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

[beccatoria]

My VIDWAR: ROBOT APOCALYPSE counterattack continues!

STREAMING IS NOW FIXED.

Title: Howl
Video: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Audio: Howl // Florence + The Machine
Summary: The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound: I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground. (Jesse/Derek, Jesse/Riley).

Direct download available here. 33 megs approx.

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This is my second response to chaila43's counterchallenge.

This is the response to her ship vid challenge, and it remixes her Sarah/Ellison and Sarah/Cameron duo. To remix this, I decided to vid a het ship and a slash ship that have a female character in common - in this case Jesse Flores. And since I only get one vid, both ships are represented in the same vid. So in a way it ends up being a bit more of a Jesse vid than a ship vid, but I'm okay with that, AND SO IS REMIX VID MATH! ;) I also tried to play around a bit with the visuals since chaila43's pair of vids were kind of artsy, as were the original het/slash/female-character-in-common BSG vids I did so long ago, that started this particular thread of VIDWAR. ;) Also I reuse Florence + The Machine, in homage to the way she reused Sage Francis when remixing me.

You can find all relevant VIDWAR posts at our tags here and here.

Cross-posted to vidding and scc_vids.

Other vids available here.

Comments

Confusion ...

[tackdriver56.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: Confusion ...

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

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.