Watching vids...

[butterfly]

I continue to be creeped out when people make romance vids out of pure stalker songs (like Sting saying "Good luck with that," when told by people that I'll Be Watching You was their wedding song -- because he admits that it's a stalker song).

Seeing Sam/Jack set to White Flag (by Dido) is only going to creep me out further. I already think that Sam's feelings for Jack are twisted. Unless you want me to see Sam as a pathetic stalker, I would stay away from a song from the actual point of view of a pathetic stalker. On the plus side, if you shift it far enough to dirtywrong, it might actually get interesting.

Nah.

I will also be creeped out by a Jack/Daniel vid to the song Don't Leave Home (also by Dido), which is incredibly obsessive and co-dependent. "You won't need other friends any more." Eeep. Yeah, let's just live in our two-person bubble and suffocate each other! That sounds like a healthy relationship!

"I'll make you weaker, like a child." Stalking=Love! Slavery=Freedom! We have always been at war with Eastasia!

Shockingly enough, I also had problems with a seemingly well-intentioned and romantic Buffy/Spike vid to Possession (*weeps at the idea of romantic anything being set to Possession* -- the title isn't giving things away here?). This is a song based off of actual letters that Sarah McLachlan received from a stalker! I already find the pre-soul B/S relationship to be sick and disturbing, please don't compound that by making me worry that people see stalking as romantic (which many people clearly do, as evidenced by the vid and by the example of people having I'll Be Watching You as a frickin' wedding song, which is very upsetting, by the way).

One day, I will take one of these songs and make a creepy, stalker-eske vid to it. And then I'll cry when someone feedbacks me on how romantic it is.

I actually adore all the songs in question, but I love them in their creepy-ass stalker context.

Comments

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

I have this evil, wanky fantasy of making a Spuffy vid to Stone Temple Pilots "Sex Type Thing", which is a song about justifying rape from the rapists POV. I would consider it sort of a sociology experiment- would I get more email from angry Spike fans defending his virtue, or from above delusional romance fans, telling me what a sweet vid I made?

The mind, she boggles.

I gave up on predicting fandom response when a slash fic I wrote that included a graphic rape/ sodomy scene got not one but TWO pieces of feedback asking me if I would write a sequel wherein the characters get together and livehappilyeverafter. Buh?

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I have this evil, wanky fantasy of making a Spuffy vid to Stone Temple Pilots "Sex Type Thing", which is a song about justifying rape from the rapists POV. I would consider it sort of a sociology experiment- would I get more email from angry Spike fans defending his virtue, or from above delusional romance fans, telling me what a sweet vid I made?

You should. I would love to see the numbers on that.

I gave up on predicting fandom response when a slash fic I wrote that included a graphic rape/ sodomy scene got not one but TWO pieces of feedback asking me if I would write a sequel wherein the characters get together and livehappilyeverafter. Buh?

Three words -- Luke and Laura. Ah, the sweet joy of a relationship that can only truly being after the man has raped the woman. At a disco, apparently. I've never seen General Hospital, and wow, I never want to.

Actually, three more -- Xander/Faith 'shippers. Either way the gender lines fall, it completely boggles me.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

I have no clue how to vid or I might actually take you up on it. *G*

And I'm with you on the X/F shippers as well. Gender lines don't matter in this case, which is why the response to my slash fic was also boggling as hell.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I have no clue how to vid or I might actually take you up on it.

Damn. Okay, I'll learn to vid, then I'll teach you to vid, then you can make the vid.

And the next day? We'll take over the world!

*evil laughter*

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

The song Possession is used to great effect in the episode "Victoria's Secret" of due South to represent Victoria and Benton's relationship. Not a fanvid, true, but it has been done and done well.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

That's actually the first place where I heard the song. I was kinda amazed that the song wasn't written for the episode, because it struck me as perfectly fucked up for the Ben/Victoria relationship. It sounds like a romantic song until you look at the words, just as B/V looks romantic until you realize she's not cleaning but wiping her existence from his apartment so that the authories will think that he committed a crime. I thought it was a perfect use of the song.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Also the first place I heard the song. And what the fact that Sarah McLachlan's Canadian and there's all that Canadian imagery ... yeah, fits B/V to a tee.

[greensilver.livejournal.com]

The Possession vid was romantic? Because, Sarah McLachlan factor aside, that's actually a fairly decent Spike PoV song if they were trying to do something creeptastic.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I know! It would have been really cool if they'd done that. But they really didn't seem to be.

[luminosity]

With the exception of "The Other Side," which is a despairing, hopeless sort of Spuffy song, none of my Spike vids has been romantic in my eyes. However, my feedback on "Rebel Yell" and "Fool for Love" (both of them created to show Spike's sick obsession with Buffy and sex and death and stuff) has run 10 to 1 in favor of "ooh, how romantic!" I was stunned. I didn't intend either of those to be romantic Spuffiness. Sigh. Romance is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

It really is. And many people's idea of romantic creeps me out.

And they're so sincere and that's when I start feeling bad for whichever writer it was who compared Spike fans to women to write to serial killers in jail. Because some of them are the same type and it's creepy.

Spike's a very interesting character, but I would never want him to fall in love with him. List of other BtVS characters that I would never want to fall in love with me: Xander (I'd end up a demon somehow), Willow (I'd be dead or werewolfed, plus she has a nasty habit of going off the deep end when she loses people -- and when she goes off the deep end, people get hurt), Giles (dead, dead, moved back to England), Angel (you end up dead or evil and pregnant and dead -- I worry for Nina, even on vacation), Wesley (dead girlfriends), Dawn (banally evil boyfriends).

Buffy has the best record. Sure, there was Ford, but she only really had a crush on him. Owen lived. Scott lived. Parker lived. Angel possibly lived. Spike lived and got a soul. Riley lived and got a life and a wife. And a couple of her boyfriends (the long-term ones, I notice) actually ended up improving as a result of their relationship with her. Only person in the whole Buffyverse that I would feel I could date without constantly looking over my shoulder for impending doom.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

I'm curious where you're finding all these. Or at least the Buffy ones, as I know nothing about the other fandoms.

And I'm a B/S shipper, but yeah, that sounds disturbing. Of course, most of the blatantly "romantic" videos don't do much for me. The relationship's complicated and has its intensely nasty points (from both sides); ignoring them just doesn't work.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I'm curious where you're finding all these. Or at least the Buffy ones, as I know nothing about the other fandoms.

I honestly don't remember. The B/S one was a couple of years ago. I probably found it on buffyvids.com. I just remember downloading it because I adore the song, watching in absolute horror, and then purging vid and link from my memory. It's the recent SG-1 vids that made me remember that one. There are a couple of great B/S vids that I do enjoy -- Ice (also by Sarah), very well done, and... there was that hilarious I Touch Myself popup vid.

And I'm a B/S shipper, but yeah, that sounds disturbing. Of course, most of the blatantly "romantic" videos don't do much for me. The relationship's complicated and has its intensely nasty points (from both sides); ignoring them just doesn't work.

I've never understood why some people fall in love with a complex pairing and immediately remove the complexity. Baffles me.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

I've never understood why some people fall in love with a complex pairing and immediately remove the complexity. Baffles me.

Agreed. Admittedly, I really like fluffy happy endings for couples where it's never gonna happen (I'm a Wes/Lilah shipper, for instance), but the problems don't just go away. Or at least not soon. That's a problem I have with lots of fanfic, really, in both my fandoms.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I like fluff, too. The problem is, like you say, just wishing away issues.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

*uses creepy stalker songs with creepy stalker pairings* Irons/Sara? Not a basket of goodies. I also have plotting for Scorpy/John vid.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Very cool. Sometimes, choosing a song that doesn't fit the situation almost does fit, but most of the time, it just makes it all clash.