beccatoria | TSCC VID: Howl (Jesse/Derek, Jesse/Riley)

DID I DREAM THIS?? I ALREADY LOVE THIS VID SO MUCH I'M FALLING OVER MYSELF AND I HAVEN'T EVEN WATCHED IT YET!

Erm, I have no video in the streaming link--just audio. And usually I don't have a problem with Blip. I will try the direct download link later (not where I can grab it now), but you might want to double-check that the problem is on my end and not on the upload end.

Same thing happened to me!

Apologies - I really don't know what's up - it was working fine when I originally checked it after posting, but yeah, it's not working for me either now. I've temporarily uploaded it to YouTube so the streaming should work okay now *fingers crossed* and I'll work on trying to get a better quality Blip option up later, cus it's...being weird right now. :/

Thank you for pointing this out to me. Gah!

I hope the vid lives up to expectations now it's actually VIEWABLE. *facepalm*

Apologies - I really don't know what's up - it was working fine when I originally checked it after posting, but yeah, it's not working for me either now. I've temporarily uploaded it to YouTube so the streaming should work okay now *fingers crossed* and I'll work on trying to get a better quality Blip option up later, cus it's...being weird right now. :/

Thank you for pointing this out to me. Gah!

Okay, I downloaded it and LOVE IT. Preliminary thoughts: I love the juxtaposition of Jesse punching the guy in the bar with Goodnow clapping. (I have been thinking about Goodnow and Andy Goode, in terms of the significance of names and dead people on this show!) Also the connections you've drawn to the whole thing with Derek // Martin Bedell (like Riley, another sacrificial lamb in the end? predestined sacrifice? willing sacrifice?), Cameron, and John.

YAY! I'm so, so glad you like it, knowing how much love you have for Jesse - I really wanted to take some time to follow her character arc and was more than slightly afraid I'd fail to get across the violence, loss and rage that fueled while still maintaining a sympathetic portrayal - to explain her acts without attempting to excuse them (both because there is no excuse and because she needs no excuse).

It really pleases me that you mention the punch at the bar and the clapping. There were a number of places in the vid where I was quite pleased at the snippets of juxtaposed motion/images I managed to capture and that was one of them. I flat out hadn't considered the name issue, but it does seem deliberate now that you mention it.

I'm also pleased you picked up on Martin Bedell - I was worried he went by far too quickly.

Thanks for letting me know you enjoyed it and for taking the time to download when the streaming was still screwy!

both because there is no excuse and because she needs no excuse

YES! Perfect.

One place I go when I think about Jesse & Derek is Derek telling Jesse that he killed Andy Goode, his surrogate brother (Derek apparently missed a lot of Kyle's formative years while Kyle was in Century with John, if you look at the timelines, as (http://coffeeandink.dreamwidth.org/profile)coffeeandink (http://coffeeandink.dreamwidth.org/) has noted) - I always think about parallels in Jesse:Riley::Derek:Andy. Not particularly original, since I know other SCC fans have talked about this, but it did make that connection between Goode and Goodnow for me when I was watching your video! And then there's the whole thing you pointed out with Derek, Martin Bedell, and John, and now I have yet another perspective on how that relates to the Jesse, Riley, and John triangle of sacrifice. (I have also been vaguely organizing thoughts about John/Riley, Jesse/Riley, and Jesse/Derek in terms of triangles of sacrifice since I watched "Howl.")

Ooooh, I love that moment with the speech about why he killed Goode so much. I even spent some time trying to work Derek's line about doing it for Kyle, for John and for Jesse (and Riley's line about how she loved her) into the end of the vid after the end of the song as I did for a line of Sarah's at the end of The Queen, but it didn't sound right so I cut the idea. But I think you make an interesting point about Riley and Andy Goode - certainly they have the capacity to represent something very similar, though I also think that tied in with the idea of killing someone you love - a familial figure - to save the future, is the fact that Jesse creates Riley in a way I think darkly mirrors Sarah creating John. The parallels and interconnections are endlessly fascinating, and yes, I'm starting to think more and more about this entire show as a series of endless triangles - I think Chaila is right about that.

Oh, this is *good*. Nice use of the water and submarine imagery, especially with Jesse submerged. And I love the way you keep the characterisations of Jesse, Riley, Derek and John as both hunter and hunted fluid and twisty throughout as they all act upon each other.

Very, very nice!

Thank you! I'm very glad you enjoyed it and that I managed to convey the tangled knot of the vid's protagonists as they all hunt and become hunted - I think every one of those relationships is intriguing and full of both love and manipulation (well-meaning and otherwise) on almost all sides.

JESSE!!!!! Love, love so much.

Random things: Love framing it with the pool scene, and especially the cut from the terminator turning into liquid to Jesse in the water near the beginning -- and the imagery of the netting near the end. GUH the shot of her and her hair at 0:36, and that Derek/Jesse moment at 0:38-0:40, A+ clippage omg. (Er, "Complications" may have been the episode I fell in love with Jesse, just saying.) Intercutting the Jesse/Riley hotel comfort scene with the relax-y Derek/Jesse scenes. And also intercutting the Jesse/Riley fight with her first finding her. Also, John/Riley section = ridiculously effective and sad considering I don't ship them or anything, OH GOD RILEY.

It's funny that there's violence present in the vid from the beginning, but only toward the end post-Riley does it feel uncontrolled and sad. I'm really curious about the images of Cromartie and his skin grafting - Jesse becoming the very robot monster she's at war with?

YAY!!!! Thanks so much for letting me know you liked it!

And thanks also for letting me know what parts you enjoyed - that's always so awesome to know, especially when it means I can flail back and be like, WATERY TERMINATOR! HAIR! Because you love all the bits I (hahahaha, I'm so humble) loved when vidding it.

I also pretty much agree with you about Riley exactly. I never really shipped her and John, not even when she got super interesting because we found out she was getting played by Jesse and from the future. But once she died it John/Riley became like, the saddest thing in the world for a while. :/

The Cromartie skin-grafting I have to confess was not specifically deliberate in terms of conveying anything, although I liked the water/blood connection as an evocative thing, but the repeated use of robot-future imagery was, yeah, intended to contextualise Jesse's actions and motivations, even though they were not strictly part of the storylines I was vidding, I thought it was important to keep a visual presence of the threat, of the reason, and, ultimately, of the things that made Jesse as surely as her forebears made them?

Mostly it's just this shooooow, having vidded it I'm inclined to agree with

chaila43 - there's so much visual reference within it that I don't even realise until I've vidded two things and noticed there are visual parallels in them. It kind of makes it easy to seem SMRT. ;)

I don't really have anything insightful to say except that this is AWESOME! And I'm glad I'm not the only person who loved Jesse!!

YAY! :D I'm so glad you liked it and that you took the time to let me know. And YES. JESSE. <3

Oh, there are so many layers here! This is one for rewatching, definitely, but have some initial impressions. First and most importantly: LOVE! :)

The water imagery is fantastic, with the cutting to the submarine scenes, and also to the fluidity of the T-1001. But the other thing I keep thinking of with all the water is sort of a baptism/renewal/transformation. And on this front the use of the scenes of Cromartie growing himself a new skin is inspired: what kind of new birth by water and blood is that, exactly, and to what extent is Jesse's own baptism in water and blood the same kind of sinister transformation? You're also making me look at the hotel scenes in a new way: all that cleanness and comfort and those fluffy robes signaling a washing away of the old life and a putting on of something so alien to the denizens of the future, yet it's also the scene of Riley's oh-so-pointless death, which is also Jesse's lowest point.

I also love how interconnected all of these people are: Derek and Jesse and Riley and John and Cameron, all with different kinds of loyalty to one another, in the present and the future (past). And as you know, my focal characters for this show are so strongly Sarah and Ellison that it's almost a little startling to look at the intersections between all these other main characters and realize how much is happening here, too.

And my heart still breaks for Jesse, even after everything.

Awww, thanks, you always leave the most awesome feedback. <3

And as usual you manage to put things I was grasping at vaguely into words that are far more beautiful. This show, man, after vidding it, I agree with

chaila43 - it's got such visual beauty and parallels I only notice it when I start vidding and realise that seemingly unconnected scenes share visual motifs. But a good example is the issue of Cromartie and his rebirth - I was seeking, with that, to evocatively keep the reality of the killer robots - as the things that made Jesse the way she is, as her motivation, a real part of the vid. And I liked the visual associations of blood and water - the bath and the swimming pool. But you make it sound like I had a plan and now I'm sat here wondering if the show had even more layers than I originally thought with its motif of Jesse suspended in water.

I love it when I vid and people explain things back at me.

My focal characters for the show were always Sarah and Ellison too, but that did start to change toward the end when we got Jesse's backstory and the full saga of Riley came to an end - and I had a similar experience watching that - like, what? How did this become so beautifully, intricately complicated? So I'm hugely glad to be able to share that experience with you.

My heart still breaks for Jesse too - and I'm glad this vid manages to keep that, rather than just seeming to condemn her.

Also the swimming pool from "What He Beheld." Which is less a comment on anything in the vid (I don't think--unless I missed a clip in there somewhere) and more a comment on the way the show has been playing with this imagery all along.

And of course it's all so closely associated with salvation imagery, which is so deeply in the DNA of this series. The violence in "What He Beheld" is accompanied by Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around," which is about the biblical judgment day (the use of that term to describe the day the machines attack has always fascinated me). Cromartie dies in a church, his arms stretched out like Christ on the cross (and then he's buried and rises again--if John Connor is the savior, is John Henry the antichrist?). Salvation and rebirth through blood, fire, and water, and basically, this show handles the whole "God and Robots" theme SO much better than BSG ever did.

All of which comes back to Chaila's point that this show is so fucking smart in its use of imagery and detail that it's not a matter of making extrapolations but rather of just pointing out what's already there.

Anyway, tangent, mostly. Oh show!!!

this show handles the whole "God and Robots" theme SO much better than BSG ever did.

You know even at the height of my BSG love I think I would have agreed with you, because BSG never did God and Robots all that well. BSG did religion well, and BSG fucked with the notion of what constituted a robot well. But the thing I love about Cylons, and divorcing myself from BSGFail what I still love about the concept of Cylons isn't what they say about the current state of robotics and AI. It's the philosophical questions they ask. It's the fact that they ceased being robots and became, rather, artificially constructed people. (Which I find amazingly fascinating for a whole host of different reasons).

But if you're talking about robots - about what constitutes sentience and thought rather than how we would react if we could no longer exclusively claim it - then TSCC is the show you go to.

Similarly, BSG portrayed - at its best - religion as a sociopolitical force and/or a genuinely divine power, but because Cylons weren't really robots anymore, it was really a show that dealt with religion AND dealt with robots (or rather, constructed people), rather than dealing with how religion handles robots and vice versa.

But then, of course, 4.5 showed up and trashed everything. So you know, there's also that. :(

Anyway, tangent, mostly. Oh show!!!

DITTO. ;)

Oh, I'm so looking forward to watching this when I'm at my home PC. I really loved Jesse as a character and Riley, too, so I'm intrigued what you'll be doing with this strange and tragic "love triangle" and Jesse's predicaments.

Yay! :D I hope you enjoy it when you get the chance to watch! :)

I have to admit that I watched this twice, and then read the complete description of your intentions, and I was still fairly confused. Reading the other comments, especially Pellucid, has helped clarify things for me a little.

The overarching meta for me, is that Jesse has the same problem John Connor does: everyone she has a relationship with, everyone she cares about, ends up dead. Beyond that, many of these deaths are influenced by her own, questionable, choices.

From a shipping perspective, Jesse really cared about Derek. While Riley may have been drawn to Jesse, Jesse never gave a crap about Riley, so that ship doesn't float for me.

Pellucid's comment about Cromartie's metamorphosis rings true to me: Jesse responds to her losses by becoming a more of a monster, while John responds by becoming more just and messiah-like.

I know that's not what you intended, but that's what I took from it.

I'm not sure why, but I couldn't follow the words of the song very well, or really make sense of how they were supposed to guide my interpretation of the images.

Maybe I just need more caffeine?

I want to believe that Jesse can be ... what? Forgiven? Rehabilitated? Or is that just a little tug on the heartstrings by the lovely Stephanie Jacobsen.

I'm sorry you got confused by it, but also, I'm afraid I must admit, I'm a little confused by your comment and what it is that is confusing you/what your query is?

But I guess I can, at least, clarify my (rather simple) intentions. I presume you're referring to the VIDWAR remix math when you say that you read the complete description of my intentions, but that was just to explain why I vidded Jesse's relationships and how that was - to my mind - a kind of thematic remix of Chaila's vids. It wasn't actually intended to clarify the vid itself or its message. I generally tend to very strongly avoid writing "Vidder's notes" to explain what I'm trying to say (to my recollection, I've only ever done that once), as I tend to be quite formalist in my approach to things and think that the vids should be able to stand on their own. I tend to limit myself to a short summary in terms of offering a framework within which to interpret a vid. So um, I guess what I'm saying is, if you were still confused - then okay, the vid failed in this case, with you as a viewer, and for that I'm sorry. But I'm not surprised the remix math wasn't helpful in that regard because it wasn't intended to be. ;) The remix math was about VIDWAR, not the vid.

Anyway, the only thing I was really trying to do with this vid was show Jesse - her story, the people she loves, the people who love her, the ways in which she is let down and hurt and the ways in which she hurts others. It was about Jesse and her relationships. I chose the song (and again, not hearing the lyrics probably didn't help) because it was a love song, but full of pain, loss, anger and violence - just like Jesse.

I certainly wasn't trying to specifically suggest that she becomes more and more of a monster because I think that Jesse is far more complicated than that, due in part to the strength of the show and its narrative and in part to the lovely Stephanie Jacobsen. I guess I would also disagree that John was messiahlike in his actions at the end of this arc because, well, by his own admission, he knew Riley was in trouble and chose not to help her because he wanted to be John Connor - because he wanted to win.

If the vid doesn't have a clear "message" then, I guess it's because I didn't have a clear stance on Jesse and her monstrosity, or lack thereof, and in fact, that's one of the things that makes me love her as I do. This vid was intended as an exploration of the complicated personal relationships between Jesse and Derek, Jesse and Riley, Jesse and John and Jesse and the machines, rather than a strict final judgement on whether was she did was unforgivable, understandable, both or neither.

As to the Riley 'ship issue, I have two things to say - firstly, Chaila didn't ship Sarah/Cameron either, but her vid still stands as an interesting exploration of their relationship, and the ways an angry love song can still serve as a very apt metaphor for their nonromantic relationship. But more importantly, in this instance, while I agree that Jesse did not harbour romantic feelings for Riley (but disagree she didn't give a crap - I think that Jesse and Riley were a deliberate dark mirror for Sarah and John and within that context, and the revelation of Jesse's lost child, I feel it's more likely she did not allow herself to love Riley in any way), Riley, most certainly - and canonically - did love Jesse. Whether that was a desire for a family or something more sexual or something in between is open for debate but I can see it both ways.

Unrequited love is still something that falls under the umbrella of a romantic relationship - or perhaps I just view the term "ship vid" more expansively than you.

I hope that helps clarify my intentions? About how the various relationships in the vid (Jesse/Derek, Jesse/Riley, Riley/John, Derek & John, Jesse & John) are all to varying degrees about love, but also about wanting something from the other person - about manipulating them or hunting them or changing them or lying to them, and how it culminates in this clusterfuck, revolving around Jesse.

Though, as I said above, while I'm genuinely sorry that it didn't work for you, I'm completely amenable to finding your own interpretation of the vid even if it diverges from mine.

First off, I love the rhythmic editing in this, particularly the fight, the clapping and the liquid metal, and the young and old Charles Fisher sections. On a visual level, I'm just so taken by Jesse's reflection in the liquid metal, as well as all the other water imagery.

This is such a great song choice for Jesse, it's a song that *feels* like crushing, aching desperation and the dark, violent underside of love lost or betrayed. The pace and the voice are almost upbeat and bright but it's just relentlessly brutal. I really like that the "love" here is not just romantic love, not even primarily romantic, but also ideals and trust and a whole variety of other kinds of connections. I love the various permutations of the hunters and the hunted to illustrate the different relationships and the ways none of them are completely without manipulation or ulterior motives. Riley is the victim, but she was also a hunter; Jesse is a betrayer but she was also betrayed; John loved Riley but was also culpable in her death.

I think the show grew at least four sizes in gorgeous complexity with the addition of Jesse's POV and this vid does a great job portraying her motivations. I love the way you've used not only killer robots throughout, but also the humans, like Charles Fisher and then John, who work with them, in her POV, traitorously. John's alliance with the machines, illustrated in the vid by Cameron and the T-1000 her mission was sent to retrieve, is such a fundamental violation of what she thought she was fighting for. In Jesse's mind, there's no difference between Charles Fisher and future!John, their supposed SAVIOR, and how is she supposed to sit back and just let that happen?

What I take from this is how Jesse reaches a point where she's lost too much and she just shatters. Her love and violence spurs more violence, from Derek, from Riley, until they are directing the violence at each other. How Jesse just. . . rips everyone apart, even those she loves (because I do think she loved Riley, I just think Jesse is a soldier and she had a mission, and there's no room for more than that) because the killer robots ripped her apart until she can't care about anything but making that not so. And, as far as she's concerned, John helped them do it.

Yet what she does with her rage is *try to do something about it*, to change him back to the John Connor he's supposed be, the myth that she was sold. The relaxed "AWOL" moments with Derek are such a great contrast, because it's such a LIE every bit as much as the sweet Jesse/Riley hotel scenes are a LIE (except in all the ways they're also true). It's cover for the fact that she's still on her mission and that Riley is collateral damage, because that's how war works. She's here not because she hates John, she's not fighting with this desperate rage to *beat* him, but because she wants to believe in him again, and that's vastly more interesting to me.

OH SHOW. <3

ETA: Also, aww VIDWAR goes artsy! <# <# <#

Edited 2010-06-15 23:40 (UTC)

*waves hands* I swear sometimes the best thing about posting new VIDWAR vids is getting amaaaazing feedback from you where you go off into fantastic meta tangents like about how Jesse's betrayal at John's behaviour is identical to her betrayal by Charles Fisher, or how you come up with synopses of the entire vid that I wish I could be so concise about: everything about the way you describe all the rage and love and violence that creates more and more until it is directed inwards, at each other again.

This really is a show of triangles and I think if we go there, then this vid also has to include Cameron as a stand in for all machines - machines John lets too close and who go bad. Cameron is, after all, Jesse's intended murder weapon, Cameron can't decide if she's going to kill Riley, John wouldn't have sent her away anyway, Derek constantly tries to convince John to get rid of her and she delivered the new to Jesse that destroyed her entire world and told her that John was too far gone for saving (in this time). Which gives us another triangle in Jesse/John/Machines[Cameron].

but because she wants to believe in him again, and that's vastly more interesting to me.

Absolutely. It fascinates me so much because - in this show's habit of endless parallels - it is so close to Derek's attitude. Derek's disappointment with John for not already being John Connor. His attempts to get John to destroy Cameron's chip in season one, to question Sarah's sanity in season two, and, frankly, the fact that Derek knew that Jesse had a plan for John, to keep John away from the machines, and didn't tell on her only because he didn't realise how violent it was.

IN CONCLUSION: VIDWAR.

I really love this vid, the way it maps all these fraught, concentric circles of relationships in Jesse's life, and the music kind of spins out of control at the end. As always your cutting is gorgeous--I particularly love the way you contrast the violence with those moments of happiness, and the way you frame Jesse's relationships with her past.

Basically I'm enjoying the hell out of your and Chaila's vidwar, though I'm just now catching up on it :)

<3 Thank you for the lovely feedback, and I'm so glad you're getting a kick out of VIDWAR. :D

I'm really pleased that the sense of spiraling out of control is something I'm succeeding in conveying because it was something I struggled with a little due to fairly tight footage constraints, so it's really nice to know that comes through. I also had a lot of fun with this vid in terms of cutting and trying to half-capture fragments of motion throughout so thanks for mentioning that too.

I love how this vid highlight all of Jesse's relationships to those around her, how her past/future has shaped her. Very well done!

Thank you so much! :D

Hi, I'm surfing in on a rec from

pellucid and this vid is fantastic!!!

I will admit that it is kind of hard to have thinky thoughts because I'm a little caught up in the amazing job you did with this vid. The visuals, the song, the way you interlace the scenes all come together and create this wonderfully awesome vid!

Hi! Welcome and thank you for letting me know you enjoyed the vid! Thinky thoughts are totally not required! One of the things I wanted to do with this vid was make a wild visual ride, so I'm glad that came through. :)

Very cool overlays and I love the editing style of fits and starts. I love how you use the water in the vid (plots use in essay). I'm super excited that your using Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for vidding!

YAY! I don't usually use overlays so this was a bit of an experiment for me, so it's fabulous to know that the you, as queen of awesome overlays, approve. :D

(VIDDING ESSAY? EEEE!)

Using TSCC has proved way easier than I was expecting actually, it's deceptively simple/beautiful/viddable source. After VIDWAR finishes I'll probably take a break from it for a while, but I wouldn't be surprised if I come back to it again.

(LJ isn't sending me comments so I'm basically stalking you.)

Overlays are like crack to me.

Vidding essay is still in fetus form in my brain.

TTSCC is beautiful and amazing to vid. Seeing the vidwar vids with it makes me want to get back into it.

Oh wow, this is so awesome. I love it!!

Thank you so much! :D I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Damn, your vids are freaking amazing!!
This is way late, but I hope you don't mind if I friend you.

Thank you so much! :D Late feedback is the best kind!

I don't mind if you friend at all, I have a totally open/guilt-free friending/defriending and commenting policy. I don't always friend back immediately cus I tend to actually surf over to journals and keep my flist small, but I hope you don't feel unwelcomed by that. :)

Came from

scc_reloaded. This is pretty awesome. Jesse is one of those characters that I've learned to appreciate more and more via fandom.

I miss this show so much!

This vid is frankly, frighteningly good. I love how you took Jesse's character arc and gave it to us frankly, her motivations laid out and just as messy and confusing and human as they were on the show.

Really, really well done.

Came here via a rec on Jesse's [Unknown site tag] thread - really like,downloading for future watching.

anyone know where chaila43 and her vids went?

I'm still in touch with her she's just not really on DW or Twitter that much anymore and I doesn't always reupload her old vids when whichever latest platform craps out on us. I can pass on a message if you want?

Thank you! I found her AO3 account. You might want to try uploading her vids to the Internet Archive. I've done that for some of the Media Cannibals vids to test the system. You can embed them on AO3.

https://archive.org/details/DetachablePenisXvid

TSCC VID: Howl (Jesse/Derek, Jesse/Riley)

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the fabric of your flesh, pure as a wedding dress

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