Gift Vid(s): Losing Our Religions - for Sanguinity

[chaila]

Title: Losing Our Religions
Recipient: Sanguinity
Vidder: ghost lingering
Music: Covers of "Losing My Religion" by Jacqui Naylor, The Huge, Anouk, Elin Swenson, Nina Persson, Tori Amos, Paola Lezzi, Elvis Jackson, Swandive, and YouTube user genper2009. Additional audio from The Conet Project, disc one. (For more information about The Conet Project, go here.)
Summary: Life is bigger. It's bigger than us.
Vidder Notes: Much thanks to the people who took a look at this as I was working on it. Couldn't have done it without your comments and cheerleading. (Leaving out names to preserve what anonynimity there may be.)

This series was inspired by something that Sanguinity wrote in her sign-up: "Stories, and faith in them, and the manufacture/manipulation of them". Because clearly the only response to that is to make a series of vids about the the stories we put faith in (the stories we tell ourselves), and how that faith can falter or strengthen through experience. In order of appearance the characters whose faiths the series explores are: Terissa Dyson, Andy Goode, Jesse Flores, Kacy Corbin, Lauren Fields, Riley Dawson, the unnamed Latina, Derek Reese, "Catherine Weaver", and James Ellison. Sarah and John Connor are not included in this series: they *are* a fucking religion.

Re: Lyrics. Each of the cover versions is slightly different, so I'm just going to link to the original REM lyrics for reference. If anyone would like lyrics for the individual vids, I can provide them upon request. Lyrics for REM's Losing My Religion

Finally, Sanguinity, I really hope you don't hate the song "Losing My Religion" because you just got ten vids using different versions of that song that, together, total just shy of 20 minutes. Here's to losing our religions.

Content Notes: Spoilers for the entire series. Character deaths, both on-screen and implied; dead bodies shown. Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation. Violence including guns, physical altercations, explosions, etc. Basically what you see on the show will, more or less, be what you see here. For the record, Sanguinity, brief sections of this do reference Christianity and use Christian imagery, but not in a way that would tweak you, I think, given what you said in your sign-up. (i.e. Ellison is Christian.)

Link: Link to signed vid post.

Comments

[sanguinity]

(I was gonna watch all the vids then come back and comment, but given this is a TWENTY-MINUTE BEHEMOTH OF VIDNESS you get some first-watch in-stream notes. BECAUSE.)

Terisa Dyson! A vidlet about Terisa Dyson! TERISA DYSON.

...Jesse is one of my VERY FAVORITEST CHARACTERS, but I didn't ask for her, because I wasn't sure that I'd get a Jesse vid I would want to see? (Sometimes I am picky, and sometimes I fail to trust properly.) But *this* is the Jesse vid I wanted and didn't trust to ask for. Oh, Jesse.

I started sobbing during Lauren's section. Literally sobbing. (Actually THIS IS WHY you're getting an in-stream comment: I had to take a moment before going on to whoever comes next.)

...oh, I am frankly ADORING that you did pov-vids for EVERYBODY. And I'm obvs going to have to watch again-again, but even on this first viewing, I love all the things you're doing with the line "and you are not me". (Cameron is not the unnamed Latina! Unnamed Latina is herself, and the robot from the future can kindly stop appropriating, thank you!)

I was not familiar with this song before this; I think we can safely say that I like it. But more than that, I ADORE theme and variations as a form, I ADORE study series, I ADORE compare-and-contrast-and-parallel and going deeper to see wider. And this vid is just pure happy indulgence in these things. :-D

...okay and I'm skipping over fuller comments about some of the characters just now (Riley! so brave! and Derek! so confused! which was so not apparent to me watching the show -- he is Mr. Conviction! Mr. Certainty! -- but of COURSE that's just a mask over the top of his whirlwind of I DON'T KNOW I'M SO LOST) and I will have to come back and say things properly later (because omg!), but I just had to stop watching for a moment to say: your opening montage for Catherine made me scream in UNFETTERED JOY.

...oh, James. (And of course, by now, I have heard this song enough that I know the lyrics now. Hee!)

THANK YOU FOR THESE.

[goodbyebird]

Oh my god. This is pure perfection, I actually can't watch all of this in one sitting! I've already jumped up and paced the room twice now, grinning into my fist. Your concept is flawless, and love how you've segmented it. Plus I'll have to look some of these covers up later too!

OK I LIED I WATCHED ALL OF IT, HOW COULD I POSSIBLY STOP?? And you did such a wonderful job editing the songs as well, and chose each one with such a complimentary cadence to the POV you were taking. Also, thank you so so much for the Jesse vid of my heart! And when Weaver stroked the hardware to "oh life" *thud*

GUH. If I knew where you lived, there'd be a bouquet of flowers delivered to your door.

[seekingferret]

I don't know what to do with how epically ambitious that was. This is just an astonishing extension of the form. Each of your character studies is so rich, and they complement each other so perfectly because of the incredible consistency in the questions you show each character asking about who they can trust and what parts of themselves they can have faith in. It's just amazing.

[chaila]

This floors me! It's so carefully constructed; each character's POV is so clear, and the parallels and contrasts among the different characters on similar lyrics just strengthen the character work you're doing. Each cover sounds just right for each character; Weaver's in particular sounds like liquid metal. And I love how Sarah and John and even Cameron are the foils in many of these, the main characters wrapped up in their own narrative, and how you used them and their stories very much in the background to enhance what these other characters are going through.

I particularly loved the Terissa-Sarah almost opposition, because Sarah isn't even something Terissa chose to trust or have faith in, she just has no choice but to hope that it isn't all a big lie. I also love the Lauren-Sarah connections, and Derek-John, as the people Lauren and Derek are trying to keep up with. Andy's trust in technology here is just...idk, somehow I never made all those connections in his story before, how much technology was a constant for him and how much it betrayed him and how he tried to fix that (and drawing things like that out is what this series of studies is so good at!)

Riley's makes me weep all by itself; that cover is such a great interpretation of the song and you've used it so well to show both Riley's vulnerability and how tough and brave she was, nobody's tragedy as much as her own (oh Riley). But James' is my subjective favorite, because this theme and his whole arc is just amazing. He's so certain in the beginning, and then the world and Sarah and Weaver change everything he thought he knew a few times, and he's still there, searching and trying, doing his best with what he knows or believes to be true, and oh I love him. <3

And that doesn't even mention how much I loved Jesse's and Kacy's and the unnamed Latina, who goes through an apocalypse of her own and comes out on the other side, all in a handful of scenes.

tl;dr all of these are wonderful and this is such an impressive project.

[beatrice_otter]

WOW. I am speechless, this was EPIC.

[beccatoria]

What a fascinating idea, and so ambitious in scope and execution! I loved the Jesse and Riley sections in particular and am completely fascinated and in love with the decision to use the instrumental, piano piece for Ellison.

Thank you for putting in what must have been a truly enormous amount of work into this.

[colls]

This is amazing.
I love how it's a cohesive whole - how each character's story builds a bit on the ones before it - and not just a series of vids with a common theme.

[nicole_anell]

GAH, what a fascinating project, kudos! I loved the minor characters you highlighted (Lauren Fields! that one killed me. and the unnamed girl!) as well as the major ones. I love how you used different musical styles that put a different spin on the song; Riley's, Jesse's, and Weaverbot's were especially fitting. I liked how certain lyrics stood out several times with different meanings to each character (you are not me, the distance in your eyes) and finally Ellison just used the instrumental version. ELLISON'S SECTION IS SO GOOD. Though I also really enjoyed Derek's, a complete tonal shift from the softer, melancholy, and mostly female-sung covers, and the clips kept up with it, and so much going on here with him and Sarah and with Cameron.

As a total aside, man is that Number Station stuff strange and unsettling. I'd never heard of that or the Conet Project before so thanks for bringing that piece of cryptic WTF into my life. :) Seriously though it made a cool transition between the segments. It fit the theme-and-variations vibe someone else mentioned in the comments here. Everyone sending these unique repetitions of their own out into the world.

[runawaynun]

Ohhhhh my gosh, this is amazing. I enjoyed ALL of these but my favorite are the Weaver and the Ellison ones - they just fit so, so right.