burning at the centre of time

I must confess to not having a ton of experience with a goodly proportion of the fandoms on offer this year, thus the shortness of the list at the moment. sheepish rhi is sheepish.

Anyway, these are recs that will appeal to everyone, not just you vid aficionados. I promise.

Doctor Who (old skool)

Another Girl, Another Planet (Ace)
This is all about Ace, and it's therefore necessarily full of attitude and charm and blowing shit up and beating Daleks with a baseball bat. You may think you know this story, but the vidder makes it work well, particularly with the music, which is delightful. My only complaint is that there isn't moar footage from Ghost Light.

Awake My Soul (Sarah Jane)
I saw azarsuerte mention this more than once as she was the recip, and finally went to watch. Yes, it is deliberately manipulating you into wonder and amazement and weepiness. No, I do not care. It starts slow, but hits its stride about a minute and a half in and doesn't let up.


Maru the cat (YouTube)

Outside the Box (Maru/boxes)
This manages to tick the boxes of being absolutely ridiculous and hilarious while being moving almost to tears. This vidder knows hir stuff, and points have to go to Maru's human for the source material being so good.


Moulin Rouge

Ooh La La! (Christian/Satine)
Having been subjected to Goldfrapp's 'Ooh La La' about twenty million times lately in car adverts, I came into this a sceptic. I walked out stunned. It's rhythmically brilliant and heartbreakingly wonderful, and now I remember why I paid to see the film five times even though I was a high school student.


Master and Commander

Ship of Fools (Maturin [Aubrey/Maturin])
I really appreciate the gorgeous film work of Peter Weir and his team, and I also really appreciate vidders who use classic rock artists to great effect. This is a gorgeous tribute to Stephen Maturin. Old school TR people, I advise you to watch only when you're in an okay frame of mind, as it is possibly a bit painful.

I would like to note, idly, that 'why don't they just make things available in every country, that would stop a lot of piracy' is, unfortunately, more difficult than it sounds. Mostly due to...DING...other parts of the entertainment industry and the government(s) involved!
( in case you're not interested. )

This internal bureaucracy nightmare is what's actually harming their revenue stream, and this is partially why I have very few problems wrt television and film piracy. (The other part is that honestly, your money is not going to most of the people who worked the hardest on the film or show. They've already been paid and they're not seeing anything more of it.)

They need to change the system before they can expect to see less piracy. Full stop. Open access (paid or not) is where things are going, and anyone who's not on that train will eventually be left behind, no matter how hard they kick and scream right now.

I made a note of that in nearly every paper I did as part of my MA, not that anyone important was listening.

From fallingtowers, about six weeks ago, because I fail:

Comment to this post, and I will list five things I associate with you. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your LJ (or just add a reply back to me). Other people (including me) can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

( going on and on. )

Meanwhile, I've made a list on Spotify of some tracks I can't be without. God, I had forgot how some of these break my heart. NO SHAME. I'd love to make a collaborative mix with someone one of these days.

A few wee points before I go make myself a snack:

- Tepper's The Visitor, in synopsis:

PEOPLE: [do stuff]
APOCALYPSE: [happens]
PEOPLE: [do stuff]
WEIRD SHIT: [happens]

could have been better. I've enjoyed some of her lesser books more, mostly because I found the setting/characters hard to relate to. ( a bit spoilery in the vague sense )

- alexandraerin has it right on the nose with what bugged me about DW Xmas this year--namely, she notes the unclear gender stuff, whether or not Moff is taking the piss. (spoilers)

- I've got both mine in TR New Year's top levels, should you be interested! Going to meet reqs despite failing most of the month with work stress.

Happy Gregorian New Year's Eve!

If for some reason you missed it, I am rhivolution, Dreamwidth noobs.

I will be a bit busy the next few days, but I will try to add back asap. And if you have me friended on LJ but not DW, that's cool. I'll try not to feel hopelessly sad. [g]

I do not have to answer anyone's pay queries for the better part of a week thank god

Dearest internet, I have no good way of telling people when Twitter goes down, because TWITTER HAS GONE DOWN. So you get a post about it.

Oh, my soul.

Also, I have a migraine. And there is a new Simon's Cat. I'm tempted to update my icon with this year's holiday SC instead.


ETA: Twitter is back. I neglected to mention that like others, I'm remembering Russell Hoban, who I think of every time I eat bread or toast with jam. Seriously, every time.

Hoban had this to say about writing which is entirely too true:

I dont have nothing only words to put down on paper. Its so hard. Some times theres mor in the emty paper nor there is when you get the writing down on it. You try to word the big things and they tern ther backs on you. Yet youwl see stanning stoans and ther backs wil talk to you.
(Riddley Walker, 1983)

I sometimes wonder if I was the only person in Bill Oram's '04 class to get a lot out of that book...as a geek looking at language drift and cultural drift, I think it speaks more to me with a few years hindsight.

Because I am a shameless panderer and need some moral support so I can to get up to working on Festivids this evening:
holiday love meme at LJ

If you like. Will hit it up later meself.

Title: Optic/Nerve
Author: Rhi (rhivolution/rhipowered)
Fandom: Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delany
Rating: Mature
Warning: I chose not to use archive warnings on this, only because all of the warnings therein don't really define the sense of this fic. It's a confusing somewhat problematic shambles (in keeping with canon). Denny is underage, but that really doesn't apply to this story, so I left it out.
Relationships: Kid/Lanya/Denny
Summary: "This is not a poem. It is a very shabby report of something that happened in the year of Our Lord it would be oh-so-nice to write down, month, day, and year. But I can't."
Notes: For seekingferret in the Kaleidoscope Fanwork Exchange Autumn 2011. 1518 words.

Read at AO3


Additionally...this is not a fic to read if you haven't read canon. Seriously, it barely makes sense if you have read canon. I...have rarely written an unreliable narrator on purpose before, and it's a trip and a half.

And the canon...the canon is problematic-on-purpose, and not for everyone by any stretch of the imagination, certainly not for people who have assault and/or racism and/or anti-gay triggers. In his attempt to deconstruct myths both ancient and modern (of the stereotype sort), Delany plays with all of those things. Alternately, some people aren't triggered by any of that but really don't get it and find Dhalgren to be utterly hopeless and OTT.

It is, but there's a point to it--the deconstruction of the modern city and descent into chaos sort of demands that. (And the theme somehow seems exceedingly relevant to the current economic debacle.) Somehow there's seriously interesting worldbuilding going on, and a really great meditation on being an artist of any variety (Delany would probably hate to know that I didn't revise this fic much at all. If for some reason you're acquainted, please don't have him read it). I went with the latter theme in my writing, and I'm trying to decide if telling people what I meant by it is ruining the whole thing. If you're interested in knowing, please drop a comment.

I've made a Dhalgren inspired fanmix as well, but I'm too tired to upload the cover art right now as I've cooked a whole turkey dinner and am wiped. Soon.

And if you haven't looked at mific's art for me, please do.

Really stressed/hyper/low blood sugar, so I am doing a round of RP tags and then going offline because I am not fit company and need to calm.the.fuck.down.

Back soon.

ETA: If you want to amuse yourself, check out my Non-Gender-Specific Self-Insert fantasies over at yeats.

I'd have more complex thoughts on the OTW situation, but cannot really be arsed as I have a headache and had an IBS attack last night (just as I was finishing my Kaleidoscope submission, ffs). But I have to agree with dj_kittycat in that it is pretty symptomatic of many an org and cause I have known in the past, though that doesn't make it right.

So I guess my main public statement to tptb of OTW and every other fan group (DW included)...and, frankly, to Smith College over their bullshit this week...is: Stop fucking with us.

Seriously. For various reasons (including some very strong neuroses), I do not give my money away lightly, even the small amount of it that has gone to you. Critically, in something that prevents most of the heartache I have over this, do not pretend to be progressive when you won't take progressive thought into serious consideration.

I can cope with you not being progressive, it's something I've learned how to fight. But don't fucking dare to tell me about your inclusivity and openness and oh god diversity if you're not prepared to take serious--and frankly, difficult--discussions on board.

in other words, don't blame me, I'm voting for Sanders.