Gift Vid: The Dream Before - for ghost lingering

[chaila]

Title: The Dream Before
Recipient: ghost lingering
Vidder: Sanguinity
Music: Laurie Anderson, "The Dream Before"
Summary: To repair the things that have been broken.
Notes: canon-typical violence

Link: Link to signed vid post

Comments

[ghost_lingering]

!!!!! omg, this is the perfect song EVER for time travel. I'm going to have to watch this many times more before I'm totally coherent, but omg, I just … I love how you show how people get sent back to change things and then it doesn't always work or work out the way they want and how time travel is messy. And I love how this is framed as a conversation & how Derek's motivation is Kyle -- you basically started this vid by using some of my absolute favorite scenes (when Derek and Jesse meet outside the bunker, when John gives the ball back to Kyle) and I just … I'm really incoherent about this.

The storm being Vic & Charles Fischer (Skynet) and then later time travel is just lovely. And I love how you implicate Derek in Charles Fischer's turn to evil, since that is how I've always read it. (Well, once I got past the idea that Warren grows up into Toby Zeigler -- multifannishness gets confusing sometimes.) I also love how you show that future!Andy is basically giving Derek the ok for killing past!Andy or at least that future!Andy knows that Derek is probably going to kill past!Andy and not stopping him from going back; that always fascinated me in the show and it's one of the main moments I always think about re: time travel on the show.

Thank you! I will be back with more later, I am sure.

[sanguinity]

I am so very glad you liked! I'm ecstatic that you thought to ask for time travel, because yay. :-D

Derek and Charles Fischer: how many times have the two of them been around that causality loop?? I WANT TO KNOW HOW IT STARTED. Because at this point, they mostly just seem to be maintaining an existing pattern, the two of them. But SOMETHING set that off. Either Fischer being snatched up by Skynet (how did he survive that first time, if not by being in prison?), or Derek/Jesse mistaking him for a collaborator. (Where are all the timelines-we-didn't see fics for this show?)

YES that thing with Andy and Derek. I don't think I'd quite noticed on earlier watches that Andy was giving him The Nod. (I struggled so much while watching in real-time with recognizing that Bobby Wisher = Andy Goode, and in distinguishing him from the rest of the resistance fighters. [Apparently all dimly lit scruffily-shaved white guys blur together for me.] This is something I love about vidding: an excuse to root through the details of the text, and make all the connections I missed while watching the show at speed.)

[chaila]

CAN WE TALK ABOUT JESSE AND CHARLES FISCHER SOME MORE?!

Because, man, I am just never over the scene when Derek would kill young Charles Fischer and Jesse preempts him to kill old Charles Fischer. Jesse takes action to punish for acts already done where Derek would take action to try to prevent future acts. So it's arguably Jesse as much as Derek who keeps that loop a loop and allows young Fischer become the old one (again? before?). It's interesting all by itself, but together with her Riley plan it's just unbelievably fascinating that this is where she draws the line. Jesse's anger and hurt is so terribly precise and targeted; she's on a specific mission and she sticks to it. Limiting collateral damage? Trying not to change too much, so she doesn't moot the changes she is actually trying for? I don't know, but I just think it's fascinating.

[sanguinity]

And there's also the bit where the only reason DEREK EVEN KNOWS about Fischer's actions in that other timeline, is because Jesse told him. Which makes whatever Derek's involvement is totally dependent on Jesse's actions.

But yeah, that differential choice about who to shoot is fascinating. Derek going for young!Fischer is not too surprising: it's exactly in keeping with his decision about Andy. But Jesse is willing to sacrifice others for a mission, cf Riley or the sailors who died behind the fire door on the sub. But not here. This is not her mission.

[goodbyebird]

OMG AN ENTIRE VID ABOUT TIME TRAVEL. I will definitely dl this and keep it for ever and ever <3

[sanguinity]

Oh, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! :-D

("Kill him baby." Man, it'd be something to do a vidlet about Jesse, Derek, and Charles Fischer. Yes, it would.)

[goodbyebird]

Just, time travel is so very fascinating on this show! John sends Kyle back, and so Derek goes back as well! John sends Cameron back, past John grows too attached to Cameron so Jesse jumps back! Jesse comes from a future where Derek has theoretically already influenced the past and finds Fischer! SO MANY CIRCLES. You just don't know where to start and it's all mindbendy and wonderful and nothing ever gets fixed the way they want it to. I love it.

[laurashapiro]

I have loved this song for 20 years, and I am amazed by what you've done with it. Perfection. I have the shivers.

[sanguinity]

*beams* I'm so glad! I'd hate to have trampled a song you loved! (And yay Laurie Anderson!)

(I'm kinda sad I had to snip the first verse, but honestly, I couldn't figure out what to do with it that would be bring it into line with what I wanted to do with the second.)

[chaila]

This is such an amaaaazing song choice, and every clip choice in this is just right. It's such an ambiguous treatment of time travel, how they get sent back or send themselves back to change things--to make things better, because they love each other and want to fix what's broken. But of course it's never that controlled, and they die and kill others and often don't even know the ramifications of their actions. "Progress" with that time bubble and Derek's pained face, preparing to shoot Jesse, it's shivery good.

[sanguinity]

THEY KEEP COMING BACK IN TIME AND SHOOTING PEOPLE TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM DYING. I JUST. IT IS SUCH A MESS.

And credit where it is due: it was Grrlpup who pointed out that the "progress" song lyric was ironic (the obvious things that I miss!), and that I should vid it that way. And also that I should go for broke on the ending. (She was, as she often is, dead right.)

[caramarie]

This is gorgeous. I especially like seeing Derek's story drawn in one place, because there are all these striking moments spread out over the series that hit you more here. Andy Goode ;_;

[sanguinity]

Right before he shoots Jesse, he tells her about Andy. :-(

The show tells them as a bunch of one-offs, but for him, they're all linked.

And I'm so glad you liked, thank you!

[beccatoria]

Oh, man, I'm speechless. Like, I'm actually at a loss for what to say, but it's such a great vid, so powerful. Such a perfect choice of song for a concept that is both cyclical and indicative of change, both redemptive and malignant. It's perfectly unsettling and visually arresting. It's beautiful.

[sanguinity]

*beams* Thank you so much!

[pellucid]

Wow, this is one of the most perfect vid song choices I've ever seen! And taking on the whole question of time travel itself through Derek's story is especially perfect. Love it!

[sanguinity]

Derek is the Time Travel Guy of the show, much like his brother was in the first movie. He mediates nearly every time travel story, with the exception of the one that Jesse tells in "Today is the Day." (But even though that's Jesse's story, Jesse's Derek still gets a cameo.)

I'm so glad you enjoyed!

[colls]

This is so powerful and very well done.

[sanguinity]

*bounce* Thank you!