Hera Has Six Mommies: THE VID

It is with immeasurable awe, pride, and jubilation that I announce the birth of
Hera Has Six Mommies by tallulah71
a Battlestar Galactica fanvid that I commissioned through Sweet Charity.
{ feedback | download | stream }

I. CONCEPTION
For those who don't know, Sweet Charity is a cyclical auction wherein fans can bid on the creative services of other fans to raise money for a non-profit organization (in this case, the Writers Guild Foundation Industry Support Fund, as I won tallulah71 in January during the WGA strike benefit).

This project came into being when I got the official notification of my winning bid, and in turn emailed "ho" tallulah71 enumerating my BSG femslash fanvids wishlist. Here's an excerpt:

HI I AM DYING OF SQUEE! this is, like, my ultimate Sweet Charity fantasy -- I seriously cannot believe I actually managed to buy you. in case you haven't noticed, I'm a huge fan of your vids, and plus I'm thrilled to have an occasion to donate to this cause. so thank you!! [...]

- Hera Has Six (or more) Mommies!
OK, this is the vid of my wildest dreams, and a concept that I think is especially well-suited to your artistic and intellectual skills and approach. it's also potentially quite ambitious. it's the story of the alternative kinship networks that coalesce around Hera, and how various configurations of women learn to love each other through being her family (Helo and Gaius can potentially come too). it has one strand tracing the lineage of Cylon mommies (from Athena, to Caprica and Gaius and/or Boomer around the whole "Downloaded" upheaval, to Caprica and Three, to Boomer, and back to Athena) and one strand about the Laura/Maya/Tory love triangle. it's partly an epic romance and partly an apocalyptic battle for the future of humanity, and I elaborated on my picture of it in the talk I wrote for Mary McDonnell! which I'd be very happy for you to read or listen to if you're willing. another fan [carla_scribbles] passed along to me a song I LOVE for this, which is a mashup by Wax Audio...

More than five months later, I can take no credit for any of the remarkable artistry evident in the vid that evolved. I let tallulah71 loose with my notes to generate the narrative, not to mention the stunning visuals, as inspiration dictated. However, it was my great pleasure and privilege to collaborate with her in an intense and often magical betaing process. I returned extensive feedback on three distinct drafts, co-parenting it toward what I hope is the most lucid and elegant communication of this story/interpretation. I couldn't overstate how breathtaking it was to witness the show *I* watch take shape fully onscreen. My betas, friends, and vidding co-conspirators heyiya and beccatoria were likewise invaluable midwives, bringing fresh eyes to the project. Of the many priceless gifts fandom has given me, this vid is the most acutely astounding, and I love it with a ferocity that befits the miracle of bringing something new into the world. I cannot even begin to quantify how much I got more than my money's worth.

II. GESTATION
Recent months have seen intensifying discussions about the modus operandi of vidding (historically and in its contemporary transformations), particularly giandujakiss's musings on the perceived relationships between vids as visual arguments and their written paratexts. In light of this debate, I wanted to weigh in on how I understand the articulation between this collaborative artwork and my more academic projects. Although tallulah71 read an essay of mine on this topic as part of its development, I would not take the vid that emerged as based on, illustrative of, or otherwise subordinate to that document.

Hera Has Six Mommies, for that matter, is far more than an essay: it is what I might call a lens for focusing the all-consuming experience that is my love for this show, which has infiltrated vast reaches of my heart, mind, and body. This focus has coalesced in a variety of tangible iterations in my work over the years, from a talk to a chapter; from a ficlet to a drawing. The essay and the vid alike grow out of this reservoir of obsessive, inexhaustible desire and vitality.

In fact, if I had to hierarchize these artifacts, I'd say it's the vid that is their ultimate apotheosis. I can write endlessly about the technologies of seeing that Battlestar Galactica incites us to cultivate. But here I can instead USE those technologies to SEE, in it's brevity and purity, and take you with me to the show.

III. DELIVERY
I wouldn't call "Hera Has Six Mommies" a meta vid or a political vid or an experimental vid. Though it is a bit of an experiment in slash ensemble rather than couple storytelling, mostly it's your traditional interpretive vid. But if there's nonetheless a meta-level of allegory here (and isn't there always?), it's that we fans are the collective of lesbian mommies who conceive and nurture illegitimate offspring as a labor of love, the queer families who originate a mongrel brood that, like Hera, is part of "the shape of things to come." Hera is our vids, our art, our fics, our hybrids -- the harbinger of a new dawn or a final apocalypse, depending on how you look at it.

"Hera Has Six Mommies" has at least four mommies, and creating it within a cooperative kinship network did feel a little like making a baby, complete with its own erotics and marvels. But really, we can't stop counting there, with the vidder and the videe and the betas, because it was a whole community of femslashers who parented this progeny, who produced the branching lineages that link the women of Battlestar Galactica, via variable couplings and intertexts, into a lesbian family tree. For that reason, I invite all of you to join its geneology and to celebrate its birth.

Please bear with my rhapsodizing -- like every mother, perhaps, my own little one seems to me like the most wondrous exemplar of its kind!