Dear Gentlevidder,
Thanks so much for putting up with me and my executive dysfunction while I got it together to actually write this letter. I actually missed the signups last year but otherwise I've done Festivids for a number of years, and I'm chuffed to be back this year. I'm sure whatever you make will be awesome, to be honest.

I mainly picked these fandoms because I enjoy them so damn much, so here are some really general guidelines:
- I'm a big SF geek and love queering (both gender and sexuality!) narratives. I don't have a ton of squicks that will really come into play with any of these fandoms, so don't worry too much there.
- Having an academic background in cultural studies and media, I enjoy critical views and sardonic commentary on fandom canon, history, and basically everything...but I also am more than okay with fun stuff and celebrations of a text.
- Music-wise, I have a sorta eclectic taste, but it's dominated by 60-something white guy x queer lady folk and 'world music' x 90s alternative. Fleetwood Mac and members are my ride-or-die, as is Bruce Springsteen, but I'm more interested in you picking a song that works for you.
- Basically, subvert the wider cultural status quo, or make me have feels, and I'll be happy!

For individual fandoms, as and where I have any ideas at all:
- Hopkins Lecter films: If you can, would you please avoid some of the visibly gruesome shit in Scott's Hannibal*? Otherwise...I would actually love a Clarice-centric vid. I do ship Hannibal/Clarice in a 'this is so fucked up, self' way, if you want.
- For Parts Unknown, I'd go with anything, though I feel like Tony would want both you and I to deconstruct the hell out of things and raise cain.
- Make The Craft queer(er), really.
- I feel like Moulin Rouge is in need of a critical eye revisit. It's such a spectacle of a film, and I didn't watch it particularly critically when I saw it cough five times in the cinema cough at the time. I guess I would love to be made to see it in a different way.
- Hidden Figures needs more love. Part of me thinks that a meta could be cool by using 'Space Girl' by The Imagined Village to cross-reference Charmax's amazing vid from several years ago, but don't feel limited.
- So I bought the Practical Magic soundtrack for the Stevie Nicks tracks, obvs, but it got a lot of play for me in the late 90s overall. It's probably hopelessly doofy for me to want a non-soundtrack Stevie track for this? Either way, sisterhood and family would be themes I'd love.
- I saw some commentary on The Breakfast Club recently, musing that Hughes' films having girls ending up with the bad boy characters perpetuates a particular toxic masculinity. In light of that...I would love to see something focused on Allison.
- If you want to ship, OT4 for The Good Place! Otherwise I am so super happy with wtfever.

Thank you so much!

xx Rhi

PS: To the rest of my DW folks--hi. Still here, for those of you who don't have me on social media, just failing to post due to brainweasels. Love to all, as ever.

Hi Festividder,
Augh, I'm so sorry. Life got away from me over the past month due to a combination of work and the mess that is the 2016 geopolitical nightmare. you've probably ended up starting to make something pretty awesome without my additional yammerings. GOOD JOB, ME.

I was pretty specific this year on my signup, or at least specific for me, yay, so some quick general thoughts on what I like, in case you aren't fed up already:
- Recentering narratives on awesome characters who've been sidelined!
- Weird is good! Angst is also good!
- I prefer UST to full-on shippiness, generally. Meaningful glances, that kind of thing.
- Classic rock is my favoritest genre, because I like white-suburbab-dad-music, generally--but no need to feel limited to that.
- Feel free to get political, but also feel free to just celebrate the canon. I'm good with both.

Wishing you all the best for a good December, and happy vidding!

Cheers,
Rhi

So I've failed massively at posting to my journal of late, but. But.

I got two absolutely beautiful Master and Commander vids this year in Festivids, and you should go look at them...and leave feedback for the vidders. Also a big thanks to the festivids mods and staff for all their hard work!

Sailboats by bironic (assignment) is an absolutely lovely Aubrey/Maturin vid that is pretty much to the letter I wanted from a shippy (swear to god no pun intended) fanwork. Bironic has made this sweet and touching without hurting your teeth; the song choice is perfect, and if you like this ship, it's a real keeper.

Leave Her, Johnny by rhoboat (treat) pulls together a completely different take on the canon--the gritty reality of the naval life, good and bad. Rhoboat uses the stunning cinematography by Russell Boyd* to full advantage, which I really appreciated as it's so fucking beautiful.

Go forth, friends! And do go have a look at the rest of this year's Festivids if you get a chance--I'm going to make my way though them all soon, it's been a rough start of the month so I've not had time yet.

* Wikipedia is telling me Boyd won an Oscar for this, which I gotta say is deserved as hell. I'm still miffed there wasn't ever a second M&C.

Icon (on Dreamwidth) actually is not particularly representative of my feelings, which are more like 'eh' in terms of 'no fucks'.

- I have gotten back into knitting, yay! Knitting for my wee nibling (who will turn one next week, wow) does make things a bit easier, because they are small and therefore things progress quickly and I feel better about life yay.

- Right, I need to sign up for Festivids before I forget. NEED TO. And Night Vale novel! And Ancillary Mercy! And the books I got in Berlin at Borderlands! Clearly, I have bought too many physical books lately and I am worrying about having reached Peak Bookshelf, which could be ameliorated by me not borrowing books (e and paper) from the public library left and right. Not that that will ever really happen.

- In other ways, some parts of fandom are doing my head in. I don't really want to talk about it in public. Trust no one, carry a big stick.

- I need to plan for the Smith 10 year reunion, which means I need to think about money and plane tickets and renting a car 'cause Mom will still be in school and and and. Due to Memorial Day being wicked late this year and colleague schedules (read: everyone in my office is getting married next year), I need to be back here before Wiscon, which is a bit disappointing, but I shall persevere.

(Getting to know some cool folk on Twitter makes me vaguely want to run a con of my own in Glasgow for Cool Fans Living North Of The Home Counties. I'd call it something like ConeCon with the tagline lots of planets have a north!. But my organizational skills are terrible, so it'd just end up being people sitting in a pub anyway, talking rubbish.)

- My clin psych has recommended muscle relaxation techniques for me to try, less as an anxiety flareup curative and more to keep general equilibrium* during the rest of the time. Anyone tried this at all? I'm slightly worried about either falling asleep or it having no effect whatsoever, but I have committed to giving it a go.

* I used another ten-dollar word in a work email earlier this week, as a natural conversational word, noticed after I sent it, then felt vaguely relieved when no one called me out.

Just a quick note to say many thanks to jacquelee and circlemate lotesse for my slashy lovely Festivids gifts this year.

Yours truly also did an Anne of Green Gables vid, Take the Sky (Forsake the Ground) for grammarwoman. Full post with download link and commentary will be available in a few days.

Also, I've now reread the first three Anne books and I'm really glad to have had the excuse!

Hello! Thank you in advance for the wonderful vid--I never know what to say in these things, so go me. I'm really excited about the possibilities in all of the fandoms I picked, so I will be chuffed to bits regardless, but here are some guidelines and inspirations for you.

Overall:
- My musical taste is pretty much white suburban US baby boomer dad, with some meanderings into queer stuff, 'world music', and alternafolk, but don't let that stop you from going where you like. My last.fm profile is linked on my DW profile, should you want to have a nosy (though it's not super up-to-date as sometimes stuff doesn't scrobble from Spotify, augh).
- I like introspective character study type vids. While I'm not opposed to happiness, my general preference in fanworks is towards snarky social commentary, angst/UST, and gritty reality. You are more than welcome to make a statement, provided your politics aren't ugly. I'm one of Those People, so feminist, anti-racist, epic side-eye type vids are fantastic.

( Details! Cut to spare people. )

Dragging myself out of anxiety-fueled inertia to tell you, dear readers, that you should go have a look at the two (!) vids I got for Festivids as they are both utterly amazing. (I really have got to get myself in gear to make a treat for someone, some year, to pay it forward.)

Bones (Silence of the Lambs): an absolutely stunning examination of the parallel journeys of Clarice, Catherine Martin, and Lecter through the film. Film geek me says the editing and song choice works wonderfully with Demme and Fujimoto's original photography, giving it a modern sensibility--but it's damn good at playing with your emotions too.
(Please heed all trigger warnings as there are both physical and psychological ones. The latter are in line with canon, though not gratuitous, and the problematic parts of canon are relatively minimally shown.)

You Have a Choice (Minority Report): the Agatha and Anderton vid I've been wanting for about a decade, I swear to god. This takes out Spielberg's heavy-handed sentimentality (I love the man, but no) and swaps John Williams' noir style score for an epic narrative's to do so. It ends up being about Agatha and about both her and Anderton's changing understanding of justice and fate really are. I'm just gonna be squeeful that someone gets it besides me because I never GET that with this canon.

With regards to my own vid, I was going to offer a vidlet for guessing, but realised I gave away what I was doing a few months ago by asking for help. But if you DON'T know, DIDN'T look, and still want to guess, feel free--none of you have found it yet wrt commenting, so there's still time to get in on the ground floor. And dear person who helped me with source material, you also deserve a reward if you so choose. You know who you are.

(in other news that has made me roll up into a ball and rock back and forth: Fleetwood Mac new album and tour with Christine MASSIVE SQUEE involved)

- anxiety. anxiety. anxiety. ( cut for potential triggers? )

- Potentially linked, I had dysphoria yesterday. It had been a while. Not fun.

- Things I am (perhaps irrationally) afraid of doing: alienating people on Twitter. not finishing my Festivid on time. sucking at my job. spending money. being upset about how I look.

- I am frustrated with myself for being too anxious to use Tumblr for anything but RP, because it seems nearly everyone I know is bloody on there and I should be if I want to keep up with them. But I really, really cannot use Tumblr for fandom and/or social justice. Cannot.

- Speaking of my Festivid, I'm massively irritated with the fact that all my old video converters no longer seem to work with Mountain Lion and upwards, except for MPEG Streamclip. Any advice? I'm playing the render-as-I-go game because of it, and I don't really have time to figure out what to do in this case, but going forward it'd be useful.

- On that same note: Mavericks upgrade, y/n?

- Welcome to Night Vale makes me happy. I still have headcanons for you, one of these days.

- I'm not doing a What I Read/Watched sticky this year because it is too damn guilt-inducing for me at the end of the year. If you're really curious, I'll still be updating my GoodReads periodically.

- I am doing better in life than this post makes out, I just am having an anxious. I swear.

Questions? Comments? I like comments.

Hello Festividder!

Apologies for not getting this done sooner. Sometimes my brain is special, go me.

Thanks so much for making me a vid. I'm pretty much open to a lot for these canons, particularly what I've specified in the signup. But as a rule, I'm fond of: character studies, deconstruction of canon (especially through queer/race/gender/disability lenses), worldbuilding, and STUFF WHAT GIVES ME LOTS OF FEELS.

Music-wise, I'm a classic rock geek (check my last.fm in my profile if you're really invested in picking me something musically I know) but can go with basically anything as long as it's emotionally evocative and well-suited to the source and theme.

( A couple further notes on individual fandoms... )

Thanks so much again!

xx

So I have just been failing immensely at fandom lately; I meant to rec my Festivids gift maybe two weeks ago, and time just keeps passing really damn fast wtf life it's not like things have been interesting.

Anyway, some lovely person made me a wee Leto/Ghanima vid, Before It's Too Late, using the beautiful SciFi miniseries as source. And also Goo Goo Dolls, which is damn fine with me, because I still do love them. I now must go back and watch it all again soon. All, like, six damn hours of it.

Warning for twincest of a canonical fashion,* though nothing explicit, mind.

And I don't bloody have a signed copy of my vid to post craaaaaap failing at fandom some more.



* Also, in case you're here and didn't know, warning for a source that has enough canonical Orientalism to be used as a case study for Edward Said; the mini, even whitewashed, is less guilty of it than Herbert's original texts at least, jfc.