Hey guys. So uh, yeah. *glances around sheepishly* I haven't been here in a really long time. BUT. But. I do come with news:

I'm up for auction for VidUKon this year, so if anyone would care to bid on me (or one of the other five awesome vidders who volunteered - buffyann, jagwriter, LithiumDoll, Llin and meivocis), here is the link:

http://www.vidukon.co.uk/convention/auction

Bidding ends Sunday, 7 Feb at 8:00pm GMT (which is like 3:00pm for you people on the East Coast, I think).

Behold, I have written a ten thousand word essay on the Legend of Korra and it's multi-season trajectory. Because apparently that's how I roll. And how long it takes to write down everything I think. But also: fair warning - this is an essay. I'd love for you to read it, but for real, take your time.

The Legend of Korra: Deliberately Deconstructed

When The Legend of Korra finished, late last year, I was left with the strange sense that I had watched a show completely, and deliberately, dismantle itself. Much was made of that final iconic shot of Korra and Asami leaving for the Spirit World, in what was, honestly, the queerest “platonic” moment I've seen on television since Xena managed to stage a PG-rated dance-orgy. It was (to its credit) both obvious and unavoidable, but it was also the capstone to a much wider-ranging set of choices designed to destabilise accepted narratives. This would be worthy of exploration under any circumstance, but I feel it is particularly fascinating given how much of it appears to be in direct reaction to the events of Book One: Air. While I've seen countless shows begin with promise, only to fall foul of hegemonic expectations, I'm not sure I've ever seen one begin carelessly and then spend three seasons systematically and critically dismantling its initial premise.

Read the rest at my Dreamwidth because it is actual trufax too large for Livejournal *facepalm*

Wow, so VidUKon happened (HI EVERYONE!) and then I was like, wow, I can take a week off, sleep, chill and then get on with my fabulous life of leisure. Except then I got some more freelance work and an offer to temporarily go full-time at my regular job in a different department and Kev started reducing his medication which meant he was in a kinda fragile state and tl;dr OMFG you guys, it's tiring! Actually the first few weeks I think I got through on adrenaline. It's just been the last few where I've felt like a brick wall hit me. I'm pretty sure I'm just adjusting. Still, props to all you regular working people. Soon I shall be just like you: more tired and slightly less poor. (Oh god, the extravagant things I'm going to buy with the money! New glasses! House insurance! Such things, my friends, such things...)

Anyway, that's why I've been so horribly absent except for intermittent political rants on twitter. I haven't been on tumblr at all for months.

Point is - I'm really out of touch with what's up with you guys so HI, and HOW ARE YOU, and if you posted anything really important in the last month, I probably didn't see it and I'm sorry, but LET ME KNOW about it?

In exchange, here are some things I have been thinking about recently:

( Steven Universe!Collapse )

( Ant-Man!Collapse )

( Politics!Collapse )

Title: Republic City
Video: The Legend of Korra
Audio: Atlantic City // The Gaslight Anthem [Springsteen Cover]
Summary: Everything dies, baby that's a fact. (But everything that dies, some day comes back.)



Direct download available here. RightClickSaveAs. 83 megs approx.

Cross-posted to vidding and vidding

Other vids available here.

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I'M SO SORRY I'VE BEEN SO ABSENT. I mean, I'm never the most frequent of posters, but for real the last month and a half has been nuts. Like real-life stuff, and organising VidUKon (in a week and a half!) and also making a trailer for part two of the Kickstarter Comic Project I helped out with last year.

So first of all - LOOK YOU GUYS! I made the video for this, so you should all, you know, check it out:

PRESENTING A KICKSTARTER PROJECT WHAT I HELPED WITH.

My So-Called Secret Identity - it's kind of a reimagined what-if take on the Batgirl archetype set in the 90s. You can read the first four issues online for free.

In other news, where to even start? I'm behind with everything. Reading, telly, comics, music composition, correspondence, everything.

I want to talk about Steven Universe. I want to finish the 10k word Legend of Korra essay I wrote after it ended and has been sitting, 95% done, unlooked at, for weeks. I want to finish the vid I need to make so I can release the other vid I've already made. I want to make sure I don't forget all the musical stuff I realised I still knew last year. I want time to play more games. I want to talk about my discovery that minimum requirements for PC games seem to be largely bullshit. I want my work to stop demanding data with absolutely no error tolerance when I'm dealing with a huge, complex database, thousands of records at a time, and a lot of the information was input by temps who lacked appropriate training.

But whatever, I'm alive, if you're reading this, you're alive, in a week it's VidUKon and I'll see loads of cool people, and then maybe I'll have time for some of that stuff from that list up there... ;)

Title: Blue/Pink
Video: Steven Universe
Audio: Blue Lips // Regina Spektor
Summary: Human, Gem. Boy, Girl. Blue, Pink.

PASSWORD: vidses



Direct download available here. RightClickSaveAs. 80 megs approx.

Cross-posted to vidding and vidding

Other vids available here.

Hey guys!

I'm in charge of a Superheroes vidshow for VidUKon this year! My aim is to make it awesome. So obviously I'm going to ask all you awesome guys to help me create a shortlist of vids to include.

My goal is to root it in self-identified Superhero stuff but also to reach out to other things that don't necessarily self-identify as capes and costumes heroics, but clearly draw on those archetypes.

So I'm soliciting any and all suggestions!

Though I'd be super, super grateful for suggestions that aren't for either Marvel or DC because that's a lot easier to find.

To help this process, I brainstormed some fandoms that fit under either "Actually Superheroes!" or "Oh Come On, They're Superheroes!" I want to try and make sure that the latter category isn't just "action heroes", so feel free to question, challenge or suggest stuff in the comments even if you don't have a specific vid to rec (though obvs, omgs, I hope you do!)

Actually Superheroes!
DC (duh)
Marvel (duh)
Kick-Ass
Watchmen
Hancock
Krrish
Judge Dredd

This list is as complete as I can make it, so if I've missed something PLEASE let me know!

Oh Come On, They're Superheroes!
Commander Shepard
Olivia Dunham
The Avatar (as in The Last Airbender and Korra)
Buffy Summers
Lara Croft
Ghostbusters
Blade
Jedi characters in Star Wars
Xena
Knight Rider

This list is both arbitrary and incomplete and mostly designed to act as a starting point. I'd also note that the focus of vids in this list will probably matter more. Wonder Woman is always going to be identified as a superhero. A vid about Buffy could focus on a lot of things other than her superheroic attributes.

So FIRST, oh my god, the VidUKon auction was an amazing success! We raised almost £250 including £111 for RAINN. So that was pretty fantastic. Many thanks to the vidders (buffyann, LithiumDoll, jagwriter78 and purplefringe) and all the bidders!

Also, I finished this a while ago but I should probably post it. I'm not sure it's as epic or successful at evoking a particular tone as my string quintet, but I'm pretty happy with it in the sense I feel I started cracking the use of accidentals for some deliberate dischordant...ness. Plus, a wild key change appears!

I do think I probably should have not been quite so minimalist with the left hand obsession with repetitive thirds, though. Oops?

OKAY SO, firstly I apologise for my absence. I had really high hopes about improving my posting schedule, and really I feel a little cheated, because I HAVE been doing stuff I'd like to be posting about. I finished a vid! Except I didn't post it because I'm worried I won't have another ready in time for VidUKon. I finished another musical piece! Except I didn't post it because I didn't want to post music twice in a row. I wrote epic Legend of Korra meta! Except I didn't post it because it's a gigantic beast of an essay and it's not actually finished yet. But...I had more than vague aspirations, is what I'm saying. I was sort of being productive.

Also VidUKon! BIG NEWS!

Firstly, we have a scholarship. It is for free attendance, Saturday evening dinner and accommodation (on the basis of sharing a room) for one non-UK resident, with preference going to European applicants. If we receive additional donations they will go towards the recipient's travel costs.

We very much encourage self-nominations, so please take a look!

Secondly, we're doing auctions! This is very short notice so we're looking for sign-ups THIS WEEK.

I know that might sound intimidating, but here are some reasons it's not:

- The deadline is going to be June 1, that's a full month after the Premieres deadline. Loads of time!

- Our goals are modest and specific. We're looking for, like, £15 to fund fancier badges, £30 to buy some USB sticks to digitise the library. That sort of thing. There is no performance pressure here!

- 75% of anything over £100 will be donated to RAINN, so if you DO want to sign-up on mass and attract giant bids, then it'll be in the name of good deeds!

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know.

Plus, you know, con registration is open generally, and if you can't attend in person, you can come to VirtUKon, where we put as many of the vids online as we can (they go live with the shows), as well as streaming a number of the panels, etc. After the weekend the playlists go live for everyone, but some of the panels are likely to be up during the weekend only.

You can check out our site to see what last year's looks like.

YAY VIDS!

Okay! So it's been a while since I posted about my musical adventures. Not because I haven't been working on it (well actually I took a pretty long break to play Dragon Age: Inquisition, but I'm back at it now) but because I've been...simultaneously working on a few things and not really finished with any of them. My original plan was to post this, along with another piece I mostly finished but am trying to go back and polish a little and a piece I'm currently working on but is a bit stalled. If I do that, though, who knows when I'll be brave enough to post anything, so screw it.

I give you 20 Strings, a piece for string quintet in C Minor.

It's my attempt at a sort of minimalist style so there's a lot of intentional repetition and slow builds because, well, I like that sort of thing. Hopefully you will too. Or at least not think it sounds terrible.



I'm...actually kind of happy with this because I feel it's long enough it feels complete, but also feels consistent throughout. (What I'm working on at the moment, for instance, I'm quite pleased with on the one hand because I feel I'm getting the hang of using accidentals and some chromatic harmony, but I've got a tonal shift in the middle I'm not entirely sure works).

I do think I should have bitten the bullet and put bow markings in. I didn't because Musescore can't play them back properly and I was all GRR MINIMALISM FINE FUCK IT everything will be bowed! But whatever I'm not actually a hipster, I should've put them in for completeness. On the other hand, it's a piece made up of layered repetitive phrases so I think most people would guess correctly where to put 'em.

Finally, for some reason, the custom soundfont I use with Musescore didn't include a viola so I'm stuck with the default viola sound which is a) not great and b) clashes with the custom stuff so, with deepest apologies to the viola, which is a beautiful instrument, the audio here is three violins and two cellos.

I think that's everything.

But seriously, guys, I'd love to know what you think. I'm sort of new to this and not entirely sure where I'm going with it. I don't actually know almost anyone else who's into composing stuff. It's hard to know what it would sound like outside of my own experience. It's not really like when I got into vidding and there was a ready made community of enthusiastic people of varying skill levels, you know? As far as I can tell "composing" fandom is super hardcore people who understand...a lot more than I do when it comes to musical theory.

But, I think I like doing this. So. Onwards.

(ALSO ALSO, festivids went live this weekend! I haven't had a chance to watch that many vids, though, cus I suck. I will try to have a recs post up before the reveals, though!)