shadowscast

Behind the cut: links to a couple of Umbrella Academy fanvids I just watched and enjoyed!

( Spoilers for Umbrella Academy Season 2 )

Oh wow, it's been nearly 3 years since I last posted. And the last post I made was a vid rec too.

Maybe a quick re-introduction is in order: Hi, I'm Shadowscast. I used to be in fandom. Then I had a kid.

(It's not just the kid; it's the kid and the job and the two and a half hours of daily commuting, along with the fact that at age 36 I really can't function anymore on less than eight hours of sleep.)

Anyway, I've gone from being actively fannish to being rather more passively fannish. I go on the occasional fic-reading binge in one fandom or another, mostly after getting caught up on some show several months (or years) after everybody else. I've made a real-life friend who's fannish, and she's really into vids, so I watch vids sometimes with her.

And tonight I decided to browse the most recent Festivids entries, and I found this one that really spoke to me, and I decided: hey, why not make a post?

The vid in question is The Ballad of Wesley Crusher, and it's by Jetpack Monkey.

Here's the comment I made at the post:

Oh man, this vid gave me feelings.

So let me just say, I was 13 in 1990, and nerdy and unpopular and lonely, and I loved Wesley Crusher. I fantasized about living on the Enterprise and being his friend and having adventures together. I didn't know about fandom yet, so I didn't know that Wesley was generally hated—I found out years later, and was surprised and saddened but at least by then I was old enough and had grown into myself enough that I didn't take it as (much of) a personal blow.

And now I'm 36, and I have perspective, and I understand about stories, and I understand why people hated Wesley.

This vid makes my heart ache for him, and for my 13-year-old self. The sweaters, oh lord the sweaters.

And I am so grateful for the story you tell here, of his arc, of how Starfleet really wasn't the right place for him at all, and how the ending, his strange departure from the show (which I had no idea how to parse at all, when it aired) can be read as a coming-of-age story, an escape from a life which is unsuitable to one which is a much better fit. (And I bet there are an awful lot of us in fandom who can identify with that.)

So, thanks for much for sharing this vid! I'm going to go watch it again now.

Okay, I've seen these linked all over my flist, so it's likely you've all seen them linked too, but in the spirit of trying to get a steadier output of fannish glee going here, I bring you: links to three vids I've just watched and enjoyed!

sockkpuppett (luminosity) has done a 300 (the movie) vid: Vogue. It is so very, very pretty. I haven't seen the movie, but this vid makes me want to. Oh, and I called my husband over to watch (which is not something I regularly do with fanvids!)—and he liked it too.

dualbunny's vid Tragedy (starring Spike) is, oh, shiny and impressive and angstily hilarious.

stormwreath also made a Spike-centric vid: Boy from the Mouth of Hell. This one's more serious; he describes it as a character study, and he's got detailed notes to accompany the vid. I found it interesting, and fun to watch.

I don't know much about the making of vids (though I did manage to make about 20 seconds of a Veronica Mars vid with the help of my 14-year-old cousin while we were touring Alaska—we didn't have time to finish it, sadly, but at least it did start to give me an appreciation of the work that goes into a vid!) I find them really fascinating, the way they take a pre-existing song and pre-existing clips and use them to make something entirely new. I love it when they make me think about a character (or a song!) in some entirely new way. Also, a lot of them are really fun and pretty!

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