Penny

Should you for whatever reason want to record any of my fics, or otherwise remix/spin-off/translate/use it in ways I can't think of, it please have at it! Just let me know once it's finished so I can link it! :-) You can use the associated works button on AO3 to do that quickly and easily.

I would greately prefer that any podfics of my works were not hosted on Spotify or other podcast catchers such as Apple Podcasts.

My vidshow for @vidukon this year was focused on shows filmed in and around Vancouver.

I hadn’t proposed one for a few years, and really it was just an off-the-cuff idea I submitted kind of last minute, so imagine my surprise when it was actually picked! The show is a set of vids united by place, but that place, is different places. By which I mean to say, they are all shows FILMED in Vancouver/British Columbia, but not necessarily SET in Vancouver.

It’s a lot less marked now, but especially in the 2000s and 2010 the combination of existing technical talent/local actors and generous provincial tax support meant that Vancouver was the filming location of choice for a lot of serial TV. The skyscrapers and downtown can look like a lot of American cities, but the weaker Canadian dollar meant that it was cheaper to film there. Sci-fi in particular found a home there, building off the X-Files to give us Battlestar Galactica, Dark Angel, and more Stargates than you can shake a stick at. The Wiki page for “television shows filmed in Vancouver” has 398 entries, and that’s without all the movies filmed there too. My issue therefore was not LACK of options, but rather how to narrow them down.

First I started by excluding all movies- so no Deadpool, X-Men, or Wolverine (the labs in the X-Men films are I think part of the University of British Columbia). The original pitch said ‘genre’ shows, but that still felt too broad. In the end I went with my heart and my first fandom (SGA) and decided to limit myself to sci-fi and fantasy shows. That meant excluding shows like Bletchley Circle San Francisco, and (to my sadness) psych, both shows that use Vancouver to stand in for California.

(I did wibble on if psych COULD count as sci-fi, but it’s pretty central to the plot that Shawn isn’t psychic, so it had to go).

(I also went back and forth on Riverdale, but I think it has enough supernatural elements to count)

Once I had that sent I went to gather a longlist of vids, and then whittle them down. I tried for a mix of older fandoms and newer ones, shippy and non-shippy, and a mix of artists and song types.

I also tried to not just include vids about white men, and I wasn't as successful as I'd have liked on that front, though I do have Stimmin, Gone Tech, Glitter and Gold, and Feeling Gold and Cold that centre characters of colour, and Etheric Messages and Walk Outside that feature or co-feature women.

I allowed myself the indulgence of repeating two fandoms (SGA and Supernatural) and one artist (Taylor Swift, though I was restrained with only two). Some vids I included were old faves, others, like Stimmin’, I found as part of my search. I tried to at least get some Vancouver scenery in each one, or to repeat elements (the beach, the street, a building). I whittled down the list to get it to around 48 mins, then had to put them in order.

I had the sense of a framework in my head. I knew I wanted to open with Dean’s Spring Break Anthem as it’s a great opener full of energy that also uses the lyrics to subvert Dean’s increasingly fragile mask of traditional masculinity.

I thought I wanted to end it with Losing Game, as I liked the idea of bookending a vidshow with Supernatural. It’s one of my old fandoms, and the locale of Vancouver features really heavily, especially in the more road-trip focused seasons. The issue was that I also had Northern Cross, and you can’t really put anything AFTER that, because it’s one long exhale. So I put that last, and finished on a one-two punch of tragic relationships.

I knew I wanted the show to pivot on the two SGA vids, from the more upbeat vids in the first show, to some more downbeat/sad vids in the backend. It turns on the flip from Astolat’s classic Bohemian Like You, with Rodney and John’s goofy crushes and chemistry, to Isagel’s Temptation of John Sheppard, with the absolute resigned desperation of an unrequited relationship in close quarters. It’s such an incredible character study of John, and remains one of the SGA vids that has the most impact for me.

Then I had to fit the other vids in and around. Etheric Messages went after Temptation, because the slow, eerie feeling seemed to complement that vid and also gives you time to breathe.

Vids about failed or unrequited relationships mostly went into the second half, but I didn't want it to be downer after downer so I also added the very energetic and sexy Almost Human vid Gone Tech for a little bit of upbeat fun, as well as Glitter and Gold, which really sums up the chaotic nature of Legends of Tomorrow. It's also one example of the vids talking to each other- the chaotic disaster bisexuals of Legends of Tomorrow coming after the sadder, tragic disaster bis of The Magcians vid Is it Over Now?

I also did this in the first half, positioning a Smallville vid and a Riverdale vid close to each other to highlight how often an 'all American high school' is actually Canadian.

The last three vids (Stimmin', Losing Game and Northern Cross) I arranged to tell a series of stories about divinity, war, battles, and the afterlife, from Talia, Annabeth and Clarisse dealing with the pressure of their divine parents, to the desperate last stand of Castiel, and Daniel's self-sacrifice and ascension. I think it works?

I had a great time curating the show, and it's full of vids I love. I'm not sure how well it went down at the con- I definitely felt like I was a little out of step with some of the other vidshows and fandoms, but I had fun, and i hope people liked it!