Tafadhali

I am participating in FTH again this year, once again offering a full-length fanvid in any fandom I have vidded before!*

Some fandoms I have vidded before and would be especially pleased to vid again include:

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Revolutionary Girl Utena
• Dimension 20
• Leverage
• Severance
• Heated Rivalry
• Studio Ghibli
• Any number of horror films, particularly adaptations of Stephen King
• Almost any film I have logged and liked on Letterboxd

I'm even open to considering a multifandom vid! You can see my past vids here.

If you have a specific vision or any questions about my offer, please feel free to DM me here or on DW, or to email me using the email in my FTH auction post.

* Except HP (for JK Rowling reasons) or Yellowjackets (for lack of further things to say reasons)

Festivids reveals have happened! I made 6 vids this year, three solo and three with periru3. I posted my first treat in early December and was glad I had, because it turned out that the rest of the month was a pretty scary and uncertain time in my family and I wasn't sure how much vidding I'd be able to do. Thankfully things were looking much better by New Year's and I enjoyed having a creative outlet after that stressful time. (Honestly, having a reason to just keep vidding in the doldrums of January is a real liferaft even in more normal years.)

As ever, I'll list my vid chronologically and share a few notes about each:

Lost Words Blessing (Flow): Shortly after requests went live, I saw Vienna Teng in concert and she covered this gorgeous song. I already had Flow in mind as a source I would love to vid, and the mystery and lyricism and wildness of the song spoke to everything that had made me so emotionally engaged in the film. 

The Stranger (Very Important People): On long drives, Periru and I sometimes play a vidding game where we pick a fandom and put a playlist on shuffle until we find a song we think would be interesting. It doesn't often turn into a finished vid, but sometimes a song comes up and you just KNOW. I have always wanted to vid "The Stranger" and had no idea what kind of source I could match it with, and it turns out the answer was VIP! It was so much fun to get weird with all the different tempos and moods of the song, down to our self-indulgent and bizarre Chompsky's outro.

You Get What You Give (A Man on the Inside): I matched with MimiHylea on Twelfth Night, and assumed that is what I would end up vidding, but I also was a bit worried I'd used all my best genderbending Shakespeare mojo on "Boys Keep Swinging" last year. Given that, it felt like the perfect opportunity to finally watch the new Michael Schur-Ted Danson show that I had been wanting to check out — and it was so lovely and heartwarming! I knew season two was coming in November so I saved my planning until after that aired, then listened to a lot of songs about friendship, aging, community, etc. But ultimately "You Get What You Give" grabbed me because the themes of the song felt so resonant with the idea of "what we owe each other" that Michael Schur is clearly still playing with in this show. I wanted to capture Charles' journey from loneliness to connection and the ways he pays that forward, helping the people around him connect as well.

Bulletproof (A Simple Favor series): I'd had the thought that this cover of "Bulletproof" could be a good match for the energy of these movies and for Stephanie's efforts to resist being pulled back into Emily's orbit in the new sequel, and then Periru reminded me that Anna Kendrick actually covers this song in Pitch Perfect, so that clinched it 😆. This was a very fun vid to make but definitely one of those times when we were realized we were running out of verses and plot and still had two minutes of chorus repetitions and instrumentals left. Some liberal song cutting, adding a segment about all the twin (triplet) reveals, and combing our clips bin for good moments we hadn't used yet got us where we needed to be — I especially like the watch check on "this time," followed by the long slow-mo shot of Stephanie that mirrors Emily's intro in the first film.

Now You Know (Knives Out series): I'm not positive, but it's possible the idea for this vid came as part of the same game that led to "The Stranger." All I know is that, at some point, Periru and I said "We need to find a Sondheim song that is a good fit for these movies." We nearly forgot we had wanted to make this until about a week before the final deadline, and I'm so glad we remembered to circle back to it, because it was a really interesting one to work with! I started by working backwards, knowing that I wanted us to end on the shot of Marta with her mug on the balcony, but then we had to do a lot of finessing to make sure we were being true to all three characters arcs and that moments we thought were important (like Father Jud's phone call with Louise) were reading. We obviously had a lot of fun working nods to the movies' love of musical theatre into the vid as well!

The Spirit of Adventure (Dimension 20): I had the idea for this vid back when Cloudward Ho! was still airing and — as I usually do with D20 ideas — decided to save it for Festivids. Now, you might think the hardest part of vidding D20 is making static clips seem lively, but I actually have a lot of fun with that! The hardest part of vidding D20 is CLIPPING, because it's just a lot of people sitting around a table talking, for hours on end. In the past, I've either worked with a pretty small subset of episodes or I've hit a tipping point where I'm getting so in the flow of editing that I give up on clipping and scrub for specific moments, but this time I really felt like I needed the whole season properly clipped, and color coded, and sorted before I could really make the vid I wanted to make. So, I started clipping in October and finished clipping in late January 😅. I was not at all sure I'd be able to get this vid done in time for FV, but, during the long clipping period, I'd gotten my intro done and several lyrical matches drafted, so once the clips were in order this really did fly together. I'm so glad it did, as I think this vid really captures all I loved about this campaign!

Let's keep this monthly rec party going into the new year! Festivids goes live tomorrow and I will definitely have a huge rec post for that in the next week, but for now here are 10 things I read/watched this month that I enjoyed, beginning with non-Heated Rivalry stuff (since, predictably, I've gotten sucked into that fandom):

❖ 🎥 Heavy in the back end by sleepy mango (Hockey RPF, Sidney Crosby, fanvid): I'm late to this party, lol, but nothing made me laugh harder this month than this vid dedicated to Sid's assets.

❖ 🎥 Hope for the Hopeless by heresluck (Shelter, Shaun/Zach, fanvid): I thought the other day "Has there ever been a vid for Shelter made for Festivids?" and the answer was, yes, obviously, this gorgeous vid by heresluck. It's a beautiful Zach character study that captures everything I love about the movie.

❖ 🎥 House by evewithanapple (The Black Phone, gen, fanvid): An extremely creepy and atmospheric vid for The Black Phone, with an incredible sense of setting.

❖ Knife by lightningwaltz (Rope, Brandon/Philip, 5k): A dark and compelling backstory for the murderous duo in Hitchcock's Rope written for Yuletide 2025.

❖ There's No Discharge in the War by remiges (The Long Walk, Stebbins gen, 12k): Another late Yuletide read for me. This is a phenomenal time loop story, focused on a character I found fascinating but enigmatic in the book (and very underwritten in the movie). Captures the horror of repetition.


And now for the Heated Rivalry recs! I most enjoyed/sought out fic about Shane and Ilya getting to know each other's family and friends or about public perception of their relationship, so that features heavily here:

❖ as reliable as the sun by astrolesbian (Shane/Ilya, 7k): "shane does not like change. he does not like shifts in the status quo. he also honestly doesn't really like when people are in his house. however. shane does like ilya. maybe enough that none of that matters." Romantic story set in episode 6 with a focus on Shane's autism.

❖ Closer to the Heart by norgbelulah (Ilya & Yuna, Shane/Ilya, 7k): One of many great fics I've read this month looking at Yuna's perspective on the Shane/Ilya relationship.

❖ the gift by stammiviktor (Shane & Svetlana, Shane/Ilya, 8k): "Only a few months after the cottage, Shane meets Svetlana—and goes to great lengths to defeat his jealousy."

❖ it'll cost you, not enough to bring you down by notlichenthis (Ilya & Kip, background Shane/Ilya and Scott/Kip, 3k): A moving conversation between Ilya and Kip post-season 1.

❖ something you can fix [series] by some1_around (Shane/Ilya, AU, 135k): You've probably read this already, but it's great! A canon AU where Shane's conversation with Rose is recorded and leaked online, with all of the fallout that ensues.


And then ahhhhhh there was such a glut of good Heated Rivalry vids all at the same time. Here are three I really liked: 11:11 by Nestra, Blow by bingeling, and Naked in Manhattan by sisabet.

I've seen this floating around and wanted to jump on!

Fic = any fannish work (copying that adjustment from colls since most of my works are vids)

Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for [starting] a fanwork title? One per line, 'A' and 'The' do not count for 'a' and 't'. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fanworks count.

A: Achilles, Come Down, Les Mis vid
B: Beautiful Dirty Rich, Columbo vid
C: Celebrity Skin, Child's Play vid
D: Desaparecida, Carmen Sandiego vid
E: Eat Them, horror multifandom vid
F: Fortunate Son, Star Wars vid
G: Golden Boy, OFMD vid
H: Hail Satan, Stranger Things vid
I: INHUMAN ILLUSORY SOUL FUSION MAGIC, Steven Universe vid triptych
J: Jagged Little Slayer, BtVS vid album
K: the killing moon, I Saw the TV Glow vid
L: Limerical Losers Club Valentines, IT limericks
M: Man on a Wire, Hannibal vid
N: La Noyée, Portrait of a Lady on Fire vid
O: Obsessed, Rebecca vid
P: Pynk, femslash multifandom vid
Q: The Queer Gospel, queer multifandom vid
R: Rose Bride My World, Utena vid
S: Sound the Bells, IT vid
T: Teenagers, Dimension 20 vid
U: Umbrella, Singin' in the Rain vid
V: Voice in My Throat, Sense8 vid
W: Waters of March, Miyazaki vid
X:
Y: Your Woman, Ted Lasso vid
Z:

Score: 24/26 from 147 fanworks. 

AO3 | Tumblr

Title: You Learn
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Co-Vidder: periru3
Music: "You Learn" by Alanis Morissette
Length: 3:59
Summary: Wait until the dust settles.
Notes: Part 12 of Jagged Little Slayer

This is our finale — a love letter to all of the finales and the ways the characters live, cry, grieve, choose, and learn.

We have also posted the full vid album edited together here. I feel like I should make a whole post for that — maybe Tessa and I will write some commentary and do a more in-depth post in the coming weeks.

AO3 | Tumblr

Title: Wake Up
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Co-Vidder: periru3
Music: "Wake Up" by Alanis Morissette
Length: 5:05
Summary: What goes around never comes around to you
Notes: Part 10 of Jagged Little Slayer

AO3 | Tumblr

Title: Not the Doctor
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Co-Vidder: periru3
Music: "Not the Doctor" by Alanis Morissette
Length: 3:45
Summary: I don't want to be the glue that holds your pieces together
Notes: Part 9 of Jagged Little Slayer

AO3 | Tumblr

Title: Voice in My Throat
Fandom: Sense8
Music: "Voice in My Throat" by Pearl & The Beard
Length: 2:58
Summary: 

I walk down the road and I'm alone again but | All these years I've travelled down a lonely pathway
You will be the voice in my throat | You have been the voice in my throat

Notes: Made for colls for fandomtrumpshate 

I've been lowkey obsessed with this song since I first heard it a couple years ago, and have long thought it could be an amazing vid song but also that it might be unviddable, so was so excited when I thought of it for this project. I was a bit trepidatious going in, because I wasn't sure I would be able to pull off my vision for this vid technically — I wanted to capture the song's polyphony visually, creating the feeling of characters going through their lives separate but connected, and finally coming together as the voices of the singers merged. In the end, I think I was able to achieve that with the split screens and dissolves that I used. The unexpected gift of the song was its use of chimes, which were wonderful for making important moments pop and which I was able to use to evoke the feeling of being alone but hearing something or seeing something out of the corner of your eye as the Cluster first become aware of each other.

Most of my vids for this show have been big messy joyful ensemble pieces and that was the vibe for this one as well, but to set it apart and to give myself a hook I focused in on a) moments where the sensates act or speak through one another, supporting each other with their special skills and strengths and b) one-on-one scenes between all of the characters in the Cluster, particularly those not romantically involved with each other (or at least treating the romantic pairings as equal and equivalent to every other pairing). In the end, I think only Kala/Nomi and Sun/Wolfgang didn't get exclusive moments together, and that's only because I cut a Sun/Wolfgang scene I liked so much to instead start building to large group shots and I couldn't work it back in later.

This was such a pleasure to make!

AO3 | Tumblr

Title: Perfect
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Co-Vidder: periru3
Music: "Perfect" by Alanis Morissette
Length: 3:35
Summary: I'll make you what I never was
Notes: Part 7 of Jagged Little Slayer

Took me a minute to post due to back to school season, but here is the vid I'm most excited about so far in our vid album!