Miscellany

[frayadjacent]

I finished The Peacekeeper Wars and almost immediately turned around and re-watched the Farscape pilot. I've never done that before (much as I've been tempted at times), but it's been over two years since I started the series, so I hardly remembered it. Needless to say, it held my attention much more this time around. I especially was overwhelmed with Moya feels the first time John sees her, and felt a lot of sadness/excitement for John. The part I'd remembered best was the UST filled conversation between Zhaan and D'Argo, which I very much enjoyed again.

Also, I hadn't realized that Rygel had been the one to break them out of their cells! Good for him. Now he's done like five things I approve of. (I am not a Rygel fan.)

Oh, and the PKW was pretty good too! Some silliness, but also some really fun comedy and action for Aeryn. I felt like she got more agency in the PKW than she did in, like, all of S4, so that was cool too. And I finally found out where the "shooting makes me feel better" line came from -- I always assumed it was from S1 and I'd missed it.

Um, there were a few moments that also made me very sad. I won't say which.

Also I've now watched all the Farscape vids I know about (so, like eight) and they are great. I still never know if people appreciate comments on old vids, which I then often use as an excuse to not do it, but...I might be leaving comments on some of your old vids, folks.

My Orphan Black vid is basically done, but my brain has decided that I have to color and gamma-correct basically every clip. Probably overkill, but it is *so* satisfying to adjust the black levels and see how much prettier the image becomes.

Festivids! I am Festivids-adjacent again this year, which means that if you want to squee/rant/ask for beta at me, I'm up for it!

ETA: I tagged this entry with vidding: history because that topic makes up the bulk of the discussion in the comments.

Comments

[ghost_lingering]

I wonder now though if the real aesthetic culture shock would be that they were made ten years ago, not that they branched off from vidding-at-large. Which isn't to say that you are wrong, just that looking back I wonder if the most obvious difference might be when not what. (I will test this theory now by reacquainting myself with Farscape Fantasy. LOVED that site back in the day.)

That said: Farscape vids were what I dived into when I started watching vids, so I wouldn't be surprised if some "new" vidders (like myself) count Farscape vidding as a major influence rather than Star Trek, slash, convention vidding, VHS vidding, etc. Certainly it perplexed me the first time that I saw vidding described as being a slash thing and that was during a period of my fannish life when I would have self-identified as a slasher! My instinct says that Farscape vidding, along with Xena and probably BtVS and Firefly, helped broaden the scope of what vidding-at-large could be, and the topics and characters that vids explored. Agree? Disagree? Since I was only just getting familiar with vidding at that time, your instincts are probably closer to the mark.

[frayadjacent]

I wonder if the most obvious difference might be when not what.

Hm, I obviously can't speak for laurashapiro, but I've watched vids in BtVS fandom quite a bit more than any other fandom, so I think they'd be from roughly the same era as most Farscape vids. The biggest difference I notice between 5-10 year-old Buffy vids I still enjoy and newer vids is how fast the cutting is, but even that isn't *that* big a difference. Then again, it's possible the BtVS vids I enjoy and rewatch the most are the ones that are the most like more current vids. :D

I can't speak to the second question, about the influence of Farscape vs Xena vs Mutant Enemy shows, but I'm interested!

[laurashapiro]

Oh, definitely, the age of the vids and the way styles have evolved since then will be a big factor of difference, maybe the biggest, for anyone watching them now.

It's cool to hear everyone's personal vidding trajectory and the things that influenced them. The first vids I saw were Mulder/Krycek VCR vids, and it wasn't too long after seeing them that I made my first one. Then I went to Escapade and my head exploded. (:

My instinct says that Farscape vidding, along with Xena and probably BtVS and Firefly, helped broaden the scope of what vidding-at-large could be, and the topics and characters that vids explored. Agree?

Absolutely! And I can think of other communities that were big influences as well.

Vidding is still really balkanized, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Every community develops its own norms and ways of doing. But the community I hang out in seems to have been influenced by a lot of different styles in the past 15 years, first through the Internet and then very much through Vividcon and now VidUKon. A vidding generation is only about 2-3 years, it seems to me, and then something new comes along to shape the aesthetics.

[frayadjacent]

Heeee, you shipped Mulder/Krycek? I'm amused because "Only a Lad" is at this point my primary association with him. :p

A vidding generation is only about 2-3 years, it seems to me, and then something new comes along to shape the aesthetics.

Yikes, that's so short! I've been vidding about that long and I feel like I'm still just barely figuring it out.

[laurashapiro]

Do not misunderstand me: I never shipped M/K. It's just that almost all my friends did. So I read their fic and watched their vids, and I would go "damn this is hot" and then close the file and think "no way, would never happen" and move on to my MSR. (:

[frayadjacent]

Ah, nice. I didn't ship M/K either (in fact the only ship I was aware of was Mulder/Scully, which I didn't share either -- I wasn't active in fandom though beyond browsing some discussion boards once or twice. Mostly I just watched and talked about it with a friend.), but I did like both of them a lot. I'm pretty sure I'd feel differently now.