depressing meltdown of my external hard drive and losing so much stuff (the vid files were backed up, but the two working vid files can't really be backed up due to size, and all the music is gone till I have time to figure out how to get it off my iPod and safely back onto the new hard drive), I figured I'd inaugurate the new drive with starting over again on rebuilding the updated Bride of Don't Fight in the Snow, and making a vid. It's so unbelievably, deathly hot here that all i can think about is sitting, even though it's stifling, and working on something. It's not like I could actually go outside and do something productive. Hell, just swapping out a lightswitch today had me in a puddle of sweat!

But I need your help, oh Buffy and Angel watching friends list! (Which I realize that a large percentage of is right now either at Writercon -- I seethe with envy -- or Comicon, but alas) I definitely feel like the old Buffy and Angel series database is getting a bit musty/rusty. I can recall a lot, but there are some things that are failing me as possibilities.

I'm looking for some more thematic clips, and then some really specific ones. I'll list the thematic first:

- Any clips where guys are in danger from women, preferably if the women are supernatural (along the lines of Xander and the preying mantis teacher/ inca mummy girl/Drusilla in BB& B). Bonus points if the women aren't just kicking their asses, but about to eat/torture/kill in some elaborate way, and if the clips seem visually funny, that's great (like the way Xander panics in BB&B). I don't want to use anything that's painful or sad, like Gunn killing his sister -- this is for a lighthearted vid.

- Clips where guys are reacting in a shocked -- shocked! -- or scared way. Facial reactions are often the hardest to scan for when you're looking for clips, and 7 and 5 seasons' worth of scanning for looks of surprise or horror are maybe a little too much without help. The funnier the better -- early Wes is obviously going to be a good resource. (I need a LOT of these, so feel free to suggest like mad.)

- Clips where anyone's kind of skulking around or using funny physical motions (a la Spike's hilarious mugging for the cameras in Restless)

More specific:

-something/someone that would work for "Jekyll" and a different one for "Hyde"

- Some kind of "zapping" kiss -- stunning or knockout or something a long those lines

- A guy shouting loudly, or longly
gwyn: (spike bad)
Much to my dismay, I recently found a glaring number of boo-boos in my Spike-moves-on-from-Buffy-to-Angel vid Santa Monica. Like, a lot of them. I never saw them (flash frames from the interlaced edit points) before in the countless checks, but they seem to appear only on the Mac DVD player, which I guess I never checked it on. Even though lots of discs are already out there with the vid on and it's been up for nearly two years, I couldn't stand the thought of it looking like that. So, since all Angel and Buffy eps are now on DVD, I figured I might as well remake the whole thing. I know there is probably even less interest in this than in the other old remastered vids, which is already pretty low, but I posted it anyway. Password is the same as always; if you don't have it, you can get it via the email link on that vids page.

The new, improved Santa Monica
Fandoms: Buffy and Angel
Artist: Everclear
File: QT Divx avi 21.9MB
Spike moves on with a little help from his friends.

It's pretty much a clip for clip remaster with only one completely different clip (because I could not find the landscape shot I'd used originally no matter how hard I looked) and a few tweaks to timing and such. I've always been amused by how amused people were about this vid when I first made it. But my favorite reaction is still the comment by the person I consider the dumbest person I've ever met in fandom, after this was shown at VVC, when she complained that there "were all these lyrics about living by the ocean, but there were no clips in the whole vid with water in them." Yup, that's me -- missing the literality since 1993.


And if by any chance someone actually watches it who can tell me how to fix the type in the credits, I would be grateful. The original credits, made in iMovie, work fine in that typeface. For some reason, I cannot get Final Cut Express to give me anything usable -- it either loses the ascenders and descenders completely, or if I bold it, like in this, it becomes a pixelly blob. I find the type control next to useless in FCE, but I've used fussier faces and still not had this kind of problem. I'd almost say it's related to anti-aliasing, but I haven't changed any settings and I'm not sure why this one is turning out far worse than any other credits. I am going to keep poking around, maybe even resort to making them in iMovie and seeing if they will import, but if the problem is in FCE, then that might not fix it. V. v. frustrated.
gwyn: (measure blue ali)
Sorry for the lengthy delay. ::is lame::

The Measure of a Man Chapter 10: Monsters and Angels is up now, in which Willow casts a spell, cryptic messages are delivered, and Buffy gets a visitor.

Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] sweet_ali for sticking with me on this long, long drive.

And thanks to another unknown LJ fairy for two more months of paid time. It is very much appreciated.

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