I sometimes abuse ampersands

Day 2 - A male character study vid you love

"Deus Ibi Est" by charmax (SPN: John Winchester)

I'm very protective of John, especially in the light of fandom's prevalent negative interpretations. He's fucked-up, but in SPN, that's a prerequisite; otherwise, he's a good, honest person, worn out, frayed around the edges and terrified of fucking up even more (hence his suicidal decision in 2.01). I think that this vid emphasizes that side of him.

Also, these lyrics, with their emphasis on the tradition rather than on individual accomplishments (Against my will to these sad shores//An unknown force has drawn me//Bound unto a future shaped by ancestors before me), help create the version of SPN I would have been far happier with than with the actual canon. Give me Samuel Colt, and a pentagram made up of abandoned railroad tracks - and you can keep the Winchester brothers :)


Day 3 - A female character study vid you love

"Devil Said" by kiki_miserychic (Merlin: Morgana)

I started watching Merlin expecting to love Morgana. I didn't. This vid allowed me to look past her inability to consider the consequences of her actions; I think her canonical relationship with Uther already was a convoluted metaphor for the "violence begetting violence" maxim, but this vid makes a more compelling argument of that. Or something. Anyway, it's plotty, visually gorgeous, and utterly heart-breaking.


Day 4 - An ensemble vid you love

"Tanglewood Tree" by charmax (Fingersmith)

As far as I can tell, this vid is a literal summary of the source movie (which is likely to squicky for me: even the vid made me cringe several times:( ); it's a very complicated story & a very complicated relationship, so packing all that in just 4 minutes must take a lot of storytelling mastery.

Also, I adore it on a technical level: I never before realized that such play with colors as motifs could be done in a vid without extensive use of filters. Watch for the red (the playing cards, the cover of the book, the crimson streak on a painting, all foreshadowing the knife which comes later; also, succulent green in the idyllic sequences at the beginning and as a promise of a happily-ever-after in the finale).


( the rest of days )

The Vid Meme of Doom thing, ganked from everybody (as I'm leaving on a boating trip in two weeks, I'll try to either wrap it up in less than 22 days or continue after a break).

Day 1 - A vid that made you start watching a brand new show

"Jesus for the Jugular" by obsessive24 (Carnivale)

I never managed to watch past the first couple of episodes (I didn't understand most of the characters' accents & the show turned out to be too squicky, which, duh, could have been deduced from the vid), but the vid is brilliant. Given that, my interpretation might be completely off, but that being said-

The show and the vid portray a rivalry between a Christ figure and a Devil figure set against the backdrop of the Great Depression; except obsessive24 projects the canonical events onto later historical events, incorporating historical footage from WW II into the vid. I read it as portrayal of a desperate attempt to make sense of the traumatic history, to read some teleological meaning into it all, to make it less random. But it's also a critique of said attempts, because it's pretty much a toss of a coin as to who of the two protags is the evil one (that bit is canon, I think?); therefore, viewing the historical events as workings of some higher powers doesn't make the cruelty any more cognizable.

( the rest of days )