203: Re-Entry Is a Doozy

[thefourthvine]

Best Beloved recently pointed out to me that it had been approximately seventeen years since I had recommended anything, which had of course triggered the inevitable thing where I am reluctant to write up a recommendations post because it's been so long since I've done one. You all know how this goes. She suggested I ease myself into it with vids. Happy vids.

She was, as always, right. Here are some happy vids, and pretty soon I might even remember how recommending works! I think - I think there is cake involved?

I might be wrong about the cake, actually.

The One That I Always Remember as Being NC-17, and Then I Rewatch It and Realize That It Is Merely Suggestive. Very, Very Suggestive. Let's Misbehave, by greensilver. White Collar.

Okay. I have read stories in this fandom - not, you know, all of them or anything, but some. Many, even! And this vid is, like, 45% of them. This is a vid with plot, and the plot goes like this:

Neal: I am exceptionally pretty.
Peter: Yes, you are. I might wish you weren't, but it's a fact and I'm prepared to put it on any number of affadavits.
Neal: Also, cute.
Peter: Yeah, but I've got to point out that it's the kind of cute where sometimes I want to smack you.
Neal: That's all just part of my charm.
Peter: The hell of it is that that's true.
Neal: And did I mention that I'm talented?
Peter: I already knew that, actually.
Neal: Face it, you can't resist me.
Peter: Let me just remind you about my wife.
Neal: You're in luck! I'm good with other people's wives.

Neal: So. Hi. Peter loves you, you know.
Elizabeth: And I love him, so that's something you and I have in common.
Neal: Did I mention that I am exceptionally pretty?
Elizabeth: You didn't need to. I have eyes.
Neal: But I would never want to come between the two of you.
Elizabeth: Well that's a pity.
Neal: Oooo. I think you're about to make me an offer I won't refuse.
Elizabeth: No, I'm going to make that offer to Peter.
Neal: Great! But, uh, if you're caught, I will disavow all knowledge.
Elizabeth: Like hell you will.

[And then they all have sex.]

So compelling is the force of this vid that even I think Neal is pretty for the duration of it. (I'm sorry, but under normal, non-this-vid circumstances, Neal looks like a not-especially-attractive ferret to me. I mean, okay, fine, a kind of cute ferret, but definitely the sort of creature you want to a) pat on the head and b) keep in a cage. Yes, fine, the line to cut me dead starts over there.) And that makes me notice that Elizabeth (who is absolutely not only pretty but hot) and Neal look a lot alike. And they have some similar body language. Hmmmm. Perhaps Peter has a type? IT MIGHT BE. WE SHOULD LOOK INTO THIS. (Hint: start by watching this vid.)

The One That Answers the Age-Old Question: Where Do Good Past Incarnations Go? The Tenth Doctor Musical, by di_br. Doctor Who.

Okay, I am guessing by the fact that this thing has almost 500 comments on LJ and more than 50k hits on YouTube that everyone has already seen it. I do not care. There might be someone out there who hasn't. That alone is reason enough to rec this.

Because, oh my god, this is just - just - well. I don't want to spoil it or anything, but there was a point, right before Nine rolled his eyes (and I was right there with him, of course), that I had a laughter-induced hallucination. (And here it is, for the people who have seen the movie of Bridget Jones's Diary: I saw the tenth Doctor in his pajamas, using a hairbrush as a microphone, singing All By Myself until he broke down weeping helplessly on the TARDIS's control panel. And here's the thing: I am absolutely, completely convinced that he's done this. We just need to get the footage out of the TARDIS somehow. Anyone have an in with her?)

I love this vid. I love every single thing about it. I love the idea that there's a Home for Old Doctors where they can watch the latest incarnation's exploits ("I tell you what, I would never have done that. In my day we knew the value of a blooping tube of blue goop.") and brood all moodily and be harassed by babies and have a cup of tea. I love the bonus track at the end, which, seriously, I have no idea what's going on there, but it is fucking scary, even so. I love the bits with Jack and the Master. I love Martha's theme song, which is so obviously her theme song I don't know why I never realized it before.

I even love being rickrolled. Pretty much.

The One That Makes Me Say, Every Time, "They - Had a Wizard of Oz Episode? Or a Costume Party Episode? Seriously, What the Fuck?" High School Never Ends, by Gab, aka milena_d. Gateverse.

It took me a lot of rewatching to figure out just why this vid works so well for me - because it does, it so totally does, and yet usually this kind of concept doesn't. But I persisted in my viewings - it wasn't actually a hardship - until I realized that actually, this vid is a celebration of the somewhat doofy but always entertaining physical acting (if, um, that's the term I want) of the many people of the Gateverse. And that is - it's just wonderful. It's physical comedy! In vid form!

But it's so much more than that. It's also filled with sly meta commentary on the shows and their fandoms, and, even more than that, a lot of love for the Gateverse and everyone in it. One of the things that I love about vidding is that for me, it's the fanwork type that can most easily just be a giant explosion of love for the fandom. There are vids that are, totally obviously and clearly, OMG SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE <3 <3 <3 set to music. And how can you not love that? How can you not love it when someone not only draws metaphorical hearts with her name and the fandom's name in it, but does it while hitting the beat?

(I am guessing that if you're better with faces and people than I am, fanart probably accomplishes the same thing. But - okay, this is a totally honest example of the way my brain sometimes fails with fanart. There is a very famous series of drawings in an older fandom, and someone linked to them on my friends list a while back, so I looked at them. And then I went to get Best Beloved, because when I'm that kind of lost, usually the problem is that my brain is malfunctioning. And we had a conversation that went, in part:

Me, showing her one of the drawings: ...And I just don't get it, I guess. I mean. How is this fannish?
BB: What do you see?
Me: A tiger.
BB: Do you see the guys in front of the tiger?
Me, trying to fake it: Um. Maybe?
BB: Do you see the one guy's penis, and how the other guy is sort of going for it?
Me, stunned: There's a penis?
BB: HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE THE PENIS?
Me: It's a really confusing picture!
BB: There's two guys and a penis and a tiger! IT'S PRETTY BASIC.
Me, muttering: Not to me it isn't.
BB: I can't believe you brought me in here to look at a penis you didn't even know was there.)

The One That Makes the Best Use of Lens Flare I Have Yet Seen in a Vid. The Test, by heresluck.

Probably you have already heard about how awesome this vid is. Well, you heard right: it is in fact profoundly awesome. It so profoundly awesome, in fact, that I feel comfortable recommending it, even though right now I have to question my judgment in anything Trek-related. I am still in that unfortunate phase of fandom where I sort of lack - you know, taste. And rational thought. Basically, my flowchart for determining whether or not I love something has a new branch in it, very early on, which looks like this (except of course the actual flowchart is nifty and cool-looking, because my brain does not run in ASCII):

Trek? The kind that has a Spock? ---Yes ---> OKAY I ALREADY LOVE IT

I am - a little obsessed. Just a little. But trust me when I tell you that my obsession is not why I love this vid. There are, in fact, so many moments that I love in it that if I made a greatest bits collection of it, it would be about four minutes long. (If I was allowed commentary in addition to actual clips, it would probably be about three hours long. This is why I don't ever try to do a frame-by-frame analysis of a vid; two years in and I'd still be at 0:45 and I'd already have said, "But it's, you know, SO INCREDIBLE, because" seven million times.)

I will say this, though: I was absolutely, completely sold on this vid in the first 35 seconds. AND THEN IT GOT BETTER. And then it got better again! It was like a matryoshka doll set, except made entirely of joy; I kept thinking I'd found the pure brilliance at the center, but no! There was always more joy still to come.

Comments

[shinealightonme]

OMG! I've seen TWO of these!

I feel like such an accomplished, cosmopolitan, worldly fan.

brood all moodily and be harassed by babies and have a cup of tea.

Because really, what Doctor could be happy without having some harmless harassment they could grumble about?

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

...You mean there was never a cheerful Doctor, a Doctor who skipped all day long? I AM DISILLUSIONED.

[shinealightonme]

The Doctor was born a cranky old man. At least, as far as TV audience are concerned.

[kiezh.livejournal.com]

I can totally imagine Four skipping along merrily. Though I'd say he was more manic than cheerful, overall. And Five smiled a lot, I think, though I found him a bit too beige and bland - especially after Four's mad grins and wild headful of curls. Four was fun.

I am not a very knowledgable Who fan, but it seems to me that the overall arc of Doctors has been:
Cranky old men --> whimsical guys who are not very old or young --> emo young men. I hear Eleven isn't very emo though, even if he continues the bizarre youthening.

Now I want to go look up the ages of the actors playing the Doctor. Hmm.

[greyminerva]

My ex-husband actually commented on this when Eleven showed up, and we were discussing the pros and cons of the "new" Doctors (he favours Nine, I'm a sucker for Ten): "This is the first Doctor who is younger than me" - with a tone of barely suppressed horror. ;)

[seadreamer.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm always so glad to see you post! Everythng you recommend is good, but I do have to admit that I will forever agree with your belief that there is an Old Doctors Home somewhere! But as alwyas, thank you soooo much for sharing. I'm finding it really hard to find good things in the fan-world these days.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! And, yeah, there totally has to be an Old Doctors' Home, because, for one thing, some of those incarnations had it awfully rough and deserve some time hanging out and decompressing. (And also because I want to believe Nine is not really gone. There's that, too.)

[jessibot.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh, that White Collar vid! *swoons*

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Is it not incredibly amazing? I will join you on the fainting couch, if I may.

[lucia-tanaka.livejournal.com]

I don't have time before work and I really have been meaning to write huge meta about this, but that DW vid is completely brilliant because it manages to the hilarious ("AAAAAAALL BY MYYYYYSEEEELF"), pointing and laughing at Ten, but also really sweet, like it's admitting, "yeah, okay, he was a bit of an emo git at times, but he was still quite good, yeah?" and that's totally awesome. ♥

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

It is exactly like that, and it is indeed awesome. I love it when vidders simultaneously poke fun at and shower love on something. It makes for such great vids.

*happy sigh*

[jooniper-pearl.livejournal.com]

Yay! ::runs off to dl and watch!!:: ♥♥♥

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Yay! Another convert to the awesomeness of these vids!

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, The Test. I'm right there with you on the Spock litmus test.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

ANYTHING WITH SPOCK IS A GOOD THING. I believe that may be the actual definition of "good thing," in fact. They just didn't have anything really good before 1968.

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

Well, then, thank god I wasn't alive then; I would have shriveled up and died. As it is, I'm saddened it took me so long to jump on the Spock bandwagon.

[crepuscule (from livejournal.com)]

OMG YAY NEW TFV RECS!!! *proceeds to leave novel-length comment because she hasn't commented in months*

1. Augh augh augh I need to NOT get into White Collar, I just CANNOT handle a new TV fandom right now. I have a love/hate relationship with my television. I am one of those people who will happily start reading fic/watching vids before seeing even a tiny bit of canon, but if I enjoy fandom material, at some point I will inevitably attempt to watch the canon, and this can only mean bad things for me. Like you, I have Television Issues, although mine are related to Destroying My Personal Life by Irritating My Loved Ones with ongoing obsessions with TV shows. My mother is only just starting to forgive me for watching five seasons of The Office in a month.

So. NOT clicking on the vid. Not clicking. *peeks at link through her fingers* .....maybe I'll download it for later. ...oh, oh my, it's a greensilver vid! And now I must watch it.

2. EEE I HAD NOT SEEN THAT WHO VID! This is why you rec, you see -- for slow, slow people like me, who only read/watch things when they are recced. And who have no fandom friends and must rely on people who make it their job to disseminate fandom joy.

3. OMG GATEVERSE SILLINESS. *hurriedly downloads*

Also, I am very curious about this tiger picture you mention in your tangent. Frankly I suspect I would have the opposite problem and focus on the penis, only to realize months later, OMG THERE IS A LARGE CAT IN THE BACKGROUND, WEIRD, HOW DID I NOT NOTICE.

I suspect this from experience, of course, having been participant in the following conversation:

Best Friend: ...oh, looking at porn again, I see?
Crepuscule: Mmmhm! This one is very well drawn, yes?
Best Friend: ...yes, although the small child watching them in horror is kind of off-putting.
Crepsucule: ...well. Yes, it would be.
Best Friend: You didn't notice that bit, did you.
Crepuscule: OF COURSE I DID.
Best Friend: No, you didn't, because this is your 'too hot for words' folder, and if you'd noticed the kid it would be in your 'hot yet hilarious and/or slightly wrong' folder.
Crepuscule: ...you know me far too well.

(And for those interested: yes, yes I do actually have folders named things similar to the above. I am very meticulous about organizing my fannish porn.)

4. Nothing more than "OMG TREK CONTAINING SPOCK! I AM ON IT" need be said.

[milena-d.livejournal.com]

Hey! qe2 was kind enough to tell me who was directing me to my vid and I just wanted to say a huge thank you for this rec! ^_^ Their comments and especially yours in here have totally made my day! Thanks again :D

You had me at hello...

[greyminerva]

Ok, I originally found you on LJ because of your awesome recs - I recced your recs, in fact, because sometimes reading your recs were better than the fanfic itself.
And although I haven't watched many fanvids in my time - not really my thing - I still had to watch them because YOU recommended them, and I loved them, and I can't wait for you to do more recs.
Seriously:
SQEEEEEEE! :D

[monkey5s.livejournal.com]

You know, I lurked a lot before I finally friended, so I would have an easier time of catching the recs. But, your other posts are every bit as entertaining! Like an awesome 2-for-1 deal!

I'm commenting on this, over a month past the original post, because I had not seen any of the videos you rec'ed, and am glad I have now found them.

And, "The Test" did finally help me pin down what I have trouble with, in terms of the Star Trek reboot. When the original series was first aired, in 1966, I watched it. AVIDLY. I enjoyed it tremendously. And I got the fan mags, and gushed with my friends about it.

But, what I watched was on our black and white TV set. We didn't have one of those exotic, expensive COLOR sets until what, 1969? 1970? So the syndicated repeats, sure, I saw those in color, but I was still in the black and white mindset. I enjoyed the movies, but stopped seeing the original series. And hadn't really thought about it for many years. Until the reboot.

The reboot... bothered me. I couldn't figure it out. But now, having seen this video, with the melding of old and new, I realize it's because the colors are just... too much. Too vivid, too brilliant. Apparently, my brain got stuck on black and white, when it comes to the original Star Trek. Which I find very weird, now that I understand it. But it's better to know that to keep wondering!