#fandom review

Fics

You Should Know, rated G, 1k words, complete

The only time I've written for a fest, Carry On Disability Week, this fic was conceived of, written, and posted in four days. Which is absolutely incredible, honestly. It was inspired by a true story, as I've struggled with mystery back pain in the past. The opening of the fic is exactly what happened to me the day I got the idea- wanting to text my partner about the twinge of pain, but not wanting to worry him, realizing it had been lightly hurting for a while but hadn't properly registered to me, etc. I'm really proud of how it came out.

Bloodthirsty, rated E, 3.4k words, complete

Vampire bites! Lamb as a mentor! Baz losing control!

*Spoilers* This fic was a fucker to write. I worked on it for over a year and it's not even 4k words. Part of the problem was that I originally wanted Lamb to feel Baz's magic through his bite, thus revealing that Baz was a mage earlier than in canon, but I really didn't want to get into how that would have changed the ending of WS, etc.

So I had to kill a few darlings, including my OC Ian's role in the fic, and what I still think is a beautiful image of Lamb shoving Baz while yelling YOU LIED TO ME. (Ian's role was to restrain a partially-drained Simon while that happened. There was a cool moment where, while being bitten by Baz, Lamb shot Ian a Look and Simon Recognized the Look, but was too woozy to react in time, so he got pinned to a wall. So now Simon's pissed but can't move, Baz is terrified because he doesn't know Ian, Lamb's furious and rethinking all the 'help' he's promised...) It was all very dramatic, but ultimately didn't line up with the story I wanted to tell, so it got cut.

We ended up with Baz biting Simon, Lamb, and Unnamed Normal, and the boys having a quickie in a stairwell, so I think it's still a fun time. I'm also personally a big fan of how much Lamb and Simon hate each other. You might notice in the fic that Lamb only ever calls Simon "Simon" when he's trying to manipulate Baz—otherwise, it's a snide "your boyfriend." I thought that was fun.

Goals for Next Year

Read and Comment More - fandom is a community. I don't seek out fic very often, but I want to support you guys more than I have been recently.

Write and Post More - if You Should Know taught me anything, it's that stressing over every word and idea isn't helpful. Readers were very nice about what was basically a rough draft, and if I could be more comfortable with that, I'd have more fics to post.

Write a Big Fic - long fics scare me lmao. I almost never read them, and I've certainly never written one. If you follow me, you might remember my Baz/Shepard idea, which has only been growing since I last posted about it. So that will probably be the Big Fic, and I'd love to get it all written and posted sometime next year, but at least get a good chunk written, y'know?

Make More Fan Art/Craft - I cross stitched @otherpeoplesheartachept-2 's pixel Simon back in July, and I'd love to do more fandom cross stitch. I'm also playing around with crochet, so maybe some amigurumi is in my future!

Finally

Thank you to everyone who has tagged me, messaged me, and otherwise included me this past year. I love this fandom, and it's because of you. I think we've all had a rough one in different ways, but I'm so happy you're all still here with me. Take care of yourselves. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Never forget that you are made of magic.

Overall thoughts:

This year I only finished 8 vids and I think I only have one WIP that I started in 2024 that I did not finish and it’s 90% finished so I might try to get that done before Festivids drops at the end of the month.

I spent a significant amount of time thinking about recs and writing recs. My vidding communities originated on journal platforms and the fractured nature of fandom spaces these days means there’s a lot of amazing things people have no idea exists, or they get recced behind discord walled gardens or at online cons. Or vids are passing under the tumblr radar because, as many vidders themselves have noted, tumblr is a very difficult platform for visibility/engagement for fanvids.

I get a lot out of watching vids in discord/con group watches but I really wanted to get back to writing/sharing recs. Cause these are really cool fanworks.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about my vidding process. This year I had a great desire to try and share about what I’ve learned and how I’ve engaged with this creative act, and how it’s been an enduring hobby for me for…18 years. Fuck. That meant I wrote a primer about the vidding process, I started archiving previous things I’ve written about vidding on tumblr. I’ve also started rummaging livejournal/dreamwidth to archive other things I’ve presented at cons and in interviews/community spaces about vidding.

Also trying to (slowly) archive my old vids on AO3. Not everything is on YouTube because of copyright or the source material has nudity/some other obscenity, so my pinned post in my dreamwidth remains the most complete list of my fanvids over the years. For now.

Final vid breakdown:

I made 8 vids. 5 of them were different sources. 3 vids were The Witcher Netflix, 2 vids were Shadow and Bone. Two films (Stigmata and Monkey Man). And a Festivid for the Mike Flanagan show The Fall of the House of Usher. 50% of my vids were ensemble pieces. 90% of these vids I finished in a month, two months at most.

Vidding Process notes:

My biggest hurdle was burnout and my inability to work on my old WIPs that I have been gnashing my teeth to work on and even rewatched the source for and got excited to work on again but didn’t manage to get any traction on them. But also I focused a lot of effort on writing recs and talking about my vidding process, which I think was a good use of the working brain I had left.

The Witcher Netflix remains my favorite thing to be vidding at the moment. I’m vidding so close to the source, so close to my fannishness about the the source, the various witcher canons, and the fandom. Those vids are probably less readable to those who aren’t into the show/fandom, but I fucking adore vidding this show.

Favorite Vid:

Dead of Night - My Witcher Netflix Yennefer/Thanedd vid of intrigue. I love the actress who plays Yennefer, and I really reallllly loved working on this. The feeling of when the verses and choruses were coming together was fannish euphoria. Dopamine of the highest degree.

Hardest to make:

None of these vids were hard to make. Which is something I’ve rarely been able to say when it comes to my vids. The hardest thing I encountered this year was my inertia. I’ve been so burnt out and dealing with job hunting fuckery and a toxic workplace that I just didn’t have the brain to start or work on anything that would be challenging me. I needed fun and frictionless this year, and that’s what I made for myself.

Most successful:

Dirty - Shadow and Bone Crows ensemble. I made this as a premiere for VidUKon. It went over SO WELL and I was elated to watch the chat stream by with cheers and to see some recs and comments come in on it. I let myself play a little with some After Effects transitions I had bought many years ago since I thought the song would greatly benefit from that kind of snappy slick editing. It was a lot of fun and the song went over really well with the audience, too.

My best vid:

These are all my best vids. Every year I feel more confident in what I’m making and how I’m making a vid. If I were to think about what an audience might say might be my best vid - it would either be Dirty/Crows ensemble vid or my Losing My Religion Witcher Ensemble+Ciri vid due to how well I nailed a specific tone and emotional atmosphere.

When it comes to technical/structural best I would say that would be Bones, my Fall Of House of Usher vid. That’s an ensemble vid with something like 9 fucking characters and it was so much to try and cram into a single vid. I framed the vid by beginning with the ending of the show and ended it with the ending of the flashback with Roderick and Madeline. The first Bridge/chorus I did a brief overview of the Usher family and the intrigue/deal with the Angel of Death. Then each verse I introduced two Usher siblings, and then introduced two more and kept stringing the Usher Horribleness along the timeline until it just kept Escalating. It was so much fun. This is the type of vid that is probably most appreciated to watch just after you watch the show when the source material is so fresh in your mind.

Most fun vid:

You’re Gonna go Far Kid, a super niche Witcher Netflix vid. This is not a fun subject, but it was fun to finally come up with a song for an idea that I wanted to do since the summer. This is the type of vid that will probably only make the most sense to people who have read both the books and are fans of the show because it’s a wry commentary about Netflix’s adaptation choices and how it really just…fell flat. My vid notes about this are longer than the actual vid and I rambled even more in the comments to mayoho about it. It’s fun but it’s also ridiculous and really made for that audience of like 4 people. Heh.

Favorite vid moments:

Dead of Night - 3:18-3:48 - Fighting and dancing and fucking. The choreography of this makes my soul vibrate. 🔥🔥🔥

Wobble - 2:08 - 2:18 - This action sequence makes me fucking cackle so fucking much. So much. I love it so much. I also love everything else in this vid, too.

And the entirety of Losing My Religion is my favorite vid moment.

Things I learned in 2024:

I learned it’s possible for me to set up structure to write and post/share vid recs. I also learned that I have quite a lot to say about vidding. I didn’t manage to work on or share anything about song choice (I started writing something for the vidding zine and didn’t get far because brain squish blahs) but I’m also quite happy with how well my vid recs and vid meta was received this year. I wasn’t sure about it when I started working on those projects but it was really gratifying to see folks were interested in what I had to say and share

I also had some revelations about what it is about songs that make my brain tick. Also I realized how my finished vids definitely reflect that “holy shit two cakes” meme you see floating around fic spaces. I’ve made the same exact vid several times and I’ve even been able to freak out (happily and incredulously) when I’ve been able to pin down my vidding style because of that.

I also am still coming to terms with letting go of vid WIPs while also still wanting to figure out how to hack my brain to get the motivation back because I genuinely am excited and want to be working on those vids.

I also learned that I am not going to get tired of vidding The Witcher Netflix and that’s probably not going to change for awhile.

In 2025:

Every year I have ambitious plans that inevitably get derailed. I say as much every year in this meme (go ahead and click thru previous years). The past two years I’ve been in burnout and my health woes are wearing me down in new ways so it’s been a struggle. I need to be less ambitious. But that doesn’t mean I can’t daydream and…have desires. Intentions, maybe. This is all with a grain of salt, right. I want to write more vidding process stuff but that's still ambiguous in my head.

And for the past 3 or so years I keep saying I’ve been wanting to work on my Moonhaven and my Green Knight vids. I’m still not ready to let those fall into my never-finish WIP pile. It’s been strange that I can’t seem to let these two go when I’ve been able to let go of other vid WIPs. So I want to figure out what this hangnail is in my brain about these vids are. Would be a dream to finish them.. I want to write more about my vidding process - and hope that others might find it interesting if I were to actually try and get out all these sticky intuitive things in my head and articulate them.

I want to write more vid recs in 2025, and possibly ping the vidding discord and Fan Tech discord for ideas to make vid rec templates/setting up automations for sharing recs more easily across platforms. I have so many ideas but also I keep spiralling out into burnout. I have at least 2 more Saturday Morning Vid Rec themes that I have vids for I just need to finish writing/formatting. And I want to do another round of Festivid Recs for the 2024 collection that will go live at the end of the month.

I want to continue archiving my old vids on AO3 and maybe remember to crosspost here on my main blog or my @kuwdoravids sideblog, and probably set up some automating crossposting to bluesky.

As for vid ideas. I have so many. I also think I need to set myself up wtih a combination of “vids that are going to be fun and easy to work on” and make sure I have myself set up with clipping so I can just ease right into it when I need the dopamine boost. But I also have a growing desire to finally work on some more challenging vid ideas that I’ve had brewing for awhile.

Some Vid Ideas for 2025:

Captain Janeway Kuwdora Thesis Statement Vid - I discovered my Janeway vidsong in 2019 and it’s been 6 years of rewatching and fannishly meditating on this vid. It might be time to embark upon this. The last time I spent this much time Actively Contemplating for a vid was for High Voltage and…this would be a similar type of Great Character Scope. Huge project though. I have DVDs to rip and 20+ episode seasons to trawl through and clip. But the end result… nobody would be ready. Maybe this year?… maybe.

Interview with a Vampire. There’s only two seasons here but during VidUKon @sandalwoodbox gave a panel presentation on audio editing and the season 2 finale was airing that weekend. My brain just had a cataclysmic idea. Not just an idea. An Idea. Something that would focus on POV and memory / unreliable narrators. This vid concept would be outside my wheelhouse because of the song / audio editing involved. Which is something I haven’t done before (or at least to this specific extent). So it’s scary and new in a way and I think might be really refreshing challenge for me to try.

Sydney Character Vid - The Bear. I’ve rewatched this show like 4 times already and I adore Sydney. I meant to make this vid in 2024 but just didn’t get to it. I have a song, I have the love. I just need to sit down and grind through the clipping process.

Black Sails/Andor. This might be a great vid for WisCon VidParty, and it’s something I’ve been wanting to make for a few years now. Andor season 2 is coming out at some point but I think I could make it without the second season.

Foundation - I have two Foundation vid ideas I keep bouncing around with. I adore the visuals and the actor’s performances so fucking much, and I’m obsessed with Salvor and Gaal. This is something I’m really keen on and am most likely to start and finish since it’s limited source and a relatively contained concept (while one vid would also a tribute to one of my favorite vidders that inspired me when I first started vidding). Also a good idea for WisCon Vid Party if that happens this year.