beerbad

Hello journal!  I've been meaning to make this post for months but y'all know how it is.  A lot has been going on in my personal life (baby due in 3 weeks, just bought a house, crazy stuff), but all the friending memes and 3weeks4dreamwidth have been inspiring me.  So here's a little primer/elevator pitch/list of reasons why I love 12 Monkeys - and why you might too!

12 Monkeys is a TV series that originally aired on Syfy from 2015-2018 and is now available on Hulu (at least in the US).  There are 4 seasons and a total of 47 episodes.  It is loosely based on the 1995 movie of the same name, and is about a group of people who are trying to use time travel to prevent the outbreak of a plague that kills 99% of humanity (and eventually prevent the collapse of time itself).  My wife and I began watching it because she loves time travel and I love survival/apocalypse stories, and killabeez recently ran a rewatch group which piqued my interest!  Considering it's one of the very best shows I've ever seen, it makes me sad that so few people have watched or even heard of it.  Hence, this post. :)

Here are some reasons to add 12 Monkeys to your watch list:

• An intriguing, well-written plot that makes sense
• A planned out, complete story with no loose ends (seriously. NONE)
• Writing so tight and intense that every episode feels like a finale (no filler, no time wasted!)
• Great, compelling acting with boatloads of chemistry between the leads
• Beautiful cinematography
• Team-as-family themes & tropes
• Lots of time travel and its related tropes (and yes causality is discussed constantly)
• Well-paced and well-earned character development
• Character-first writing (plot in service to the characters, not the other way around)
• Amazing costuming for a wide variety of time periods
• Plenty of OT3 potential
• Buttloads of ANGST, drama, hurt/comfort, and romance
• An absolutely impeccable star-crossed lovers story
• Lots of different parent-child themes and dynamics
• A variety of messy, complicated, powerful female characters
• The single best and most satisfying series finale I have ever seen on TV
• Plenty of rewatch value due to foreshadowing, time travel shenanigans, and a finale that makes the whole show even better
• It's really all about love - both platonic & romantic
• Honestly, if you just love watching your faves suffer horribly (but not without hope!) and find solace in each other, you will probably love this show

I will say that the show's general weak spot is its limited POC & queer representation.  I would be happy to elaborate on any of the above, answer questions, or provide content warnings as desired!  Hit me up in the comments :)

I saw Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker last night and definitely had a bunch of thoughts and feelings that I can't post on other platforms because there is no Facebook or Twitter spoiler-cut so here we are!  This type of journal is still good for something!

( Full TROS spoilers under this cut! )

Greetings from the 4th annual TGIFemslash convention!

In addition to curating the official TGIF/F Femslash Vidshow, this year staff was also so kind as to let me play a little bonus vidshow last night put together of some vids that couldn't fit in the main show.  Here they are, with links:

• Superstar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) by heresluck 
• Don't Wanna Dance (Grey's Anatomy) by anoel 
• Landsailor (Legend of Korra) by skygiants 
• Like a Fever (Legend of the Seeker) by talitha bee
• Here is a Heart (Power Rangers: Samurai) by bradcpu 
• Stray Italian Greyhound (Professor Marston and the Wonder Women) by beerbad
• The Chain (Sasameki Koto) by awkwardlyari
• Madness (Sharp Objects) by black-gekikara
• Coins in a Fountain (Steven Universe) by livelikeheroes 
• Synesthesia (Star Wars) by audreyv 
• Legend of the Wild Horse (Xena: Warrior Princess) by hollywoodgrrl 
• Learn to Crawl (Battlestar Galactica) by jarrow 

Please show the vidders some love if you like what you saw!  And vidders, please let me know if you'd like any edits to the links I've included above <3

Darkest Little Paradise: A Wynonna/Waverly Fanmix

1. Rescue Me - Unions
2. You Look Like Trouble (But I Guess I Do Too) - Lisa LeBlanc
3. Drive - Glades
4. Don’t Blame Me - Taylor Swift
5. True Love - P!nk & Lily Allen
6. Gold (Stupid Love) - Excision, ILLENIUM, Shallows
7. Super Fade - Fall Out Boy
8. Recovery - Broods
9. Now or Never - Halsey
10. Tequila - Dan + Shay
11. The Anchor - Bastille
12. Worth the Fight - Broods
13. Your Rocky Spine - Great Lake Swimmers
14. Horse to Water - Tall Heights

This fanmix is dedicated to and inspired by all of the Earpcest fanfic writers on AO3 - y’all are my heroes. <3 I made my first Earpcest fanmix after S1, and I’ve been collecting other songs for them since then. And finally the canon of S3 demanded that I get things together and make another one, cuz DAMN there were some strong Wynonna/Waverly feels this past season. o__o This one really spans a whole bunch of genres, and as always I seem to be drawn to a mix of songs that have themes of longing, obsession, angst, and above all, undying love no matter what the world throws at them. ;) Thank you once again to mammothluv for the fantastic album art!

Listen @ Spotify

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AO3 Post

Notes

This was another reminder that movie vids really are easier than TV show vids!  This was the first time I'd vidded a single movie (after vidding a Resident Evil trilogy) and it was such a different experience than vidding a show.  At first I was nervous about having enough footage, but I shouldn't have been, because there were many great shots of Elizabeth and Olive that I didn't even get to use.  I was surprised that it was challenging to condense this movie and this relationship down to a 4-minute vid, which just goes to show what a rich movie it is.  I knew the movie would be sexy, but I had NO IDEA just how romantic it would be.  In that sense, I feel like my experience watching it mirrored Elizabeth's own journey in a way -- the surprise of romance, how Olive comes along unexpectedly and brings so much to Elizabeth's life, far beyond just kinky sex (which, also good)!  That's the feeling I wanted to capture with this vid.

I love this song a whole lot, partly because of how dynamic it is, and it helped give a good structure to the vid.  I enjoyed vidding fairly linearly, preserving the narrative of the progression of Elizabeth and Olive's relationship throughout the film.  The song definitely dictated where the big emotional moments were going to land and then it was just about telling their story and matching the tone to the different parts of the song.  This is definitely the song I've most enjoyed vidding.

I loved Professor Marston so much when it came out; it was REALLY HARD to wait for the source to be available to vid it!  It was released too close to the TGIFemslash vidding deadline, but rather far away from Vividcon deadlines, so I ended up vidding it in the in-between and sending it to WisCon, which I have never attended.  I'm really glad I did!  It's nice to have an audience for your vids, even if you can't be there.  Several close friends of mine do attend the WisCon Vid Party, so it was fun knowing they'd get to see it as a premiere. :)  That said, I am racing to finish my Vividcon premiere now and feeling a little burned out, so I'm not sure that making three vids in the January - June time span is the best way to go for me, lol.  I am looking forward to taking a vidding break before TGI rolls around again!

Thank you for watching and I would welcome any comments, feelings, thoughts, and feedback you might have. :)

Title: Always
Author: beerbad
Fandom: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Characters: Leia Organa & Rey
Rating: G
Word count: 2,280
Summary: Rey knows she needs to find Luke, but she has a hard time leaving Leia behind.
Author's notes: In which I fill my own femslash_kink meme prompt, because I love Leia+Rey hurt/comfort fic and I want more of it to exist, and process some of my own feelings along the way. Written as a missing scene at the end of The Force Awakens, before Rey leaves on her mission. Posted in memory of Carrie Fisher. We miss you, Space Mom <3

Read @  AO3

I gotta say, between The Last Jedi coming out and the one-year anniversary of Carrie Fisher's death, I've been absolutely awash in Star Wars-related emotion as of late.  Seriously, I've been a wreck.  I wrote this fic in the three days leading up to the date of Carrie's death, right before and after I saw the movie for a second time.  I'm definitely a believer of the importance of striking when the iron is hot when it comes to creating fanworks (I know there are a ton of you out there with much more discipline, but that's not how I roll), and as a result this fic was fairly easy to write as I just channeled all that emotion into it.  I'm always eternally grateful to fandom both for producing big emotions in me and giving me a way to channel them. <3

I have a lot more to write about Star Wars (which should honestly be at least two other separate posts at some point!), but I will say that the Star Wars fandom has produced some of the very best hurt/comfort and gen fic that I've ever read, and my SW bookmarks on AO3 are some of the fics I reread the most, especially when I'm feeling down.  I'm very pleased to finally contribute something to the canon of Rey hurt/comfort fic, also something that will hopefully be enjoyed by people like myself who wanted so many more Rey & Leia scenes than what the movies gave us.

 Weeellllll... long time, no post I'm afraid. :\  I'm actually writing this from my Vividcon hotel room (yes, back at VVC after a mere 9 years away!), and I submitted this vid to the Nearly New show, so I realized I should actually make the post for it I've been meaning to make since this vid premiered at TGIFemslash on April 7th. lol. And it's also in celebration of reaching 1K views on YouTube!  So if this vid is old news to you, I apologize. ;)


[YouTube link]
[AO3 link]
[Tumblr link]

I love that I thought I'd be able to make an Illyana mix without also making a Kitty mix to go with it. ;)

( Notes & lyrics under the cut... )
Listen on Spotify
Listen at 8tracks
Download at Mediafire
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AO3 Post

Companion Mix: Tether [Illyana POV]

Wow, I have not posted a proper fanmix in almost four years. /o\ I'm here to rectify that with a mix for a very uncommon ship that is mostly based on my own headcanon. OH WELL! I hope someone else might enjoy the music at the very least. :) (Or, even better, feel inspired to give All-New X-Men a read and come frolic in the teacher/student femslash with me.)



( Art, songs, lyrics, me trying to explain my weird headcanon... )

At this time I don't actually plan to use Dreamwidth, nor crosspost my LiveJournal content, but I do plan on tracking a lot of kink meme prompts.

That is all.