this is not goodbye (not for me)

[vorblessing]

stories have beginnings and middles and ends, people have births and lives and deaths; and this vid--liquid bird (ensemble), a kind of goodbye from my favourite vidder to my favourite fandom (her "final farewell to the Team and the City that changed them forever")--manages to weave all of these together in a great rhythmic arc: the way the show and the characters and even the city grew and changed, with births and deaths and rebirths and so much life, so many lives (and we only ever saw part of those stories). there is an ambivalence to the music, and to the farewell, that suits the way many of us feel about the final season of the series (or, indeed, about the way the show handled--or rather, failed to handle--issues of gender and especially race throughout its run), and i was glad to feel that acknowledged alongside the affection engendered by the show, because the two were always uncomfortable halves of the whole we both loved and hated. i cannot speak for anyone else, but this is not a goodbye for me: i know that this will always, always, always be my city and its people my people; and tho i find this (and all
hollywoodgrrl 's vids) stylistically beautiful, this is the true beauty of the piece: that it makes me feel again in my chest with all the passion i ever have that love and desperate loyalty to this cast of characters who are more profoundly real to me than some people i actual know and who have FINALLY (thankfully) been entrusted to the people who know how to show and tell--to write, and vid, and draw, and speak, and sing--them and their legends well.