Fannish Year in Review
Dec. 20th, 2010 01:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieI decided to just include the *mumblemumble* things I've done/am doing for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fandom_stocking on next year's roundup, since the reveal isn't until January. So, fannish year in review! It is, as these things tend to be, basically self-aggrandizing navel-gazing. I won't blame you for skipping.
Viddish Year in Review
Looking back, did you make more vids than you thought you would this year, fewer, or about what you'd predicted?
Considering I didn't start vidding until this time last year, I'd say a lot more!
What pairing/genre/fandom/song did you vid that you would never have predicted in January 2010?
Toss-up between the Sheridan/Delenn vid and the Talia vid. I just...the hell? Talia is boring, and I actively dislike Sheridan/Delenn. I really had only planned to make one, gen/ensemble B5 vid when those hit me.
What's your favorite vid of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest.
Since I didn't do this meme last year, I'm grandfathering my "Happiness" vid from last December. Technically, it's my second vid, but my first vid was long enough ago that I had to relearn a lot, so this feels like my first.
I made this vid with the express purpose of giving myself something to look at when I wanted to see something happy.* The song itself is so chipper, and Fred and Ginger always put a smile on my face, and the fact that it uses clips of them dancing meant I could indulge my inner timing whore, and thus get a nice little frisson whenever a foot lands or an arm swings out right on the beat.
* Really this is my philosophy with all vids, and to a lesser extent all fics. Will I want to look at it again? If so, make it.
Okay, NOW your most popular vid.
The same! I was thrilled and amazed by the response it got. In fact, I have been thrilled and amazed that almost all of my vids get more comments than my fic, especially since I heard it was the other way around for most people. (Hmm. Possibly this means I'm just not a good writer. Er.) Anyway, "Apocalypse Lullaby" was also very popular. I guess it's a function of wide audience appeal; both of them kind of have something for everyone, because everyone knows Fred and Ginger, and because AL focused on almost every major character from B5.
Vid most underappreciated by the universe?
Honestly, I don't think any of them have been underappreciated. My Talia vid was the least popular, but a few months on, I can look at it and see problems, so I see why.
Vid that could have been better?
Well, everything can be improved, but I think if I had to do it again, and looking just at vids where the footage is there so I could change it effectively..."Apocalypse Lullaby." I was going for a feeling there, a feeling of security in the face of a really scary universe embodied by the station, and in that respect I succeeded. In other respects...it needed more of a storyline. My favorite part of the vid is the instrumental bridge, where I did actually tell a kind of story: We're fighting bad guys. We do it because we value our relationships with each other and we want to keep this place that brought us together intact. The rest of it is more, "Here's this character, aren't they awesome? And this one, and this one..." Which is cool for two minutes, and less so for four. Mrmph.
Most fun vid?
I can't keep using "Happiness," so even though that's probably the truest answer, I'll pick "Can't Take a Hint." Making the credits was great fun, and the concept itself is pretty entertaining and, I think, pokes gently at the movies themselves to reasonably good effect.
Shippiest vid?
Probably "The Dress Looks Nice on You." (Technically this is a remaster rather than a new vid, but I changed about half of it when I redid it, so.) Fraser and Thatcher are so painfully attracted to each other, and so painfully unable to do anything about it. I really like how the song lines up both lyrically and musically with how I think Fraser sees Thatcher: he really does kind of adore her, but can only express it in phrases like, "Red suits you," and the speaker in the song appears to be putting a lot of subtext in the title phrase. Fraser's adoration is also quiet and gentle, like the song.
"A Love that Won't Sit Still" is pretty shippy too. I was really pleased by how well the nine different films could be mined for material that worked for what I was trying to do there.
Saddest vid?
"West of the Moon and East of the Sun" made me cry when I was making it, actually, which is totally dorky, but whatever. Specifically, the moment where we see Sheridan's ghost (or whatever that was) on the bench next to Delenn—the combination of that and the gradual crescendo Ahn does on the "keep dreaming for us / I can tell it's gonna be a good day" lyric, along with the way the keyboards start to fill in on "I can" all conspire to make one of my most favorite moments I've vidded. (Admittedly, the placement of Delenn hugging the pillow right before that probably helps, and that is aaaaall due to the source.)
Most unique vid?
The Fred&Ginger ones. Not many of those out there. (The following sounds kind of pompous, sorry.) I also tend to think of vidding as an act of choreography—see my comments earlier about being a timing whore—and these allowed me to showcase that with actual dance.
Hardest vid to make?
Technically, probably "Apocalypse Lullaby," which required a rewatch of the show in order to figure out exactly which clips I wanted to use, as well as getting all of S1-S4 from the library or disc-by-disc from Netflix for ripping purposes. From creating the planning spreadsheet to posting the vid took almost five months.
Mentally, "In Our Own Time, With Our Own Hands," because I was...I guess basically trying to sum up all my many thoughts on Maggie, Joel, and Maggie/Joel in three minutes, and that was hard.
Easiest vid to make?
"West of the Moon." VID DONE IN AN HOUR, WTF WAS THAT? That vid made itself. It was like I was possessed. It probably helped that I used footage from "Sleeping in Light" almost exclusively, and had been working on "Apocalypse Lullaby" so much already that I knew exactly what I wanted to throw into the flashback sequence.
Did you take any vidding risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Well, considering I only started to vid in earnest a year ago, uh...wouldn't pretty much everything be a risk? Hmm. "In Our Own Time" felt risky because I wasn't used to working with such a slow song, and to lingering on clips for so long before cutting. In the end, I think it worked out; I like how it looks, and several commenters said they liked the lingering shots. Of all the vids I did this year, this might come the closest to telling its own story, so perhaps the lesson here is that if its in service of a story, you can get away with some things that might otherwise be technical flaws.
Do you have any vidding goals for the New Year?
Work harder on telling a story in a vid. Timing, and connecting things in the video to the beat or to different instruments in the song, are still the most important features of vidding for me, but I also want to be able to do more than just illustrate the lyrics.
Specifically, I want to make a Stardust vid to "Babylon." I'd also like to finally, finally make the Benton Fraser vid to "Half Acre" that lives in my head, and a Northern Exposure ensemble vid to either Kate Rusby's cover of "Our Town" or, if I feel ambitious enough to do an instrumental, "First Impressions" from the Appalachian Waltz album. Oh, and one day I'd like to finish the screwball comedy vid to "Belated Promise Ring" I started over the summer and then kind of forgot about.
Ficcish Year in Review
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
I wrote seventeen fics this year. Seventeen! This has to be some kind of record.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2010?
I can't say as it never crossed my mind that I would write Ivanova/Delenn—I've shipped them since my first time through in the spring of 2009—but this was the first year I finally managed it. I never thought I'd write another Sheppard/Weir story. (To be fair, that one was mostly completed back in 2004, and I just wrote a few more paragraphs to finish it up and get myself over some writer's block on some other things.)
What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
Hmmmm. I'm not sure I can choose. My first thought is "The Heart's Compass," because I lovelovelove the idea of Delenn choosing Ivanova as the other half of her soul from the very get-go, and I loved writing them starting out a bit awkward and growing closer, and Delenn loving Susan, but still being her manipulative/secretive self.
I also really like "Constantly Risking Absurdity," because I was trying to play off the quotation it begins with, and I think I succeeded. I also feel it comes closest to capturing the cadence of their dialogue, and the sweetness and optimism at the core of the films.
And I hugely enjoyed writing "A Field Guide to North American Songbirds," because NX + birds + magical realism = yay.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
Depends on if we're talking comments or hit counts. Comment-wise, "The Heart's Compass" probably wins. Hit-wise, "Camping Indoors," but doubtlessly this is because SGA is the most popular of the fandoms I wrote in this year.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
Hmm. I'm tempted to say "Two Parts Vodka, One Part Vermouth (A Love Story)," but I just re-read it and it...has problems, so I'm kind of glad almost no one commented on it. I'm somewhat surprised that "The Backstreets of Heaven" wasn't more popular, since it has Bester and a crapload of angst, but it's also part four of an ongoing AU featuring an extremely rare pair, so...yeah.
Story that could have been better?
"Two Parts Vodka." The only things I like about it now are the first bit and the Passover scene, and that borrows rather heavily from an episode of Northern Exposure. The concept is sound, but the execution is really flat for some reason. I think perhaps some of the scenes needed to be longer.
"We'll Crack the Darkest Sky Wide Open" still reads like an essay with a thesis, supporting paragraphs, and conclusion, just gussied up in more poetic than academic language.
Funniest story?
Tie. I'm very fond of the final line of "Friends Like These," and of the idea of G'Kar the matchmaker in general. I also like the dialogue of "All We Know for Truth."
Story with the single sweetest moment?
The ending of "Constantly Risking Absurdity." Marriage of convenience is my bulletproof narrative kink, and I liked being able to play with that here (Peter asking Linda to marry him, even though they're legally married already, because he never got to propose properly. And then she gets to play on words while she accepts, and then they snuggle on the curb after dancing down the street in the rain, and really, can you get any cuter without introducing puppies and rainbows?).
Runner up: "The Heart's Compass," which I packed with a ton of sweet moments; in fact, most of the fic is built around them. My favorite is the very end, where they're older and still chasing each other around a garden on Minbar. (Similarly, the meteor shower ritual in "Later Stars of Dawn" is pretty cute, IMO.)
I like schmoop, okay?
Saddest story?
"Iter Durum." Marcus is always good for some angst.
Most unique story?
Any of the fics for Fred and Ginger movies, seeing as I'm the only person who's posted any online. "Unchoreographed" is also unique perhaps because of the focus on the technical aspects of constructing a partner dance, some of which comes from my own experience with ballroom dance, though I would love to be proven wrong about that. (Recs?)
Hardest story to write?
"The Backstreets of Heaven." I'm always terrified that angst will slip over into melodrama, and, uh, Susan and Michael both try to kill Bester in this one, so it's pretty angsty. I'm reasonably pleased with how it turned out, though.
"We'll Crack the Darkest Sky Wide Open" laid partially-written for an entire year before I figured out how I wanted to deal with it. Gah.
Easiest story to write?
"The Heart's Compass." That sucker was done in about two weeks, which is unheard of for me for a story that long. Delenn was very talkative.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Honestly, I am not a risk-taking writer, at least in this field. This is probably a bad thing, but then again, this is fanfic, and if I don't ~grow as a writer~ or whatever, I'm not going to be too upset.
Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?
This year, I am GOING TO FINISH the "Michael and Susan go back to Earth for political intrigue" story that's been on my hard drive for a year and a half or die trying. I recently whittled the plot down to the barest bones that will support the 4,000 words I have so far, so I AM GOING TO DO THIS, ARGH.
I have a few other pieces in progress in that AU as well, and a couple NX pieces I'd like to someday finish, particularly the one playing with the aftermath of "Burning Down the House."
This weird and possibly horrible idea also crawled into my head today: a crossover in which Fraser and Thatcher go to see the New Burbage production of Romeo and Juliet, starring Geoffrey Tennant and Ellen Fanshaw, and then Fraser quotes some lines from the play* to Thatcher (I know. I KNOW.), and maybe some other stuff happens and possibly they actually get together instead of just gazing wistfully at each other, I don't know. Yeah. To quote Ellen, I hate that fucking play, but. But. I am not completely blind to certain small parallels.
* "I am no pilot, yet were thou as far / As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea, / I should adventure for such merchandise."
fandom_stocking on next year's roundup, since the reveal isn't until January. So, fannish year in review! It is, as these things tend to be, basically self-aggrandizing navel-gazing. I won't blame you for skipping.Viddish Year in Review
Looking back, did you make more vids than you thought you would this year, fewer, or about what you'd predicted?
Considering I didn't start vidding until this time last year, I'd say a lot more!
What pairing/genre/fandom/song did you vid that you would never have predicted in January 2010?
Toss-up between the Sheridan/Delenn vid and the Talia vid. I just...the hell? Talia is boring, and I actively dislike Sheridan/Delenn. I really had only planned to make one, gen/ensemble B5 vid when those hit me.
What's your favorite vid of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest.
Since I didn't do this meme last year, I'm grandfathering my "Happiness" vid from last December. Technically, it's my second vid, but my first vid was long enough ago that I had to relearn a lot, so this feels like my first.
I made this vid with the express purpose of giving myself something to look at when I wanted to see something happy.* The song itself is so chipper, and Fred and Ginger always put a smile on my face, and the fact that it uses clips of them dancing meant I could indulge my inner timing whore, and thus get a nice little frisson whenever a foot lands or an arm swings out right on the beat.
* Really this is my philosophy with all vids, and to a lesser extent all fics. Will I want to look at it again? If so, make it.
Okay, NOW your most popular vid.
The same! I was thrilled and amazed by the response it got. In fact, I have been thrilled and amazed that almost all of my vids get more comments than my fic, especially since I heard it was the other way around for most people. (Hmm. Possibly this means I'm just not a good writer. Er.) Anyway, "Apocalypse Lullaby" was also very popular. I guess it's a function of wide audience appeal; both of them kind of have something for everyone, because everyone knows Fred and Ginger, and because AL focused on almost every major character from B5.
Vid most underappreciated by the universe?
Honestly, I don't think any of them have been underappreciated. My Talia vid was the least popular, but a few months on, I can look at it and see problems, so I see why.
Vid that could have been better?
Well, everything can be improved, but I think if I had to do it again, and looking just at vids where the footage is there so I could change it effectively..."Apocalypse Lullaby." I was going for a feeling there, a feeling of security in the face of a really scary universe embodied by the station, and in that respect I succeeded. In other respects...it needed more of a storyline. My favorite part of the vid is the instrumental bridge, where I did actually tell a kind of story: We're fighting bad guys. We do it because we value our relationships with each other and we want to keep this place that brought us together intact. The rest of it is more, "Here's this character, aren't they awesome? And this one, and this one..." Which is cool for two minutes, and less so for four. Mrmph.
Most fun vid?
I can't keep using "Happiness," so even though that's probably the truest answer, I'll pick "Can't Take a Hint." Making the credits was great fun, and the concept itself is pretty entertaining and, I think, pokes gently at the movies themselves to reasonably good effect.
Shippiest vid?
Probably "The Dress Looks Nice on You." (Technically this is a remaster rather than a new vid, but I changed about half of it when I redid it, so.) Fraser and Thatcher are so painfully attracted to each other, and so painfully unable to do anything about it. I really like how the song lines up both lyrically and musically with how I think Fraser sees Thatcher: he really does kind of adore her, but can only express it in phrases like, "Red suits you," and the speaker in the song appears to be putting a lot of subtext in the title phrase. Fraser's adoration is also quiet and gentle, like the song.
"A Love that Won't Sit Still" is pretty shippy too. I was really pleased by how well the nine different films could be mined for material that worked for what I was trying to do there.
Saddest vid?
"West of the Moon and East of the Sun" made me cry when I was making it, actually, which is totally dorky, but whatever. Specifically, the moment where we see Sheridan's ghost (or whatever that was) on the bench next to Delenn—the combination of that and the gradual crescendo Ahn does on the "keep dreaming for us / I can tell it's gonna be a good day" lyric, along with the way the keyboards start to fill in on "I can" all conspire to make one of my most favorite moments I've vidded. (Admittedly, the placement of Delenn hugging the pillow right before that probably helps, and that is aaaaall due to the source.)
Most unique vid?
The Fred&Ginger ones. Not many of those out there. (The following sounds kind of pompous, sorry.) I also tend to think of vidding as an act of choreography—see my comments earlier about being a timing whore—and these allowed me to showcase that with actual dance.
Hardest vid to make?
Technically, probably "Apocalypse Lullaby," which required a rewatch of the show in order to figure out exactly which clips I wanted to use, as well as getting all of S1-S4 from the library or disc-by-disc from Netflix for ripping purposes. From creating the planning spreadsheet to posting the vid took almost five months.
Mentally, "In Our Own Time, With Our Own Hands," because I was...I guess basically trying to sum up all my many thoughts on Maggie, Joel, and Maggie/Joel in three minutes, and that was hard.
Easiest vid to make?
"West of the Moon." VID DONE IN AN HOUR, WTF WAS THAT? That vid made itself. It was like I was possessed. It probably helped that I used footage from "Sleeping in Light" almost exclusively, and had been working on "Apocalypse Lullaby" so much already that I knew exactly what I wanted to throw into the flashback sequence.
Did you take any vidding risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Well, considering I only started to vid in earnest a year ago, uh...wouldn't pretty much everything be a risk? Hmm. "In Our Own Time" felt risky because I wasn't used to working with such a slow song, and to lingering on clips for so long before cutting. In the end, I think it worked out; I like how it looks, and several commenters said they liked the lingering shots. Of all the vids I did this year, this might come the closest to telling its own story, so perhaps the lesson here is that if its in service of a story, you can get away with some things that might otherwise be technical flaws.
Do you have any vidding goals for the New Year?
Work harder on telling a story in a vid. Timing, and connecting things in the video to the beat or to different instruments in the song, are still the most important features of vidding for me, but I also want to be able to do more than just illustrate the lyrics.
Specifically, I want to make a Stardust vid to "Babylon." I'd also like to finally, finally make the Benton Fraser vid to "Half Acre" that lives in my head, and a Northern Exposure ensemble vid to either Kate Rusby's cover of "Our Town" or, if I feel ambitious enough to do an instrumental, "First Impressions" from the Appalachian Waltz album. Oh, and one day I'd like to finish the screwball comedy vid to "Belated Promise Ring" I started over the summer and then kind of forgot about.
Ficcish Year in Review
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
I wrote seventeen fics this year. Seventeen! This has to be some kind of record.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2010?
I can't say as it never crossed my mind that I would write Ivanova/Delenn—I've shipped them since my first time through in the spring of 2009—but this was the first year I finally managed it. I never thought I'd write another Sheppard/Weir story. (To be fair, that one was mostly completed back in 2004, and I just wrote a few more paragraphs to finish it up and get myself over some writer's block on some other things.)
What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
Hmmmm. I'm not sure I can choose. My first thought is "The Heart's Compass," because I lovelovelove the idea of Delenn choosing Ivanova as the other half of her soul from the very get-go, and I loved writing them starting out a bit awkward and growing closer, and Delenn loving Susan, but still being her manipulative/secretive self.
I also really like "Constantly Risking Absurdity," because I was trying to play off the quotation it begins with, and I think I succeeded. I also feel it comes closest to capturing the cadence of their dialogue, and the sweetness and optimism at the core of the films.
And I hugely enjoyed writing "A Field Guide to North American Songbirds," because NX + birds + magical realism = yay.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
Depends on if we're talking comments or hit counts. Comment-wise, "The Heart's Compass" probably wins. Hit-wise, "Camping Indoors," but doubtlessly this is because SGA is the most popular of the fandoms I wrote in this year.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
Hmm. I'm tempted to say "Two Parts Vodka, One Part Vermouth (A Love Story)," but I just re-read it and it...has problems, so I'm kind of glad almost no one commented on it. I'm somewhat surprised that "The Backstreets of Heaven" wasn't more popular, since it has Bester and a crapload of angst, but it's also part four of an ongoing AU featuring an extremely rare pair, so...yeah.
Story that could have been better?
"Two Parts Vodka." The only things I like about it now are the first bit and the Passover scene, and that borrows rather heavily from an episode of Northern Exposure. The concept is sound, but the execution is really flat for some reason. I think perhaps some of the scenes needed to be longer.
"We'll Crack the Darkest Sky Wide Open" still reads like an essay with a thesis, supporting paragraphs, and conclusion, just gussied up in more poetic than academic language.
Funniest story?
Tie. I'm very fond of the final line of "Friends Like These," and of the idea of G'Kar the matchmaker in general. I also like the dialogue of "All We Know for Truth."
Story with the single sweetest moment?
The ending of "Constantly Risking Absurdity." Marriage of convenience is my bulletproof narrative kink, and I liked being able to play with that here (Peter asking Linda to marry him, even though they're legally married already, because he never got to propose properly. And then she gets to play on words while she accepts, and then they snuggle on the curb after dancing down the street in the rain, and really, can you get any cuter without introducing puppies and rainbows?).
Runner up: "The Heart's Compass," which I packed with a ton of sweet moments; in fact, most of the fic is built around them. My favorite is the very end, where they're older and still chasing each other around a garden on Minbar. (Similarly, the meteor shower ritual in "Later Stars of Dawn" is pretty cute, IMO.)
I like schmoop, okay?
Saddest story?
"Iter Durum." Marcus is always good for some angst.
Most unique story?
Any of the fics for Fred and Ginger movies, seeing as I'm the only person who's posted any online. "Unchoreographed" is also unique perhaps because of the focus on the technical aspects of constructing a partner dance, some of which comes from my own experience with ballroom dance, though I would love to be proven wrong about that. (Recs?)
Hardest story to write?
"The Backstreets of Heaven." I'm always terrified that angst will slip over into melodrama, and, uh, Susan and Michael both try to kill Bester in this one, so it's pretty angsty. I'm reasonably pleased with how it turned out, though.
"We'll Crack the Darkest Sky Wide Open" laid partially-written for an entire year before I figured out how I wanted to deal with it. Gah.
Easiest story to write?
"The Heart's Compass." That sucker was done in about two weeks, which is unheard of for me for a story that long. Delenn was very talkative.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Honestly, I am not a risk-taking writer, at least in this field. This is probably a bad thing, but then again, this is fanfic, and if I don't ~grow as a writer~ or whatever, I'm not going to be too upset.
Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?
This year, I am GOING TO FINISH the "Michael and Susan go back to Earth for political intrigue" story that's been on my hard drive for a year and a half or die trying. I recently whittled the plot down to the barest bones that will support the 4,000 words I have so far, so I AM GOING TO DO THIS, ARGH.
I have a few other pieces in progress in that AU as well, and a couple NX pieces I'd like to someday finish, particularly the one playing with the aftermath of "Burning Down the House."
This weird and possibly horrible idea also crawled into my head today: a crossover in which Fraser and Thatcher go to see the New Burbage production of Romeo and Juliet, starring Geoffrey Tennant and Ellen Fanshaw, and then Fraser quotes some lines from the play* to Thatcher (I know. I KNOW.), and maybe some other stuff happens and possibly they actually get together instead of just gazing wistfully at each other, I don't know. Yeah. To quote Ellen, I hate that fucking play, but. But. I am not completely blind to certain small parallels.
* "I am no pilot, yet were thou as far / As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea, / I should adventure for such merchandise."
