Thoughts on the Ship-Swap

[embolalia]

Well, this process definitely got me to write something I wouldn’t have written otherwise. I wasn’t set against the pairing or I wouldn’t have accepted the swap in the first place, but I probably never would have come up with this. I spent a lot of time discussing how to write these characters (mostly with Deborah, my swapper!) in a way that I don’

Comments

[embolalia]

I'm going to go back and write more comments on it once I've thought about it more.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

it's actually squicky and triggery for a lot of people

I've actually worked them around to a place in my brain where I forget this, and forget that to a degree I used to think it, too. It was weird reading the entry on him on the bsg wiki the other day and realizing how much the show itself (or at least whoever wrote the entry) thinks of Leoben as a Bad Guy. Not that he's not weird and creepy, but the way I think of him here, at least, is as someone driven by forces no one else can understand.

[embolalia]

I think if I wrote a story about Kara and Leoben as they are in the show on New Caprica hooking up, I would feel weird about it. (I'm not commenting on your recent story with that--you wrote them different enough from what was on screen that it could work.) Here I think I changed the characters just enough for myself, especially in the IX pair of drabbles, that I saw them as two people who gave each other the things they needed. And in that context, I could be okay with them having a happy ending. But when they (well, Leoben) were weird and obsessive and demanding? I don't think I could write that story.

As far as it not being my ship, I think I've been less aware than you probably of anti-Kara/Leoben sentiment, which may well have made me more willing to go for the happy ending.

[embolalia]

I keep re-reading it and it fills me with squee.

Yay!!!!! I think I've actually reread it myself more than almost anything I've posted :) For not being my usual ship/style, it kind of mesmerizes me that I wrote it!

[embolalia]

the funnest thing ever
The way this came out, I didn't have to actually write his dialogue as much, which worked because I'm still figuring it out, but he is an odd one for sure :)

As far as the story...I wrote this so quickly I didn't think too much about the length of time between IX and X. I imagine they would have stayed connected in some way, though. (As a usual K/L shipper, I'm okay with this mostly because there's less Kara/Lee in season 4 that at any other point during the show.)

In my mind, XX was their first time and then the poof didn't happen. In these circumstances I can see them having a child, but I wasn't really consciously going there--of course, as soon as you point it out, I can see it. With Kacey, I really do believe Kara wanted to be a mom for a minute. Maybe they did :)

[embolalia]

a ficlet you wrote a while ago

It actually took me a minute to remember what you were talking about :) I still haven't decided for myself what I think Kara was in the show--I just choose one option for the length of a story so it's consistent. But you're right, those do sort of fit together.