Last updated 11/8/11

( FIC BY SWEETESTDRAIN )

( VIDS BY SWEETESTDRAIN )

( ADDITIONAL LINKS )

It's probably about time for me to make a proper update on like, life and stuff. I'm nearly finished with my MFA, just one more signature and a few more revisions to go, and then in a month I'm moving back home. I'll miss it here! This has been an awesome three years of learning and writing and teaching... and hardly ever posting to LJ about any of it. Hee.

As far as fandom goes, I think I've posted briefly in the past about comic books (Captain America! The Avengers! ...Batman! yes, I know) and tumblr, and both of these things continue to eat my life. Do I have actual thoughts on the Avengers movie, or do I just have mindless squee in the form of pretty pictures I reblog on my tumblr? Probably the latter.

The Avengers squee is seeping out into other projects by those actors, too. The other night, what_alchemy and I had a toenail-painting party while we watched 13 Going on 30 (Mark Ruffalo at his most adorable!), Weird Science (buckets of awful, why did no one warn me?), and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (wherein Gay Perry is still the awesomest). I tried to paint my toenails in Hulk colors in honor of Mark Ruffalo, and when that went wrong (as evidenced by what_alchemy's supportive, "You can always use polish remover and re-do them!"), I covered them in a layer of black crackle polish, and now they just look like 1980s children's cartoons vomited on my feet. (As does the Hulk, really, so I guess that makes sense.)

(For the Avengers premiere, which I saw as part of the all-day Marvel Movie Marathon, I had Iron Man fingernails -- those were far more successful. Listen, practicing crazy things with fingernail polish is a GREAT way to procrastinate revising your thesis!)

What else was I going to say? I don't know how to make LJ posts anymore.

Oh! I also meant to post ages ago to point everyone at the fabulous Ferris Bueller's Day Off vid that fan_eunice made for me: When My Boy Walks Down the Street. If you never shipped this movie's OT3, now's your chance to start. If you always did, then -- holy shit, Eunice vidded it and it is awesome and totally moving. Agh.

Hey y'all! I am posting to ask for your suggestions! I'm VJing a vidshow at VividCon called "Out of Time" which will feature, and I quote from my blurb -- vids about being displaced in time, traveling, jumping, or skipping through time, standing apart from time, alternate universes, and of course, running out of time.

I've got a few vids I'm considering already for this theme, but I'd love to hear what vids come to mind for others. I'm particularly interested in vids for fandoms with which I might not be familiar, but I'd also like to know your favorite vids in fandoms like Doctor Who, Fringe, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Life On Mars/Ashes to Ashes -- there are probably a lot of great vids for them that I haven't seen!

You can reply to this post (comments are screened) or fill out the official VVC vid suggestion form.

This is one of those "oh, hey, I have a tumblr now" posts; I started one a while ago on a whim and I've started using it more and more lately as I've discovered, hey! This is a way to engage with other people fannishly and gawk at pretty things AND not necessarily have to make coherent words happen! (Which is a HUGE plus, as I'm reserving most of my words--and time--for finishing up my thesis this semester.)

If you're interested, you can find me at http://exitbybears.tumblr.com. Right now I mostly just reblog things. There might be occasional spoilers for ongoing shows (Spartacus, Once Upon a Time, Community, etc.), but I'll generally wait at least a couple days after the airdate to squee over gifs. And other than that, there's just a whole lot of random.

Anybody have exciting tumblrs to share? Anything I should be following? Let me know!

It is Cabaret vidded to Hot in Herre for condnsdmlk and it can be downloaded or streamed here.

Thank you so much to everyone who commented on the Festivids posts! Y'all are awesome.

Oh man, I'm nearing a Very Important Deadline soon and probably should not have spent most of the past two days watching vids, but... it's festivids! Who can resist?

I received FOUR (omg) amazing vids this year. Let me tell you about them.

Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight (Batman) by ?
The Joker. To Tiny Tim. Yes. Hilarious and wrong and awesome, as it should be. I feel like if I say anything more I won't say it nearly as well as the vid does just by existing. Except -- "the things that bother you, never bother me." (This vid has been stuck in my head for DAYS, y'all.)

What Makes a Man (Batman: Year One) by ?
Like the comic it's based on, Batman: Year One is kind of about Bruce Wayne's entry into the world of vigilantism, but moreso it's about James Gordon (later to be Commissioner Gordon) and how he deals with the corruption of Gotham City. This vid is about Gordon, and about the understanding he has of Batman, and how they're paralleled in their desire just to do something. It's so lovely and gives me FEELINGS, agh.

Lotus Flower (Solaris) by ?
Listen, I know nobody's seen Solaris, but both these Solaris vids are AWESOME and need to be watched, so, all you need to know is ... hmm. How about this: A man is sent to a space station orbiting a strange planet. His wife, Hari, long-dead, reappears. She's not what she seems. Neither is the planet. And so this vid is about Hari (or whoever, whatever she is), about memory and desire. It's eerie in all the best of ways, and gorgeously edited.

reflections (Solaris) by ?
And you have no idea how happy I am that because of me (and, you know, I guess the vidders helped), there are now TWO Solaris vids in the world. They're so different, too! Here, the focus is on the intrigue surrounding the mysterious planet, the planet itself, the undercurrents of horror and anxiety that begin to creep in. Awesome stuff. The song choice is great, and the last sequence of shots kills me.

There are tons of other great vids in this year's Festivids, too, but they're all such a blur now I can't even begin to make a complete recs list. Soon, hopefully.

Song: "Hot in Herre" by Nelly
Source: Cabaret (1974)

Berlin, 1931.

Download: right-click and save, please. [~55mb avi, watch with VLC player]
OR watch streaming version ( behind the cut )

Notes: Made for condnsdmlk for Festivids 2011. I've been wanting to vid Cabaret forever -- thanks so much for requesting it, and I hope you enjoyed the vid!

Y'all, why did no one tell me that Prince Charming was also Fandral in Thor? This was IMPORTANT INFORMATION. And I totally didn't recognize him with the hair and the face.

(More importantly -- why am I even awake right now? Hi. Bed now.)

greensilver just further validated my summer spent reading Captain America comics (although whose fault was that??) by posting this amazing Steve Rogers vid that made me cry and cry. STEVE I DON'T WANT TO GET OVER YOU.

She also vidded Snow/Charming from Once Upon a Time for my birthday, and it was awesome. I love them. Was there not a new episode this week? I am bereft.

Also for my birthday? (This was an excellent birthday for making people finish vids for me!) kuwdora posted Walk This Way, which... I kind of love watching it back to back with greensilver's Sorrow for emotional whiplash (and then I go read more Avengers fanfic). But probably this is the best Tony Stark/Iron Man (slash intended!) vid I've ever seen, and it is endless fun.

I also did a thing. A while ago. And if anyone has any interest in reading an epic image-heavy commentary about my 10-minute Terminator vid, Land, well -- you can find that here.

omg, I got my assignment and I matched with like half the fandoms that my recipient requested (and yeah even if I didn't technically offer some of them -- I still matched!). WHAT WILL I DO WHICH ONE WILL I CHOOSE OMG I WANT TO VID EVERYTHING.

(I would be really tempted TO vid everything but unfortunately, grad school has already slowed my vidding to a crawl. Agh.)

One of these days, I should post about the TV I'm following this season... I think right now the list consists of Community (amazing!), Parks & Rec (amazing!), Fringe (so amazing!), The Secret Circle (...why? but I can't stop!), and Merlin (which is actually SURPRISING me on a pretty regular basis, how did that happen?). ...aha! There, now I've posted about it.