#gina (cylon model number six)

[maaruin]

Fanfic Idea: Purgatory Galactica

Set after the last episode of the series (but probably before the epilogue in that episode):

The souls of Cavil, Boomer, Cain, Gina, Tory, Gaeta, Cally, and possibly Zarek, Dualla and D'anna died before they were ready to come to God but also with some seeds for redemption in them. So now they are in the Inbetween, where they have to face their sins. They interact with each other and with angels and maybe even with Jesus (yeah, I would combine BSG with Catholic theology for this - question is how explicit I would get).

I think most of these characters show some amount of contrition before their death, though some more imperfect than others:

Cavil tries to make peace with the humans.

Boomer freed Hera.

Cain decided against going through with the assassination of Adama.

Gina was aware that suicide is a sin, but didn't seem to see another way.

Gaeta surrendered by not jumping the Galactica away after his mutiny had failed to gain the results he hoped for.

Cally let herself be convinced by Tory not to kill herself and her son, only to then be murdered.

Tory at least somewhat tried to come clean. (She is the most doubtful of this group.

For three persons we don't have enough information:

For Zarek, it is not clear if he showed any contrition. We don't really see his final moments and his internal state is somewhat enigmatic anyways.

Dualla and D'anna seem more in control of their themselves when they commit their suicides than Gina. I'm a bit uncertain on how I'd view them. Are they already ready to meet God, or does their decision completely preclude them from this.

Now, I believe in universal salvation, so I would probably write them into this story. But it will be more difficult to build the redemption of those three than for the others.

There are also two characters who I'd say are in need of redemption at the end of the story but are still alive. They could be tied into the story in some ways:

Tyrol's vice is that he abandons the people he loves during times of hardship. He can be haunted by Boomer and Cally.

Athena has twice killed people out of impulse in a situation where this wasn't justified - Natalie and Boomer. She has very strong black-and-white, ingroup-vs-outgroup thinking. It is stated that Hera died young (we can infer that she had at least two children), so it is plausible that Athena outlived her daughter. Her death would likely cause her to spiral down... enough so that she can have visions of Hera going to Boomer after her death, and that will give, after a time of crisis, an opportunity for reconciliation. Leading to Athena becoming ready for taking responsibility for her grandchildren and growing her ingroup outwards.

(Maybe also Leoben? Leoben is weird, gets spooked by Kara's undeath and then more or less disappears from the story. I guess there needs to be something to bring him to a satisfying end as well.)

Unfortunately I don't really plan on writing fanfiction, so this sketch of the story may be all I ever produce of it.

[shadowsong26x]

A week or so ago, I posted a summary of a BSG fanmix I made a decade+ ago. I made two other mixes around the same time, and yeah let’s go ahead and give them the same treatment XD

This one is Heart of the Machine, and it is a (mostly) complete set of all canonical ships* involving at least one Cylon.

Full disclosure: this one, I’d found at least the tracklist awhile ago, so there weren’t any Surprises on here the way there were for Days Upon Our Knees. And...like...there are a few tracks on here that I could have done better, for various reasons, but there aren’t any that Confused me the way there were on the other mix? I more or less can figure out what I was thinking with each choice. And there are quite a few that are just. Perfect. (I particularly like tracks two, ten, twelve, and sixteen)

*So, I don’t have any of the notes involved in Constructing this mix--it was done for a fandom charity auction back in the day, i think help_japan after the earthquake?--but to the best of my recollection the rules were:

1. Canonical pairs only; meaning the couple had to have an Explicit romantic or sexual encounter On Screen.      1a. There is a pair that I apparently forgot--I haven’t gotten there in my rewatch, but I am told that this actually happened and wasn’t just made up for a TFLN blog so whoops.      1b. Presumably there was a Threshold for what counts as a ‘romantic or sexual encounter’; because there are a few I can think of that are borderline ‘was this just general flirting or could I have included it’ (and there’s another that...even if it met the threshold requirement (which I’m not sure it does) it’s. Like. I’ve built Corinne/Armistice Station Six up in my head recently but she’s not really. Uh. We don’t actually know anything about her so...yeah. but I like her and her name is Corinne in my head which is the main reason I brought it up lol)      1c. There are two others that technically count that I don’t remember being discussed; I’m not sure why Caprica/Head!Baltar was excluded (other than maybe redundancy?); the other is a Spoiler for late S4 and was doing something Very Cruel and Specific and I’m not sure I could have found a song for it anyway.      1d. There were three that were specifically excluded for squick reasons; namely Gina/Cain; Cavil/Boomer; and Cavil/Ellen.

2. The pair has to involve At Least One Cylon.      2a. Fairly self-explanatory, lol.      2b. Eleven of the twelve Cylon models are included here nobody loves Doral      2c. If we count by model, the Sixes (unsurprisingly) have the most tracks, with six (heh) total.      2d. If we count by individuals, the highest number (five tracks) is not actually a Cylon. Three guesses. The first two don’t count.

With those rules in mind, I ended up with the seventeen pairs listed below. The mix is structured in model order--the Significant Seven in number order, then the Final Five. I don’t 100% know why I ordered them the way I did, other than I think I started where I did for Alphabetical reasons but then didn’t stick with it for whatever reason. With one exception, for Cylon/Cylon pairings, I went with the lower model number. That exception made for an Excellent final track, though, so there it is. Within a model number, I went more or less chronologically in terms of when in canon the relationship starts.

...I think that covers it, lol. Lots of notes on this one XD Tracklist (complete with youtube links, as before) is behind the cut! (I should dig up the covers for these, I know I have them saved somewhere...)

1/one/tough!six - so immortal (international victim)      so this is probably the weakest on the list, mostly because...they’re a hard pair to find a song for, lol. i do think it fits, and i don’t think i could do better, but it is what it is. (also i named her vera for serenissima and the name has stuck so whenever i see her i’m like “VERA! :D :D :D” anyway i love her)

2/leoben/kara - on the street where you live (my fair lady)      tell me i’m wrong.

3/d’anna/baltar - dangerous game (jekyll and hyde)      i go back and forth on whether this one works better when it’s gender-flipped or not, but the vibe works. i do think i could do better than this for these two, but i don’t have anything specific in mind, if that makes sense?

4/d’anna/caprica - strange and beautiful (drew sarich)      yeaaaaah i cheated again on the ‘no repeating artists’ rule, like i did with the other mix. i think i did for all three mixes i made...anyway, that aside. this is another pair that’s hard to find something for, because we don’t get much that’s about them. it’s all about either the triad as a whole or the baltar/d’anna arm. that being said, i do like this song for d’anna/for what little we do get of them. (do i remember why i split the triad and picked two songs? nope! but i am glad i did; i might even--if i were doing this now--do three songs; one for each arm (other than the one accounted for Elsewhere) and then one for the triad as a whole)

5/simon/gianna - the next ten minutes (the last five years)      i love this song, and i love the...simon knows what’s coming And Yet. that whole sense of ‘for as long as this lasts’ has a Whole Different Meaning in this context and i think it’s beautiful. basically, i love them, and i think this song really fits for them.

6/caprica/baltar - measure of a man (clay aiken)      so i think this is actually one of the weaker examples on this mix. not because it doesn’t work--it does; it fits where they land at the end of the series--but because there are so many better songs for them. i don’t know why i settled on this one specifically, but i think i’d pick something else if i were doing this now.

7/gina/baltar - lithium (evanescence)      it’s hard for me to listen to this song without thinking of these two and their Extremely Fucked Up This Could Never Be A Happy Or Healthy Relationship dynamic now. not because it’s a Perfect Match necessarily, but...just...the Vibe.

8/lida/baltar - crash and burn (savage garden)      i don’t have much in the way of commentary on this one but i like it. it’s a pretty song, and it suits what’s going on in-story here.

9/boomer/chief - without you (rent)      not much to say about this one, either. but it’s a good fit for how they are in the back half of season 1, after he breaks things off.

10/athena/helo - as long as you love me (backstreet boys)      shut up it’s perfect okay

11/sweet!eight/gaeta - hallelujah (jeff buckley)      i think this works really well for the two of them (and for my best beloved most ironically named man in the universe felix gaeta in general, i think). i don’t know that there’s anything better i could pick, but i almost wish i had found something different? this song is such a heavy hitter, and i wish i’d saved it for...idk, maybe the season 4 mix i never got around to making, or a gaeta mix? ah well.

12/anders/kara - smoothie king (bowling for soup)      HOLY MOOD WHIPLASH BATMAN XD

13/anders/tory - when i’m down (chris cornell)      this is another pair that’s hard to pin down. but they’re definitely sleeping together during crossroads when sam is at his lowest and they’re being pushed towards activation and...i don’t know, it felt right? still does.

14/tory/baltar - spy (carly simon)      don’t really have all that much to say about this one either, lol. but it Works.

15/chief/cally - nothing without you (vienna teng)      this song is less Frantic and Scared and Angry than the moment it lines up with in canon, it’s more...sad. such a hard bit to watch, though, and i can’t say it doesn’t fit. ...also i know enough of the behind-the-scenes about why cally left the show that. well.

16/saul/ellen - grace is gone (dave matthews band)      SUFFER WITH ME. also, fun fact--the recording i have goes ‘take my heart/take my eyes’ (which. i’m pretty sure is taken Way more literally in this context than in the original lol). but EVERY SINGLE VERSION, whether lyrics or an actual recording, that i’ve been able to find online says ‘take my eyes/take my heart’??? and since i got my version on a burned cd and i forget who gave it to me i will Never Know the original source or why it’s different, lol. it’s definitely not because it’s a cover, i know that much for sure. his voice is Distinctive. (i do think heart-eyes flows better than eyes-heart but that’s a separate conversation)

17/saul/caprica - and so it goes (billy joel)      look, we all know this is a find-and-replace relationship. explicitly so on his end, implicit on hers (as upset as she is with the corporeal version at this point in the timeline, head!baltar is still hanging around sooooo). also it’s...just a nice song to end the mix on, i think.