I watch vids now: The RIDICULOUSLY MASSIVE rec post (Doctor Who and Torchwood)

[promethia_tenk]

So, awhile back cinderbella333  asked me for some vid recs . . .

And awhile back before that elisi  taught me all about RTD-Who and Torchwood, and good luck getting her to express anything without throwing in a vid or two or twenty ; )

And back even before that, I asked a fairly facetious question because I felt like making fun of the Tenth Doctor (like you do) and ended up getting a lot more than I'd bargained for (and if that's not an argument for always asking the facetious question, I don't know what is).

So here is this thing that I have put together.  Of vids.  Lot of vids of Torchwood and of NuWho that I have watched and with some words about why I like them.  You might think of this as A Thing I Have Put Together for Cinderbella (and anyone else who might like to watch some vids, and also for myself since I quite wanted a list of my own for reference).  Or you might think of this as Vids and What I Have Learned About Them, in the manner of some end-of-the-semester project for Fandom104: Introduction to Audiovisual Modes of Critique and Expression.  Or you might think of this as Things I Think and Feel about the Whoniverse because, while this is a very long list, I make absolutely no claims to either comprehensiveness or objectivity.  This is simply a list of vids that happened to grab me and that I watched a lot because they seemed important to me in my own little corner over here.

I have tried to be very organized with different sections and descriptions so that anyone looking for something specific might find it.  And if you happen to know a real LJ or Dreamwidth link for anything I only have a YouTube link for, do please share.  Obviously this has been a very long time in the making, both in collecting materials and in the choosing and typing up and organizing, so here's hoping somebody besides myself will find it of some use.


General Whoniverse:

When I Fall Asleep by buffyann   A child dreams of the Doctor.  Magic.

Moving Right Along by odessie   The adventurous, ramshackle spirit of the show, summed up to music from the Muppets. (Also includes Classic Who.)

OMG! by obsessive24  A general celebration of RTD-era companions framed with an extremely clever conceit, which I shall leave you to discover for yourself.  Bouncy and fun, and the song, with Lily Allen's very pronounced British accent, is an excellent fit.

Spaceman by kaydeefalls   I don't even know what to say this is about.  But there is the Doctor and there is Jack and there is RTD-DW and there is Torchwood.  And there are lots and lots and lots of parallels and a bunch of happy music.  Watch it!



Moff Teim Nao \o/:

This section can probably be summed up as 'season five yay!'

Pure Imagination by sparking_off   Living there you'll be free if you truly wish to be . . .  THE DISTILLED ESSENCE OF DELIGHT.  This vid is exactly how I feel every time I think of this era of the show.  And then I have to go skip through a daisy field just to relieve my feelings.

Fireflies by BobbyMcGriffin on YouTube  (Eleven, Amy)  Ooooo . . . glowy!

Test Drive by AnotherMyself on YouTube  In which season five is EPIC.  Feels like a big, freakin' movie trailer, complete with epic goosebumps.

Eleventh Dimension by di_br   Slightly more meta-heavy and with a bit more character study than the other vids in this category, but still mostly 'season five yay!'  Oh, I've got music, coming out of my hands and feet and kisses!  Whoo . . .

Can-Can Onze by elderberryink   Series five in two minutes to that famous Can-Can music.  Surely there's not a single person in fandom who hasn't seen this right?  Whenever I finish watching "The Big Bang" my immediate instinct is to go watch this.


Eleventy:

Let It Fall by beccatoria   (Eleven in The Big Bang)  My favorite season five vid.  Some things are simply worthy of epic sincerity.  And some crying.


Amy:

I adore Amy on the show, but somehow she makes the most sense to me in vid form.  Thus, a large selection:

Short Skirt, Long Jacket by beccatoria   Pure attitude.  Short, but the perfect little encapsulation of Amy's awesome.

Once in Love with Amy by chicafrom3   (Amy/Everyone, Amy/Rory)  Everybody is in love with Amy.  That's just how it is.

For the Moon by tearful_eye   This vid.  *guh*  It is my favorite Amy vid.  Dissonant and surreal and utterly beautiful.  Somehow both creepy and hopeful.  I think it must be what Amy's dreams are like.

Twinkle Twinkle by kiki_miserychic   Angels are taking over Amy's mind.  Deliciously sinister.

Half Life by big_n_happy   More about how creepy and unsettling Amy's life is.  What?  It's not like I gave her her crack-addled existence.  I'm just here to find it fascinating disturbing.

Blue Caravan by such_heights  on Dreamwidth  (Amy/Eleven, Amy/Rory)  The melancholy yearning in this is exquisite.

When I Was a Boy by beccatoria  (Amy/Rory)  And this is my favorite Amy/Rory vid.  Sweet and complex and true.


Rory:

Change of Time by greensilver  (Rory, Rory/Amy)  I had a dream last night . . .  I love the way this song and vid builds--it really feels appropriate to the way Rory came to grow into his new, epic, space-and-time-faring life, while the lyrics keep him grounded in that way he has: it's only a change of time.


Riverrrrr:

Slight spoilers for 6x01 and 6x02 in my notes.

The World Is Not Enough by big_n_happy  But it is such a perfect place to start, my love . . .  Perfection.  NGL, I want a River vid to every James Bond song.  ALL THE SONGS.  And on that note:

Nobody Does it Better by loafing_oaf   The 'River Song is Awesome' vid.  Warning: may induce delight and jealousy.

You Only Disappear by chaila43   (Doctor's p.o.v.)  River keeps slipping away . . .  Somehow this vid has become my antidote to the heavy-handed angst of this season.  I have no idea how that works other than, by some twisted mechanism in my head, if everybody is angsting it all cancels itself out?  Or at least balances itself out.  Anyway, this is gorgeous and subtle and the only person doing the heavy-handed angst thing is Ten, which is as it should be.

Gravity by katoelizabeth  The emotional core of that speech River gave to Rory in TIA, made months and months ago and without the stupid stuff.  Watch this instead of that scene ------> restore sanity.

Set My World Into Motion by beccatoria   Effortlessly cool and stylish, and then startles you with how deep it actually is: If vision is the only validation, then most of my life isn't real.

Strict Machine by such_heights  on Dreamwidth  River is made of PURE COMPETENCE and, yes, that makes her hot.  (Includes footage from 6x01 and 6x02.)


The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon:

Man, that pirate episode was boring.  How about some vids about how awesome and mind-bending and atmospheric and fucking creepy the season opener was instead?:

Friday (dubstep) by zombiesatemyhampster on YouTube  Ok, I'm assuming the song choice here is some kind of pop-culture candy joke that's gone over my head, but I don't care and I love it anyway.

1969 by beccatoria   Tense.

The Sound of Silence by sea_thoughts   Hello darkness my old friend . . .



General RTD-Who:

What We Had by cherryice   (Martha, Mickey, Jack) This one comes first because it's the vid that pretty much gave me a deeper way to connect with RTD's Who at all--the perspective I see almost entirely missing from the show itself and was tearing around in frustration trying to find.  I hardly ever watch this one anymore, actually, but it was just something that needed acknowledgment before I could do anything else with the show.

Tenth Doctor: The Musical by di_br   (Ten and companions)  Another one that everyone and their mother has seen, but who cares?  Never gets old, and so much fun.  I think Nine's reactions to his successor pretty much make it.

Shut Up and Drive by laurashapiro  Martha Jones pwns all.  Deal with it.

Blackout by humansrsuperior   (Doctor/Rose)  A shippy vid, yes, but a brutally realistic one.  Makes me hurt for everyone involved in a way the show itself just doesn't.

When I Ruled the World by di_br   (Nine, Ten) I consider this a miracle video.  It seems to adhere fairly closely to the narrative perspective of RTD's Who and I like it.  It's like this strange moment of stepping into Ten's headspace in an entirely uncritical manner.


Ten (and his being broken):

Handlebars by flummery   Pretty much the Ten vid, yes?  Man was screwed up.

White and Nerdy by ladysoliloque2 on YouTube  Very funny indeed but (like the evil, evil, spiteful person that I am) the real reason I love this is because it's such a cheeky reminder of how badly Ten needed to be liked, omg.

What Must Not by humansrsuperior   (Waters of Mars)  Less a vid in the sense one normally thinks of such things and more a spare, beautiful meditation on the root of Ten's breakdown.  Watch this one and the next two in sequence to get a portrait of Ten's turmoil from the core moving outwards to the conflicts it created with the broader universe.

New Dawn Fades by obsessive24  Primal scream against the realities of existence.

Marble House by hollywoodgrrl   (Human Nature/Family of Blood)  As hugely impressive as this vid is, I can't really get behind its intended criticism.  If I ignore the vidder's notes, though, I find a really challenging and uncompromising look at the Doctor's perspective and powers as a Time Lord and all the ways in which they may, in fact, be incompatible with the life he chooses to lead.



Torchwood:

Dying by cherryice   (season one) This vid is the essence of Torchwood for me: all darkness and desperation and search for connection.  When I think of the show, I think of this, and when I watch this, I want to watch the show.  Remember, you promised me--I'm dying, I'm dying, please . . .  I want to, I need to be, under your skin.

Someday You Will Be Loved by mahdi_far_gai   (Gwen/Jack, Gwen/Rhys)  Ok, so I never bought the show's attempts to sell us on Gwen/Jack.  Even when they were all up in each others' personal space and breathing each others' air, I was like 'ok, guys, very funny--you can cut it out now.'  That said: GWEN! <3333  She deserves ALL THE GOOD THINGS.

Papa Don't Preach by fan_eunice  and greensilver   (Jack/Ianto, the Doctor)  What's Torchwood without crack?  Jack's made up his mind: he's keeping his baby.

Smiley Faces by charmax   Torchwood is a hard world to live in--and a hard show to watch.  But the team is love : )


Post-CoE:

Because Children of Earth pretty much demands you find a way to deal with it.  Here's how I did it:

Above and Below by di_br   (Jack, Ten)  I'm not sure why I think of this as a Jack vid more than a Ten one, but I do.  Another one where I just ignore the vidder's opinion as to what their vid is about and make my own interpretation (ok, so elisi thought of it, but I adopted it as my own).  I read this vid as being about Jack and the Doctor's differing ways of dealing with crisis and the burden of impossible decisions: Jack tries to flee, Ten to cling on and claim more and more power.

The Pioneers by giandujakiss   (Torchwood team)  A sense of purpose and a sense of skill . . . it's all under control, it's all under control, it's all under control, it's all under control . . .  Ahhhh . . . lies.  But sustaining ones.  We will not be the last.

All the Pretty Little Horses by hollywoodgrrl   (Jack)  And this may be my ultimate act of reading against the vidder's intentions.  The notes to it compare Jack to the Pied Piper, leading his team and others to their doom.  Myself, I find this vid strangely comforting.  Because the things that Jack does, by and large, are things that need to happen.  They're ugly, but often there is simply no other option.  And if Jack doesn't do them, who does?  And he does them, and he takes the consequences, and he does what he can to shield the people around him from the guilt and responsibility he shoulders.



And something totally random to cheer you up:

Still Alive by LM1313 on YouTube  Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic sings GLaDOS's song from Portal.  Somehow manages to be even more awesome than that sounds.


Final note:  Thank you to elisi especially for feeding me a massive selection of vids and also to anyone else who may have pointed me towards anything on here.  Any vidders brought here by the Pingback Bot: my apologies for being a punk and never commenting on many of these.  Please consider the inclusion of any vid here as a sign of just how much I appreciated it.

Comments

[elisi]

Just... awesome!

ETA: Actually, re. Above and Below then I think we talked about Jack's unflinching-ness (doing what has to be done - see Cyberwoman), re. Ten's running away (until there's nowhere left, and then he goes overboard in his punishments - see Family of Blood).

Actually, then poor Jack nailed it: 'I was so much better off as a coward'.

(SORRY ABOUT THE EDITS!)

still building his dams

[promethia_tenk]

Just... awesome!
\o/ :)

(SORRY ABOUT THE EDITS!)
Don't mind the edits, but I'm not actually sure what kind of point you were trying to make . . . I do remember the exchange *scrunches face*

[owlboy]

Oooh. Huge post of hugeness. I will somehow get through all of these...

[promethia_tenk]

I will somehow get through all of these...
Oh dear lord . . . *staggers*

I shall be very impressed :)

[the-redjay.livejournal.com]

Wowwwwwwwww recs. Lotsa lotsa recs :3

[promethia_tenk]

Yes . . . they piled up somehow. But I figured people could always bookmark and come back whenever they're inspired.

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

Kudos for compiling this! So many vids I haven't seen... *bookmarks for later*

[promethia_tenk]

Hope you find something to enjoy!

[cinderbella333.livejournal.com]

I literally *squeed* when I saw this! Ever since, I have been working through the vids. So far, I am all the way down through the Amy vids. And there have been SO MANY that I have fallen in love with. I've been commenting and favoriting and memming left and right for a good hour. Just so much love. Thank you SO MUCH for compiling this and sharing it. I will no doubt reply again once I have finished them all. Considering it's finals-time (woohoo.) it might take me a while, but -wow- am I looking forward to it. Also, I have a whole bunch of these I plan to watch again with my sister, because she's really interested in eventually making fanvids herself, so we'll no doubt have discussions about all the different styles and use of imagery/music/etc. Thank you.

[promethia_tenk]

Oh, you're very welcome : ) Glad you're so happy with them! I did have a great time getting them together. And definitely don't rush yourself--I figured this would be a 'bookmark and come back' kind of resource.

Hope your sister gets some good stuff out of them too.

[cinderbella333.livejournal.com]

Done. Wow, there was a lot there. Not as in number of vids, though there is that too. But I mean the amount of character study, storyline, emotions. To be quite honest, I wish I hadn't ended on those Torchwood eps (unfortunately MLP doesn't really connect w/me). Because those videos were excellent but because of that, it left me in a really strange emotional place. It makes me want to write something, but no doubt, something dark. Hmm... maybe I should think of writing a dark!River fic. Or dark!River/dark!Doctor but in a way that might seem feasible, characterization-wise. Though playing with dark for dark's sake can be fun. We'll see. Anyway! Thank you so much -again- for linking to these. I really appreciate the work you put into this and there are so many vids I favorited/memmed from here.

(P.S. Do you mind if I have a few vids to recommend to you? I'm certainly not someone who is very good at collecting them and a good amount of my River favorites you already had here, but I know of a couple that I think you might appreciate... Of course, perhaps you've seen them before.)

[promethia_tenk]

! I am thoroughly impressed. Especially since, as you say, they really run on the dense side--on the whole, I prefer the more meta-heavy ones. Sorry about ending with the Torchwood ones--I was cringing over doing that when I was putting the list together (hence the MLP), but that's just the order they insisted on being in. Somehow, once you get into CoE territory, there's no turning that back around to go back to lighter stuff. I blame Rusty.

Anyway, I'm thrilled you found so much to appeal, and I hope you find some way of coping with the residual weirdness (and would be very interested in seeing your take on dark!River and/or Doc). Although maybe the new episode will help too? It sounds like that's gonna have a substantial dark and twisty-ness to it.

And I'd love to see some of your favorites--link me! Perhaps I've seen them, but it's always interesting to know what other people like. My list is definitely not a comprehensive one. There are plenty that I've watched and liked that I didn't include, but these are the ones that really grabbed me, you know? I'll also admit that there's a whole genre of River vids set to thrash-y music that's just never done anything for me, although lots of other people seem to go for them. Anyway, yes, I'd love to know your favorites, and frankly, I consider this a resource post, so anyone who wants to enrich it by adding recs in the comments is welcome :)

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

Bookmarked these for a rainy day when I need cheering up!

[promethia_tenk]

\o/ Just what I was hoping people would do. Enjoy!

[humansrsuperior.livejournal.com]

Awww thanks for rec'ing a couple of mine on here! :D *is flattered* I'm bookmarking this for later to come back to for when I'm in the mood for more serious vid marathoning. I'm behind on DW vids, hee!

[promethia_tenk]

Oh, it's entirely my pleasure--your vids really helped me come to grips with some of RTD's Who material, so thank you :)

Hope you find some good stuff you haven't seen yet!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you for the lovely recs! And also for a few vids that I haven't seen yet - I'll totally check them out soon. In the meantime, I DID check out the Ponies vid, even though I don't even watch that show (except when chaila43 makes me!) and it's HILARIOUS and just complete loooove.

eta: Oh, also, the Friday vid you link on YouTube, I think I can explain the pop culture joke, just because it makes the vid even more brilliant, funny and creepy. Basically the song, "Friday" that starts playing before the remix with the crazy scary industrial sounds interrupts it, was a viral YouTube phenomenon for being "the worst song ever". It's a poor attempt to create yet another young teen star with bad autotuning by a cheesy media company, or somesuch. Anyway, the song itself features lyrical gems like, "Yesterday was Thursday, tomorrow's Saturday and the day after that is Sunday," and the eternal, question, which seat of the car should you choose after narrating your own trip out of the house (including toothbrushing and cereal). Of course its viral nature had the effect of rocketing it to fame at which point you get people who like it and a bajillion people remixing it in various ways, like this one, with the industrial twist which seems to be internally commenting on the awfulness of the song itself by ripping it apart with sound at creepy intervals (okay I think it might actually just be the dubstep style, but it certainly works on that level too).

So like, the vid is crack and commentary on that level also - it's this cheesy awful would-be pop hit ripped apart by creepy external alien audio forces, kind of like how the world seems safe, cheesy and happy but actually there are deeply disturbing things going on and it's being ripped apart by the Silence. The memory gaps of the Silence mirror the freaky echoey and misplaced sounds that interrupt the original track in the remix.

...I've now used Rebecca Black's Friday in a piece of metacommentary on a vid. I feel...dirty. ;) /eta.

[promethia_tenk]

Absolutely my pleasure :) I think there's something about your sense on the characters and the show that very much jives with my own--all your vids just feel right on some fundamental level /horribly vague statement

Yeah, isn't the pony/portal thing fantastic? Completely made my week. I love that they actually did the lipsynching. I figure it's probably worth watching even if you're only familiar with one of the franchises, but if you know both, it's utter gold!

THANK YOU for the explanation on the Friday vid! That is completely brilliant. I feel vindicated in my instinctual liking *g*

...I've now used Rebecca Black's Friday in a piece of metacommentary on a vid. I feel...dirty. ;)
It's a short, slippery slope from here to jello wrestling *nods sagely*

[chaila43.livejournal.com]

Twilight Sparkle is doing science and she's still alive!!!!!! (I often don't quite "get" animated vids, which are often done in that "anime vidding" (AMV) lip-synching style, which is a pretty different tradition to what media fandom people call vidding. Like they usually just don't seem that interesting to me? But that one's PERFECT. <3)

[promethia_tenk]

Isn't it fabulous!?!? *squishes vid* I've never seen any other vids in that style before, so thanks for cluing me in, but they've definitely used it to excellent effect there. So wonderfully Twilight Sparkle and MLP and yet also so very wrong all at the same time =D

But there's no use crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying til you run out of cake . . .

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Wondrous! I haven't seen most of these! :)

...although I also have to ask, why isn't Falling For the First Time (http://dwfanvids.livejournal.com/455742.html), by glass_moment on your S5 list? If you haven't seen it, it's my favorite so far.

[promethia_tenk]

Huzzah! Happy to provide : )

And thank you for the link! I have seen that one several times before, and I do enjoy it. Somehow it just never clicked for me as much as the other ones I listed, even though it's obviously very good. I told myself going into this that I was only going to list the vids that really, really worked for me personally--otherwise I'd have been here forever!

I think of this as a resource post, though, so I'm more than happy to have other people link to their own favorites in the comments : )

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Ah, cool.

Glad to add one to the community recs. ;)

[alt_universe_me.livejournal.com]

Finally getting around to watching these! Thanks for the recs! :)

And btw, we definitely share some similar feelings about Ten :P

[promethia_tenk]

Oh good, I'm glad people are getting some enjoyment out of this!

And btw, we definitely share some similar feelings about Ten :P
Hahaha! Always nice to have company :) Mostly keep my opinions to my flist, though, for obvious reasons!

[sea_thoughts]

Oh wow, thank you SO MUCH for rec'ing my Sound of Silence vid! Very flattered, never knew it would touch such a chord.

[promethia_tenk]

Oh, you're very welcome! Personally, I loooove all Moff's psychological horror stuff, and I think you managed to capture that specific feeling of mental threat better than any other vid I've seen of those episodes. The song choice absolutely served you well in that regard.

[sea_thoughts]

I loooove all Moff's psychological horror stuff, and I think you managed to capture that specific feeling of mental threat better than any other vid I've seen of those episodes.

Oh yay! \o/ That's what I was aiming for. And so glad the song works for people.

[odessie.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, this is one heck of a rec list. It must have taken you ages to put together but thank you for it - there's tons of vids I've haven't seen here, so there's my Sunday gone. :D

Thanks so much for reccing Moving Right Along! (I'm nancyblackett on YT.) I'm constantly amazed and flattered that this vid is still getting reaction considering how long ago it was made before I knew the slightest thing about vidding.

But could I maybe make a cheeky request and ask if you could change the YT link to my lj one (http://odessie.livejournal.com/14271.html)? Sorry to be a pain, no worries if not - it's just that's where the download link is. :)

[promethia_tenk]

I'd say this has been slowly brewing for months and months and months--hope you found some to enjoy!

And I totally love your vid and watch it frequently--never would have guessed it was from an inexperienced vidder. Will absolutely change the link. I actually was hoping people would be able to provide me LJ links for the few vids I've only got YouTube ones for; there's a little note to that effect lost in all my babbling up there, lol. At any rate, thank you for such a lovely vid and for getting me a better link!