Why I Believe in Pilots
Fic is almost done! *dances* Well, the first part of it, anyway, since there is now no doubt in my mind that this will be a multichapter job. I still have to set up a session with Katie to do some major outlining - since no Liz Multichapter Fic gets written without a detailed beginning-to-end outline - but most of the details are already in my brain, just screaming to be let out. It will be long, spanning probably early Season 1 of BSG right to the end. It will be Lee/Kara. There will be OCs involved (though I'm not saying in what capacity). There will be smut. Basically, I'm looking at doing pretty much what I've done with TIS - exploring what would have happened had something small and minor changed in the lives of these characters. With Lee and Kara, it will be: What if Lee had not danced around the issue of his love for her for so long? What if he had gone after her right from the start? Specifically, right after she rescued herself from the desert moon in S1? Of course, since this is Lee and Kara we're talking about here, it won't be simple. They'll be kept in character, which means lots of hits and misses, second guessing and running away and repression and denials. But I think it'll be a fascinating ride. And I'm quite proud of what I've managed to do with what will end up being Chapter 1, which is extremely rare for me as a writer to say.
Daaaaaamn, I thought kidlets were supposed to make one less creative, not MORE. Apparently it's having the opposite effect on me. o.O Anyway, jeebs83, as Liz's Official Kara/Lee Enabler, I suspect you will be happy. :D
It's funny to me that I'm rediscovering my Pilots love now, right before the series is about to end (*CRIES!!!!!*) and with ostensibly a lot less K/L action than us shippers are used to. For the first part of S4.5 it was all about Kara/Sam for me, partly because they were being shown a lot more and partly because deep down, I think I had a sense - still do, really - that this was their last hurrah. This is due mostly to something Edward James Olmos said at FanExpo last summer, which is that K/L's ending is "perfect for them." Which tells me that they are going to end up together, probably in the more mature, give-and-take relationship that RDM & Co. seem to have been building up to. Even though my K/L muse went AWOL, I never, NEVER lost my faith in them as a couple. They are one of my BSG OTPs, after all. And once I decide to OTP something - which is not always a conscious decision, by the way - I stick with it.
The other thing, too, is that as a writer, I simply did not and do not see the logic of not putting them together. I understand that RDM didn't have this big grand outline for how the show was going to go all along, but I think we can all agree that there are certain common threads running through Battlestar Galactica. The Cylons, the moral questions, the concept that something beyond the major characters is orchestrating the universe, love, Adama and Roslin ... and Lee/Kara. And again speaking as a writer, you do not introduce something unless you are planning to follow up on it and tie it up in a neat little bow.
I'll give you an example from To Ignite the Stars, just for illustrative purposes. Throughout the writing of that fic, I knew that I was eventually going to introduce the concept of Force bonding. That idea popped into my head while Katie and I were outlining, and was a surprise to me right up until the second it happened. Then I understood that it had to have existed all along. How else could some of Obi-Wan's behaviour be explained - his ostensible attachment to Qui-Gon, and to Anakin, his grief at their deaths, and most of the actions he took throughout his life? Karen Miller summarizes this brilliantly in Wild Space when she relates all of the important events in Obi-Wan's life back to his inability to let go of his attachments. Now, back when I was outlining TIS, I obviously hadn't read Wild Space. But the idea is the same. The facts are thus: Obi-Wan almost didn't make it as a Jedi, and they were going to send him off to the AgriCorps. But Qui-Gon was so impressed by his abilities that he took him on, and they developed a close relationship that was almost that of father and son. Later, Anakin and Obi-Wan became best friends, and basically brothers. And in my universe there is Padmé, with whom he fell in love while writing letters back and forth. All of these imply some sort of bonding ability, or at least a method of forming much deeper attachments than is usually permitted by the Jedi Order. There are similar signs with Luke in the OT - for me, anyway, now that I'm writing TIS - if you know where to look.
So, Force bonding. If I was going to have it become such a major thing in the fic, which I was and am, then I needed to plant little seeds and hints so that it wouldn't come as a complete shock to readers when I finally introduced it. So I did. The first and most obvious sign is Obi-Wan's attachment to Padmé, which puzzles him several times because he doesn't want to admit to himself that he has bonded with her. Then there's the way he reacts after her parents make her stop writing to him, and after she miscarries their first child. There's also the way that Yoda and Mace Windu permit the relationship, because Yoda has seen something of the future and knows that Force bonds - and Obi-Wan and Padmé's relationship - are somehow vitally important to the future of the galaxy, and they don't want to mess with the will of the Force. It of course eventually results in the conception of the twins, and (another sign!) the connection that Obi-Wan and Luke share. These clues were all carefully and methodically planted by me the writer. None were allowed to be there before they were supposed to be, and they were disguised - some more subtly than others - so that alert readers could pick them up and perhaps understand what was coming. And even if you didn't catch them the first time, you could still go back through the fic and see where they were, and see where it was all leading. There will be others like that to come, so TIS readers, keep on alert. ;)
But, back to Lee and Kara. To my mind, RDM has done the same thing, and I recognize it because I as a writer have employed the tactic in one of my stories. Right from the Miniseries he started giving us clues, from the way Lee and Kara spoke to one another in the brig to the way she reacted upon learning that he hadn't actually died. They kept coming through Season 1: the stims conversation in "33;" the attitude displayed by both in "Act of Contrition" and "You Can't Go Home Again;" the way he is there for her in "Six Degrees of Separation" as she rehabilitates her knee; and the playful water fight and banter in "Colonial Day," followed by the dress and the thing with Baltar. The clues continue in Season 2 and Season 3 and yes, even Season 4! Seasoned K/L shippers will know exactly what I'm talking about, so I won't enumerate those here. Suffice it to say, there are TONS.
Ron Moore, if he reads all the BSG stuff on the internet, is probably sitting around cackling right now. He's saying to himself, "These fans are nuts! WHY CAN'T THEY SEE WHAT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR FRAKKING FACES???" Well, okay, I jest. ;) I understand why people have been nervous, believe me I do. I've entertained the odd freak-out myself, despite what I think I know. But the bottom line is this: if he does not give us some form of follow-up or sign that Kara and Lee have ended up together, I will feel very cheated by the entire show. The same way I would have felt if Laura and Bill had not ended up together, or if, say, nothing had been done with the Dylan Four after the big reveal in S3.
That might seem like an extremely petty thing to say, akin to the attitude of the spoiled brat shipper with an entitlement complex the size of Mount Everest, but the thing is that right now I'm analyzing this show as a writer. And speaking as a writer, you simply do NOT put little clues throughout your story and then allow them to amount to nothing. At least not if you're a good writer. And Ron and his team of writers are good, if not perhaps terribly subtle. They would be foolish to have done what they did with Kara and Lee and then not give us any satisfaction at the end. Like taking the most awesome mystery novel in the world and ripping out the pages of the last chapter, and then pointing and laughing at the people who become furious when they can't find out how it ends.
But I don't think they'll do that. Firstly because I trust EJO. He is an amazing person, no matter what you might think of Bill right now, and I have a TON of respect for him. If he says that K/L's ending is perfect for them, then we as fans need to trust him on that and simply put our feet up and wait with our popcorn for that picture-perfect ending. We can speculate as to what that ending might be, but the hints I have seen in the last few episodes say to me that RDM has not forgotten. He hasn't. We need to trust him, too. After all, if we hadn't, we wouldn't have embarked on this whole crazy ride together as a fandom, now would we?
So I invite all the K/L shippers on my f-list, on this day that the final episodes begin, to take that final leap of faith with me. I've been mainlining the Kara/Lee playlist all afternoon, and I believe. I do. I will believe until the last second of the last episode has finished, and beyond.
With apologies to Dido: "I will go down with this ship, and I won't put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door; I'm in love, and always will be."
Daaaaaamn, I thought kidlets were supposed to make one less creative, not MORE. Apparently it's having the opposite effect on me. o.O Anyway, jeebs83, as Liz's Official Kara/Lee Enabler, I suspect you will be happy. :D
It's funny to me that I'm rediscovering my Pilots love now, right before the series is about to end (*CRIES!!!!!*) and with ostensibly a lot less K/L action than us shippers are used to. For the first part of S4.5 it was all about Kara/Sam for me, partly because they were being shown a lot more and partly because deep down, I think I had a sense - still do, really - that this was their last hurrah. This is due mostly to something Edward James Olmos said at FanExpo last summer, which is that K/L's ending is "perfect for them." Which tells me that they are going to end up together, probably in the more mature, give-and-take relationship that RDM & Co. seem to have been building up to. Even though my K/L muse went AWOL, I never, NEVER lost my faith in them as a couple. They are one of my BSG OTPs, after all. And once I decide to OTP something - which is not always a conscious decision, by the way - I stick with it.
The other thing, too, is that as a writer, I simply did not and do not see the logic of not putting them together. I understand that RDM didn't have this big grand outline for how the show was going to go all along, but I think we can all agree that there are certain common threads running through Battlestar Galactica. The Cylons, the moral questions, the concept that something beyond the major characters is orchestrating the universe, love, Adama and Roslin ... and Lee/Kara. And again speaking as a writer, you do not introduce something unless you are planning to follow up on it and tie it up in a neat little bow.
I'll give you an example from To Ignite the Stars, just for illustrative purposes. Throughout the writing of that fic, I knew that I was eventually going to introduce the concept of Force bonding. That idea popped into my head while Katie and I were outlining, and was a surprise to me right up until the second it happened. Then I understood that it had to have existed all along. How else could some of Obi-Wan's behaviour be explained - his ostensible attachment to Qui-Gon, and to Anakin, his grief at their deaths, and most of the actions he took throughout his life? Karen Miller summarizes this brilliantly in Wild Space when she relates all of the important events in Obi-Wan's life back to his inability to let go of his attachments. Now, back when I was outlining TIS, I obviously hadn't read Wild Space. But the idea is the same. The facts are thus: Obi-Wan almost didn't make it as a Jedi, and they were going to send him off to the AgriCorps. But Qui-Gon was so impressed by his abilities that he took him on, and they developed a close relationship that was almost that of father and son. Later, Anakin and Obi-Wan became best friends, and basically brothers. And in my universe there is Padmé, with whom he fell in love while writing letters back and forth. All of these imply some sort of bonding ability, or at least a method of forming much deeper attachments than is usually permitted by the Jedi Order. There are similar signs with Luke in the OT - for me, anyway, now that I'm writing TIS - if you know where to look.
So, Force bonding. If I was going to have it become such a major thing in the fic, which I was and am, then I needed to plant little seeds and hints so that it wouldn't come as a complete shock to readers when I finally introduced it. So I did. The first and most obvious sign is Obi-Wan's attachment to Padmé, which puzzles him several times because he doesn't want to admit to himself that he has bonded with her. Then there's the way he reacts after her parents make her stop writing to him, and after she miscarries their first child. There's also the way that Yoda and Mace Windu permit the relationship, because Yoda has seen something of the future and knows that Force bonds - and Obi-Wan and Padmé's relationship - are somehow vitally important to the future of the galaxy, and they don't want to mess with the will of the Force. It of course eventually results in the conception of the twins, and (another sign!) the connection that Obi-Wan and Luke share. These clues were all carefully and methodically planted by me the writer. None were allowed to be there before they were supposed to be, and they were disguised - some more subtly than others - so that alert readers could pick them up and perhaps understand what was coming. And even if you didn't catch them the first time, you could still go back through the fic and see where they were, and see where it was all leading. There will be others like that to come, so TIS readers, keep on alert. ;)
But, back to Lee and Kara. To my mind, RDM has done the same thing, and I recognize it because I as a writer have employed the tactic in one of my stories. Right from the Miniseries he started giving us clues, from the way Lee and Kara spoke to one another in the brig to the way she reacted upon learning that he hadn't actually died. They kept coming through Season 1: the stims conversation in "33;" the attitude displayed by both in "Act of Contrition" and "You Can't Go Home Again;" the way he is there for her in "Six Degrees of Separation" as she rehabilitates her knee; and the playful water fight and banter in "Colonial Day," followed by the dress and the thing with Baltar. The clues continue in Season 2 and Season 3 and yes, even Season 4! Seasoned K/L shippers will know exactly what I'm talking about, so I won't enumerate those here. Suffice it to say, there are TONS.
Ron Moore, if he reads all the BSG stuff on the internet, is probably sitting around cackling right now. He's saying to himself, "These fans are nuts! WHY CAN'T THEY SEE WHAT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR FRAKKING FACES???" Well, okay, I jest. ;) I understand why people have been nervous, believe me I do. I've entertained the odd freak-out myself, despite what I think I know. But the bottom line is this: if he does not give us some form of follow-up or sign that Kara and Lee have ended up together, I will feel very cheated by the entire show. The same way I would have felt if Laura and Bill had not ended up together, or if, say, nothing had been done with the Dylan Four after the big reveal in S3.
That might seem like an extremely petty thing to say, akin to the attitude of the spoiled brat shipper with an entitlement complex the size of Mount Everest, but the thing is that right now I'm analyzing this show as a writer. And speaking as a writer, you simply do NOT put little clues throughout your story and then allow them to amount to nothing. At least not if you're a good writer. And Ron and his team of writers are good, if not perhaps terribly subtle. They would be foolish to have done what they did with Kara and Lee and then not give us any satisfaction at the end. Like taking the most awesome mystery novel in the world and ripping out the pages of the last chapter, and then pointing and laughing at the people who become furious when they can't find out how it ends.
But I don't think they'll do that. Firstly because I trust EJO. He is an amazing person, no matter what you might think of Bill right now, and I have a TON of respect for him. If he says that K/L's ending is perfect for them, then we as fans need to trust him on that and simply put our feet up and wait with our popcorn for that picture-perfect ending. We can speculate as to what that ending might be, but the hints I have seen in the last few episodes say to me that RDM has not forgotten. He hasn't. We need to trust him, too. After all, if we hadn't, we wouldn't have embarked on this whole crazy ride together as a fandom, now would we?
So I invite all the K/L shippers on my f-list, on this day that the final episodes begin, to take that final leap of faith with me. I've been mainlining the Kara/Lee playlist all afternoon, and I believe. I do. I will believe until the last second of the last episode has finished, and beyond.
With apologies to Dido: "I will go down with this ship, and I won't put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door; I'm in love, and always will be."