M'lyn

Ta daaa! \0/

Mad Men
I Feel It All (right-click/save-as)
Artist: Feist
File: MP4, 19MB
Peggy's journey of finding herself through the first two seasons.

My second Festivids assignment for Mad Men filled me with a certain amount of trepidation, but I found that restricting myself to a character and the arc over two seasons was immensely helpful. This wasn't my first song choice, but I think it's the better one, and called for some thinky interpretation of the lyrics. I'm happy that this has been received well by the recipient and other viewers.

Available at the direct link above or among my other vids.

Day 10: In your own space, talk about a creator.

I could choose any number, but looking at my pinboard, I spotted my Once Upon a Time in Mexico tag and decided that would be fun.

My author of choice in this fandom (of five or six people, it seems) is Tiggy Malvern.

feochadn recced Tiggy to me. It started when she went looking for fic in a certain fandom and enjoyed Tiggy's work. She looked at the rest of Tiggy's fic and spotted Once Upon a Time in Mexico fic, and was intrigued. The movie is the last in Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi series, and the pairing is El/Sands, or Antonio Banderas & Johnny Depp. Okay, I thought, I can see the pretty, but would that actually work?

Turns out her series is like crack—no, like a lifelong low-grade alcohol addiction. It won't chew you up and spit you out quickly, and the burn is slow. Based on how vehemently feochadn recced the series, and that I would have a lot of time to read on the way to and from Poland last winter, I loaded the stories up on my Kindle.

I can't count how many times I've read them. Usually just my favorite sections (and oh, how I came to love the bookmark feature), but it's a good thing they're not in paper format; they would be well-worn by now.

The series is fantastic for, I think, a few specific reasons: she has the best grasp of Sands' character of all the writers I've read, and she is tremendously familiar with their world (or at least fakes it brilliantly). To say that she's a great writer in the basic, technical sense is a given.

There's a few key things about this pairing: El and Sands hate each other, and Sands was blinded at the end of the film. Right away there are challenges: how to write convincingly for blind characters, and how to make these two characters interact realistically. Of course it's slash, but how do you get them to the slashy point?

I mentioned Tiggy's familiarity with their world. It's all about the gun porn. Makes and models, the way men use them, specifically the way assassins and killers use them. Minute details and concerns that I've never read anywhere else. I remember turning to feochadn and saying, "She really knows her guns, huh?" and getting an emphatic "YES." Boy howdy. Maybe she fakes all that knowledge—maybe it was research, not personal experience—but you wouldn't know it.

And Tiggy's grasp of Sands: again, he's blind. I have a somewhat shameful kink for blindness because it becomes directly related to competency: how someone deals with a disadvantage, even turning it into an advantage. She addresses little details like how a blind person feels when taking a shower—when their sense of hearing is severely affected. If you're a slightly crazy, paranoid, ruthless motherfucking killer like Sands, you're going to want to hear if someone is sneaking up on you in the bathroom. And El is one of the most laconic characters ever—how does he interact with El without words or facial expressions? I've seen writers make him a damaged little woobie or a candidate for the looney bin (or both), but Tiggy reins in those impulses and remembers that Sands is a CIA agent, someone who lived easily in dangerous places, staying alive by his connections and wits and skills. He may be a little off his rocker, but he's also capable, competent, and a pro.

The Wires series does this by working through Sands' and El's life immediately after the movie. There are good motivations and the characters logically work through the events of their lives. The first fic, Wires, is very long and somewhat slow-moving, but worth it for the setup. This is how El and Sands can become El/Sands.

Strung is a short, smutty sequel. You're inside Sands head while El takes him apart.

In Frayed, El and Sands run into some problems on a job. While it makes Sands beholden to El, it isn't enough to keep them together. What happens when Sands is on his own, and what he does from there.

Tangled is pure smut from El's perspective. He's comfortable enough with Sands to assuage some curiosity. Y-U-M nummy.

With Severed, Sands and El have to quickly adjust their plans, but maybe they should work out the details first. Equal parts character dynamic and smut.

Finishing the series is Bound, where outside forces intrude on Sands' enjoyment of life. Long and full of action, characters, and plot, it's a great stopping point…although I'm still left wanting more.

The only terrible thing about this series? It draws so little from canon. I watch the movie and think about vidding this pairing and realize there's nothing to use. There's very little satisfaction from the source. What I would give for another Mariachi film from Robert Rodriguez, with El and Sands paired up.

Tirrrred. Mister E is passed totally out in his bed; lots of playtime this afternoon with feochadn's cat.

Day 8: In your own space, talk about a talent (or talents) you have.

Um, well, I guess I'll toot the obvious horn and say it's my woodcarving. I tend to think I'm essentially coloring in the lines: I just follow directions and do things according to the rules, and I'm certainly not the best carver around. But it gives me a happy when people compliment me on my carving, so I'll take that.

I certainly like having something aesthetically pleasing after all the fucking grinding to get it that way. My hands were stinging most of the morning just running them under hot water—tender tissue from using a lot of beef on the hand tools yesterday. I FINALLY finished the first major phase of the latest piece (a siderail) yesterday; the next phase should go quickly, and then I can start on this thing's twin. The sad part is that I kept getting asked if this was the second of two siderails. Nope, I'm just damn slow. :/

Day 5 challenge: In your own space, share something non-fannish you are passionate about with your fannish friends.

Uh…like I don't share my non-fannish interests here? Hello, vikings and nordic woodcarving. Love love love love LOVE. Ahahaha, that last image was done by my carving instructor—I just randomly found it on a Google search. What a dearth of good photos of carving.



Also, the Tumblr ladyjspillowblog posted this x-ray of a foot wearing sky-high heels with the caption "This is why I don't wear heels." YES. OMG THOSE POOR TARSALS. I want a fucking flat-shoe revolution, NOW.

And don't try to sell me some bullshit about the benefit of platforms or wearing heels of a lower height; anything about 2 inches is inviting damage, and 2 inches itself is still abnormal. AND it just depends on the person. I have some moderately high heels I bought this fall (I think about 2 inches) and I barely wear them because just walking a couple blocks makes my feet hurt. I'm sure it's because I'm fat, out of shape, and don't have the calluses for putting all my weight on the balls of my feet…but it's enough to make me avoid the pain.



…Sorry, I've been drinking and vidding very bouncy music.

A couple months ago I did an interview with kriken for Slashcast, a slash-focused radio show. It was my very great pleasure to talk about 13th Warrior fandom and fanworks for fifteen minutes. You can find the whole show here at slashcast. :)

Thanks for participating in this challenge!

I'm primarily a slash fan and enjoy vids that push the artistic envelope while staying watchable. (Please, no speed metal.) I love a source with natural beauty paired with simple music, but at the same time a strong beat gets my blood moving. IMO vids should endeavor to tell a story, even just an emotional sketch, while paying attention to the art of editing.

I avoid vids that get crazy with loud, fast music and overly fast cutting. I don't think it's impossible to do successful vids with those elements, but a vidder should be confident of his or her abilities and pull it off deftly. Flashy editing, effects, or music should serve the vid as a whole, not try to stand on their own.

( Read more... )

For my first year participating in Festivids, I was relieved to get an assignment I felt I could tackle with confidence in my source and song. I've been a fan of Nick Ogawa/Takénobu since I heard his amazing work on Pandora a while ago, so this was the perfect opportunity to download his album from CD Baby and explore the tracks. I saw a number of comments that viewers loved the song, so please do check out the album, because I chopped up the song significantly to vid with it.

I don't have my vid index updated at the moment, so here's a direct link to the file.

Neverland (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
Song by Takénobu
Vid for Diar for Festivids 2010
Length: 2:19 (16.1 mb MP4)

I had a lot of fun playing with voices, rhythms, and pacing throughout the vid. It was really difficult to choose what of the movie I wanted to use, but ultimately I had to distill the story down to Jen, her choices and relationships, and above all the adventure of the film.

Staycation
Fandom: The 13th Warrior (present-day 'Evening' universe; see author's note)
Rating: Adult
Summary: Lots of everyday things remind Herger of Ahmed.
Author's Notes: Thanks, as always, to my darling beta ixchel55, and to killabeez for Photoshop betaing.

If you haven't read my previous story set in the present day, this won't make any sense. Start with Evening.

I've also included a glossary of norsk at the end of the fic, for those who may get too frustrated with my language geeking.


( Fic and art behind the cut )

Big ol' sign: I will not crosspost comments to FB or Twitter. I don't even have a Twitter account. And why would I crosspost fannish-journal content to real-life-FB when I have them separate to keep them separate?

For that matter, I'm thinking I might stop crossposting altogether. I never look at LJ. I don't read my flist there anymore. Sure, I miss out on a bunch of communities, but…out of sight, out of mind. I managed to "join" a new fandom (e.g., read other people's recs) all on my own out here in the wilds of Dreamwidth. (I even had to remind myself that the reason I wasn't seeing any Vividcon comm content right before the convention was because they don't have a DW comm.)

If there are people who want me to read them, and aren't already on DW, let me know so I don't lose track of you. Or, another way of putting it: if there are people who will miss me if I stop posting to LJ altogether, and want to continue reading me, I'm flattered and you need to let me know. I don't want to exclude anyone, but LJ's shit has been stinking worse with every "feature" they roll out.

Although…shit, thinking about it, I'll probably have to keep my LJ open for the 13th Warrior comm. Ah well.


I have DW invite codes if anyone wants 'em.

Name: Ash Lads
Fandom/Pairing: 13th Warrior/Supernatural crossover; Ahmed/Herger
Rating: PG-13 for kissing, implications of sex, and violence
Notes: Many thanks to my betas devilc and ixchel55. They're probably sorry to see some inaccuracies remain, but here's the thing: I write to movie canon, and the movie The 13th Warrior was majorly wrong on a lot of stuff. I tried to explain some things to a logical end, but some handwaving may be necessary.

---

"The hero is Askeladden (literally, the Ash Lad, because he always sits by the fire and roots and pokes in the ashes)." —Norwegian Folk Tales, from the collection of Peter Christen Asbjørnsen & Jørgen Moe, translated by Pat Shaw Iversen & Carl Norman

---

( Sam dropped into the passenger seat and folded his legs into the footwell, closing the door with a bang. )