💕 self-love time! talk about which ones of YOUR creations (edits, artworks, fanfics) you like the most then send to other creators to do the same 💕
Gasoline streaming on AO3 - with all the requisite content notes/tags.
Gasoline - Halsey lyrics
Complete vid archive on dreamwidth (with notes/lyrics/download links)
@kuwdoravids | YouTube | AO3
Dreamwidth is most comprehensive vid list, followed by YouTube. Vid archive on AO3 and Tumblr are a WIP.
I've been making fanvids for 15 years (over 200 vids, I think) and this Yennefer vid is in my top 5 favorite vids that I've made.
The brainwave I had when I realized this song is about Yennefer...oh my god I felt this with my soul. With this song I was able to embrace the musicality of the instrumentals and combine the vibes with the themes of Yennefer's arc. The lyrics are perfect for her struggles.
What I'm most proud of in this vid (other than everything) are the transitions and the internal movement. Every clip/transition works with every part of the song- lyrics, the subtle beats in the background. The flow of this vid looks and feels so natural but almost everything was done with purpose and intent.
I've made a bunch of gifs to highlight 80% of the transitions so I can talk about the narrative symbolism or the visual motifs. I think the gifs lose something without the music but gifs are the medium here on tumblr, but feel free to stream the video above. Download link can be found on AO3.
Commentary length: ~1400 words
The whole vid is framed to be an introspective Yen who is sitting on the beach, thinking through the events of her life, looking back at where she's been. Early on in the vid, I've framed that literally:
0:29 - 0:31
(instrumental)
Yen visiting Aretuza in late season 1, reflecting and thinking of her own past as well as speaking the current students who arrive at 0:32. It's going to be about what she had wished she had known when she was that age.
0:41 - 0:46
Are you insane like me? Been in pain like me?
Bought a hundred dollar bottle of champagne like me?
Just to pour that motherfucker down the drain like me?
Would you use your water bill to dry the stain like me?
Champagne being the metaphorical stand-in for power and/or time. She's wasting away in Aedirn's court, babysitting the queen and her infant, doing fuck all and feeling adrift and bitter.
The whole 'water bill' and 'dry the stain' is also an additional metaphor for everything she's experienced in Aretuza. That exchange of power for her fellow adepts who got turned into the power source for the school.
Another thing I want to note: the internal movement and body language. Yen reclines in her seat (moving left), annoyed and bored. Turns the hour glass counter clockwise (left). And she walks backwards (right to left) in the following clip. The flow of this sequence makes me so fucking happy.
But what's also amazing about this whole sequence is that in almost every clip Yen's gaze is cast downward or is level.
Anya is an amazing actress. I love the juxtaposition of Yen's bored/annoyed/condescending expressions and body language with student Yen. As a student, she's so meek and her expressions and emotional (as well as physical) poise is just so different in the scenes.
I love playing with this different power dynamic here because of how she's reflecting on her past in the vid's narrative.
1:05-1:12
And all the people say
I love the transition of Yen fading into the fire, and Tissaia appearing in the fire. (This kind of transition is called a cross dissolve). Fire's an important recurring visual because of her transformation and Sodden Hill, and Yen eventually unleashing all of her power.
I'm all about the juxtapositions, parallels and painful emotional beats in my vids.
This lyric is the prelude for the in-song quote of someone telling the person about the rules of the world. Yen's relationship with Tissaia is fascinating and complex and I have rewatched her scene with Tissaia in Rinde 10 million times now. I fucking love it, it's so painful.
In season 1 of the show, there's such a disconnect between Yen and Tissaia and it was important for me to try and factor in Yen's bitterness and resentment at Tissaia as her teacher, and as the person who literally brought into this world.
1:27 - 1:30
"You can't wake up, this is not a dream
You're part of a machine, you are not a human being
With your face all made up, living on a screen
Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline"
oh, oh-oh, oohh
The first chorus is showing Yen finally having adversity with the assassin coming after the queen and her child, set against Yen being a young student who hasn't come into her power yet.
My favorite part of this chorus is the final line 'so you run on gasoline' because!! I literally got to show Yen using her power in a snowy winter setting!! And set it against Yen's fiery painful transformation! AND LOOK HOW THE SNOW SPRAYS AND CURVES AROUND YEN'S HEAD IN THE TRANSITION.
This is why I make vids. This hits all of my creative buttons SO MUCH OKAY. And when combined with the music it is FLOWING and flowing and I feel like a goddess with my timeline and visuals and beats and positioning the lightning to flicker on the beats. Everything. I love it so much.
I made this vid in 3 days, but I've been vidding for 15 years. So really this is just like culmination of all my experiments and trial and error of learning what looks and feels right in my ears, heart and brain. I was one with this vid in those 3 days.
1:32 - 1:36
Oh, oh, oh, oh
I think there's a flaw in my code
This is the sequence I probably spent the longest trying to visually line up. Visually it's playing with the Chaos the assassin's using to throw the weapon at the queen, and the uncontrolled lightening bolt that takes student Yen down.
But on a deeper level it's playing upon Yen's emotional/physical/magical frustrations in the scenes.
The lyrical associations I'm making here with 'flaw in my code' is vague. Probably too vague, but your associations can definitely vary! viewer interpretation and all! But it's primarily implied about a woman's power. And position in society. Focused on the fact that the Aedirnian King decided to get rid of his wife and daughter so he could get a son and heir instead. Women as disposable or to be used and pushed around. Like the way Tissaia's magical instruction with the lightening harms her students.
Visual parallels go smooooothly, flow, and strike on beats!
1:43 - 1:47
Well my heart is gold, and my hands are cold
More contrasts. The infant death and Yen's rebirth (but also her death of who she used to be before her transformation...) That scene on the beach with the child was a turning point for Yen, so it's fitting that it happens in almost the exact middle of the vid.
Yen tried her best to safe the queen and her child, didn't work. 😭 and okay I love the lighting of Yen bathed in golden light. She has all this power...and for what? She couldn't even save the queen and her child. 😭 I just love this transition/fade so much here.
1:50 - 1:53 / 1:56 - 1:59
(instrumental)
Symbolism!! Yen gets caught up in the djinn wish, so she's caught in Geralt's net. The fishing net is visually similar to the window design in the hallway that Geralt and Jaskier walk through. That window is also exactly centered over Yen in the middle of her orgy scene. And it also is visually similar to the design of her dress.
Flow, deliberate pacing. Visual symbolism and repeated motifs. I love making vids like this. This is my most favorite of my favorite moments in this vid.
2:26 - 2:28
"You can't wake up, this is not a dream
You're part of a machine, you are not a human being."
The first time these lyrics appeared, it was prefaced by Tissaia. This time it's Geralt. 100% deliberate to use a shot of the villain's military with Geralt to emphasize the villain angle. That antagonism Yen feels by being told what she can and cannot do. Also I just love swoopy Geralt's hair and the swoopy military flag, okay.
But it's also just the encroaching Nilfgaard because it's all going to end in Sodden, so I am just dropping these clips in to set everything up as foreshadow.
And with Yen--her body arched in her position of power as she tries to capture the djinn? She is power, she is a weapon. And she coincidentally held the shape of an arrow's fletching.
2:37 - 2:43
With your face all made up, living on a screen
Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline"
The climax of Yen learning about the djinn wish and unleashing EVERYTHING at Sodden. This is the other sequence that I spent the most time getting the timing right with the instrumentals beneath the lyrics, and making sure the overlays of each of the clips faded out in a way that made sense as they flowed into the next. I love, love love this sequence all the way through to 2:48. Yen learning about the wish, being bonded to Geralt. That lack of power and control with him, and the power and control she unleashes at Sodden....ahhhh.
2:44 - 2:48
I think there's a flaw in my code
The 'flaw in my code' here is very much Yen's feelings about the djinn and her autonomy being affected again by something that she cannot control. The emotional fury. Her power at Sodden. It's so cathartic.
2:52 - 2:54
These voices won't leave me alone.
Tissaia and Geralt have had such an impact on Yen. 😭
I just -- fucking lost my mind at how perfectly Geralt and Tissaia's expressions work together here. Because they both occur after Yen has completely let go. With Geralt it's emotionally severing herself from him. With Tissaia, it's finally showing her all of the Chaos that she's never really got to use before... and just fucking decimating Nilfgaard. ITS SO MUCH. Everything is so much.
Their faces. I love their devastated faces. So much.
I love Yen. I love this vid. I loved making this vid. I love vibing with music in such a way that I can create a flowing narrative full of pain and catharsis. I am so, so fucking proud of this vid and it is definitely one of my most favorite vids I've made.
Thank you for reading/watching.
Gasoline streaming on AO3 - with all the requisite content notes/tags.
My complete vid archive on dreamwidth (with notes/lyrics/download links)
@kuwdoravids (archive is a work in progress)
YouTube (archive 95% of vids, some missing due to content/copyright)
Year-end round-up/meme
2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021
March
Social Cues (The Witcher, Geralt of Rivia)
New Best Friend (multi-source, The Sunshine One Loves The Grumpy One)
May
Gasoline (The Witcher, Yennefer of Vengerberg)
August
Broodylicious (The Witcher, Geralt/Yen, Geralt/Jaskier, Geralt/Triss, Geralt/Renfri, Geralt/Duny)
Disaster Party (Ted Lasso, ensemble)
October
Trouble’s Coming (The Witcher 2: Assassination of Kings, Geralt of Rivia)
November
The Call (The Matrix Trilogy, Neo/Trinity, Chosen One/Destiny)
December
ME! (The Witcher, Yennefer/Jaskier)
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Alright...for the navel-gazing run-down of thoughts/commentary and Witcher and non-Witcher vid ideas I'd love to tackle in the future, click onward:
Random process notes:
Doing multi-source vids is exhausting but when I’m able to pull everything together, it’s so fucking rewarding. Also given enough blocks of time at once I am able to blitz through my timeline much faster than before because a lot of my ideas this past year I have been able to see, feel and understand so intuitively before I even make the first clip in my software. I think the most amount of time I spent on a vid was probably New Best Friend because there’s like 7 sources in there, and my Witcher 2 vid but only because I had a fuck of a time downloading all the source from Youtube. Once I had all my source there and clipped it was just… zoom zoom zoom. Done in days.
Overall thoughts:
2021 was my first Year of Witcher Fannishness so no surprise that 6 out of my 8 vids are Witcher or include Witcher source. Including the video games! Well. One video game--the one fewer people have played. I did start a Witcher 3 vid but haven’t finished it to my liking.
Overall I feel like the last decade of doing this hobby has made it so fucking easy for me to know how much work I will need to put into a project and it simplifies my process of whether or not to start that vid project. I used to start way more vids than I ever finished. I have a few vids I didn’t manage to start/finish in 2021 but it’s really way, way lower.
I’m also very fucking proud of the thematic resonance I’m able to put into my vids. That used to be much harder for me and now it feels very natural to bring forth these ideas and sculpt on my timelines.
Favorite Vid:
Hands down it is Gasoline, my Yennefer Witcher vid. I actually probably would not have made this vid if I hadn’t read the Witcher books and then rewatched the show and got another impression of how they were portraying the character. Digging more into the canon really made me appreciate what the writers were showcasing for her in the Netflix version. I adore how Yen refuses to be boxed in and tries to do everything to hold onto her ambition and sense of self, even when shit is falling apart.
This is also the first vid where I feel like I managed to convey everything I wanted while also finding ways to use the music to play with visual themes and metaphors that support the thesis of the vid. I am so fucking proud and happy with how this vid flows and the way all the cross dissolves work in perfect harmony with the rest of the vid.
This is probably one of my most favorite vids I’ve made in the last 5 years.
Hardest to make:
Probably New Best Friend but that’s only because I had to wrangle so many sources and clip so many scenes to get what I want. I also had a fucking time with Trouble’s Coming because that was video game source that had subtitles embedded in all the footage so I had to crop and re-size a bunch of frames and pray that it didn’t look like shit at the end.
Most Under appreciated:
I usually keep this question on my end-of-year meme responses but always feel weird about answering it. The more time goes on and vidding becomes more passe outside vidding circles, well.. it’s just…I feel like they’re all under appreciated? I honestly don’t know what my vids being appreciated would look like outside of premiering things at cons or exchanges/fests.
The engagement is not the same, the conversations are disparate. But also it’s a pandemic and life is wonky for everyone everywhere. And large swaths of people do fandom differently and I’m also now primarily vidding a source that has a big fandom that's more about the gifs and fic. I never really expected much before but it feels different now.
I’m engaging with that fandom deeply and I’m making things that would be best seen and understood by people in the fandom but that fandom is not really… into vids? At least that's been my impression so far. It feels odd to feel so insecure about this now because I've been doing this for so long. But now that I have a new shiny thing I'm excited about and...idk.
I used to care a lot less of what people thought or saw my vids, if they saw them at all. I mean those who did see them I knew they really got a lot out of them and that meant (and means) THE WORLD to me.
Not being so depressed about myself and self-worth has fucked me up in a different way than I anticipated when it comes to putting my creative works out into the world. I make my vids for me almost always first and foremost but have always loved it when people watch and catch on to the things I’m putting out there.
It just makes me nostalgic for earlier times when it felt like more people were watching vids, I guess, and I feel guilty and sad and old for feeling this way.
I at least got some really good squee from someone who isn't a vidder or vid-watcher and saw what I was doing in my Witcher 2 vid so. That was really really really fulfilling to know that at least one person caught on to what I was trying to do.
Validation. why do I need it now after not needing it this badly after so long??
If I were to pick a specific vid that was underappreciated, maybe Broodylicious? I found the saddest most depressing cover of Bootylicious AND SUNG BY A MAN. And I vidded it to Geralt of Broody Fucking Rivia. I mean maybe it's not that underappreciated. It has 400 hits on AO3 and two dozen kudos and a half dozen comments so some people definitely saw my ridiculousness. So maybe I don't know how to engage with what "under appreciated" means?? augh, why are brains like this.
Most successful:
Disaster Party ! Because this is Ted Lasso and it premiered for VidUKon! And it was great to see everyone squee in the live chat reactions and I occasionally see it recced here and there, so that makes me positively happy. I should push myself more towards making vids for cons and exchanges because that’s where the engagement’s at but I’m so often out of sync with deadlines and things to send to places so it just hasn’t been much of a priority for me the last half dozen years.
My best vid:
The Call, my Matrix vid. I adore my editing, I adore the humor, I adore everything I managed to get into this vid. It makes me so happy.
Most fun vid:
At a glance it will probably be Disaster Party or New Best Friend but I think my Yen/Jaskier vid I made in December: ME! is probably the most fun. I got to really dig into vidding two parts of a duet and just run with the glee that the show gave me for actually going there with the characters. Hooooo boy, I did not expect the show to give me that. I fucking love it. Ergo vid.
Things I learned in 2021:
Being shameless about my adoration and desires will yield incredibly satisfying fanworks. It’s great that I’ve lost a ton of fucks. I still give some fucks… but not as many as I used to. Or if I do, it’s probably for different reasons than before, so it’s mostly a net positive in the end.
In 2022:
At the top of my to-vid list: I have a depression vid I want to make that goes in the opposite direction of Basket Case. I desperately need to make this and once I can settle my brain enough it’ll take me less than a week to get down, I’m sure of it.
Witcher Shenanigans
-I have 10 million Witcher vid ideas but I have to be careful about not starting too many otherwise I’m going to get lost amongst my WIPs.At the top of my to-vid Witcher pile: Fringilla/Francesa & Yen season 2 overview to a song I just fucking adore so much and is so musically expansive that it makes my heart squee.
-A hugely fluffy OT3 vid featuring Yen/Jaskier/Geralt vid that will be thick with the squee and multiple Witcher sources and a non-witcher source to continue the conversation the fandom has about the themes and tropes inherent in books and some show canons and that is missing or deflated in the Netflix version. This one I’m hesitant in starting because it’s going to be a lot of work and also I don’t know how crushed I will be if I post it and no one wants to talk to me about it. Which seems… silly. but that’s really a snag in my heart. I ought to pitch this to my feral darlings in the Geraskefer discord and let them cheer me on.
-Finish my Witcher 3 Wolf brothers vid. I used all of my own captured video game footage and I need to go re-play a few quests to get some extra shots that I didn’t get the first time I played.
-A season 2 Geralt vid but honestly no one will want to watch because Geralt is the most boring character of the damn fucking Netflix show. But I have this deep need to continue vidding him to this specific flavor of contemporary alt-rock. The vibes. I can see the vibes and can make them awesomer. Will anyone care? or want to watch? idk…
-A season 2 Yen vid but I don’t have a song yet. I fucking adore Yen with a passion of a thousand million suns.
Okay, non-Witcher vid ideas I have percolating:
-Book of Boba Fett. Song already picked out and am contemplating whether I want to nab Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels footage to add to the story. I probably will if I end up committing to this.
-I have a GORGEOUS INCREDIBLE VIDSONG I need to make for Foundation, Apple TV’s adaptation of Asimov. It’s… it’s so good and pretty and the song just. Is orgasmic for vidding. Honestly this will be a vid for me and 📷ohvienna and 📷findmeinthealps (even tho I don’t think Alps has even seen the show but I know they would love it the way I do)
-MYTHIC QUEST. God I fucking adore this show and need to vid Poppy and Ian.
-I also have a “Positive Masculinity” vid I really want to do but that’s multi-source and will take a lot of work wrangling the themes together. I have my source figured out already and a likely song but. Multi-source vids! Maybe I’ll aim to make this for a con.
Anyway. Thank you for joining me in this 15th year of my vidding. What a fucking hobby!! How have I been doing this for this long??
My mind is hung up on chaila's Handlebars (Hail to the Chief) Jed Bartlet West Wing fanvid I just recced.
Even after all these years it still holds up, actually, after four years I've found my opinion on it shifting, where before I thought Bartlet's anger was the driving force and found him sympathetic, now I find the video chilling.
Handlebars is such a fantastic song to vid to, and it first started out as a Tenth Doctor vid. Because by the end of Ten's run he was doing more and more questionable actions that were being applauded, but as a whole I think the Handlebars song also fits Bartlet.
The vid starts out innocuous but as the vid goes on, you can feel a certain kind of trepidation while watching it because Bartlet *is* the leader of the Free World, as the show likes to point out, and his actions and decisions have global import. And, its a thing that is very on point in real life.
The thing about Bartlet is that he is a fantastic orator and he has a folksy charm, one of the things I love about the show too is that they let Bartlet be flawed. He has hubris, but hubris and ambition is also, in canon as Toby Ziegler pointed out something that's needed. He needs conviction.
But this conviction can go two ways too.
One of my very strong memories of Bartlet was in season 1, when people were asking for Bartlet to intervene and pardon someone who is about to be executed. He invites his priest to talk about it, to help him with the decision to either save the man's life or let the execution pass.
After a long debate, the priest realizes that the discussion is going long and because of it the execution will push through. He reminds Bartlet of this, and what follows is a long fraught pause and as the minute to save the man passed, Bartlet asks his confession to be heard.
Even today that scene stuck to me and I've always found it fascinating how they play off Bartlet's Catholicism, how he signifies his defiance or resignation that he has passed another moral marker by smoking a cigarette.
In fact the scenes after:
My reach is global/ My tower secure
My cause is noble/My power is pure.
Become more and more chilling and the whole vid reaches its crescendo at:
I can guide a missile by satellite
By satellite, by satellite
And I can hit a target through a telescope
Through a telescope, through a telescope
And I can end the planet in a holocaust
In a holocaust, in a holocaust
In a holocaust, in a holocaust, in a holocausssssssssssst!
Where Bartlet's Generals stand up to applaud him for a decision that he, in facts feels, deep down, is morally detestable.
(Slightly out of topic: One thing I regret the show didn't explore more is the relationship between Bartlet and Toby, that was a fraught relationship. There is no more a harsher critic to Bartlet than Toby was, and that was because Toby believed in him, and had such high expectations of him.)
---
This vid is why I thought it would be a fitting song for Harold Finch (Person of Interest), before I saw this vid, or indeed re-watched it, I'd forgotten all about it until recently I would never have connected Handlebars to Jed Bartlet.
My opinion on Harold falls shy of amidstthetrees cyberpunk villain thesis. I see Harold as something very similar to Bartlet and Oppenheimer (thanks for the vid btw kindaoffkilter) and when I saw the scenes of a young Harold Finch, I couldn't shake the one scene where Mrs. Landingham called Jed a boy king.
Sure Harold didn't grow up as privileged as Jed was (although what with Jed's father...) but he was a boy king. Harold's Mrs. Landingham was Nathan Ingram and just as Mrs. Landingham's death/ghost inspired Jed to action, so did Nathan's.
Title: Samson
Artist: Regina Spektor
Fandom: Smallville
Description: Clark/Lana mood piece, spoilers to episode 7.04
You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
I have to go, I have to go
Your hair was long when we first met
Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
He ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed
And history books forgot about us and the bible didn't mention us
The bible didn't mention us, not even once
This is a beautiful character piece about Lana Lang.
I wasn’t a fan of Lana but this fanvid was one of the reasons I began to like her, it helped me understand how bittersweet her character was. Especially in light of what we know Lana is in the larger Superman universe.
history books forgot about us and the bible didn't mention us
The bible didn't mention us, not even once
In all the in-universe history books and larger material, Lana Lang will be forgotten, they won’t know that she loved and was loved by Clark Kent first but no matter how much they wanted it to be, their love couldn’t last.
This fanvid is a big reason why I love fandom so much is how much they rework and remaster the source material. This vid certainly helped turn around what I felt about Lana in a big way and helped to see how ultimately bittersweet and tragic her character was.
vid: Everything's Not Lost | Doctor Who universe
posting date: March 8, 2009
(Speaking of crying: I hadn't watched this vid in a while, and it made me cry today. THANKS, EUNICE. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY. ... That I made myself cry with a vid I made for you. Hee.)
If anyone has any questions about this vid, feel free to hit my ask box.
