ringwench's journal

I can't brain today...I have the dumb...

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:26:46 GMT

So yeah, last night's SPN REALLY needs a rewatch before I can post about it.

I herniated a disc in my back (for the second time in 6 months - the original injury hadn't even fully healed yet) so I am on some serious medication at the moment to attempt to quell the excruciating sciatic pain that it's been causing. So I'm currently mildly stoned and very sleepy.

I wish I could say I hurt it doing something cool, but alas, the actual reason is full of lame-itude: I have a cold, I coughed too hard and the disc reherniated. Go me! Gettin' down with my spaz self!

So yeah, I've been in a state of perma-loopiness for the past few days and was dozing off (despite my best efforts to remain conscious!) while watching last night's ep :-( I did enjoy the parts I actually remember, but I'm a tad hazy on the details. LOL.

I refuse to let this get me down though! I have an uber-cracky J2 humor vid I've been half-assedly working on lately and I intend to throw my whole ass into it this weekend, pain or no pain, and get it done in time to submit it for WinCon. Here's hoping I can pull it off *crosses fingers*.

I have a plan, I have the clips, and I also have good drugs and a heating pad! I will prevail!

Besides, I figure being whacked out on pain pills can only HELP when churning out the crack, right?

Teeny tiny little SPN vidlet

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:42:44 GMT

tweyelite and I were bored one day a couple of months ago and I really wanted an excuse to dust off Sony Vegas, so we decided to each make a vidlets using the same song but different source (hers is here and the source is TSCC). We had intended to do a bunch of these (and maybe we still will at some point cause it was really fun) but got lazy and only did the one ;-)

It barely counts as a vid because it's only 15 seconds long and I threw it together in about an hour (so I guess it's kinda like a vid drabble?), but I figured I'd post it here anyway just for the heck of it:

It's Meg-centric and set to "Fall Behind Me" by The Donnas.

SPN 4x01 - Lazarus Rising (reactions and some s4 speculation)

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:28:37 GMT

Wow.

Just. WOW!

This episode blew me away. It was so much better than I could have expected and I'm honestly surprised to find that it's made me do a complete 180 in my attitude towards rumors I'd heard about a possible rift between the boys this season.

When I first read somewhere that there was a good chance that Dean and Sam might be, at least, working at cross-purposes and, at most, actively working against each other this season I got a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I love Dean and Sam, and the only thing I love more than Dean and Sam as individual characters is Dean and Sam TOGETHER. The insane, dysfunctional, co-dependant, self-sacrificing love and devotion they have towards each other and how it drives practically every single thing they do is my number one favorite thing about this show. So needless to say, I was more than a little worried that any non-superficial conflict between the boys would completely and utterly ruin the show.

But yeah, not so much anymore. I don't really know how it happened, but over the course of the season premiere, I became convinced that having an actual life-or-death, good vs. evil, heaven vs. hell conflict playing out not just within the SPN universe in general (which is awesome in itself) but also between the boys themselves is pretty much the most brillant, ballsy, kickass idea that Kripke and Co. have EVER come up with and I am practically SALIVATING at the thought of watching this play out over the season. *flails*

I mean, obviously I wouldn't want the boys to be against each other forever, but I truly believe that would never ever happen. Kripke would never do that to the show or the fans. And I also think that even if the boys are working against each other, it's not like they would ever stop loving each other, which will make the whole thing 100 times more angsty and soul-destroying than if they were working together against a common enemy. Genius!

I'm pretty sure that Dean was brought back from hell for the ultimate purpose (though probably among other important things too) of stopping/saving Sam. It's the only thing that makes sense. I mean, why go to all the trouble of yanking Dean out of hell and recorporealizing him if the job was anything else but stopping Sam? If it were anything else, no offense to Dean (who is completely awesome), but it would probably be easier for God to have someone else (you know, maybe someone who was already alive)! Because if Sam become all-powerful and evil, nobody but Dean has even the slightest hope of stopping him because Dean is really the only person Sam cares about, the only one who he might listen to if he's fallen and needs to be snapped back into the light.

Anyway, on to the episode itself:

- the beginning sequence was AWESOME, and I absolutely loved the pan up to the destruction of the forest and the image of Dean standing there, his shadow beside the shadow of the cross.

- The reunion with Bobby was great, loved the holy water splash! I'm glad it was Bobby who saw Dean first and went through all of the "Is it really Dean?" stuff so that once Dean and Sam were finally reunited they could pretty much jump right into...

- the most awesome Dean/Sam hug ever on this show! FINALLY we got a hug that was initiated and reciprocated by BOTH brothers! *happy sigh* I love our boys SO much!

- OK, so the whole Kristy/Ruby thing. I'm a tad confused here as to whether or not Kristy was already Ruby at the hotel (I'm sure there have been plenty of posts about this already and I intend to go looking for them as this is bugging me!). If she was Ruby, she started lying pretty damn fast when Dean and Bobby showed up. I'm not sure that if it was Ruby that we would get no visible reaction to seeing Dean (though that could just be a reflection on the actresses abilities - the jury is still out on her, but so far I'm not that impressed to be honest) and she would start in with the lying right away before even discussing anything with Sam (who was also lying by omission pretty much instantly after Dean and Bobby came in - not sure he would be able to think quite that fast after watching his previously dead brother walk through the door, but I'm not discounting the possibility). Though, I suppose he and Ruby likely already had discussed the fact that they were not going to tell Bobby about what they were doing and that extended to Dean once he came back.

Plus there's the whole panties thing. If that was Ruby, it's strongly implied that Sam is sleeping with her, which, don't get me wrong, in theory I really like the idea (as long as they're essentially just fuck-buddie, as an actual relationship would be kinda ridiculous), I love the character of Ruby and always thought it would be interesting to see her and Sam hook up, however after watching the ep on Thursday I thought of something kinda disturbing that made me rethink that idea a bit. That is that Sam (and Ruby too, I suppose, though she gets a bit of a pass because she IS an evil demon) would essentially be raping the posessed girl if he were to sleep with Ruby-in-Kristy! Now I can certainly buy that Sam is really really broken and damaged and has started down a dangerous path since Dean died, but no matter how messed up he might be, I absolutely do not buy that he would be a party to rape. So for that reason alone, I hope it is revealed that Kristy was actually Kristy, just a random one-night-stand, at the hotel and Ruby posessed her after the fact (and Sam just knew it was Ruby in the diner by the way she was speaking to him - as her whole demeaner was changed - plus he's likely gotten used to her hopping from body to body over the past few months).

But yeah, that was kinda perplexing and I'd love to hear other opinions on that. I'm still not all that sold on the actress playing Kristy/Ruby, she doesn't quite seem hard-assed enough to be Ruby (Katie Cassidy wasn't the greatest actress in the world, but she ultimately did a competant job with the character last season), but I get that budget cuts forced them to do away with Katie, plus it makes perfect sense that Ruby wouldn't be able to go back into the other body after Lilith forced her out of it, but yeah, I'm hoping this new Ruby improves a bit in the acting department and the original personality of the character starts to shine through a bit more.

- Sammy is seriously breaking my heart. His apology to Dean after explaining how he couldn't save him no matter how hard he tried made me wibble, and so did his returning the necklace. Oh SAM! *cuddles him*

- I kinda liked Pamela and it really sucks that simply doing a favor for a friend resulted in her getting her eyes fried out of her head (which was gross and shocking, BTW!)! I'm kinda hoping they bring her back again. I know the blind seer is an archetype in a lot of fiction and I think it would be interesting to see her come back to help the boys out at least one more time (hopefully with less catestrophic consequences for her, though!).

- OMFG my jaw was ON THE FLOOR when Sam did his new insta-exorcism trick! So fucking cool! OMG! EEEEEE!!! I wonder what ELSE he can do now.... *is all a-tingle with the possibilities*

- And now, of course, the best part of the already fantastic episode - CASTIEL!!! *fans self* ... *draws hearts* Never before have I felt such instant love for a new character on a show than I have for him. As soon as he said "I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition" I was head over heels! Seriously, SO much love, I can't even describe it (I haven't really read any other reactions to the ep yet - wanted to put down my thoughts first - but everyone loves him, right? I mean, how could you not...?). Total perfection. Perfect look, perfect voice, perfect characterization, just freaking perfect in every possible way. Kripke and Co don't always have the best luck with introducing new characters, but they hit this one out of the freaking park! Love love love love LOVE Castiel! And I'm really looking forward to reading the inevitable Dean/Castiel fics that will result from this development ;-) Oh, and I TOTALLY wanted to have Kripke's babies when I found out that Castiel is the angel of Thursday! ROFL!

- So, Dean's now on a mission from God, this certainly puts a new spin on things! I had been wondering how they were going to bring Dean back (and bring him back into a completely un-marred body at that) whilst keeping with the mythology of the show but for some reason I hadn't really considered them EXPANDING the mythology of the show! I love it though. And seriously, it makes total sense for there to be angels on a show that constantly deals with demons. So freaking cool! But yeah, Dean has definitely been raised from hell to stop Sam from leading the demon army. Without Dean there, if Sam becomes as uber-powerful as the show has been hinting he will be, the forces for good will have nothing. But now, no matter how dark Sam goes, Dean will be there bring him back from the brink (eventually...) and OMG I LOVE THIS SHOW!!!

So yeah, awesome awesome AWESOME season premiere and I am BEYOND psyched for the rest of the season!

Bring it on, Kripke!

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 17:32:53 GMT

Dammit! Guitar Hero III comes out today and it looks BEYOND awesome. I'm so annoyed that I can't spare the money to buy it right now. I wanted to rent it, but Blockbuster has already rented it out, and with their new no late fees thing, it probably won't be back for a month.

*woe*

Silly hats only...

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 00:09:47 GMT

OMG, I almost forgot to tell you guys about my crazy Supernatural dream I had last night! Seriously, y'all, it was BANANAS...

Parts of this dream played out like I was watching an episode promo, and parts played out like I was watching it all first hand.

So it starts out all promo-like, first with Dean with a thought-bubble above his head containing Sam, then the same type of thing but for Sam. I think there was a narrator too, talking about how much the boys loved each other and how nothing could ever drive them apart.

There was much shooting of evil things, and other normal SPN-related stuff, although I should add that in the middle of all of that, there was one point where the boys were sitting in a sun drenched, flowery meadow having a picnic... WTF?

Then it evolved into something completely different, and Sam suddenly met this girl and they started dating. She was really vapid and irritating (she acted kinda like Kelly from The Office, but not nearly as funny), and she didn't seem to have a clue about the whole hunting thing. So after awhile Sam stopped wanting to hunt and spent all of his time lying on his stomach on the hotel room bed talking to the chick on the phone all day like he was a 14 year old girl (which, ok, hee!), while Dean just sat morosely in a corner, sharpening knives and cleaning his guns.

Then it got all promo-like again, Dean thinking about the good times with Sam and being all sad that this chick had come between them.

Then it shifted again (this part kinda had the same look as the end credits of Silent Hill) and Dean was in hell being brutally tortured. Thankfully, I don't remember too many specifics (except for one point where it looked like they had threaded a bunch of twine into his cheeks and were using it to pull his face in all different directions, which, EW!), but it was pretty damned creepy to say the least.

And then it all ended with Sam marching into hell (with his annoying girlfriend in tow...wtf?) and declaring to the demon torturing Dean "I'll lead your army, but you have to let my brother go." Which was pretty cool and all, but it's coolness was really undercut by the fact that, for some reason, Sam was wearing a really really silly hat...

It was this weird, tall, black and white polka-dot hat with a huge pom-pom on top (it looked a bit like a Dr Seuss hat, but much stranger)! Really not sure where that came from, because it's not something that Sam (or any sane person, for that matter) would ever wear, plus, Sam was not wearing it throughout the entire beginning of the dream. So I can only assume that once Sam realized his brother was in hell, he took a bit of time out to either procure or make himself this crazy-assed hat before going to rescue Dean. Um...weird.

So yeah, that was my dream. I'm sure it just means I've officially been spending too much time thinking about the boys, but as if that's going to stop any time soon ;-)

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:05:09 GMT

So I must confess, I've only watched ep 3x04 once so far (I know!), and I haven't read a lot of fan reaction yet (as I'm like 4 days behind on my flist so I'm currently skimming through it at breakneck speed as I am determined, DETERMINED I tell you, not to get so behind on LJ that I stop checking my flist at all because it's too overwhelming), but here are a few quick thoughts on SPN 3x04 and a bit of non-spoilery speculation...

These are in no particular order, just, typing them out as I think about them:

- Overall, the ep kinda dragged a bit for me. I didn't dislike it, it wasn't an actively bad episode, but it's unlikely I'll rewatch it too often.

- So who wants to bet that the only way Sam can get Dean out of his deal is to agree to lead the demon army? And I'm sure that theory's been floated around already, but I only just returned to LJ-land like a week ago, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm a little behind on the spec.

- I have to say, I am REALLY glad that Bobby shot Ruby. Now there is no possible way that the awesome demon will be exorcised from her leaving a boring-assed regular girl behind. That said, although Dean/Sam will always and forever be my SPN OTP, I'm ALL OVER the idea of Sam/Ruby. Yum!

- The colt is back in commission, yay! That will be so much more useful for dispatching the multitude of demons than the time-consuming exorcism method. Plus, it actually kills them, so they won't be able to crawl their way back up from hell to exact revenge.

- Dean's conversation with the demon chick was interesting and revealed some cool information, but it could have been a bit shorter. This ep needed to be less talky and more shooty.

- Sam trying to gracefully exit after tossing holy water on those dudes was fucking PRICELESS! Best part of the ep for moe. *smishes him* God, could that boy be any more adorable? His cuteness is going to rip a hole in the space/time continuum soon, I swear.

- Dean's sketchy little hunter friend at the beginning was kinda annoying and pointless. Glad he was swiftly killed.

- The ending was fucking AWESOME! Sam shooting the two demons, Bobby and Dean talking about Sam, Sam talking to Ruby, AWESOME! Glad they haven't just dropped the whole Sammy-might-go-evil storyline. Poor Dean looked practically sick with worry. *rubs hands together in anticipation*

So yeah, overall, a decent ep, but not one of my favorites. Though that may change once I rewatch it, because practically ALL of the eps that I've been meh about on the first viewing, I've liked a whole lot better on the rewatch.

In RL news, the reason why I'm behind on the flist is that I got a temp job through the placement agency I'm working with (as a receptionist/office assistant), it was only supposed to be for 2 days but they really liked me and decided to stretch it out to 5, which means: a) I'll now have enough money to pay rent! and, b) this makes me look REALLY good to the placement agency, considering this was my first assignment, so I should have a much easier time getting something more permanent in the future.

Surprisingly, I'm really enjoying working at this office and I wish I could stay there for more than 5 days. Even though most of my day consists of doing all of the filing, photocopying, letter stuffing, hole punching, and faxing that the other employees don't have the time or desire to do (along with answering the phones and greeting people who come in, but thankfully, it's not a very busy office so I'm only fielding about 3 calls an hour, and most of those just need to be transferred to someone else in the office), it's actually kinda fun. And even though I'm doing more work than I did at the call center (and a lot of jobs I've never really done before), it's so much less stressful than my old job. It's amazing how much more relaxed I am when I'm not being screamed at by idiots all day :-)

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:08:52 GMT

I have SPN paused, waiting for pumpkin_dude to get home, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to squee about tonight's ep of Ugly Betty:

- Betty and Henry being Betty-and-Henry! EEEEEEE!

- Angry!Rebellious!Justin may finally go back to being his normal fashion-elf self soon!

- Alexis has her memory back!

- And the best part of all -- Mark and his ADORABLE new boyfriend! OMG I hope he stays on the show FOREVER because the two of them together are cuter than a bowl full of puppies!

Seriously, how is this show so awesome!?

It's making me abuse exclamation points all over the place but I don't care!

!!!

And Brodie is home now so it's time for SPN! Woot!

SPN Vid Mashups!

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:26:50 GMT

I have several actual vids on the go right now, in various stages of completion (and dammit, I'm going to finish one soon, for reals) but back in August, after getting home from Vividcon, I made a bunch of mashups of some of my older vids and figured you guys might get a kick out of a couple of them. For those of you who don't know (because, sadly, I didn't know what they were until I went to the mashup party at VVC), a mashup is when you take an existing vid and swap out the audio with a completely different song, hopefully with hilarious results.

I linked to the original vids as well (because you may want to watch them first for comparison if you haven't seen them already), and please excuse the lame titles (yeesh), but anyway, here they are...

-----------------
Mashup the First:

Fell On Bohemian Polka

Original Vid: Fell On Black Days (Sam-centric)
New Song: "Bohemian Polka" by Weird Al Yankovic
Notes: This one is definitely the best of the many mashups I played around with. It worked out FRIGHTENINGLY well in pretty much every single aspect, the lyrics, the beats, everything. Seriously, it's ridonk.

------------------
Mashup the Second:

Get Out of My Dreams, Wake Up In My Car

Original Vid: I Woke Up In A Car (Sam-centric)
New Song: "Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car" by Billy Ocean
Notes: This one also turned out pretty hilariously with a ton of serendipitous lyrical matches. Though, I suppose it's not too surprising because both songs do involve sleeping/dreaming and being in cars...

-----------------
Mashup the Third:

Reptilia Shaketramp

Original Vid: Reptilia (Episodic of 1x01)
New Song: "Shaketramp" by Marianas Trench
Notes: This turned my little gen vid about the pilot episode into something that's really quite 'cesty and suggests that Dean and Sam may be into BDSM... LOL!

-----------------

Oh, and in case any of you are interested, I've also re-rendered all of my older SPN vids (everything made before Born to Kill -- because I was a complete knob when it came to rendering before I got Sony Vegas) so they now actually fill the screen (if you have a widescreen monitor), plus the audio quality is greatly improved.

They can all be found under my SPN vids tag.

Lame!

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:50:58 GMT

WTF? Why are there stupid promo graphics marring important scenes? They never used to do that in seasons past. I mean, they're always there on the regular broadcast but they never seemed to put them on the HD versions that are available on bittorrent. If this is going to be a regular thing now, who knows what other potentially great scenes are going to be ruined for vidding?

So LAME! Now I have a stupid gigantic promo bar obstructing like half the screen during the Sam vs. Air conditioner scene and the end when Bela shows up (and those are just the ones I've noticed so far by quickly scrolling through the ep). Argh! Now I'll have to crop the hell out of them to use them in vids and miss out on potentially good bits of the scene composition to maintain the aspect ratio (like I'll have to crop the back of Dean's head out of the Bela scene so she can be seen in the shot), or wait until season 3 comes out on DVD to use those shots (yeah, like that's happening).

NOT ON, CityTV!

*fumes*

SPN 3x03 -- Bad Day at Black Rock

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:06:18 GMT

It only took 3 eps, but SPN is finally back! I hadn't quite been feeling my usual (albeit crazypants) amount of SPN squee for the first 2 eps of the season, which was really bumming me out, but 3x03 has brought my squee back in full force and I'm SO happy!

Where to even start? There was just so much awesome! I'll try to organize this semi-chronologically but since my ep download is taking ELEVENTY-BILLION YEARS to finish and I can't be arsed to fire up the DVR, I'll have to go by memory (but I did watch the ep twice last night, so hopefully I don't forget anything too important).

- Gordon is back! The boys really really should have just killed him in "Hunted", because DAMN that dude is crazy. I look forward to watching him get heartily pwned by Dean and Sam once he inevitably escapes from jail with the help of that whackjob Kubrick (who also needs to die for harming my Sammy, obvs).

- Dean actually SAYING that he's Sam's weakness! Oh BOYS! *smish* Sam was adorably pissy in that scene.

- I'm hoping John's super-secret-storage-space comes into play in future episodes (and it probably will, especially with Bela in the mix now -- I'm sure she'd love to get her hands on a lot of the stuff there). John saved Sam's soccer trophy! And Dean's first shotgun! Aww!

- Loved the slapsticky fight with the two idiots in their apartment! The boys' facial expressions were priceless!

- Dean's always thinking, good plan with the lotto tickets (but if I were him I would have been buying the ones with million dollar prizes -- but on the other hand, winning millions of dollars might make it a little bit harder for the boys to keep a low profile). Too bad Bela stole them at the end.

- Loved Bobby in this ep, even though he didn't do too much. I love how fatherly he is towards the boys. "Look out for your brother, you idjit!" HEE!

- Spazzy-unlucky-exasperated Sammy is my favorite Sam of EVER! The skinned knees, the constant falling, the SHOE!!! (seriously, I must have replayed the "I lost my shoe" ... *pout* scene 20 times! Best line delivery ever!) I loved the scene with him trying to stay out of trouble in the motel room, especially his adorable, exhausted "Come on..." as the air conditioner caught fire. And knocking himself out? Classic.

- I liked Bela, but not quite as much as I thought I was going to. But it's just her first ep, I don't doubt she'll grow on me as we learn more about her. I'm digging her accent though, and she's rocking the crazy-eyes, which should be interesting in terms of the boys never really knowing what to expect from her. Surprisingly, I'm liking Ruby a whole lot better than Bela (from spoilers I read and from interviews with the girls I would have bet money that I would have liked Bela better, but there you go). I think it's because I can see Ruby really furthering the plot and being an important part of the show, while I can't really say the same about Bela. I mean, how often can she just happen to cross paths with the boys before it starts feeling contrived? At least Ruby has somewhat of a purpose at this point. But, like I said, it was just Bela's introductory ep, so I'm not really going to worry about it at this point. I trust Teh Kripke :-)

- "I'm Batman." ROFLMAO!!! That scene was pure gold, I love how amused Dean was with his luck. Too freaking funny.

- Though I hated to see Sammy get shot (*pets him* Poor, poor, Sammich...), Dean's reaction was pretty damn priceless.

I have to say I'm DEEPLY relieved that we had an ep with a TON of scenes with the brothers together. Because Dean and Sam being Dean-and-Sam makes me SO damn happy!

*draws hearts*

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:39:47 GMT

Oh SAMMY!

ROTFLMAO!!!

"I lost my shoe."

*pouty face*

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may finally have a line delivery that tops "You're a friggin' jerk!"

*hits replay button a few more times*

HEE HEE!!!

Better late than never... SPN 3x02 reaction

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:49:15 GMT

I meant to type this up on Friday but then I went to tweyelite's house and wound up staying there for a good chunk of the weekend, then, you know, life and such, but anyway, here's what I thought of SPN 3x02...

This wasn't a bad episode, decently creepy, fucking KICK-ASS ending, and some funny little moments. I'll get the bad out of the way first then move on to the good. I felt there were 2 flaws in this episode that unfortunately combined to make the episode less enjoyable than it could have been. One major and one minor.

The minor flaw was the whole Ben-is-EXACTLY-like-Dean thing. I didn't take issue with the "Dean might have a kid, but doesn't" storyline, and I really do think it's adorable as hell when Dean connects with kids, but they needed to tone down the similarities. A lot. It was way too anvilly for my tastes. I think they should have stuck to one or two similarities and left it at that. They way overdid it with the mini-Dean appearance, the AC/DC love, the constant eating, the mannerisms, the slang, the lusting after chicks (I mean, he's 8!).

And as cute as Dean was with Ben, I'm really glad it turned out that he wasn't Dean's kid (and that's another reason why I think they should have toned down the similarities a tad, to make it more believable that he is actually NOT Dean's kid -- as I think there's already conspiracy theories floating around about that).

But like I said, this was a pretty minor flaw that I'm perfectly willing to hand-wave.

As for the major flaw. Um...last time I checked, wasn't this the Sam-and-Dean show? As in Sam AND Dean? I always like the eps where the boys are together SO much more than the ones where they're largely apart (well, except for eps like Hunted and AHBL1 where the boys being separated was a huge part of the plot). And this was an episode where I really didn't get why they needed to be separated so much. I mean, yes, Dean's going to go to his potential booty-call alone, but the rest of the time? I don't know.

This was also the first episode where I've felt that BOTH boys were under-utilized. There's always the occasional ep where one of the boys seems pushed to the sidelines, but there were huge chunks of this ep without either of them. And again, Sam-and-Dean show, people!

As long as eps with the boys separated remain few and far between (as, admittedly, they have been in past seasons) I'm fine with that. But I'm really hoping this isn't the beginning of a trend this season.

Kripke, take note: Boys together = awesomeness squared; Boys apart = sad fangirls :-(

Anyway, on to the good:

That ending. Wow! Count me in as belonging to the I love Ruby camp! I was skeptical about her character at first (after reading spoilers but before actually seeing her), mainly because I didn't feel they needed another hunter, especially one supposedly better at her job than our boys, but the whole demon thing changes everything (though I was already kinda digging her after the crazy knife thing last week and her attitude while talking to Sam in the diner)! Now it makes sense why she's so odd and sinister and how she keeps winding up in the same town as the boys. And, I never thought I'd say this, but I think I may find myself shipping Sam and Ruby at some point in the near future.

I'm totally planning a Ruby vid now, I found the PERFECT song, but sadly I'm going to have to wait for a LOT more clips, obvs.

I'm so intrigued by the whole Mary thing. And I'm thrilled that they're continuing to explore the rest of the mysterious YED-related stuff even though they've already killed him off. Very very cool.

Sam was a freaking hotass in this ep (like that's news), especially when he was yelling at Ruby. Yum! I'm totally a Sam girl now, BTW. There was an awkward transition phase where I didn't really want to let go of being a Dean girl (and I can honestly say I don't love Dean any less, I mean, come on, he's DEAN! And therefore made of awesome. But my love for him remained constant while my love for Sam just grew and grew), but I am powerless to resist the Padalecki and the puppy dog eyes, and just everything. *draws hearts*

I loved the boys' conversation in the diner at the beginning (mainly because it was funny but also because it was one of the few times the boys were actually together). Dean calling Sam Weirdy McWeirderson, HEE! And the whole Gumby/Pokey thing. Lolz. Also loved Dean barely even slowing down to unceremoniously toss Sam out of the car at the motel so Dean could rush to his booty-call.

Some of the stuff at the kids party was funny (anvilicious Dean and Ben similarities aside), especially Dean hightailing it away from the lusty women and him running into the garbage can after realizing Ben might be his kid. Hee!

Another surprisingly awesome aspect of this episode was the actress playing Diana (that was her name, right? Katie's mom?). She was fantastic and did a great job portraying her rapid decent into madness. Very cool.

How fucking creepy were those changelings? *shudders* Distorted faces always freak me right the hell out. Yeesh.

All in all, a decent episode, but I don't think it'll be one I'll be rewatching too often.

Tonight's episode, however, looks like it's going to be fan-freaking-tastic! And we finally get to meet Bela! Yay (as I've already decided from reading spoilers that she sounds pretty damned awesome)!

And I'll try to stop spamming your flists now...

Matt Good concert!

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:19:44 GMT

Went to see the Matt Good concert last night and it was absolutely incredible! pumpkin_dude and I got there nice and early so we managed to get great seats in the second row *happy flail*!

The awesomeness started even before Matt's set did. The opening act was a folk duo from Toronto called Dala. I hadn't heard of them before but they were freaking amazing! I was hooked about 10 seconds into the first song they played. Their voices are gorgeous and their harmonies gave me goosebumps. You guys should check them out, here's a streaming link to their first video:

"Anywhere Under the Moon" by Dala (if you guys like it and want me to upload some of their songs, let me know and I will)

They were in the lobby signing autographs during the intermission and were super-cute and sweet. They complimented me on my "Allow Me to Explain Through Interpretive Dance" T-shirt, which made me happy. So yeah, they were pretty awesome.

After intermission, it was finally time for Matt's set to start. The concert was acoustic, which was cool (despite the fact that MG's muti-layered instrumentals are one of the things I like best about his music), so we got to hear a lot of familiar songs with a different sound. He played a bunch of my favorite songs, like "Champions of Nothing", "Strange Days", "Apparitions", "Born Losers", "Avalanche", and a ton of other stuff. He played for nearly 2 hours, which rocked. And when he came out for the encore he did another 4 songs, which kicked ass.

It was such an incredible and moving experience for me. Being so close to the stage just listening to his amazing voice singing all of these songs that have meant so much to me for so long made me actually made me tear up a couple of times. *hearts Matt liek whoa*

He was super entertaining in between songs too. He's surprisingly hilarious and had the whole crowd laughing out loud. He had a cold (but still sounded great) so he decided that he needed to drink wine on stage, which was pretty funny (and led to him telling us how you can apparently open wine bottles with a scimitar -- LOL!), he kept bugging one of the roadies for loading him up on a bunch of weird homeopathic remedies and for buying him cheap wine that made his teeth hurt.

Near the end of the set, Matt brought out his camera and took a picture of the crowd, (which he does at every concert), he put it on his Flickr page today, and pumpkin_dude and I are in the photo! Check it out (we're in the second row on the far left)! LOL!

So all in all, it was a great concert. And I have to say, as much as I love and adore American TV shows and movies, sometimes it's really nice to take in a night of actual Canadian culture. *waves flag*

Club Vivid Video

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:18:43 GMT

Don't Feel Like Dancin'

Artist: Scissor Sisters
Fandom: Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Length: 3:20
Format: wmv (zipped)
Size: 36 MB
Category: fluff, comedy
Summary: If you're unfamiliar with the movie, it features drag queens on a bus in Australia. There's no real story to the vid, just PQotD set to a fun song.

Notes: So I made this thing MONTHS ago and it premiered at Club Vivid. Even though I'm DEEPLY unhappy with it, I figured, since it's already been seen by everyone at Vividcon (and it's also on the VVC DVD -- *cringe*) that I should just post it here, finally, and be done with it. As pretty much anyone I hung out with at VVC can tell you, I really hate how this vid turned out. It seemed like a good idea when I claimed the song, I mean, the song is great and fun, the movie is fantastic, I really should have been able to make more out of it than I did (and perhaps a better vidder than I would have been able to make something decent out of the same song and source), but something just went wrong and I could not figure out how to make this vid work for the life of me. If I hadn't claimed the song and committed to vidding it, I probably would have scrapped it early on. Anyway, that said, it's here, you can watch it if you want. Yeah.

Help!

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 06:42:00 GMT

So, it goes without saying that I've missed out on a RIDONK amount of stuff in the past few months. I'm going to try to catch up as much as I can by going through spnnewsletter and reading as many journals as I can, but it'll be damn near impossible to catch up on everything I've missed.

So I'm asking, nay, BEGGING for recs so I don't miss anything particularly awesome. Supernatural vids from the past few months, Firefly vids from whenever (because I've FINALLY watched the complete series and the movie and I love it so much ZOMG!), cool vids from any other fandom (because IMHO, a good vid is a good vid), good SPN icons, good SPN fics (gen, Wincest, J-squared, it's all good), interesting meta posts, and anything else noteworthy. Self-recs are totally cool.

I'm going to post a (long overdue) big giant vid rec post really really soon, and I'm going to upload the new Matt Good album in the next couple of days (you guys totally need to hear it, it's awesome).

I'm also absolutely freaking determined to, in the next week or two, finish and post at least ONE of the many vids I've been working on lately.

Oh, and winners are posted and the new round is open over at Villainous Imagination Awards, so you can go check out the awesome vids that won and/or submit a vid, if you are so inclined.

And, it's really really late now, so I'll have to post about last night's SPN ep tomorrow :-(

A bunch of mostly vidding related stuff...

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 21:36:21 GMT

Round One Winners have been announced at Villainous Imagination Awards and Round Two is now open for submissions.

You guys should all go check out the winning vids, they're freaking fantastic, and made the round really tough to judge (but still TONS of fun). The awards turned out pretty good and I'm really happy with the new Matt Good themed layout (I also changed my LJ layout a few weeks ago as the old one had been up for awhile -- plus Jared = love).

- - - - - - -

I'm nominated in the Best of the Best Round at the Art of Vidding Awards, so...

...if you are so inclined ;-)

- - - - - - -

I've been frantically trying to get my Sweet Charity vid done in time, but my muse refused to co-operate until like a week ago. Luckily candygramme is very understanding and is OK with waiting a little bit longer.

Once I'm done that, I'm going to start working on a Dexter vid as I've found the PERFECT song! I'm just itching to get my hands on the DVDs so I can just get it made already!

- - - - - - -

I know I haven't been around much (again, some more), but I'm planning my return to LJ and fandom in general for mid-August, after I get back from vividcon (*flappy hands* Less than two weeks away!!!).

And now, a little poll, so I know who I can look forward to seeing in Chicago next week:

View Poll: #1030531

- - - - - - -

I got the new Matt Good album and it is fan-freaking-tastic (I'll likely be sharing it with you guys when I get the chance to upload it)! Also, I just bought tickets to see his acoustic show in October! Eeeeeee!

- - - - - - -

I finished Book 7 of Harry Potter a few days ago (was able to read it at work because being on chats thankfully requires very little actual work) and freaking LOVED it to bits and pieces!

Also went to see Order of the Phoenix last week and really enjoyed it (though the fact that I was watching it in Imax probably helped me to ignore all of the discarded plot points), the 3-D at the end was freaking cool! I just hope they don't keep that effect in when the DVD comes out, otherwise the entire climax of the movie will be pretty much useless for vidding purposes.

- - - - - - -

I know I should probably comment on the SPN season 3 spoilers at some point, but I don't really have the energy. I'll just say thank GOD Kripke finally cleared some things up so fandom can stop imploding already.

Trust in Teh Kripke, people.

- - - - - - -

RL has been really stupid lately, and I've been feeling completely anti-social, mainly because the anxiety and depression meds I'm on seemed to stop working for awhile, which caused me to spend the past few weeks having what felt like an extended nervous breakdown. Not fun. At all. Things are beginning to right themselves, however, and I'm starting to feel a lot more like myself, which is good, because I don't think I could have tolerated feeling like that for much longer.

Three vid recs and a song...

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 23:47:29 GMT

*delurks momentarily*

Here are 3 of the 6 videos I just can't get enough of lately:

"Omaha" by halcyon_shift - Heroes, Bennet character study.

"Steady As She Goes" by obsessive24 - Ugly Betty, Mark character study.

"Ramalama (Bang Bang)" by kiki_miserychic - Dexter, Dexter character study.

The other 3 vids I'm going crazy over are submissions to VI Awards so they will be recced later once the round is over ;-)
- - - - -

Also? OMFG the new Matthew Good single is AMAZING!

"Born Losers" - Matthew Good

Waiting a month for the album to come out is going to be torturous!

waves

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 04:48:12 GMT

So... I decided to open up a new video awards site:

.

.

*bites fist nervously*

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 04:44:46 GMT

ARGH!!! I fucking HATE OC Transpo!!!

I got off work a little bit late and had to RUN (which I hate doing because it makes me all wheezy) around the building to get to the bus stop on time, which I did, with a few minutes to spare.

So I wait. And wait and wait and fucking wait some more. The bus FINALLY shows up like 15 minutes late. There was no traffic, no discernible reason WHY it should be so goddamned late, but whatever, shit happens.

And then, even though we are already 15 FUCKING MINUTES LATE, the driver decides to stop for a goddamned COFFEE!!! He just saunters off the bus like he has all the time in the world and wastes like 5 minutes in Tim Hortons!

I wanted to stab him in the face. Repeatedly.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaate.

- - - - -

Speaking of homicide, OMFG why didn't any of you tell me how mind-blowingly awesome "Dexter" is?!?

I mean seriously. It's absolutely incredible!

I checked out this vid by xandra_ptv (which is GORGEOUS and amazing but if you haven't watched the show you might want to hold off on the vid until after you've watched the show, because it is pretty damned spoilery) and was so intrigued I looked for the show online and was watching the pilot within minutes.

Wow. I've never been as INSTANTLY hooked on a show before as I was with this. I watched all 12 episodes within 48 hours. SO good! Seriously, if you haven't seen it yet, check it out ASAP, you won't be disappointed (but you might want to stay away if you are bothered by the sight of blood, because it can get pretty heavy on the gore at times).

Thu, 31 May 2007 09:35:40 GMT

ETA: Aaaand of course, even though my LJ hadn't been loading for like 3 FRIGGING HOURS, 5 minutes after I make a post to complain about it it's miraculously fixed. *grumbles*

I just overhauled my icons, and noticed that I now have more icons of Sam (25) and Jared (9) than I do of Dean (22) or Jensen (3) (in addition to the whole bunch of icons featuring both boys together, of course).

You know, I think I may have become a Samgirl without even realizing it...

Heh.

Now that's not to say that I like Dean any less than I always have, because OMG I love Dean like burning! I mean, come on, he's DEAN!

I think I've just gone from liking both brothers relatively equally with Dean having a slight advantage to still liking both boys almost the same but now Sam has the edge.

*squishes Sammich liek whoa*

Argh, how is it 5:30 already?

Fuck... *goes to bed*

New Sam vid!

Mon, 28 May 2007 13:52:34 GMT

[right click/save as]

Fell On Black Days

Artist: Soundgarden
Fandom: Supernatural
Vidder: ringwench
Length: 3:46
Format: wmv (zipped) (or stream from imeem)
Size: 26 MB
Category: Character study, gen, and it gets into a bit of possible/constructed reality towards the end.
Summary: Sam's struggles with his powers, his destiny, and the Yellow-Eyed Demon. Clips are mainly from season two (spoilers through AHBL2).

Feedback would rock :-)

Notes:

OMG I'm so happy I'm DONE! *dances around*

I'd been going through the worst vidding dry spell! Seriously, it's been like 6 months since I've made anything half decent, and I was starting to think I had lost my vidding mojo forever. So yeah, I'm beyond thrilled that I finished this (and relatively quickly, too!).

What to say about this vid. Well, it's pretty dark. Probably the darkest vid I've ever made. I did a lot of playing around with color and used quite a few different effects (I really wanted to push the limits of Vegas and see what I could do). It focuses on Sam's struggles through season two and, towards the end, delves into a possible future for Sam (I kinda latched on to the "Are you sure what you brought back is 100% Sam?" question and ran with it). Just a little disclaimer: I'm not necessarily hoping that Sam will go evil, nor do I think he already is evil. I'm just kinda fascinated with the idea and felt this song would be perfect for it.

The movements and beats in the vid are largely focused around the guitar melody, partly because it's the most prominent instrument used, but mainly due to the fact that I've been playing Guitar Hero like it's going out of style and my brain is a little over-invested in hearing the guitar right at the moment.

I could (and should) write more about this, because I'm really happy with how it turned out, but I haven't slept yet and I'm so tired my brain is barely functioning. I've been working on this vid for about a week and a half and I've just spent the past...*counts*...18 hours completing it.

*feels slightly insane*

Anyway, I really hope you guys like the vid!

Fri, 18 May 2007 01:16:17 GMT

*brain explodes*

OMFG!!!

ONE YEAR!?!?!?!?

asdfjkl;

Oh, Dean

!!!!!!!!!

Wed, 16 May 2007 06:12:04 GMT

I'm sure everyone has already heard, but OMGYAY!!!

SUPERNATURAL IS OFFICIALLY RENEWED!!!!!!!!!!

*does happy dance*

Winchesters FTW!!!

(Aaaand I just typed "Winchesters FTP"... Which means I'm officially spending too much time at work!)

o_0

Fri, 11 May 2007 05:58:27 GMT

omg

OMG

O

M

G

!

I can't even speak right now. Like I'm sitting here, flailing, and not breathing properly, and just don't even know what to DO with myself after that!

I mean, I know on an intellectual level that Sam can't REALLY be dead. Or, well, he kinda is dead, but he can't STAY dead. It just isn't going to happen, on a show with two leads, you can't kill one of them, it just doesn't work. Fuck, remember how many times Mulder "died" on X-Files? It was ridonk.

But still, I'm sitting here FREAKING OUT liek whoa because ZOMG THEY KILLED SAMMICH!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I really don't have a fucking clue how he's going to come back from this...

And I fucking KNEW that was how the hug was going to go down! I had read a spoiler about the boys hugging in this ep and I had also read the Sam dies spoiler and as soon as I did I just knew Kripke, being the evil bastard that he is, would have the hug be post-mortem. Still though, HUG! Whee! I'll take what I can get.

But I do take issue with them killing Ash. And Andy! Seriously, WTF??? I am NOT happy about either of those. NOT ON, show! I felt that Ash was seriously under-utilized (but maybe? he's not dead? I hope...?), and Andy was just so awesome, why couldn't he have lived? *pets adorable dead stoner-boy

They'd better not kill Bobby next week or I will be PISSED.

On a random and far less angsty note, how awesome was Dean screaming at Sam to "Get me some PIE!" Oh, Dean I love you to bits!

The Ava thing was fucking COOL! I figured something was up with her. I felt bad for that other chick. That power would SUCK!

LOVED the stuff with the demon! Demon blood! EEEEEEEEE!!! And Sam seeing how things went down and Mary KNOWING the demon (which I kindasorta knew about from reading the original pilot script, but still...EEEEEEEE!)!!!

I was literally SCREAMING at the TV when Sam didn't kill Jake. There you go, Sam, your morals got you killed. I hope you're happy. FUCK!

And ZOMG the preview! Dean is just DESTROYED! "Let it end!" *heart breaks*

I mean I don't think Dean knows who he is without Sam. His life is always so focused on keeping Sam safe, so seriously, what is he supposed to DO without Sam???

I think I'm gonna need to start stocking up on tissues now... Holy fuck!

The wait for next week's ep is going to be hell, but I'm so very very glad this episode wasn't the season finale and we'd have to wait MONTHS to find out what happened.

I'm going to start counting the MINUTES!

*flails wildly*

Anybody want a comm?

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 06:24:10 GMT

Would any of you lovely people be interested in taking over lost_vids? I don't watch or even care about the show anymore, and I'm no longer into watching or making Lost vids. I'm just done with it and have been for awhile.

So I figure it's time to hand the comm over to someone who is actually still a fan of the show.

Comment if you're interested.