[2 BSG Vids] Songs of the Unforgiven: Suicide Planet [D'anna, Dualla]

[beccatoria]

Songs of the Unforgiven is a cycle of five orphaned Battlestar Galactica vids. They are all short (between two and three minutes). They are all designed to stand alone as well as working as a series (and in couplets) so please, feel free to watch and leave feedback on either or both.

Songs of the Unforgiven marks the launch of VIDWAR: ROBOT APOCALYPSE, and I'M COMING FOR YOU, CHAILA. THIS IS FIRST BLOOD.

Title: Suicide Planet: The Future [D'Anna]
Video:: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Audio: The Future // Leonard Cohen
Summary: Give me absolute control over every living soul, I've seen the future, brother, it is murder.
Editor's Notes: This is the oldest of my orphans; I first decided I wanted to use this song for D'Anna in late 2006, you guys. And as always, my thanks to my heroic betas.

Direct download available here. 30 megs approx.

Password: vidses

Watch on Vimeo

Title: Suicide Planet: No Future [Dee]
Video:: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Audio: A Thousand Kisses Deep // Leonard Cohen
Summary: I made it to the forward deck, I blessed our remnant fleet, and then consented to be wrecked, a thousand kisses deep.
Editor's Notes: And this is the youngest of my orphans, at least in terms of finally finding a song; I didn't find this one until October 09, though I'd been planning to make a vid like this for far longer, just with a different, crappier song that I wasn't 100% happy with. I'm glad, now, cyborganize kicked my ass into finding something better. And as always, thanks to my heroic betas.

Direct download available here. 32 megs approx.

Password: vidses

Watch on Vimeo

Cross-posted to vidding and galactica_vids

Other vids available here.

Comments

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I really like the Dee one!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yay, thanks! I've wanted to do a Dee vid for quite a while so I'm glad I delivered now that I've finally completed it! :D

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

Why are these orphaned? They work perfectly both in concert with each other as well as standalones, and they don't feel unfinished at all. "The Future" has always been one of my favorite songs, and D'Anna is a perfect choice for it. The "destroy another fetus now/We don't like children anyhow" is just so ironic and gutpunchy, it really hits you. The ending shot of her and Saul is lovely. And Dee needs all the vidlove in the world, and I like using "A Thousand Kisses Deep" for her. I just knew you'd use her suicide for "and then consented to be wrecked", and it works so perfectly horrifically.

Seriously, fantastic work as usual. Absolutely lovely.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I should not have chosen the word "orphaned" - I was using it in a more evocative than literal sense; they are all ideas I had kicking around my head for so long I was beginning to suspect I would orphan them if I didn't collect them - they're all ideas I love but have almost abandoned at one point or another because I thought the footage wouldn't work or the song wouldn't work, or my relationship with the show would fall through or because another vid seemed more timely. They're vids I feel I orphaned already and am now trying to make up with them, now that the show is over and I'm trying to...pick up the pieces and file things away?

Either way, I'm really glad you liked them and the song choices. The Future is just a fabulous song - it's so musically quiet but so powerfully full of rage - and I'm especially glad you picked up on that lyric, it was one of the early ones I latched onto that made me suspect it would make a good D'Anna song.

Similarly, yes, the direction for Dee is...obvious as soon as you know the song, or read the lyric in the summary, but I guess, for all I empathise with those who were not fond of her death, the reason I have always thought it a horrifying but somehow perfect narrative moment is because it comes from nowhere to punch you in the gut, but that in retrospect, it replays like an inevitable freight train, and is still just as awful.

Thanks again for your thoughtful comment.

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

The vid war involves Leonard Cohen?!?!?!? Oh, be still, my heart!!!

Loved both of these, but the Dee one was just FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!! (Okay, you're not in the least surprised by that, I'm sure.) A great song, and I adore the way you make this really about her. Her choices (romantic AND otherwise), her agency, her fight. Oh, DEE!!!!!

And I recced this. The Dee vid, in particular, because I am seriously In. Love.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful recc. I'm really glad that the Dee vid came through so strongly; vidding Dee as Dee rather than her romantic relationships (not without them; they did form a large arc for her, but not defined by them) was something I wanted to do for a long time but could never find the right song for; in the end, I think the song has quite a lot to do with how well I succeeded. LEONARD COHEN. <3 ;) Because yeah, whatever Dee did, she always chose it, and that's worth noticing.

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I love the first one. "It's lonely here with no one left to torture." That song is perfect for her - her combination of sacrilegious defiance and yearning and disappointment. Plus, she's just so much fun! I love the end with her reaching for Tigh(?) in her vision and then sitting with him on the planet.

Ohhh, poor Dee. I love seeing vids that tell her story so well, though, hard as they can be to watch. I like that this one includes her role in stealing the election and other, non-quadrangley storylines. Even if it's only to highlight even more her dashed hopes! :/

*makes popcorn, waits for next vidwar salvo*

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm really glad you like the song for D'Anna. I do not lie when I say that, way back in 2006 when we were first getting D'Anna's early S3 arc, I found it really hard to get a hold her her mix of religious yearning and "sacrilegious defiance" (what a wonderful descriptive turn for her). You know, until I heard this song and I realised, wait. She's furious and might not even realise it. And after that, I kind of...understood her? So it's a vid I've literally wanted to make for over three years, and I'm glad now I've done it, it's works.

As to Dee, again, I'm so glad you like it. It's really HARD to vid Dee in non-quadrangley storylines, so I'm especially glad that's coming through. <3

*makes popcorn, waits for next vidwar salvo*

LATER TODAY! :D

THIS COMMENT IS NOT A SURRENDER!

[chaila.livejournal.com]

You know how much I absolutely love both of these. I love how attentive each is to the POV of its central character, repurposing footage from scenes they weren't in to make me think about how D'Anna or Dee felt about them and just forcing me into their POV. I also love the pairing of these two together (much as I wish all the women were not committing suicide in this episode), two women who fought for Earth in different ways and refused, really, to compromise for something less. I feel like these vids give me back a satisfying ending for at least two characters I loved.

The entire "repent" section in The Future makes me gleeful, D'Anna is so perfectly unrepentant and fed up with all this crap and doing her own thing, wherever it leads her. Her laugh on "repent" in the scene with Laura is great. I love her.

But! I love Dee too, and No Future is absolutely gorgeous. The song choice wrecks me and I'm still blown away by how forcibly this puts me into Dee's POV on everything, particularly given how little footage of her there is in these storylines. I adore the end, bookending that iconic scene of her in the memorial hallway with her own picture on the wall.

(LEE'S FEMININE HAND, I SEE YOU).

These are both made of win SECOND PLACE. <#

Re: THIS COMMENT IS NOT A SURRENDER!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Eeeee! Thanks. Neither of them is all that flashy in terms of actual vidding; they're not fast or to weird rap music or full of effects (those would be the next pair, I guess!), but...I really did want to insert a firm POV into these so it makes me really happy to hear that it's working.

(LEE'S FEMININE HAND, I SEE YOU).

A cookie if you notice in my next vid where feminine Lee doubles as someone else ENTIRELY... ;)

OH AND SPEAKING OF REPENTING? YEAH. I DON'T. YOU GOIN DOWN, VEGAS.

These are both made of win SECOND PLACE. <#

Really? EXCELLENT, I'm on track to win gold, silver AND bronze then! <#

Re: THIS COMMENT IS NOT A SURRENDER!

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

The entire "repent" section in The Future makes me gleeful, D'Anna is so perfectly unrepentant and fed up with all this crap and doing her own thing, wherever it leads her. Her laugh on "repent" in the scene with Laura is great.

I, too, love love loved that part in particular! :)

[siljamus]

pellucid pointed me here and I'm so happy that she did.

I really like the first vid, but it's the second one that just fills me with joy. I adore Dee and you've captured her and the the thing about her that I've always loved the most -- She made her own choices from beginning to end! Really well done!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm really glad that you liked the Dee vid especially. The one thing I really wanted to convey was that, for all that happened to her and for all the storylines where she got the short end of the stick, Dee chose, most of the time, to be there, and got herself out when it was no longer somewhere she wanted to be/something she wanted to be doing. I'm really glad I managed to convey that.

[coffeejunkii.livejournal.com]

both of these are equally wonderful and sad.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! And thanks for letting me know you enjoyed them.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

These are both fabulous, but the Dee one KILLS me!!! I have been thinking about her today and why I love her and clearly, all I needed to do was come here and watch your vid instead of yapping :P

Great stuff! Thanks so much for making these!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks. I'm really glad you like it and it presents a clear argument. And thank YOU for letting me know you enjoyed it.

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

Oh, ouch.

*sniffles for Dee*

I, uh, don't have anything else coherent to say right now...

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Comments > coherency. :p Thanks for letting me know you enjoyed it.

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

These were both just great - and two of my favorite Leonard Cohen songs, especially "A Thousand Kisses Deep."

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I have a weird relationship with Leonard Cohen, I either have a deep indifference to him or I loooooooooove him. These two songs? Love, obviously. ;) But anyway, the song choice was something I was particularly pleased with for both of these, so I'm really glad that that's working for you as well as the overall vid. Thanks again.

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

I have a weird relationship with Leonard Cohen, I either have a deep indifference to him or I loooooooooove him.

Same here! I should add that even though your D'Anna vid for "The Future" felt more complete in a certain way for me - and it makes sense that "No Future" ends where it does - I was especially struck by "No Future" because it overcame my already-imprinted association between "A Thousand Kisses Deep" and another character in another fandom. The footage you chose for "No oceans left / For scavengers like me" was perfect.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you, that's high praise indeed! May I ask what other character and other fandom you associate the song with and why? *curiosity is piqued...*

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

I made a Jesse meta post and fanmix at DW a while ago, on chaila's request - in my head (and when I get around to it, in the actual post) I keep adding songs. "A Thousand Kisses Deep" is one of them. It's probably a Jesse/Derek song for me, especially "Confined to sex, we pressed against / The limits of the sea: / I saw there were no oceans left / For scavengers like me."

On a tangent... my favorite lines in "The Future" are "I've seen the nations rise and fall / I've heard their stories, heard them all / But love's the only engine of survival," though that probably wouldn't work for D'Anna! Maybe a different Cylon, though.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I'm here via pellucid and chaila43, and I just wanted to express my GINORMOUS love for your Dee-centric vid. I particularly like the fact that her "wreckage" is not directly tied to the thousand kisses of her romantic entanglements and her failed marriage, but a result of her losing hope for the "remnant fleet", which gives her actions so much more weight and context. It's gut-wrenching and heart-breaking and wonderful.

*needs a decent Dee icon*

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I need a decent Dee icon too! And thank you so much for taking the time to let me know you enjoyed the vid. One of the things I loved about the song and that convinced me I had to use it was that last verse; the way it posited Dee in the context of the Fleet and the wider show - I'm so glad that idea came through.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Oh, beautiful work! I haven't watched the D'Anna one yet, but I LOVED the Dee one. (D'anna I can take or leave. Dee I adore.) The sadness and the sense of inevitable despair, and yet Dee's strength and decisiveness... I loved it.

Oddly enough, the image that stuck with me the most was the one of the water on Earth ebbing back and leaving the dry ground. It just FIT so well.

Lovely!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I very much wanted the vids to work individually as well as together, so thank you for watching the Dee one even though D'Anna is not so much your thing. I'm really glad that I managed to convey the inevitability and despair of the story without removing Dee's certainty from it.

Oddly enough, the image that stuck with me the most was the one of the water on Earth ebbing back and leaving the dry ground. It just FIT so well.

Thank you - that was one of the earliest visuals I decided I wanted to use so I'm really glad it's proving a strong one. :)

Thanks again for letting me know you enjoyed it!

[emmiere.livejournal.com]

OMG dude, these are individually brilliant, but they make such a perfect pair. I think my favorite thing they do is make me consider their stories entirely from their own perspective and choices. As part of the larger framework making it to Earth and their rejection of it as an answer too.

I'm with Chaila on the glee I get watching D'Anna, not just in the "Repent" section but also in that LOOK she gives Caprica and Boomer's idealistic joy. The future is murder indeed. Awesome. And I'm completely fascinated with Natalie in this vid, even if I can't quite define how she fits, it still works for me.

(also Suicide Planet: The Future is the best name that exists for
a D'Anna vid, seriously.)

As much as I adore D'Anna's, my heart and the emotional suckerpunch are with the Dee vid. DEE! How is this song so perfect that even the beats are part of this heartbreakingly inevitable movement to the end? Which, ow my heart, especially the clip choices at "blessed our remnant fleet". I love seeing her choices, with her relationship having weight but alongside everything else. She's never the one making the flashy statements or actions, but had just as much effect in her quieter way.

Excellent opening volley! ;)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! :D I'm glad that they work together and separately. I'm also really glad you like the sarcastic LOOK. That was a beat I spent a long time looking for a good clip for: I needed something hugely sarcastic about Cylon culture and was stumped for a good while before I found that moment. So thanks for noticing it!

Natalie as part of the vid was something I really wanted to use but was afraid would be too confusing in the wider context, so it's good to hear that it's integrated and works even if it, well, is a bit confusing. Essentially the problem with D'Anna's story is that it disappears for an entire season. But basically, Natalie's civil war, the destruction of the hub, is the ultimate expression of "I've seen the future, brother, it is murder." Sure, she didn't know exactly how it would happen, but with the same duality that causes D'Anna to both despise and crave religion, she knows that society is screwed if she doesn't box Caprica for failing to conform AND if Cavil does box her for the same crime. D'Anna knows their future is fucked and murdersome. And when she wakes up on the Hub, she discovers she was exactly right. So, well, Natalie, the hub, the Cylon civil war, Cavil, all that the future she saw comin' a mile off. But since the character was unfortunately boxed that whole time, it's kind of sans her POV. ;)

And like, I don't really mind if people don't entirely get that, cus it's a tall order to convey, but um, I shall take the opportunity to babble about it. ;)

(also Suicide Planet: The Future is the best name that exists for
a D'Anna vid, seriously.)

Thanks! Though I owe half the credit to cyborganize. I was gonna call them "the future" and "no future" and pair them up because they both killed themselves on Earth for, well, kind of similar reasons, but was really stuck for a prefix, and cyborganize came up with "Suicide Planet".

Finally, thanks so much for your words about the Dee vid. While they're a pair, the emotional emphases are intended to be wildly different. D'Anna's is a vid about anger and defiance, while Dee's is, I admit, intended to be an emotional suckerpunch. I was blessed with such awesome lyrics in this song and am so glad people think I've managed to show an overview of her journey as something other than a reaction. And thanks for mentioning the beats; uncharitably, it's an easy was to make longer clips more interesting, but secretly I was hoping it would add to the overall atmospheric effect.

Excellent opening volley! ;)

You ain't seen nothin' yet! ;) :p

[nolivingman.livejournal.com]

The Dee vid just broke my heart. Wonderful vid.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed it; thanks for letting me know.

promises to keep

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

It's fantastic how you were able to incorporate different storylines and characters into D'Anna's net.

I like how you set up the repetition in the editing to give it an definitive feel all of its own. It looks so soul crushing and suffocating to be Dee.

Re: promises to keep

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad that the decision to try and show the wider show in the context of D'Anna's storyline worked well. At times I was worried I was casting the net a little too wide, but...I can't help it, when I vid I don't tend to have much self control about random crap slipping in! :p

And Dee. <3 I think I loved and understood her much better after I vidded this. I'm really pleased the repetition helps to build the atmosphere and set it apart from the companion vid.

[jehnt.livejournal.com]

You know, I didn't really connect with the Breakups on a Battlestar vids so I wasn't sure about watching these but I did and OMG. I liked them both a lot. The D'Anna vid is very fitting, but the Dee vid! OMG OMG OMG. It captures the way I view Dee so well. I think most other vids I've seen of her have her romantic stuff at the forefront but, idk, I never enjoy that probably because I can only sustain a little sympathy for Dee before the "yay Lee/Kara!" takes over. I like that you included the bit with her talking to Adama that one time because to me that was one of the most iconic (I guess that's the word I want?) moments of Dee's strength. Like, she may not have always been at the forefront, but she was always there and she was always getting stuff done and that's part of why her death was so shocking.

The lyric match that stood out to me most was the "slip into the masterpiece" bit with Adama on the CIC table. Brilliant! And ending with the numberboard and memorial wall is so sad. But perfect.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry for the incredibly late reply - I must have missed this somehwo and only just noticed it when I came to reply to the comment below. Suffice to say, what an absolutely lovely surprise to find such a thoughtful comment here. Thank you very much for taking the time to leave it. I'm sorry you didn't connect to the other vids, but I'm very glad you liked these - they are certainly very, very different! But I'm glad that the difference comes across. I tried very hard not to have the romance be at the forefront of Dee's storyline because I think that was one of the least interesting things the show ever did with her, and the slip into the masterpiece bit is one of my favourites too.

[sol-se.livejournal.com]

These are both so beautiful and heartbreaking! I really love both of them a lot. <3

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm really glad they work for you and thanks for letting me know that. <3

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

I feel somewhat inadequate trying to compete with M's comments. :P

but these are, without a doubt, my very favorite character study vids for these two. D'Anna fills me with bitter, snarky GLEE and Dee just rips my heart out. your interpretations are spot-on brilliant in tone and your narratives stitch together so many apt moments into the semblance of a narrative and emotional arc that both women deserved and never quite got.

the vids/ladies KICK ASS, and I love them like burning, as you know!

[metatxt.livejournal.com]

you do not need to compete with my comments silly!

also clrly everything posted is all h1v3m1nd anyway, as evidenced by our completely happenstance posting of comments with icons made from THE SAME SCREENCAP. WTF.

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

h1v3m1nd FTW!!! I'm glad the Hybrid is here to power the Cylon internet. :)

[metatxt.livejournal.com]

D'ANNA: HARDCORE. I love how your vids always carry with them this meta-level where you're both within the narrative and critiquing from outside it. It's particularly great how you've utilized the Repent refrain at the end to pull out that layer of narrative critique, ultimately drawing parallel between Cavil and RDM ~so amused~

The other thing that really strikes me is how spot-on the tone of this vid is: the sheer TRAGEDY of her demise because D'Anna is so fucking hard core and the elegance of how her disillusionment becomes OUR disillusionment.

AND OH THE THINGS YOU HAD ME THINKING ABOUT DEE: guh this vid is SO HEARTBREAKING. Yes it's about disillusionment as well, but so much about disillusionment with people she loves and trusts, and in a way her own heart.

And the thing is -- I feel like this vid really illustrates how Dee's emotional mapping is SO much more adult and realistic than everyone else's and how that is both her strength and her weakness. Many of the other characters have emotional reactions that are aligned with the scope of the show, but only because they are soap-opera reactions and BSG has many elements of a soap; in the real world, these reactions could only be explained as displaced feelings and projections.